Immersion vs. Dabbling

A couple weeks ago, I dedicated an entire Saturday to a topic I usually only dabble in.

I immersed myself in this topic that usually only warrants passing thoughts. I watched videos and read blogs, news articles, Reddit posts about this topic. I thought deeper about this topic than I ever have.

And a funny thing happened.

I began to see it from a completely different angle.

This topic was something that had captured my attention, but only weakly. I thought abut this topic in bits here and there. It interested me, but its challenges seemed insurmountable. Dabbling kept me engaged, but it never really got me anywhere.

But immersing myself in this topic changed the way I saw it completely. I began to understand its challenges. I started sketching out solutions.

The immersion lasted one day, and yet it even changed the nature of my dabbling.

It’s no longer dabbling. It’s working towards solutions in incremental steps. It’s deliberate iteration.

And it would have been completely impossible without that first step of immersion.