Second Life Log

You can easily identify a worthy desire as something that often pops up in your head as something you would like to see done. Other desires come and go and don't come back again, but the desires that repeat and repeat are worth fulfilling. When you have such a desire, you may be dissuaded by the number of steps to fulfill that desire. Here is one thing you can do to reduce that gulf. Next time you think of that desire, think of one step you can take right now to get closer to it, and then take it. That step could be one of a number of things: it could be purchasing materials, removing an obstacle, or other things. Once you have that simple single task, complete it. Preferably you thought of a simple task that only takes a few minutes to do, or is only one trip to the store. Next time you encounter that desire, you can repeat this process: either bring one more piece to the table or remove one obstacle, or whatever is needed. Eventually, you will run out of preliminary steps, and th...

After some absence, I will make an effort to share thoughts on a book I've been listening to called The Spark and the Grind, Ignite the Power of Disciplined Creativity by Erik Wahl ( https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Grind-Ignite-Disciplined-Creativity/dp/0399564209 ) As a brief intro, I like to listen to audiobooks while walking, and sometimes I come across interesting or insightful thoughts. I am sharing some of these thoughts here today, and hope to continue to do so in the near future. To start with, as a reference, the book refers to an idea or inspiration as "spark", and after the initial spark, the work done on it as the "grind". When you are able to work an idea into something rewarding, it is called a "blaze", as in a fire. The metaphor is that a spark ignites the fire and you grind to work it into a blaze. My interest in this book is to improve my "grind"; I tend to come up with lots of ideas, but then I feel like I abandon them too qui...

I really wanted to share this, because it makes a good point of dividing your potential projects into the categories of "experiments" and "commitments". The idea being if you label something as a "commitment", you commit to finishing the project through thick and thin. If you label it an "experiment", then you can push as far as you like, then abandon the experiment if you feel like you can't derive anything more useful from it. And, of course, if you feel the need to re-label something, you can do that. The point is to make a habit of finishing things when you commit to them. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2015/04/01/finish-what-you-start/

Follow my lead on this one. Let's say any project, goal, or path is a series of steps. You cannot cheat and skip steps to finish the path, and there are always enough easy steps to finish the path. Now, as you travel along the path, you find a block in your way. You come to the conclusion that the block cannot be bypassed without a large amount of effort. Put another way, it's like attempting to jump over several steps on a stairway. It takes much more effort, and there's a limit on how far you can jump. I would submit that the block itself is part of the path, and the steps to go through the block are there. What may be happening is your mind sees a group of steps as a single step, and refuses to see it as the series of steps it actually is. So, to get through the block, you need to find those steps, and just as before, take them one at a time, until the block is behind you.

This image illustrates what your emotions go through when taking on a project.  Note in the middle is the "Dark swamp of despair", and the bridge over it is "belief / persistence". Once you persist over the swamp, you start to regain your confidence in the project, and can soldier on to a satisfying conclusion. The post I pulled it from is here: https://john.do/inevitable/ .   I should inform you that the graphic is a refactor from a post by the same author in 2016, which was "stolen" (possibly) from "Steal Like An Artist" (2012), which was in turn "stolen" from Maureen McHugh (but the author published the credit in their book). I like the general concept of the really low point during the project, when many many people abandon it. This has happened to me time and time again.

If you feel like you don't have direction,  you may not know of a direction you like.  You can explore new directions,  or make your own direction  and see where it leads you.  

Somewhat related to a previous post of mine, I wanted to do something about a habit of mine where I start a new day and ideas, subjects, and interests of the previous day have faded in my memory, and I have no idea what to do with myself. The quick solution is to have a "Start Here" list, where you can simply look at the list when you are feeling lost or directionless. Here is my first attempt at such a list: Work on "great ideas" that I have , even if I'm the only one who thinks they're great Record audio tracks that are "atmospheric" (note: I was playing with FL Studio recently, which led to this interest) Start a log for when I learn or come up with interesting thoughts that I think others could benefit from Make some lessons for JavaScript / React / React Native in a "You Are Here" style of instruction (note: I feel some lessons get lost in their wandering, I feel like if you remind the student where they are in the process, they c...

I am in the middle of the audio book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. The emphasis of this book is on working on the core of your habits, your identity, to help guide yourself to who you want to be. I think this quote typifies the idea the best: "Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become... as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity... The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do." https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-James-Clear-audiobook/dp/B07RFSSYBH/

Near the end of the book Addiction, Procrastination and Laziness by Roman Gelperin, it offers advice to prevent forgetting tasks. When you think of a task to do, but don't have the proper frame of mind to do it, you should write the task down to remember later when you are in the proper frame of mind. The book suggests writing it somewhere prominent so you will be more likely to see it. Thus, a whiteboard makes an excellent medium. The book also points out that if you leave the task up for long enough, it becomes "part of the scenery" and you begin to ignore it when you see it. Thus, you should only use this method for one-time tasks, and either cross it out or erase it when you finish the task. What follows are conclusions I made myself. A question came to me after reading this: what about longer/larger tasks? The answer is simple: break that task into smaller tasks, and write the next step on the board. Then you complete the task like the other tasks, and you can put th...

Whenever you feel the urge to do something, that is a strong signal from your brain of a direction that is important to you. It is equally important to capture that thought/feeling, as it is likely to fade quickly, and then be forgotten. Then, later, you can review it when you are ready to act on it, and away you go! IMPORTANT:  This should be a QUICK exercise to capture the MOMENT when it hits you. Don't feel bogged down by details. If you can't get a lot of information down, that's fine. If you can capture the passionate moment, then you're doing it right. Here's an example; I will break down the parts in a moment: I want to make a mobile to-do list app to help people with productivity . Reason: I would like to make a to-do list app that I have been using already. I have struggled with being productive, and I think that having aids around will help me to increase my productivity. Having a mobile app with helpful functions will keep those tools close at hand wh...

  I am still taking a sabbatical from working. To help myself be more productive, I'm trying a simple schedule based on a normal 9-5 life   After waking up, I have breakfast and get into some work. I take breaks as needed when I feel stuck, and around 4pm I release myself from work and go into play mode.   Currently the work I am doing is "whatever I feel is important to me", which happens to be mobile app development with React Native. I also have plans to learn music arrangement/production with Cubase.   All this is to learn how to handle myself and figuring out where I actually want to go with my life rather than just going with the flow, as I was doing for something like 20 years.  

I've noticed a couple of things that I've connected. One, when you have a list of steps to accomplish, it makes progression toward a goal easier to "digest" and proceed with. Also, a similar approach is used in video games, for the player to accomplish some in-game goal. Thus, it makes perfect sense that designating steps to get to a goal are important if you want to make progress toward your goal. If the steps are each doable in turn, you feel less overwhelmed and are able to take action. As you proceed through the steps, you feel you are making progress, and you feel more motivation as a result. In video games, this pattern is often used for the player to have more power within the game, eg more strength, greater weapons, and so on. This same method can be used to a certain extent in real life. If you have a goal that will make you feel more "powerful", and come up with doable steps to reach that goal, then the process will be similar to video games, and c...

I came up with a model for how drive, goals, and motivation will help you start work on and complete a project. This thinking was generated from the book The Motivation Myth by Jeff Haden , with the section named "How to start when you're 0 percent motivated". As a quick aside, that book refers to motivation as a feeling you experience after doing work. To account for this, I call the feeling to accomplish something drive . The question I seek to answer is "what is the key to starting work toward a goal when you do not feel 'motivated' to do so?" Here is how the cycle of work happens. You start with a drive to accomplish a goal . You want the goal to happen. If you don't have strong enough drive for a goal, you are not likely to do all the work needed to get there. With the drive to accomplish a goal, there is something that starts you working on that goal. This will be unknown for now, but I will come back to it shortly. With that initial p...

One cause of procrastination is the fact that while you desire a result that requires work, you may feel a stronger pull towards more immediate rewards than the later reward of doing work toward that goal. To put it another way, you would be far more open to a tangible reward now than a nebulous reward at some unknown point in the future. While it is possible to have enough willpower to overcome this temptation, willpower is finite, and can often fall short of the needed level. The way to combat this is to combine an immediate reward with work towards a future reward, also referred to as "temptation bundling" by the book Finish What You Start by Peter Hollins. This appeases the immediate desire for a reward with work towards a future reward. This reward helps bridge the gap in required willpower to do the work. In fact, the less you have to rely on rewards, the better. If the rewards you use are finite in nature, such as watching your favorite tv series, then you will quickl...

In a normal 9-5 office setting, people work in an environment full of potential distraction. While many suspect that such distraction is detracting from their work quality, it's possible some don't know the extent to which it can degrade results. And in these modern times, distractions range from work-related to personal to social media. To reference my own personal experience, I cannot focus on a task if anyone within earshot is talking, and in particular, people have walked right up to my desk and started talking about something. There are only so many times you can politely ask them to wait until you are done, and in some cases, the person's position in the company and/or personality make it even less plausible to ask them to put the request on hold. You could make the point that urgent matters would be the exception to the rule, and I would agree. However, the definition of "urgent" can be abused to advance someone's agenda at the cost of your own mental r...

Two successful days of productivity, so here's a small preview of my productivity schedule. This may seem like a lot, but this is only a summary. I plan on writing more on this later. CAVEAT: This is a work schedule I have worked out for myself through thinking, research, self-help books, and trial and error. I think every person would have a unique way of working optimally, and thus should feel free to make their own schedule in their own way. Quick spoiler: you need to know why you are doing each step of your schedule. It starts with three time slots: one for ongoing project work, one for chores, and one for learning something new. The ongoing project work is a single project where I do a little bit of work towards a larger goal every day. In the past I haven't had time / energy / willpower to finish much of anything. I want a healthy living environment, so doing at least one chore a day is important. Learning something new is something you should do as much as possible. I...

I read in "Finish What You Start" that one technique is to give yourself three complete-able tasks each day. You should decide on the tasks the night before, and they should be complete-able in one day. If you can keep that up, you will get stuff done in no time. I have a variation on this idea. Start with a small task that you WANT to do and can complete in about an hour or less. That will give you some momentum. Then complete a medium task you WANT to do that is about 2-3 h ours. Either during or after the medium task, take a lunch/meal/rest break Next is about an hour of chores that you DON'T want to do. Then you get to do a task that you REALLY WANT to do. For me that's learning something new or research or exploration of new fields. I currently have more time on my hands than most people, but I think some people may get some kind of use out of these ideas.

Today, I had started on a course to learn Kotlin, which is used to develop Android mobile applications. And then I had a familiar thought: if I get into Kotlin, but then, after studying for awhile, I lose interest, then all the time spent will have been for nothing. So, should I go ahead with the course or not? This question is a common catch-22 that the brain gets into. And here is why going ahead with your interest is never wasted time. First, as I have just stated, the fact that you are pursuing a line of interest is already a positive result. I highly encourage people to follow their interests. I will not say something like "follow your passion", as passion can be a fleeting emotion. So, following your interest is a much safer and more satisfying move. Additionally, by pursuing the interest, you avoid the inevitable dread of not follow the interest and wondering what it might have led to. The next positive result of following your interest is that by learning something ne...

"Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom" - Leonardo da Vinci I feel like this lesson is important for me to learn. In particular, with regard to unfinished work, which da Vinci was familiar with. I personally have loads of unfinished projects, as I imagine many other people do. When I heard this quote related to time constraints, I thought about times in recent memory when I had decided to sit down and do a project I had been putting off. I did not necessarily set a time limit. However, in sitting down to work on something, there is an implied time limit. I knew I wasn't going to sit there all day and work on it. An additional constraint then enters the mind: "How far do I want to take this project in this session?" Now we have not only a time constraint, but a work constraint. This combination includes a limited amount of time to complete a task, but as a balance, a smaller share of the work for the project. The benefit is threefold. With a time limit...

While thinking about learning, I had a flashback to when I was 11 and learning Basic programming for the first time. Flash forward to now, when I'm trying to learn React Native, and I can't seem to get going on it. Long story short: it takes small steps to learn something new. If you are young, it's easy to be entertained by these little steps. When you get older, the novelty has worn off. So the solution is to add novelty to it. For example, when learning guitar, you learn one chord, then mess with it for awhile in any fun way you wish. Then add another chord, and make that fun as well. Review sessions should also be fun. I should be cautious here, as I sometimes fall in love with the "magic bullet fallacy" where I think a simple solution will solve the entire problem, and often it does not. However, I do find the hypothesis compelling. I don't know if this will work, but I think it's an idea worth trying.