Taming the Mouse
There you are, I’ve said it thrice, and what I say three times is true.
We have developed bad mousing habits. For many of us, it happens in the following way. The mouse is a brilliant exploring device and it is necessary for many activities. That’s particularly the case for choosing items from menus. So when we begin using a new application, we get familiar with it by mousing through the menus and selecting commands.
Some of us are like those drivers (they tend to be male, I’m afraid) who refuse to use maps or even ask directions because they have a magical extrasensory radar, which will get them to their destination – you often see them reversing out of dead-end streets. “Hell, it’s only software – I’ll pick it up as I go.” So there’s no sense in reading the manual and no sense in going through the video training course. “If this software is any good, I’ll be able to work it out.”
Most of us don’t learn how to use software, we just dive in and start brawling with it. “Damn it! I paid good money for this app. Don’t expect me to put in learning time and effort as well!”
Doing the training and reading the manual is actually the key to being productive. But you do need to combine that with a genuine desire to be productive, so that you not only learn how to use the capabilities of an application, but how to fit them in with your particular style of being productive.
So if we learn to use an application by mousing about, which is possible to do, and which I tend to do with applications that I think are simple, then we will learn the way to make things happen with the mouse. And that is likely to be the slow boat to China.
If we never consider our personal productivity, the first way we learn to do anything will be the way that we always do it.
That’s why rats have such problems getting through mazes once they’ve learned a route and the experimenter changes the maze slightly. (See this posting if you want to know how to make monkeys behave insanely – it’s connected.)