According to some estimates, 40-50% of all professional activity in developed economies is now knowledge work. And yet, there isn’t much material to help an individual knowledge worker organize and excel at their job. In professional literature, the dominant mental models are often still grounded in the production of physical goods, with its highly predictable and standardized processes running on tangible infrastructure. But knowledge workflows and modern organizations are not like that. They are intangible, highly complex and constantly adapting systems.
This series helps knowledge workers in any field understand the root causes of friction and frustration in their daily job, and gives pointers to practical ways of addressing these problems. A lot of this draws inspiration from software engineering, the one knowledge work field that is arguably most advanced in insights on how to make knowledge work work.
01. Don’t grade your own homework