flake affected [12/11/2008 19:56:00]
I've been sick in bed with the flu all week. Last week I was in Texas with my family. Given past history, my world should basically be upside down right now.
I do have a larger-than-normal backlog of stuff to do right now, but I actually feel like I'm on track. Once I was finally able to breathe and sit up this morning, I got to work, and I expect to be caught up completely within the next day or two.
That's a big change. In years past, the backlog (especially with email) would persist for days or even weeks.
status of the book
Forcing myself to sit down and write The Flake Effect last month was one of the smartest things I've ever done. I didn't really come up with a book so much as a long, rambling journal focused on productivity. But I covered a lot of ground, and I verbalized, clarified, or outright solved a bunch of problems that had been holding me back for years.
It's going to be a long time before I have a second draft worthy of showing off to anyone, but I do want to share some of the key insights I gained, especially in the context of planning the next year.
First off, I hit the official nanowrimo wordcount in the first week. I thought I was aiming for 100,000 words but it turns out it was only 50,000. It's not really a novel. More like narrative nonfiction.
Second, part of the way I was attempting to handle "characters" was to talk about ideas with my friends in chat and upload the logs (I stripped out the repeating names from my wordcount totals). That was really the first time I tried to explain my ideas to my friends directly... At least in a long time, and when they weren't explicitly asking for help with something. It made for some interesting conversations and I think it helped me understand my friends a little better too.
productivity insights
Did I actually learn anything new about productivity and getting things done?
I feel like I did, but right now it's hard to explain concisely. I certainly compiled a bunch of techniques, like:
- solve problems at the mental / paradigm level before attempting to build a system (because it's much easier to change a belief than to build a software application or design a taxonomy)
- use logical trees (the theory of constraints thinking processes) to determine what to change
- achieve and maintain equilibrium or steady states of change (for example, through daily checklists) before taking on project -related tasks or fun time
- use focused and TIME-limited bursts of attention to attack problems
- optimize your down time, not your task time (because most of your wasted time/effort probably comes BETWEEN tasks - at least if you're like me)
- harvest old ideas before creating new ones
attention is fractal
I also am going to have quite a bit to say about attention management in general, especially with regards to the idea that attention is fractal.
The fractal metaphor is only going to go so far, but there are a lot of parallels between the questions "how long is a coastline?" and "how much attention can you pay to something in an hour?" In both cases, the answer keeps increasing the closer you look.
In other words, attention isn't really measured in time directly but something like details per second, square-inch-seconds of brain activity, or maybe flops if you're talking about a cpu. We don't really have tools to measure it outside of MRI lab (though several portable consumer EEG machines are close to market, and they come a little closer), but the point is attention management and time management are two totally different things.
Also, you can't make more time but you can create more attention through the miracle of neuroplasticity.
But anyway... There'll probably be a whole chapter on that, so no point rewriting it here.
deep problems vs wide problems
The other major insight that came to me is the distinction between two types of problems. This kind of fits in with the fractal idea, though at the moment, the idea is still very fuzzy in my mind. In fact, it may not even be a distinction between problems but between problem solving methods.
When I say "deep" I'm picturing a deep canyon that has been carved by millions of years of water flowing over the same course. An example would be mastering a specific skill like aikido or playing poker or painting a picture, or developing a framework to solve a particular programming problem. Or building a fully automated business.
Or for example, I sometimes make the distinction between writing to explain things to myself. It doesn't matter if I ramble and take 10 pages to get there because the only thing that matters is that the problem winds up solved in my own head. It's like casting a wide net and hoping to catch something good.
But if I want to explain the idea to someone in particular, I need to go back and harvest that idea. Rewriting it, simplifying the mental path for my audience and filling in the intuitive leaps.
Anyway, I'm a whole lot better at the "wide" approach than at the "deep" approach. I wind up knowing a little bit about a lot of different things, but I don't have any real expertise.
That means I can look at a new problem from a bazillion different points of view, and come up with a solution rather quickly, but then I have trouble actually implementing a solution. (Which, when combined with a tendency to follow lots of little tangents means I wind up with a whole slew of unimplemented ideas - the very definition of the flake effect.)
Anyway, so I see now that I could benefit tremendously from working on the "deep" habits - daily practice, refinement, continuous improvement, etc.
What are my plans for the book?
Well, first of all, I want to put the ideas into practice in my own life. I've made a start on that, but these are things that need to be habits, not just one-time exercises.
Since this is "deep" stuff and I suck at that, there will probably be a lot more to write along those lines. In fact, I may wind up writing enough for a second book before I figure out how to tame the first book.
But I do want to tame the book. Go back and refactor the ideas. Create an actual organizing structure.
And then what? I don't know. Blog about it. Maybe sell it as an ebook. Maybe work with some clients or start an online community so I'm sure I have a system that works for other people too.
I feel like I've got a complete idea now, and it could be a book as-is, but I don't really know if it's useful to anyone besides me, and I also don't know if it'll continue to be useful to me in the months ahead without further improvement. (I need to test it against a requisite variety of situations, as my friend Leslie might say.)
Anyway, my immediate goal is to use the tools I have now to get caught up on my various responsibilities, and then start working on some goals and plans for next year.