Iteration, iteration, iteration. You repeat a process with minor tweaks, incorporating what you've learned from your successes and failures, until you ultimately arrive at a workable solution.
This is a weirdly personal case study, but I thought it adequately described a valuable process. It also demonstrates that the difference between success and failure is persistence.
I have a dust problem - its presence makes my nose run like crazy. As a child, my pockets were full of tissue in an attempt to stem the clear river of effluvia that gushed like an oil well.
I've seen an allergist over the years for an unrelated reason, and thankfully nothing dreadful came up on extensive pinprick testing. Still, my nose runneth over.
I've tried several approaches over my adult life:
- Dusting regularly - never seems to be sufficient to make a noticeable difference.
- Placing clothing in drawers to ostensibly reduce exposure to ambient dust - still no improvement.
- Placing hanging clothing (collared shirts, suits) in plastic bags - helps.
- Placing recently washed sweaters in enclosed plastic bags sealed with zippers (I've repurposed the bags that mattress pad warmers arrived in) - helps.
- Nasal steroid spray - meh. Mild reduction, not enough to continue.
- Sinus irrigation with saline - definitely helps, until the next inoculum of dust reaches my nose.
During COVID, as part of being a reclusive homebody, I've been wearing more t-shirts than button down shirts. Kept in a drawer, usually t-shirts would cause my nose to run and there was nothing I could do about.
A few months back, thinking though the problem yet again, I noticed something. The way I roll my t-shirts in the drawer is always with the collar exposed along the outside. There was no rhyme or reason to this approach, it's just how I'd always done it.
What might be the effect if I rolled them in reverse, with the collar area that is nearest my face at the center of the neat bundle before placing it in my drawer? I tested the theory, and the difference was striking. No more runny nose.
"Let's explore some dude on the internet's struggles with allergic rhinitis," is about the least interesting pitch for a blog post I can imagine. Let's explore the role of persistent iteration in achieving success, on the other hand, is a far more engaging topic.