Part 1: Exploration-Exploitation
Part 2: Bargaining Trade-offs to your brain.
. Part 2a: Empirical time management
Part 3: The time that you have
. Part 3a: A purpose finding exercise
Part 4: What does that look like in practice?
. . Part 4a: Lost purposes – Doing what’s easy or what’s important
. . Part 4b.1 In support of yak shaving
. . Part 4b.2 Yak shaving 2
. Part 4c Filter on the way in, Filter on the way out…
. . Part 4d.1 Scientific method
. . Part 4d.2 Quantified self
Part 5: Call to action
It’s all good and well to know that you should be doing good work, deep work, hard work, and work that you really value. That time is really really running out, and that sometimes you have to wrangle your brain to get it to consider the world-problem space in the right terms. That is that you have to be making actions that are the right trade-offs between actions you want to do and the other actions you want to do. But how do you do that? How do you keep at it?
I suggest by first doing them – making a start at it, then constantly check that you are still doing the highly valuable actions. How do you do that?
I suggest critical questions. In your running consciousness you want to install critical questions.
Is this task the most important task right now?
If you have ever heard of an eisenhower matrix, this is a very powerful organisation tool that got a mention in both Getting Things done and The seven habits of highly effective people. An eisenhower matrix is a punnet square that straddles the question of importance and urgency.
| Important | Not important | |
| Urgent | Do now | Schedule |
| Not urgent | Delegate | Don’t do |
Knowing this table, and the suggested responses to each type of task is interesting but it doesn’t teach us to feel it in System 1.
Is this conversation valuable?
If you are in a conversation, you should check if it’s giving anyone anything good. You don’t need to check in any other way other than thinking about it briefly. But this can save you from many kinds of failure modes. (Future post – what happens if your check in returns, “no good is coming from this conversation”)
Do I know how to do that?
When I used to look at my to-do lists, there would from time to time be tasks that were not actions, “python” doesn’t really explain the task of how to learn to code in python. This question is about fighting the applause lights. The tasks that you can rest easy knowing it’s done when actually you still don’t know how to do it even if it is written on your to do list.
If I started again, would I do it like this again?
So you’re yak shaving. This question can help you. So you reached a point where the Value of information has changed. You are already so far into the exploration process that you know it’s time to turn the horse around and ride in the other direction. Do you delay? Do you keep riding to the end of the day then turn back? or do you hella high tail out of there and bolt in the right direction? (counter: it’s okay to reach milestones along the way – like the next river – then turn around. But I tend to suggest while keeping that in mind – what am I waiting for?)
What’s the obvious next step to write down on my list?
Not my advice, but strong advice.
Taking a page out of NVC (watch the video in double speed). Getting in touch with yourself and showing yourself the much needed compassion for your actions will make a big difference to how you feel along the way. I know a great number of people who WILL themselves from action to action. Taking mammoth amounts of energy to control every step. But what if there was another way? What if instead of forcing yourself to take the next step you waited until you wanted to take it?
The universe does not care how you feel on the inside as you take the next step. There is no great reward for being a martyr to your cause, suffering and forcing yourself to move forward through the hardship. The universe does not care about your goals.
It is possible to die alone and unfulfilled.
Morbid as it is, I come from a school of thought where I have to remind myself this or else I forget. (If this idea is uncomfortable for you then you should read about applicable advice, and consider reversing the advice to something like, “I can win, there is hope for me yet“). For my part – I forget that I can bury myself in Facebook, in gossip, in revealed preferences that do not line up to my goals. I forget that I could die alone having accomplished nothing, that the universe does not care.
The universe does not care in Both ways. The universe does not care that you suffer in each step when you force yourself to do the task to force reveal your preferences to be your goals. The universe also does not care if you don’t do that. If you pause to compose yourself before walking into battle. If you are actually prepared.
How can I connect with this person?
In the social context of why I want to be in the presence of others. I have in the past found myself trapped in a superficial world of, “how are you? I’m good thanks”, this doesn’t really line up to what I care about. So why don’t I just skip that and get into what I want to share?
What does this person want with what they have said to me?
People are not always excellent at saying what they mean. That’s why we make use of concepts like steelman. That’s why we need to consider the filters and often echo back what someone is saying in order to confirm what we have heard.
Does this contribute to my goals?
I find this a hard question to grasp. The concept of goals in my mind is such an applause light that I can’t ask that question and expect my brain to give me a mindful answer. (I am still working on this)
If you are not doing the high value tasks for yourself – who will?
Take these questions or your own introspection questions. Questions that get to the root of asking yourself what is going on? What am I doing and why? Ask them regularly. Make it your internal operating system to ask the critical questions. Calibrate/train your System 1 to seek out the feeling:
- Passion that comes from doing what you care about.
- Curiosity that comes when you notice yourself doing something not strategic, not goal aligned.
- Excitement that comes from discovery that you need to turn the horse around.
- Pride that comes from doing what you care about
- Calm that comes from knowing you are on the right path
- Sadness for what you leave behind on the journey to better things
Tune into the other feelings, take them as the cue to start riding in the other direction:
- Dread that you are about to waste another hour of your life
- Alarm that things are all wrong
- Despair about being stuck where you are
- Fluster when things surprise you
- Distracted because you are not doing the most important thing right now
But don’t take my word for it. Look at the feelings yourself.
The scientific method
By ArchonMagnus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42164616
How can I be scientific about this process?
What actually works? What makes true progress on the goals?
Do the high value things first, and now, and forever. Constantly check if you are doing the high value things. Ask critical questions, then answer them when they come up! Check in between your system 1 and system 2. Use those s1 feelings to trigger your s2 into asking a critical question. Make predictions, use the scientific method.
Meta: this post has been a long time coming. I had to reread my past posts in order to get my mind to continue the train of thought that I was aiming for. This post is missing some of the “call to action” that I was hoping to impart in it. There will need to be another post in order to complete the series. This post probably took me 5 hours spread over several weeks.
Part 1: Exploration-Exploitation
Part 2: Bargaining Trade-offs to your brain.
. Part 2a: Empirical time management
Part 3: The time that you have
. Part 3a: A purpose finding exercise
Part 4: What does that look like in practice?
. . Part 4a: Lost purposes – Doing what’s easy or what’s important
. . Part 4b.1 In support of yak shaving
. . Part 4b.2 Yak shaving 2
. Part 4c Filter on the way in, Filter on the way out…
. . Part 4d.1 Scientific method
. . Part 4d.2 Quantified self
Part 5: Call to action