If Rules aren’t Fail-Proof, You Can Break Them

Learn the rules. Follow. Break them if they are obsolete.

Photo by KYLE CUT MEDIA on Unsplash

“Break the rules” is a mentality where you want to create something and challenge (while improving) the system you think is obsolete. The thinking was the first step, but next is the execution part.

The plan will face a wave of backlashes in its development phase because you’re going against the norm who still believe in the efficiency of the current system. After all, they think it is fail-proof! Some will even try to stop you. Some won’t.

Have a purpose of breaking the old rules

Well, I agree you’re ambitious with full energy, but breaking the rules is worthy only when backed by proper reason.

If you’ve got more than one reason, you’ve found a substantial cause. You’ll be obsessed with change, in the right way.

Is it for showing someone your worth? Is it for improving the lives of people around you? The strange ( and exciting ) part is: you may not even know how many lives you’re impacting.

While I share my method which I adopt in creating new rules based on my worldview, this will still not be entirely fail-proof because assumptions and constraints define a healthy boundary which is necessary when deciding any path. Strong constraints help you with your priorities because let’s call a spade, a spade: we all have 24 hours in a day and we want to use it in the best possible way.

Finding flaws in the current system

You can’t fix everything. Depending on your skills and interests, you will consider specific problems where you have enough expertise to try and test different approaches. That’s where you use skills, right? In problem-solving?

To make sure you new rules [read system] are error-free ( under specific assumptions ), you will first need to understand what problems are already lurking in the current system. Do these problems affect you? Do these problems affect someone who matters to you? I can’t think of any third reason.

Ask yourself why you want to fix the problem. The crucial part is coming up with a specific and straightforward answer to this question.

The answer can be lengthy but record it somewhere. Create a note or mindmap. It will help in building the next part.

Finding the solution

You know the eureka moment will take time and it’ll be worth it.

There is a concept of benchmark that you can set to improve your method. Especially, if you have a metric to gauge how well you fixed the issue by your first ( not fault-tolerant ) iteration of the solution, you will try to improve the metric and mix some statistics to judge when to stop with an optimum solution.

There you have it:

1. Understand the current system completely.
2. Find the flaws which you desire to fix.
3. Come up with an initial solution, let’s call this first solution a “standard benchmark” for now.
4. The goal is to improve in every iteration by coming up with a metric. If the existing parameters don’t help with metrics, create a new one!

This blog belongs to a series of posts I am publishing in this 100-days streak. Today is day 86. Navigate to the end of article 22, for the references from day 23 onwards. If you would like to read the ones before day 22, here is the first one that documents them in the end.

~ Sanjeev