a foolish consistency [09/27/2007 12:30:45]

The motherboard on my main work computer died on Monday, throwing off my schedule. It's still in the shop, so I'm making due with my old iBook. I'm glad I backed up my hard drive.

I keep finding more stuff to go through. I have several years worth of notes in these huge text file journals I keep.

Some of it is garbage: I'm constantly writing to myself as a way of getting on track for the day, or as a way of analyzing why I haven't. A lot of complaining to myself about my weight and my cashflow.

But there's also quite a few stories and ideas I'd forgotten, and lessons I've learned intellectually but never made into habits. I really believe there's a sizable payoff in collecting and organizing this stuff so that I can use it.

On the other hand, it's going to take me a long time to get everything, and I've already collected enough to keep me busy for months, even if I only focused on the most important projects.

The point is, my personal test case about having everything collected isn't going to work, and I need to replace that goal with a habit - like spending half an hour a day processing and organizing my notes - at least until I reach some kind of personal organization Nirvana and can switch back to maintenance.

But isn't that flaking? Why not just leave the test as is, and keep working until I get it passing?

Emerson said: a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. It's tricky. You can't have integrity without consistency, but you can't improve without change.

The key word in the Emerson quote is foolish. I think it would be foolish to abandon the habit of collecting and processing my ideas just because the pile is so huge, but if there's other stuff I could be doing that has an even bigger payoff, it's foolish to make that stuff wait. At least in this case, it seems better to work on two or three good habits than one good project.

Likewise, the idea of breaking down every goal and project into small sub-30-minute tasks is overkill. I only need that level of detail for planning the current day - maybe the current week.

Several people have written me to say they are working on software for this sort of daily habit / personal test case stuff. I think that's a great idea, in principle.

One reason I haven't made any software of my own is that I'm focusing on getting my own tests passing. The other reason is that it's too early to commit to one way of doing things.

All I'm using right now is an outliner, a spreadsheet, and a few pads of paper. I think that's the best approach: focus on developing human behavior and stick to generic, flexible tools to prototype the system. Once I've eliminated most of the foolishness from my routine, then maybe I'll lock down the consistency with an application.