Like most of you, I learned to tie my shoes around the time I turned five. From that point forward, didn't give that particular daily chore much of a thought.
A few weeks ago, I was told I'd been doing it wrong my entire life. And, indeed, I had. Let Terry Moore drop some science on you:
Moore is a curious fellow, his bio full of terms like 'thinker', 'business divorce attorney', and 'CEO'. He built a professional practice around the notion that people should seek to master simple skills as a building block for acquiring more sophisticated capabilities. The TED talk above fits neatly within that oeuvre.
It was hard to get my digits to make the corrections necessary to apply this radical new method of shoe-tying, what with all the muscle memory and everything. But I haven't had a shoe come untied since I did, even the rounded, slick, nylon laces of my fancy hikers. And I discovered a different hack: I'd always gone right lace over left lace before intertwining them - when I started going left over right, the knot held much longer.
Turns out you can teach an oldish dog new tricks. Be on the lookout for my next post, featuring a whole new way of buttoning a shirt.
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