| What's Up With Me
As I mentioned last time, we were enjoying unseasonably warm temperatures here in Columbus, OH, last month, so we (Agnes Vishnevkin, my wife and business partner, and I) were enjoying outdoor patio meals. Well, on the day of one of our scheduled restaurant meals the temperatures dropped into the mid-50s Fahrenheit (low teens Celsius). We decided to go to a heated patio, but it proved to be too cold for comfort. At least now we know not to do that again, and we decided to avoid dining outdoors at below 60 Fahrenheit.
This is an example of trying out an edge case. When you’re looking for any sort of limit, in most cases you don’t want to gradually go out from a safe zone and slowly expand the boundary. Instead, you’ll do better by going right away to what you think is an edge case. It might be trying to dine out in a heated
patio restaurant in the lowest possible temperature where you think it might be doable. It might be ordering a “5 chili peppers” hot dish in an Indian restaurant if you like spicy foods. Or it might be trying to make 20 client outbound calls during a period of time when you would usually make no more than 10. The best time to try out an edge case test is when it’s a type of activity you intend to repeat again and again, and when each individual time is relatively low stakes. Having a one-time negative experience - too cold dining out, too spicy meal, too draining of a client call
experience - will provide an invaluable precedent for the future. And who knows, you might actually enjoy the “5 chili peppers” experience!
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