Newbie question: Wha
[2023-09-18 10:33:31 AM] : Newbie question: What do you do when safariing really long threads? I’m safaring a reddit thread that’s really long, lively conversation in a short amount of time, hot topic, lots of pain, great thread. But I’m overwhelmed. Been at it for 4h total now (I’m probably slow because of lack of experience but still) I captured over 3k words in my notes and I’m not at the end of the thread and I still have to move from basic Painstorming to HiddenPains, Jargon, Worldview, Recommendations.
I’m thinking two things at the moment:
1. I’m 70-80% through the thread and feel like I’m getting diminishing returns so I want to just skip the rest or skim it really quickly and move to extracting Safari Gold.
2. I feel good about the painstorming notes I did capture: lots of quotes and references. The posts I did read, I read properly and tried to capture all details. So I feel like I can extract Jargon/Worldview/Recommendations just from those notes rather than going over the original thread again and save myself time that way. (If something is unclear I can easily find the original comment by searching for the exact quotes I captured).
In both those points I’m trying to be pragmatic about time invested / information gained but I’m also wondering if I’m missing important info. Anyone got any valuable points on how to get the most out of your safari time when looking at a really long thread with lots of comments that would take hours to safari all the way?
1 Reply
[2023-09-18 11:04:58 AM] : You'll get faster with time, but that feeling of "I think I'm hitting diminishing returns" is usually right
The point of safari is to help align you with your audience, and if you think you've collected enough pain to get a sense of how people are feeling, then moving onto the other steps in the loop makes sense
When you're writing ebombs, if you feel you're missing some context based on the notes you took, you can always go back and dig deeper
[2023-09-18 12:36:53 PM] : Thanks for the clarification! I felt like that’s the case but was really unsure about it. :)
[2023-09-18 01:51:20 PM] : Jacob Paris is right! And you can always return to threads later if you include the source link in your notes.
The best way to think about this isn't "more note sjs better" but instead "do I have notes that give me a useful insights and clearer understanding? And most of all, can I USE these notes in another part of the process, ie do I have info that will help write a resonant and helpful ebomb, or a clear and persuasive pitch? If so, you don't need to wring every thread for every term and phrase.
[2023-09-18 01:51:40 PM] : @Jacob Paris is right! And you can always return to threads later if you include the source link in your notes.
The best way to think about this isn't "more note sjs better" but instead "do I have notes that give me a useful insights and clearer understanding? And most of all, can I USE these notes in another part of the process, ie do I have info that will help write a resonant and helpful ebomb, or a clear and persuasive pitch? If so, you don't need to wring every thread for every term and phrase.
[2023-09-18 04:13:15 PM] : That’s a very helpful framing, thank you! Now that you say it, I did feel like I already had 3 or 4 good ebombs in those notes and new comments started to look like they’re unlikely to contribute much beyond adding another repetition to the same points.
[2023-09-19 05:30:30 AM] : Radan Skorić if it helps, sometimes I need to switch my head from pain storming to something else and then back again. Like reps in the gym I guess? One thing I try to do after pain storming is come up with eBomb titles whilst the thread(s) are still fresh in my mind. I don't always know if I can write them tbf - i.e. I don't know enough - but I find it useful to fire up the creative side of my brain, just a little, get all these titles out of my head, and then get back into it.
I use notion for this and have a kind of eBomb title prompt at the top and then, without really thinking about them too deeply, just fire out titles for 5 or 10 mins. Hope this helps! :slightly_smiling_face: #keeptruckin [File hidden by Slack limit]
[2023-09-19 05:31:49 AM] : Wow, that’s lots of titles. :clap: Thanks, I’ll try that!