My Trash + MIT Research Study + Technolgy + Social Media = Clues for Creating A Better Future

Yesterday, 20 items of my most precious (but not valuable, obviously) trash were tagged by a research team from MIT with GPS tags. I can now track the progress of my trash as it travels to its final resting place, globally. MIT will track not only my trash but several thousand other pieces of trash using networks of tiny locatable and addressable microeletromechanical systems.

There is plenty of information on this very interesting multi-stakeholder trash tracking project on their website, so please check it out for yourself: http://senseable.mit.edu/trashtrack/index.php?id=1

High-tech widgets, duct tape, foam-in-a-can, a camera, clipboards and pens and paper forms.





Once again, I am struck by how simple the most innovative ideas seem to be. Instead of guessing or extrapolating where this trash is likely to end up, just let each piece of trash report back to us and let it tell us where it all goes. Simple enough for you?





Then take that information and use it as a springboard for identifying problems and potential new solutions for a cleaner better future. Seems too easy - but on the other hand, nobody thought of doing this before the MIT SENSEable City Lab, so it’s a pretty innovative study.

I am becoming more convinced – daily -- that I am trained to overthink things. Untraining this tendency to think too much is looking really good to me today.

Why do I overthink things, I wonder? Is the shortest route between Point A and Point B too easy? Too simple? Too straightforward? Would I not get enough “intellectual credits” if I came up with a terrifyingly obvious idea?

I just did a quick Google search on the keywords: why we overthink things, and I got 5,590,000 relevant search results. Apparently I am not alone. There is a site where you can post your "personal overthinking" story and one guy said, "I am overthinking this post to the point where I can't even post". I get him.

This course is helping me weed out the noise by creating so much noise I will go deaf if I don’t filter and choose my brain inputs with more scrutiny. Not always a comfortable feeling learning new tricks-- yet -- but I really do get why this is no longer optional for me.

As I was told by 3 different classmates this weekend: “This changing of a few decades of old habits will not happen overnight. This is why we’re taking a CLASS on it - just start doing it!” Good people; good advice. On it.