Digging into the podcasts and research and immersion learning, one of the dominant themes is the ‘hacks’ - i.e. lifestyle and environment design choices.
One of the themes that arise from that design space is this idea of taking environment design seriously in the first place, which I’ll probably save for another exploration.
Another is the idea of making ‘winning' jobs’ ridiculously easy to do.
So, this minigame is all about actually doing anything productive when we’re at our most distracted. We aren’t in flow right now, rather feeling very chaotic and stretched.
Jobs:
First, know what needs doing,
- make a note of any deadlines.
Tie it back to it’s ‘why’
- usually ‘Why do I care?’.
Now define the most productive thing you could do
- that’s small enough to do on a whim.
Then do the first whim that takes you
- follow it through if you can.
And move to the next whim.
So long as you’re making progress today,
You’re winning.
First thing that has to happen is a bit of a clear out, getting shit out of our heads and into a medium we can manipulate more easily.
I like writing personally, hence this series. (It’s not ‘I’m going to start writing’ - I was writing on and off already. This is ‘I’m going to start publishing’.)
And then, once we have a catalogue of the shit that needs doing, we can start to define an MVP (minimum viable progress) for each. To do that well, we need to understand enough of what ‘done’ looks like to know what direction to move things.
Directionally Correct is half the goal, that’s how we win jobs - by going in the right direction. Now to make it ridiculously easy.
So, minimum viable progress. A lot of recommendations start with ‘send one email’, ‘clean one surface’, ‘put on your gym gear’, ‘do one pushup’, or ‘open the files’.
An action small enough that even we can agree to do it on impulse, rather than willpower.
Once you’re in flight, keep navigating the next impulse in the right direction, tuning in the to feeling of ‘winning at jobs’ for the reward and momentum of the feeling of getting shit done.
It’s a little awkward realizing I need to keep starting with baby steps. Once I’m running I can sprint along, it’s slightly galling to admit that I need such small starts given how quickly I can race along when I’m moving.
I will say that marathons are foreign to me though. Habit formation is another minigame I’ll need to develop at another time.
Ah, I’ve just realized the importance thing also ties in here. We strongly benefit from the context being explicit - asking why something needs doing and having that reason front of mind, better yet written down, is very helpful. The phrasing on ‘why do I care’ is deliberate as well - it’s gotta be personal. not ‘why should I care’
Huh, just realized how often I’ve done this exact thing on instinct when the shit’s hitting the fan and I shift into crisis mode. When I’ve had to get ruthless about being effective, this is the playbook I already use - I just need to learn to leverage it before the panic is chasing me.
I benefit from the extra framing around the content of my actions. It helps me.
Hence trying to draft myself a playbook to deal with this shit.
Part of the design goal here is to not have to wait to be ‘in the mood’ to do what needs doing - as Gurney said:
“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood!”
This is the game.
Time to lean in, and play to win.