Being dumb on the way to being smart.

Seth Godin reminds us that the frustration may be worth it.

Learning something new is frustrating. It involves being dumb on the way to being smart.

Once we get good enough (at our tools, at our work) it's easier and easier to skip learning how to do the next thing, because, hey, those fifteen minutes are a hassle.

Learning to use the new fax machine, or a different interface on the voice mail or even, yikes, a new version of Photoshop. (I confess that I dropped off the Photoshop train a half dozen versions ago, much to my chagrin.)

And so we get in the habit of giving a half effort, not really reading the instructions, shrugging our shoulders and moving on. The professional in us that was always eager to find tools that added leverage becomes the complacent coaster, defending what's on the table as 'good enough'.

The problem with evaluating the first fifteen minutes of frustration is that we easily forget about the 5,000 minutes of leverage that frustration earns us if we stick it out.

Yes, Isaac Asimov typed all 400 of his books on a manual typewriter. But I'm glad Cory Doctorow has a laptop.