It's that time of year again. My kids are going back to school. My work efficiency is going to skyrocket and my sleeping hours will normalize! I am going to miss seeing my kids anytime during the day and eating lunch with them. Today I am getting their supplies ready.
My wife put their supplies in separate bags. The teachers requested that the pencils needed to be sharpened before they were brought in. No big deal I thought and walked down the steps into the basement to find my art bin from college. I grabbed my manual pencil sharpener and went back upstairs. As I opened the bag of supplies I saw a pack of 24 pencils. The other bag has 24 pencils. I look at the 2 boxes and think I don't want to sharpen 48 pencils by hand...
Maybe it won't be that bad. It shouldn't take long to sharpen a pencil. I opened the box and slid a pencil out of the container and placed the end into the sharpener. It was smooth and cut the pencil into a perfectly sharp cone. Beautiful. I sharpened a few more and at this point, my cramping hand decided it wasn't going to do this anymore.
I couldn't send my kids to their teacher with just a few pencils sharpened and the rest flat and blunt. It would look like someone just gave up. What kind of person would do that? I needed to find something to make this easier. I needed to finish making 48 pointed wood & graphite sticks.
I thought about my tools. Something that can spin the pencils for me would be ideal... A drill! It grabs onto cylindrical objects and spins them. Perfect!
The garage where the drill lives is a bit of a mess, so I had to traverse through the obstacle course of bins, hoses, cords, and under a 12ft handrail that was waiting to be stained. I retrieved the drill and brought it into the house.
I placed a pencil in the chuck and gently clamped it, pulled the trigger, and put the pencil into the sharpener. Done in a few seconds. Awesome! This is so much better.
After a few minutes and some help from my son and daughter. We were done!
You may be asking yourself, why is this on here? This is why: It is an example of using an unexpected object that has the necessary attributes for the task.
Think about your current project or in the future ask yourself what attributes are needed from our potential solutions. Search for analogous products or services in different markets (the rotation of the drill is analogous to the rotating motor of an electric pencil sharpener; they were created from different worlds). They may offer unexpected solutions or experiences that can differentiate your ideas from what exists in the world. There are opportunities for creative problem solving everyday.
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