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Kevin Shockey on 20 Sep 12

"Test Drive New Ideas with Micro Experiments Matthew Cornell Experiments don't have to be grand to be useful-in fact, tracking small things with short turnaround times can be extremely useful. As Quantified Self's Matthew Cornell explains, conducting "micro experiments" is a great way to try a variety of things, from software to exercise. The time and cost investments are low, and you might find a few tools and habits to keep around longterm. As I work to adopt an experimental mindset about life, I've noticed that efforts can vary in scope, duration, and complexity. Because interesting things happen at extremes, I've been exploring the very smallest class of activity-what I call micro experiments. I've found that trying little things like these is a great way to test-drive treating things as experiments. Here are some examples I've tried and their results. Jing: I tried using Jing, a free tool for doing short screencasts, to explain a bug I found in my site. I usually write them up, but because it was complex, it would have taken a lot to explain it. Instead, I created a four-minute screencast, emailed the link to my developer, and measured the results. Conclusion: Worked great! Time to record: 4 minutes. His understanding of the problem: High. Enjoyment level of trying a new tool: Fun. Testing expectations: Left unchecked, I tend to be pessimistic and anxious, which I continue working to improve. Here's a technique I stumbled on that works well in micro experiment form. The idea is to treat your expectations as a model, make your assumptions and predictions explicit, then put them to the test. I applied it to two difficult phone calls I had scheduled, and found that my expectations were way off. In one case, I was asking a fellow writer for a favor (mentioning an ebook I created), and instead of turning me down (my working model), he was happy to help. The other was a sales call to a prospective client, which I expected to go swimmingly. Instead it was a

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">"Test Drive New Ideas with Micro Experiments Matthew Cornell Experiments don't have to be grand to be useful-in fact, tracking small things with short turnaround times can be extremely useful. As Quantified Self's Matthew Cornell explains, conducting "micro experiments" is a great way to try a variety of things, from software to exercise. The time and cost investments are low, and you might find a few tools and habits to keep around longterm. As I work to adopt an experimental mindset about life, I've noticed that efforts can vary in scope, duration, and complexity. Because interesting things happen at extremes, I've been exploring the very smallest class of activity-what I call micro experiments. I've found that trying little things like these is a great way to test-drive treating things as experiments. Here are some examples I've tried and their results. Jing: I tried using Jing, a free tool for doing short screencasts, to explain a bug I found in my site. I usually write them up, but because it was complex, it would have taken a lot to explain it. Instead, I created a four-minute screencast, emailed the link to my developer, and measured the results. Conclusion: Worked great! Time to record: 4 minutes. His understanding of the problem: High. Enjoyment level of trying a new tool: Fun. Testing expectations: Left unchecked, I tend to be pessimistic and anxious, which I continue working to improve. Here's a technique I stumbled on that works well in micro experiment form. The idea is to treat your expectations as a model, make your assumptions and predictions explicit, then put them to the test. I applied it to two difficult phone calls I had scheduled, and found that my expectations were way off. In one case, I was asking a fellow writer for a favor (mentioning an ebook I created), and instead of turning me down (my working model), he was happy to help. The other was a sales call to a prospective client, which I expected to go swimmingly. Instead it was a </div>

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