On being … an inflection point

By Ingrid Sapona

Today’s column was inspired by a recent Smarter Living column by Tim Herrera in the New York Times. In that column, Herrera was musing about work habits and how perfectionist tendencies can get in the way of productivity. He used his own habit of starting a column and then putting it aside, returning to it “every few days, reworking the same few sentences” as an example. He described this behaviour as being an editing and re-editing spiral and dolefully admitted that the end product is probably no better as a result of the “incremental faux-progress”. Boy could I relate!

Herrera went on to talk about strategies for managing such behaviour. One that I found particularly thought provoking related to “inflection points”. Rather than paraphrasing what Herrera said, here’s a paragraph from his column that talked about it:

“At some point, we must remind ourselves, any changes we make to a creation no longer make it better but just different (and sometimes worse),” Dr. Alex Lickerman wrote in Psychology Today on the topic of just getting things done. “Recognizing that inflection point – the point at which our continuing to rework our work reaches a law of diminishing returns – is one of the hardest skills to learn, but also one of the most necessary.”

I find the idea of an inflection point beyond which what you’re really doing is just making things different quite useful. If for no other reason, assessing whether you’re at an inflection point is helpful because it involves stepping back and considering whether it makes more sense to continue spinning or to go on and take the next step. So, for example, when I’m in a re-writing spiral, by considering if I’m at an inflection point, my focus shifts from trying to find the perfect way of expressing an idea to deciding whether it’s better to publish and get the idea out there, trusting that what I’ve written is reasonably clear.

Indeed, there are other ways I think applying the idea could be useful. For example, have you ever found yourself in a decision-making spiral where you’re just weighing and re-weighing various factors? When that happens, maybe it would be helpful to look at it as a possible point of inflection. In other words, stop and ask yourself if you’ve considered all the relevant factors and – assuming you have – consider whether making a decision and moving forward from the inflection point is a better choice than continuing to spin.

I also love the idea that recognizing when you’re at an inflection point is a learnable skill. I have to admit, when I first read that, I was skeptical. But, in thinking about the actual steps that might be involved in applying it to different situations (like writing and decision-making), I can see how it’s something you can train yourself to do.

So, putting this new skill into practice, I recognize I’m at an inflection point for this column. I could go on, talking more about why the idea so grabbed my imagination. But instead, I’ll leave it to you to ponder whether becoming better at recognizing inflection points might be helpful in your work and life.

© 2019 Ingrid Sapona