Jerry Seinfeld didn’t come up with this idea! He didn’t even reply when asked if he used it. For all we know now he has never tried it and someone at Lifehacker just made the whole thing up! Vicious lies! Although, there is another possibility. Seinfeld may have heard of someone doing it, passed along the information thoughtlessly and forgot about it. This happened to me many years back.
As it stands, I come across the term “Seinfeld Calendar” at least once a week. Usually there is “Don’t Break the Chain” somewhere in there. These terms are near and dear to me, as they are the power behind my motivation and direction. I’ll be very clear about my sentiment: Without the chains methodology I would be miserable and disappointing myself.
I’m not miserable, though, far from it. I’m more optimistic about my future than I’ve ever been. I believe I’m on the verge of doing truly great work, to stumbling upon the missing pieces that allow me to fully unlock my potential.
This is why it kills me when I hear people say they’re using any don’t break the chain system, mine or not, to track drinking water or some other mundane task. These systems work because it isn’t tracking a task, it encourages small, daily steps towards a specific goal with immediate feedback.
My most rewarding and impactful daily goals are very simple:
At the closing of every day, I decide what I should do the next day. I decide on a task betters me; specific, important items to invest in myself. I fervently believe that it is my responsibility to devote time to improve me. This may mean working on the Daily Practice as an extension of myself, my writing or some other task. This is the important but not urgent. While I may be listing a task, the goal is to improve myself. The goal is what matters.
Then I have to answer if I didn’t complete it. These are two streaks I don’t want to break, but for different reasons.
When I write down what needs to be done tomorrow I am promising myself something. I’m promising myself that I won’t have an excuse. I won’t get to blow this off. I am investing in myself, maybe only a few minutes. I am deciding what a small part of my future looks like, one day at a time. I’m creating a window to improve, an opportunity for growth. I just need to do it, which is often times easier than deciding what to do.
When I am forced to check off what I did or, unfortunately, break a streak it informs me of my capabilities. Did I have a good reason to falter? Was I just tired? Was I just lazy? Was I afraid? Sometimes I am tired or lazy. Rarely am I afraid, but as I write a book and stretch my boundaries those moments are more frequent.
I hate these moments. At the end of the day when I have a black or white option to answer to myself I must be honest. Having to face the answer, and acknowledge that maybe I was afraid is hard. But that difficulty is often times incentive enough to pick myself up and finish what I promised.
This is the power of daily tracking. It’s about making today better than yesterday. My tomorrow-self will be able to do what is impossible today. While, I’m sorry to learn that Seinfeld didn’t popularize this method, I’m happy it worked out that way. It was an inspiring story and I’m glad it spread. His name and the story gave it credibility, and without credibility it wouldn’t have caught on or been so motivating.
It’s worth noting my original inspiration came from the Bowkett Calendar, a derivative of the now-misnamed Seinfeld Calendar. The name Daily Practice is a hat-tip to James Altucher, who advocates taking small steps as well.
]]>However, it’s still the start of a brand new month, which means a brand new challenge!
In December, I tried in earnest to describe my purpose. I sat down for at least 15 uninterrupted minutes each day (except Christmas) and thought about it.
In November, I wrote 20,000 words describing my thoughts about how to leverage social sciences in the tech sector. I targeted 15,000 words but went way over.
In October, I reached out and had conversations with interesting people. It was a fantastic experience and I met some awesome people.
In August, I published a post every day. It tested my preparation, planning and endurance to keep things going. It was rewarding to do, but I didn’t notice much benefit (in quality, readership, or enjoyment).
In December, I realized something about myself. Most of what I work on I simply don’t really care if it hits mainstream. I built my daily habit tracker for me, and it was awesome that other people used it. I’m very selfish.
As I wrote through November a vague discomfort deep inside started to form. As I thought through my purpose in December it grew into uncertainty. This feeling boiled inside me and I tried to not listen. But soon I had to acknowledge this part of me, and I did, but I could not label it. My wife and I spoke and it finally hit me. I want to produce something for other people.
I’m very proud of what I wrote. It aligns, as expected, with my purpose. These ideas mean nothing if I cannot share them, and share them successfully. This is where the challenge lies; I don’t know how to share successfully. My entire life has been building products that someone else defined, or building for myself that just allows others to tag along.
I’m going to learn how to market. I’m not going to learn everything in a month, but I’ll learn enough. I can devote 20-30 hours of intense study this month, with trial and error and figure it out.
I’m turning what I wrote in November into an actual eBook. I’m planning on launching it as a Kindle Single, but it still is some time off. I have the content written, it needs organization, editing and all the other things you do when you turn a bucket of thoughts into a book.
But I need to test some things first. My December Challenge is to build a landing page, setup an email list, get traffic to it and get people to sign-up. Those who sign up will get pre-release chapters. This will validate the idea, premise and voice of the book.
But wait, there’s more! I’m also going to learn more about proper analytics. This has always been a sore spot that I’ve leaned heavily on others to setup. I’m going to be A/B testing slogans, cover ideas, and comparing what works and what doesn’t.
Success is at least 1,000 unique visitors (this may be too high?).
Testing at least 10 titles, bylines and copy to see what works and what doesn’t and record the comparisons.
Full analytics. I want to know the details of everything I can.
Notably, I’m not tracking conversion rates or anything. The end point here will be a mailing list signup, but I don’t know enough to gauge what a successful campaign would end up with. I could say I want 10% conversion but I don’t even know if that is reasonable. Is 5% reasonable? The success of January will be in discovering what are reasonable expectations for conversion, but not setting a goal.
If you have other ideas, want to help me success (or walk with me while I fail!), please email me! And, of course, Happy New Years!
]]>My December Challenge was to clearly and articulately define:
I felt going into 2014 I need to have a single goal that helped guide my actions. I had already defined the 5 critical area’s of my life that I wanted to devote my energy towards, but that didn’t clearly lay out a path. My areas of focus are:
As I wrote previously, it’s entirely easy to be too vague when discussing these matters. I could say that I’m going to build a business that supports well-being using knowledge! Except that’s what I’ve been trying, and it isn’t focused enough. It isn’t defined enough. A purpose transcends a business, it is the underlying motivation to undertake the irrationality that is starting something fresh and sharing it with the world.
While I love building TDP and seeing the users, it has always served me. It was my tool, and it just maybe helped others. I didn’t realize how much I had felt this way, even though I love having a product out that people use. Having users feels good, but it doesn’t adequately change my usage or development of TDP.
As I was working through the exercises this month I realized how quick I am to discard completely legitimate requests because they aren’t how I use, or would use, TDP. This is why I suck at building a business, even if I can use a product I enjoy that gets some users.
This discussion came about since I’ve decided I really want to share what I wrote through October as a book. Talking about this with my wife I commented, “This is an odd feeling, right now. I actually have this fear. I want people to like it. I want people to read it. I’ve never felt that way, even with TDP and other projects—I haven’t cared if people like it.”
Her response was dead on:
That’s why you haven’t built a business yet.
A purpose in life is not rigid, it is fluid. It changes, because we change. A purpose does not give meaning to existence, it justifies the gift of the energy we possess.
It took me the better part of the month to figure out how to define purpose. Let alone what I wanted to focus on. I started panicking as we got close to Christmas, because I was still oscillating and vague.
Fortunately, the week prior to Christmas was my wife and I’s 10 year anniversary. My parents graciously arranged a trip to San Diego and babysat our kids, so we got to take off for a few days. Spending a few days near the ocean, talking walks, thinking and talking about this was the best thing for me.
Aside from my wife, I asked the wisest friend I have, Jerry Colonna. He sent me a few books to read; it’s a special type of person that knows just the right books to help someone find the answers to their questions. I hope to some day be that friend and mentor. He gives me something to aspire towards.
Ok, first I have some criteria to define. My purpose must be specific and targeted to an audience that I can directly interact with. This means very, very small. Lean Startup small.
I must be able to measure progress, and that means having tactics week over week, month over month, in which I can review and compare desired results versus active results.
This may make my purpose and goals seem underwhelming. I’d rather them be underwhelming and I achieve 70% success than to be amazing and achieve nothing.
My purpose is to be better and document exactly how. I want to talk to more people who also want to do this. I’ve been emailing with Andrew Tarvin and he’s been very encouraging. This is a guy who frames his life around asking, “What’s a quality day?”.
For 2014 I’m going to seek out more of these types of people. I’m going to find companies that want to do better but may not know exactly how. It isn’t about letting everybody work from home, or throwing everybody into an open floor plan (especially, don’t do this). I’m going to be more deliberate about this, tracking what I find works and doesn’t work.
This is my purpose now. It may not be in 2015. For now, this will do.
]]>Choose a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
I am certainly not as insightful as Confucius but I think this statement is wrong. Not in the sense of accuracy but because such a powerful, and motivating statement is far too easy to misunderstand. I may just be sensitive now, because I blame this quote for setting me back in my pursuit of happiness, enjoyment and love.
I build software products and have been teaching myself how to write code since I was a small child. I love writing software. I don’t always love writing software while I am writing software. Did I choose the wrong job?
Pleasure, as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is merely the feeling that comes from satisfying a basic need. I’m hungry, I eat. I feel pleasure.
Enjoyment is something distinctly more human. Enjoyment comes from transcending the basic need and entering a realm of luxury. I may eat the same meal as someone else and experience pleasure. My dining companion, however, experiences enjoyment. It’s all in the mindset and perception. Were they exploring their senses, leveraging their imagination to discover what made the meal so good? If so, they were enjoying the meal. I was simply taking care of a basic need, one spoonful at a time.
But what does pleasure and enjoyment have to do with loving a job?
Love is a touchy subject. People love the idea of love. Our fairy tales obsess over it and assume Happy Ever After. This is where Confucius leads us astray. Love is not a state of being; love is not like happiness. Love is not even an emotion. Love is an activity. Love requires enjoyment, otherwise it dies; pleasure alone is not enough to sustain love.
When you choose a job you love you must reinvest your energy to continuing to love it. Regardless of what Confucius says, that reinvestment is work. It’s hard work. Sometimes it’s terrible.
I experience this in software development and I’m sure it’s not much different in other professions. Things change so quickly. I have to spend hours each week reading through new ideas and new techniques. Many of them are just fads; fads that die within the month.
It’s inappropriate to think that love alone will keep away work like some good luck charm. There are no lucky rabbit foot here. Life is hard and requires work.
Choose a job you love, and you may enjoy the outcome of the required work. Without work there will no longer be any love for the job. This is not discouraging, or should not be. There is so much enjoyment to be had in the work itself if you aren’t chasing fairy tales.
Psychologists have long inspected the links between creativity and insight. I’ve even built a silly tool to test this notion, priming myself and others and seeing how quickly people traverse through problems of insight. While it’s completely unscientific, I’ve definitely observed that people in a positive state of mind perform better.
The best way to find ways to rejuvenate the love of your job is to first identify what problems you face. Write down the sources of discontent or obstacles. Next, find a pleasurable place to be and unleash the creative aspect of your mind upon what are likely trivial challenges.
When creativity and insight are leveraged to solve challenging problems we often times feel overjoyed. I’m not necessarily talking about the often quoted Flow. The other day I slogged through some thoroughly mundane work to get me back to a good place. I enjoyed the victory, but there wasn’t one moment that went by where I wasn’t wishing I were doing something different.
If it weren’t for stepping back and discovering creative ways to get through it, I may not have made it. I may have given up. If I gave up, I wouldn’t be doing a job I loved. I would have failed at that and it would be Confucius’s fault.
]]>We all seek higher purpose; but how many strive to define it in very specific terms? I know I failed at doing this, and feel compelled to at least try. This is a beacon to move towards, something that all my goals will connect to. This is a hard decision to make. I found it too easy to sidestep, I caught myself making useless, vague statements. I will share happiness!. On the other hand is a slippery slope bringing myself into a delusional state: I will solve world hunger!
This difficulty needs to be managed, and I resorted to my previous technique of starting with good questions. I’ve spent countless hours not trying to answer anything, just definingy exactly what questions I need to answer. I have finally settled on the following:
—
As I thought about these questions and my experiences in life a few answers began to form, but they’re young. I definitely want to leverage the results of my November challenge; I wrote a small (currently unedited) book about how social science can help companies operate more effectively.
I need to remember nothing I decide now is permanent. However, it requires real effort to commit and that commitment must be real. This is why it is critical to be able to assess progress, then I can knowingly change course.
I’m excited at the answers that are forming, and am most eager to start working on the How.
]]>Since I’ve never written such a long document, I didn’t really know what to expect or even the best way to measure success. Writing around 500 words a day doesn’t seem to strain me, so I multiplied that by 30 days and came up with 15,000 words to write through the month.
I hit that goal with a week to spare! Then I spent the last holiday weekend working on formatting it as an ebook. This was a great experience for me and I really enjoyed it. I’m conflicted on what to do with the book now, in terms of time and effort. I’m quite busy now; I’m worried about how much time I will spend trying to release the book.
I have plenty of time to figure the time allocation out, though! I’ll be continuing to edit and revise the book as I do want it released sooner rather than later. I’m not putting a time table on it until I get it cleaned up more.
December is a little different, and something I’m tremendously uncomfortable doing and it isn’t glamorous at all. I feel profoundly blessed, happy and grateful for my life. My life hasn’t been easy but it has been mine. The last few years have shown me not only how lucky I am but how many wonderful and interesting things there are in the world.
I want to push the boundaries of what we, as humans know and what we’ve done. Doctorate candidates get to do this with their thesis, for those of us not in the academic world this involves something substantially larger than just a product. I love working on Daily Practice but in the end, it’s just a product.
I need a goal, a focal point, that is higher than a product and even higher than any startup. I need a beacon in which to move forward in my life. For the first time in my life I feel enough clarity in who I am and who I want to be to clearly find it on a map. But I need to define it, and that’s hard. It’s so hard it’s my December challenge.
My challenges must have a measure of progress and success. This is a bit nebulous, but I have something. I’m going to dedicate a minimum of 15 uninterrupted minutes each day in reflection and thought. This will be very hard for me. I couldn’t even build a napping habit! Fortunately for me, unlike naps reflection can be done at any point in the day.
What does success look like? A mission statement, first and foremost. Clearly identifying what I hope to achieve in my life, an outline of the skills required and some thoughts of the tactics. It’s not enough to list “What is my ultimate goal?”, I need to also answer “Why is this important enough?” and “How will I achieve this?”
]]>Instead, I grudgingly made money in the ways a 12 year old was expected at the time. I walked around the neighborhood, gradually expanding the radius. I recruited friends. We simply did chores. I had a hard time with pricing and found that the best way was a simple question.
Hi, I’m trying to earn money through the summer. Do you have any chores you would like done? How much do you want to pay for that to be done?
This worked well for me. People who had chores suggested the chore and a price. I could counter, of course, but I rarely did. I ended up washing a lot of cars (most profitable), mowing lawns (least profitable) and at one point spent most an afternoon simply moving large bags of dirt from one end of a yard to the other. I still don’t know what that was about, but she paid us well for it.
However, the only thing I learned was I’m bad at pricing but good at organizing labor and teams. It was not a successful experience and there was no progress towards my goals.
These experiences built fond memories. I obviously want my children to have these experiences and the memories. The world has changed, so have the opportunities.
The world has changed, neighborhoods barely exist. It’s all thanks to Etsy and other marketplaces. The neighborhoods are anywhere with Internet connectivity, the chores could be building new, specialty products. This diversity is an opportunity that simply didn’t exist until recently. My son’s interest in electronics and invention can be used to earn money all while pursuing his passions. I see my daughter’s art being turned into crafts with real value.
It’s a marketplace based on real skill development. There’s nothing wrong with mowing lawns or babysitting, but now there are options that compete withe the historical standard. And these options help kids progress inline with their goals and aspirations.
Most importantly, the kids see it, too. Well, my son does. Daughter is still a bit young. To think someone wants to buy something he makes gives him more direction and purpose. They’re both still years away from ever selling, but as we work on more projects they see them as also creating real value.
My children get significantly more engaged and motivated when their work is evaluated and appreciated, and not just from a casual, “That’s nice, honey.” When they start wanting money and understanding, what better validation to show them than a marketplace where their interests align. All while doing the same crafts they would otherwise be doing.
]]>Things are good, but they’re not good enough.
I recently read How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, a very short read from Arnold Bennett, that tersely discusses how much we can benefit through deliberate living. We must question our actions, what causes them and the decisions we make, for the effect is against time. We have a limited amount of time to live. I want to make the most of it. This isn’t about more work or even productivity; it’s about enjoying and benefiting from my time. It’s quality.
For the last 6 weeks I’ve been very fixated on the notion of quality. I keep asking What is quality? In August I wrote about what matters most to me. I re-read that list almost every week, and I know why it’s important. Unfortunately I don’t know how to prioritize my days.
I recently had a friend visit who is very active. My physical health took a positive tick upwards, playing in canyons and riding bikes around the desert, finishing with a 5K. Through the 3 days, my family balance was off; I missed my family and they missed me. The balance in the best of times is precarious.
I recently released a new feature on the Daily Practice which is a defensive mechanism against being out of balance. The idea is that some daily activities are worth more, they contribute to the important points. As I write every day, it improves my knowledge. When I go for a walk with my family I enhance my relationships and health.
I got this idea from Andrew Tarvin, and so far I’m enjoying the extra little incentive to my practice.
The important task at hand is to change my daily goals to be more inline with what’s important to me. This is a deliberate choice, by listing things to work on I choose what to work on. I choose what quality means, and that decision gives me a why. With the goals I track I now have a how. So far it’s working.
Since the Quality Day feature is so early on in its development, it probably isn’t for everybody and also requires a TDP Plus subscription. I’m still exploring the feature myself, and would love to hear any suggestions to improve it.
]]>I’m living one question at a time.
Yesterday I wrapped up a project, looked around and immediately felt the pressing weight of my full, and ambitious, todo list. I took a breath, stopped thinking about it and asked myself:
What can I get done in the next hour that I will enjoy the most tomorrow?
The answer came to me pretty quickly. I went outside, replacing the flat tire on my bicycle. Now my son and I can go for a ride later today. Without asking that question I would have forgotten about the flat tire. He would ask to go for a ride, I’d hang my head in shame because I’ve been telling him I’d fix that tire for the last 3 weeks. I’m forgetful and he suffers for it.
When I first started this exercise, I would ask some really pointless questions that amounted to navel-gazing.
What will make me the best person?
That’s a really stupid question. If I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t need to ask any questions.
Over time they’ve improved and the questions align to the 5 areas of focus in my life. When each question has a clear outcome, I’m able to answer in a tangible action-based manner. Adding these constraints is critical to asking good questions, and even more important when answering.
Have I written at least 500 words today?
Nope, well, better start!
Have I completed my One Thing task today?
My One Thing is a task decided the night prior to get done. When I’m wondering what to do next, that’s the first thing to do. Usually they’re small tasks that require some degree of willpower to get started on, but are easy to complete.
Sometimes, though, vague is good and appropriate.
What can I do to enjoy the next hour the best?
Asking myself this before sitting down to dinner with my family has helped me be significantly more engaged. When I ask these questions to myself, it’s easier to ask questions to others.
And, unsurprisingly, I found when you ask someone a question and really pay attention to the answer, enjoyment is almost guaranteed.
Whether you are asking someone else a question or questioning yourself it’s important to give space and really listen. Don’t interrupt, don’t listen to respond, just consume. Absorb the information like absorbing good food.
And if you think you can’t interrupt your own answers, I’d wonder if you’ve ever asked yourself a hard question.
]]>I sent quite a few emails and other messages out, some replied but most didn’t. Of those who replied, most people were interested in hopping on a hangout or Skype. I even had some in person conversations, created by watching what other people were up to and sometimes just asking for introductions.
I upped the ante a little bit, and declared that I must also have a very specific question to ask of them. It may be help, advice or satisfying some curiosity. This gave the entire process a lot more meaning.
I met, or at least spoke with, a total of 7 new people in October.
The point of these challenges is to help me refine or develop a new skill. This one definitely delivered. Some of my previous apprehension about just sending an email is gone now. I feel more comfortable talking to people and also thinking about how I could help them or a question I’d like to ask.
More importantly I’m actually more invested in looking at the people behind the work that intrigues me. I’m admittedly very bad at thinking of the human side of things, but I’ve really enjoyed this little bit of outreach. I’m still an introvert and find it fatiguing to be social; what changed is that I’ve really began enjoying the experience.
The first person totally amped me up for success. I spoke with Andrew Tarvin over at Humor That Works, specifically about his Quality Day System. Given my work with daily tracking this was right up my alley. Andrew was great, a lot of fun to talk with and I enjoyed my time.
Week 2 was my no show. Last minute cancellation, but that’s ok. I made a connection, got it on my calendar and was available. These failures are great learning experiences, too. Especially in the context of not being discouraged. After the no-show, I set out to identify other people to chat with.
Week 3 was geeking out with the absolutely stellar Peter Cook. He’s an awesome d3 developer and we’re using some of his components. We spoke about the fears and concerns in the Open Source world and how to navigate them. I can’t say enough great things about Peter, but it may just be because he’s British and as a crass American, they’re all just so damned charming.
Week 4 shifted things around a lot. Rather than hiding behind the comforts of my computer I ventured out into the real world. Las Vegas was hosting the Tech Cocktail Celebrate event, which meant that a lot of interesting and awesome folks were coming out. I ventured out into the real world and met up with as many as I could. Here I met some awesome folks from QuickLeft and Keen.IO.
]]>In any relationship (or partnership), there are certain duties that fall on one’s shoulders. Often times these aren’t set in stone, it is merely that one person tends to do more than the other. With my wife, I have pretty common divisions. I typically take the garbage out, kill bugs while she typically cooks. I still love to cook, she’ll take the garbage out. Bugs are a hard line.
We have established basic guidelines for who is responsible for the regular tasks. There a lot of things that come up without clear ownership. Over the years, she asked me to do a lot of those things (especially if they involved a high shelf.)
And I would promptly say, “Sure, honey!”
And I would promptly forget.
Not just a little. An entire forget. There was no memory retrieval. The task became, entirely and thoroughly, dead to me.
It lived on with her, though. More than only living, it spoke to her. It would constantly tell her that it needed done. In turn, she would question if I would do it on my own or if she should nag me. This is a heavy decision for her to make. My wife is very normal; she most certainly doesn’t want to be a nagger.
After a week of this mental torture, she cannot look at me with the typical love and respect. The turmoil she has in her mind is absent in my mind while I’m blissfully ignorant of her pain. Who can blame me? I don’t even remember what she asked of me. I walk around smiling, oblivious!
And every day it gets worse. The gap widens and she gets further away from me. Then it snaps, an earthquake of emotions brings us back together. It isn’t comfortable.
The longer assumptions go unspoken and unresolved, the wider the gap grows. Eventually it will be an insurmountable chasm, full of resentment and annoyance. Obviously nobody wants that, except divorce lawyers. I finally learned that she was holding on to everything I forgot. Her emotions didn’t belong to just her, my forgetfulness and ineptitude were forces acting upon her.
When I realized that I was responsible creating a situation like this, suddenly not forgetting became much more important. I established patterns and hooks. This allowed me to follow through and be more reliable. She fortunately noticed almost immediately.
In the end, it didn’t feel like any extra work for me. In the beginning there was more effort; I had to figure out how to orient my actions to remember things I previously would have forgot. This is not a bad trait to develop. The organizational systems I’ve developed around the house have helped me be more organized in general, and in turn be more productive. That isn’t the most important win, though.
Above all, I no longer see that look of frustration in my wife’s eyes. It was replaced with the gaze of a partner, who worked with me to help me remember rather than resent me for forgetting.
Incidentally, last night she asked me to take the trash out and I promptly started coding a fix to something I saw in an app we’re building… because she left it open on her computer. Instead of being frustrated, she gently reminded me and then patted me on the back for the improvement.
]]>Do I want to either confirm my understanding or increase my vocabulary to discuss the subject? I had to answer that before really starting into Checklist Manifesto.
This question started after I read the introduction to 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey explains his desire for the reader to proceed with the intention of explaining and teaching. To not simply agree or move beyond the concepts; instead absorb them to explain to someone else.
This simple technique has made a profound difference in how I read books. Especially if I think I may know the subject well. Checklist Manifesto widened my vocabulary. It bettered my ability to discuss and share why I think checklists are important. Primarily, it helped me to explore the very confusing encounters with people who resist checklists as if their soul depended on it.
I’ve seen two reasons for resistance so far. One is quite innocent and grows from a flaw I possess. Disorganization! Checklists help but someone has to call the shots. Without someone, or something, to initiate the process it won’t get done. My morning has a checklist to it, but I still often times forget. This is ineptitude on my part. That ineptitude can create resistance. I do not want to fail so I kill the checklist.
The second reason is discussed by Dr. Atul Gawande through the book. These are the non-believers. The best reward of reading Checklist Manifesto was opening my mind, to seek and gain understanding about why people resist implementing checklists.
Before we can answer that, though, we have to talk about why checklists are important. Checklists are important because we fail. We make mistakes.
Dr. Gawande very frankly describes how he sees mistakes. The root cause exists between Ignorance or Ineptitude. Ignorance is forgivable, mistakes caused from lack of knowledge. We cannot be expected to do better when we don’t know better. Ineptitude, however, is a different matter. With ineptitude, the knowledge exists and we know it, yet we fail to apply it correctly.
Checklists are designed to ensure ineptitude has limited impact. Ineptitude is not a permanent attribute, it is a momentary state. It can occur for a multitude of reasons, most importantly for very human reasons. The distractions, beliefs and stresses in the modern life could almost excuse ineptitude, except for the very real consequences of those mistakes.
When mistakes happen, we remember some of these and react. Whether a surgeon loses a patient through mistakes and moments of ineptitude, or a plane goes down and hundreds of people die, there is a reaction to figure out what went wrong.
With airlines, checklists have emerged from the ashes and are now first-class features. These checklists have not stifled innovation. All evidence points to success. Sometimes the checklists are extremely terse, only a few items just to remember the really critical steps that are disastrous if overlooked.
Most importantly, checklists have evolved because we needed them. Because the world got too complicated.
We’ve complicated life and at the same time pretend it’s simple. We resist acknowledging our own limitations. We do this despite our failures to remember critical details. I believe we simply need to embrace the fact that the era of Thomas Young) and Joseph Leidy, people who were once labeled to “know everything” is over. We can’t even know how our cellphone turns on or the stitching is in our clothing. I didn’t know how a sewing machine worked. It’s still magic.
This is not a bad thing. Quite the opposite, even. This is a sign of progress. It’s time to embrace it, and in doing so, embrace the checklist and the very real need for collaboration. We can’t be expected to know everything. We have our areas of specialty, and others have theirs. We team up. We work together. We put men on the moon.
Dr. Gawande explores how checklists empower people and create a cohesive team.
If success is determined by a team that runs fluidly, has leadership but is free of condescension (something rare in operating rooms, it seems), then how can a checklist help?
It sounds very simple. The first item Dr. Gawande tackles on his Operating Room checklist is ensuring everybody introduces themselves and declares their roles. There is a lot of powerful psychology here. When someone states their roles verbally, they’re setting a precedent to continue speaking. Also, the listeners set a precedent to continue listening.
Just ticking boxes is not the ultimate goal here. Embracing a culture of teamwork and discipline is.
Something as trivial as formal introductions had huge impacts in how teams operated. However, without the checklist item, these introductions were quick to be forgotten. We cannot remember all the things all the time, nor learn all the things. Even when it’s as simple as introducing ourselves.
Checklists are not a crutch, they are maps with the dangers highlighted. We must embrace our limitations both in knowledge and discipline.
No other creature on earth is able to be introspective. Humans are willing and able to contemplate existence, our failings and strengths and devise innovative ways to improve ourselves. More importantly, humanity is adept at creating reusable ways to improve others. Just as the Pilot’s Checklist moved into the Operating Room, it can move into any other industry.
Another inherent attribute is our adaptability. This is a prized trait, and many people in leadership roles or in any position of power would describe themselves as versatile, adaptable or innovative.
It stands to reason that the mention of a checklist goes counter to those attributes. Except we must look deeper at what the checklist is. The checklist is not about ticking boxes. It’s about being disciplined when success is at stake and putting our best efforts into our activities.
I can think of no worse failure than a failure caused by a critical, but easily forgotten step.
Why do we resist something as beneficial as a checklist? This question occurs throughout the book, and in the end is directly addressed but not answered.
I can speculate as to why, and in discussing the checklist and listening to reactions I believe I’m close to an answer. It’s not the right answer, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The immediate perception of a checklist is competitive.
It’s saying, “The checklist is better than you!”
It’s saying, “The checklist won’t forget, but you will!”
It’s saying, “The checklist can do your job, and you can’t.”
None of these are true, but that first impression prevails.
]]>Art of Loving knocked me down. I got up. It knocked me down. Again and again. I also had no choice but to get back up and continue reading it. More profoundly is that it was written in 1956. It raises alarms against devaluing and automating works, multimedia over-consumption, celebrities that have no merit other than their ability to make the news, and most importantly about love is the very real, and happening, risks of mistaking feminism to mean same instead of equal.
Equality today means “sameness,” rather than “oneness.”
The book made a real and lasting impression on me, not only in the ideas conveyed but how much every day, and our habits, matter. It forces consideration of the ever-important question of what is the real and full impact of each action we take, and to be observant of that impact. It suggests how to even measure, but only vaguely.
… in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power—almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.
Everything is an activity we undertake. Love is an activity, not a feeling. Love requires work, effort and dedication. Whether we accept that and love consciously and deliberately makes all the difference. We must practice love like we practice any skill.
Love is an activity; if I love, I am in a constant state of active concern with the loved person…
I tell my children that practicing alone isn’t good enough, one must put their mind into it as much as their body. They must evaluate where they are, where they want to be and think of ideas to get there. The results in their performances validate this approach.
Man can only go forward by developing his reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, instead of the prehuman harmony which is irretrievably lost.
Whether I am loving my wife, my children or the random person I encounter by chance, a deliberate practice of love is what makes me human. Animals (at least mammals) feel, even some feel and demonstrate affection. Animals cannot describe this feeling, that is a uniquely human trait. Animals cannot share their hopes and dreams, find partners in which to work with and support.
To be concentrated means to live fully in the present, in the here and now, and not to think of the next thing to be done, while I am doing something right now.
Fromm points out that the industrial revolution has expectedly turned us into automatons. We are now cogs in a vast machine. We are replaceable parts and an increasing population do jobs with little or no meaning. Many other modern books have expanded on this idea. Fromm puts this simply: We have moved from a Capitalistic Society to a Consumerist Society. No longer is the collective concern balanced growth; instead we are pushed towards consuming ever more, and working in whatever job that allows us to purchase more and more.
Modern man thinks he loses something—time—when he does not do things quickly; yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains—except kill it.
In Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi points out the internal problem with this structure: Without challenge and autonomy, we cannot get into Flow. Without being in flow, we cannot feel the deep, humanistic excitement and vigor that we, as humans, need. Instead, we feel empty and stressed out. We feel incapable of exerting the energy needed to practice loving.
The paradoxical situation with a vast number of people today is that they are half asleep when awake, and half awake when asleep, or when they want to sleep.
When we feel incapable of loving, or worse, to feel incapable of pursuing and achieving love we develop severe anxiety. Fromm states that experiencing separateness from other humans is the source of all anxiety. That is a bold declaration, and after reading the book I can’t say I disagree with him. After all, if we feel stretched too thin in our own lives, how can we possibly embrace someone else?
People whose main orientation is a non-productive one feel giving as an impoverishment.
Love is more complex, deeper than we typically give it credit. It is deeper than the sensual love between adults, and ddeper still than the unconditional as a mother and her child. This is a practiced love, which is extremely challenging. This love is not one that can created without effort. This love is something that requires education. This love is something that can be shared with everybody, without any cost to myself.
Which brings me to the most powerful statement I found in the book.
The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities…
I’ve always been very sensitive to the idea of manipulation, but never could describe what was the opposite of manipulation. Knowing that education is that opposite shows that while I wasn’t directly, or intentionally, being manipulative, in many moments I was definitely guilty.
At the end of this reading, I’m left with the following ideas to work towards:
Each month I lay out specific challenges to push myself forward in life. These must align to the 5 areas of focus in my life.
September was posting 4 videos, centered around books. I completely failed. It would be hard to fail more than I failed. I certainly have excuses, some are even valid. Honestly, I could have succeeded. I simply didn’t.
I didn’t because it never felt important to me. August I posted something here every day. That felt important. July I built an application in 3 days and pushed it along through the month. That felt important. September had a lot of other important things happen. They felt important. Making videos didn’t.
This doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to do it. I like the idea, but it never felt important enough to actually do. I wrote out the outlines, but never went further. It fell apart when I had to compare against other things I was doing. This is the problem with challenges, and also what makes them so valuable.
These monthly challenges force me to balance and prioritize. They require me to change my daily routine and dedicate time to do things I wouldn’t otherwise do. This means not doing things I normally do. It requires that I evaluate all activities and ensure I’m not doing something merely out of a lazy habit.
So what’s next for October? It’s something more personal. I’m reaching out and trying to have one conversation with an interesting person every week. This has been a big obstacle for me in the past, and I need to move away from that. Hopefully this helps.
]]>My views on naps stemmed from my own inability to nap. I have certainly tried to nap, especially after having those magic sleep-deprivers known as children. I tried. I failed. When I didn’t it seemed almost luck. Obviously, this meant napping was unnecessary and stupid.
But I wasn’t set in my ways. When I stumbled across the subject of napping while reading Brain Rules my interest piqued. This was something I was categorically denying.
It’s hard to continue rejecting an idea after reading a quote like this:
a 26-minute nap improved a pilot’s performance by more than 34 percent.
To clarify, this is cognitive performance. That’s the type of performance I’m most interested in. Additionally the benefit lasted for several hours. This has been a huge problem for me, going back as far as I can remember. After about 7-8 hours of thinking, fatigue really creeps in.
The first step was determining how to integrate this into my daily life. I don’t have a typical mid-day “slump” in which I get sleepy. After lunch I devote myself to manager time, mostly because I struggle to do anything more productive (in the sense of producing something).
I believe any time something new is to be tried, it should be planned and evaluated. I should have clearly defined expectations and also an idea on measuring the results. Measuring is very difficult, though. I’m feeling like I’m still guessing about it.
Up next is consistent trial and analysis. Fortunately this is easier. My typical schedule is working from 5:30am until around 2pm. Now I have blocked off 2:15 to 2:45pm each day for a nap. I think this type of consistency is important to accurately measure the results. The main question is to simply ask: Is my time after 3:00pm better? It has been.
I prepared over the weekend for this, and fortunately my daughter got so sick neither my wife or I slept. This should have been prime napping preparation. I laid down, grabbed my Kindle and started to read waiting for some vague feeling of sleepiness to take hold. It didn’t. I didn’t nap.
I feel I wasted an opportunity and almost gave up on napping before I even started. Monday was the real test, and I felt I wanted to try it again but knew I needed to change my approach. I resisted the urge to bring my Kindle, laid down and closed my eyes. I did bring my phone, to listen to some birds chirping and the sounds of a river.
Shockingly, I fell asleep. I even fell asleep pretty quickly, but I had no concept of time. I woke at 2:45pm, with my daughter staring at me in perfect silence. Success!
I expected the nap to slice my day up. Perhaps like having two days in one, doubling my money. It doesn’t. It’s still the same day and the lumbering mental slowness is still present when I wake. But then my day changes.
The real difference came when I started to think about the tasks that I had laid out, whether to do the next day or just a wish list. As I ran through that list, a feeling of intense motivation crept over me and I found an item I must work on. This feeling persisted, and so far each day I’ve eagerly tackled more tasks.
I can’t wake up and start working. I can wake up and start thinking about what is important to me and what I want to get done. Eventually I’ll hit one that inspires me, and the nap has recharged me enough to tackle it.
This is giving me an extra 2 hours of near-prime mental energy each day, and that’s definitely worth the 30 minutes required to get it.
I worried about how this would affect my schedule. I’m very structured and want to be in bed by 9:30pm and asleep by 10. Napping could disrupt this, which could throw me off for days. I’m a fragile sleeper.
So far it hasn’t. At 9pm I start to feel the pull towards bed, and at 9:30 I’m still ready to sleep. If this continues, I have a solid habit that I’ll be maintaining.
The real downside will be if I start working with people who aren’t on the East Coast or start working in a real office. I can’t imagine being successful in negotiating a napping pod, but I’ll definitely try.
]]>A lot of this thinking started when I read Flow. It was truly a mind-opening experience for me. It offered conclusive proof that we continue activities we found enjoyable once, but only stay with them because of habit. Our enjoyment stops, but we continue!
I want to be constantly evaluate what I do. This has consistently allowed me to discover new things about myself and enjoy how I spend my time. It’s very naive to think I know myself well enough to know all my interests (or weaknesses). I also don’t believe that a single day, or even a week, trying something can be truly representative. It’s a base level of skill, and without competency I don’t feel I can judge. It struck me that a month seems perfectly reasonable to build competency.
In July, I wanted to test my ability to publicize a product I built and do it over a holiday weekend. I expected that I could build an app in 3 days, but also launch. This meant coming up with a marketing plan, verification and a plan to continue running and promoting the product. The latter are things I’ve consistently been bad at, and while I got better I’m still in the “bad” category.
My challenge for August was a little easier, but a lot longer. It was a marathon of writing and publishing, something I also struggle with.
I have a very solid writing habit. I however struggle to publish. I write, re-write, edit, hide it in the drafts and move on. What I publish doesn’t even correspond to quality; I often times publish entries I don’t find particularly good while I often rework those I like but never release.
I needed to remind myself that this is a blog, it’s informal and it’s a place for me to start conversations. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
I figured 31 days of very unperfect writing would help build that habit. And it absolutely did. I won’t publish every day, but I feel much better about quickly forming a post throughout the day and writing it in a way that I can get it out. I also learned it’s ok to put stuff out that still feels fuzzy or off, because it’s also ok to take something I wrote a while ago and re-write it.
A very large part of this effort is identifying weaknesses and exploring them. I’m not expected to solve them but simply to better understand them.
I’m a firm believer that the best way to explore a weakness is by coupling it with a strength. Similar to the way that tiny habits can build up, I want to connect a challenge to an existing behavior that I enjoy.
This month I finished up the editing of a video where I discussed Premortems. I had a lot of fun writing the script, reworking it, filming with my wife. The hardest part was just like publishing anything I write. Putting something that I find interesting out into the world is massively uncomfortable.
I have a great backlog of notes, highlights and thoughts on a series of books, so my challenge for September is to produce 4 videos. Rather than a book review, I want to record the take-aways from each book and also how it relates to others.
This one will be hard and potentially the most time consuming because the video editing process is so unfamiliar. However, I think it will be the most fun to date (out of 2, not setting that bar high).
Thanks for being on my August Challenge with me, and I look forward to continue writing here with greater frequency.
]]>I was very surprised at the conversation. Many of her issues were incredibly similar to the challenges I’ve experienced developing software products. At first I thought this was that I have these problems, it seems everybody else does (Availability Heuristic.) Just like after you buy a car, you notice how many are on the road.
As I listened to her more, and more important to her discuss methodology and how she understands the class, my concerns about being biased faded away. She’s selling a tangible service, certainly, rather than a software product but what she is creating is an experience her students go through each class.
That experience is why she’s successful and why I go to her, and rarely to other teachers.
Her classes aren’t for everyone though, and part of her struggle is finding the students she is compatible with. She must pairthe experience she offers with those who want it, and that isn’t always obvious.
There’s another well-known and respected yoga teacher in the area. I’ve never even taken his class, but just by watching I knew it isn’t for me. That’s ok, there isn’t anything wrong with him or the class, it’s a simple incompatibility.
Building a great product or a service is really about building an experience. If you read Purple Cow you can be encouraged to think that the audience you want is out there. I certainly believe it is, but that encouragement is going to start having fear creep in.
It’s the fear that I’m missing an opportunity. It’s loss aversion, thinking if we extend ourselves, or add more features and bells and whistles we’ll get more people.
In the end, we’ll drive away those who we relate to and still not appeal to the people we try to reach. Stay true, deliver the experience you want to deliver, and don’t think that anything is lost.
An audience isn’t being lost, an experience is being gained.
]]>The unhappiest moments in my life coincided perfectly with making the most money in my life. It isn’t that I’ve had a rosy life, or that money is bad. It’s that to get that money was encompassing myself. It was all.
This seems like a trivial problem, but happiness is more important. I would have given it up to be happy, but I didn’t know how to make that exchange. I did know how to work and bury the feelings in exchange for a paycheck. In fact, I didn’t even know why I was so unhappy.
I worked. A lot. When I wasn’t working, it was late at night. I didn’t really drink, hated clubs (still do) so I took up playing pool. I didn’t even really like pool. Your options are limited when you stay at work that late.
I still loved what I did so I felt entirely willing to make these decisions and trade-offs. I was young so I thought I balanced it pretty well, until that one day. That one moment I woke up and realized the balancing act is all bullshit. This happened to be the day after I found out the company I was working for was closing their doors.
I did what any young, sane, rational person would do. I packed up and moved to a randomly chosen city. The benefit of earning so much and living so little is that I had financial flexibility. It made me feel invincible, which I often confused for happiness.
What followed were not the darkest years of my life, instead they were the years in which I finally opened my eyes and realized how much of a mess I was. That’s a big hit to take, and I fought against accepting it.
There is one person who I credit for getting me through long enough to meet my wife. He was my Best Man, and his toast touched on my obvious inner struggled but that he always believed I would “be alright”. It was the best speech that could have been given.
I wanted to be more than alright, obviously. This took years, even after being married. Slowly my base level of unhappiness faded away. Through any of this I don’t think I was depressed, just deeply unhappy. I was still motivated, eager, ambitious. Just very unhappy and it stemmed from this feeling that everything was out of balance, that everything was competing. I didn’t want to compete anymore.
The first step was to get a job I truly felt aligned with my interests. So I quit and did that and it helped. For a bit.
Then I thought I should get a job where I was amongst good friends. So I quit and did that and it helped. For a bit.
Then I didn’t know what to do next. Everything was still out of balance. Work made life stressful. My life was beautiful, I had two kids now, and for no good reason my work was ruining it! It competed with what I wanted to do, with what I felt compelled to do.
I realized that my work and life needed to be integrated, not balanced. I can’t compete with “work”, it will always win. Work doesn’t care.
It’s been a year and a half now since I’ve practiced this integration. While it’s sometimes scary it’s not unhappy. It’s still work and there are individual items that need to find their place.
It’s a long road and it, like all things, requires constant investment and attention. I’m happy to pay these dues, because I know the alternative.
]]>It’s very easy to do the things we want to do. It’s slightly harder to do the things we must do. There is a whole category of things we should do, and these are very difficult.
The shoulds could also be called “Top Failed New Years Resolutions”. Universally accepted good things that don’t get done. But I want to do them! Well, maybe I don’t.
I want to want to do them.
That is a direct psychological shift to my behavior, though. It isn’t getting more done, being more productive or even building productive and awesome habits. It is changing and increasing the internal drive to do the things I should do, even when I don’t want to.
I don’t have any solutions, but I do have a list of things I want to transform my perceptions about. My hope is that by listing them I can see them more clearly, identify with what’s stopping me and maybe discovery they’re just not important and I don’t need to do them.
That seems like a good start. There’s so much more, and so much more I don’t need to do. Life is short and I’ve always felt it’s more important to do the things I enjoy and naturally want, as long as I’m not feeling penalized. Now I worry that I don’t know what those things could unlock, as I found when I started studying social psychology.
The world is so big, so vast, spending every day doing the same things that we wanted in the past doesn’t mean we’re doing what we want to do now, it’s just a rut. Now I’m going to see more about item 2.
]]>How can I help you?
This was in connection with The Daily Practice, my app I built to track daily activities on the pursuit of a better life. And I have no answer. Yes, I do want help! That wasn’t what I was asked. I was asked how and I had no answer.
Since I couldn’t answer that question, I think about related questions that may help. What do they want out of helping me? Do they want to just make it better? What skills do they have that push them to offer?
A better way of looking at this is to look at the person. Who are they, what are they interested in and ultimately what are they hoping to accomplish in their life? This is a more interesting question, because what I really want to discover is how we can help each other.
The next question is more self-centered. Sure, I’d love to figure out how to not pay for TDP operations out of my own pocket. That isn’t a big deal, though. What do I really need? If I find a magic lamp, complete with a genie what would my 3 wishes be?
My fear is that I don’t know what I need. Especially because someone offering to help is not me, they are them. Because they are them, they know things I don’t even know I don’t know. They know my unknowns, so maybe they should tell me what I need! But this is a cop out.
What I need is, again, to get to know them. To talk about them, to hear what excites them and let the conversation evolve. It will emerge what I need the most if I stop and listen, and give space for people to express what they are passionate about doing.
But do I deserve it? Do I deserve their help? Their time? It’s much easier to accept money from someone than their time, because time is exhausted and cannot be replenished.
Do I believe I am creating value, creating time and helping others? Yes, of course I do. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be spending my time doing it. If I believe this, then I believe I deserve someone’s time and energy to help me. It still is hard to accept this, impostor syndrome weighs heavy on my mind.
It isn’t fair to dictate to them how to help me, to assign tasks and expect them to just do them. It isn’t fair to try to manipulate someone into doing things they don’t want to do or see completed. It is fair to discover where our goals and ambitions align, and collaborate to make them a reality.
There is a lot of merit to having a Values First company. It doesn’t conflict with the notion of seeking profit at all. In this effort, TDP isn’t a company. It’s a tool I built, but I do want to keep the idea open that maybe someday it is a company. Maybe it is profitable. Maybe it has employees.
Until that day, accepting an offer of help doesn’t hurt me or them. Even as I write this I struggle to accept it. I need to delegate and let things go. I know I’ll be fair, respectful and appreciative of any help I get.
In the end, I want TDP to be the best product it can be. I want people to feel they’ve contributed, because I enjoy contributing.
I need to learn the right answer to a simple question, and I think writing this put me one step closer.
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