Dear, Merlin,

For someone so fond of lecturing other people about their problems, I have a lot of annoying tics (I mean, duh). One of my worst, at least back in the day, was seldom bothering to RTFM before demanding lots of time-consuming help from others.

For years, my court of first resort was almost always to email the smartest, often busiest person I knew about a given topic, alerting them as to their new role as the speed bump between me and solving my problem (cf: the classic Balloon joke). I’ve gotten better at it over the years, for sure, and, in the age of Google, it’s a habit that’s easy enough to shed.

The funny thing I eventually realized was that I could and often did find the solution to my problem — part way through writing the email in which I was asking for help. I realize this sounds kind of silly, but the next time you’re having trouble figuring something out, try writing a note to yourself.  read more »