Tiny Experiments

Since college days i have been attracted to productivity, i would spend countless hours on productivity websites like lifehacker and tried several techniques. Mostly i tried to find a solution for procrastination. After playing games, i would usually browse internet trying to be more productive 😉. And the irony is, people procrastinate trying to fix it. Unless the reviews are genuine, i do not venture into this topic anymore. A whole inductry is sitting to abuse people on this topic. There are some techniques that are helpful like GTD(Getting things done), the now movement too is a useful one. Zettelkasten and Digital Garden is what i am using currently. I came across Anne-Laure Le Cunff during the pandemic. She was studying neuro-science after ditching her technical job at Google. She would be sharing her findings in her tweets. They were insightful for someone trying to streamline goals who has several interests. No doubt a person cannot do everything, but how does one decide what to leave and what to continue. She launched her book and i pre-ordered it. Unfortunately i had to wait 2 months to start reading it. Some of the content is shamelessly copied over from the book. The intent is to read this for my own consumption. Here is what i found valuable in this book:

• Its alright to have multiple interests
• It is important to document and analyze energy levels, mood of the events that we but in our journals. These are hidden yet very crucial indicators. Any negetive mood or energy drainage needs to be addresed as we have very limited amount of energy that can be translated into some meaningful work.
• You are unable to meet your goals due to Overconfidence Effect which translates into planning falacy. Planning is important, yet, if the objectives are set with unrealistic timeline, the planning readjustment continues.
• When there is dilema between two pacts, pick the smaller one. Let me create 20 paintings without creating a masterpiece.
• I was looking for mistakes to learn from.
• It should come from a place with no ego and have confidence that things will get better with every experiment
• The liner mindset triggers anxiety and response is automatic (flight/fight/freeze). The mental model creates ladders like a list of milestones with predictable outcomes. Has predefined success focused on a fixed destination, outcome based. Ex. Publish a cookbook by the end of the year. Popular frameworks used is SMART(Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Timely)
• The Experimental mindset response is autonomus(Engage/Experiment/Curosity). The moental model creates loop, cycles of experiments with unpredictable outcomes. Defination of success is output based, emergent success focused on deliberate experimentation. Ex. Write one new recepie untill the end of the year. Goal setting framework is PACT(Purposeful, Actionable, COntinous, Trackable)
• Managing your physical resources ultimately boils down to disregarding the unrealistic expectation of always being at your best. Energy naturally fluctuates attempting to maintain a perpetual peak is not just impossible but detrimental to your well-bieng. Respecting your natural rhythms can lead you to have a healthier relationship to work as well as increased productivity and creativity.
• Human mind’s cognitive capabilities are limited
• Our performance drops dramatically when we attempt to focus on more than one thing at a time.
• Effort to get more done slows us down.
• We have limited working memory
• Sequential Focus: Doing one thing at a time, by accepting that you can’t maintain eqal effort across all the essential aspects of your life, deciding moment to moment what your priorty is (your family, work or yourself)
• Sequential focus != time blocking, giving my current attention and working memory, what is the most sensible task to undertake right now.
• Maybe recent criticism has been weighing heavily on your mind. When the happier confront those distracting thoughts straight feedback, and write down your thought straight on. Then, go back to your task. Those refelection will be there to go back when you are ready.
• Emotional Resources: To fulfill our responsibilities, we overlook the vital signals our emotions are trying to relay. It may be hard to fall asleep at night. Maybe we are easily irritated. We feel anxious for no apparent reason, a phenomen psychologists refer to as free-flocating anxiety. Something feels off yet we power through. Soluntion is to simulate your body’s parasympathetic nervous system- Move your body.
• Physical domain-> Energy: Allign tasks witn natural rhythms
• Cognitive domain-> Executive function: Avoid multitasking
• Emotional domain-> Adapt stress response
• Kairos- right time. Kairos Ritual: Simple action that can quickly shift your mood.
• Procrastination is set of 2 arrows, 1st arrows is procrastination itself, the 2nd arrow is wmotional reaction to it. Procrastination, scientifically is not a moral failure, its a listening failure. Thats why trying to fight is counter-intuitive.
• Explore the source of resistance instead of recoiling from it. Examine procrastination with kindness and curosity
• Learning by head, hand and heart. - Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
• Motivation arises from the interplay of rational(head), affectional(heart) and practical(hand) factors
• Whenever procrastinating, always ask: Head- is the task appropriate Heart- is the task exiting Hand- is the task doable
• Head: determine of this course of action is wisest. If no/unclear, you are skeptical about potential benefits
• For small tasks with no dependencies, task is not connected to other tasks, remove them from the list. Will save valuable energy
• Heart: lack of exitment due to fear, boredom ot irritation or the activity doesn;t allign with persoanl definition of fun.
• Merely identifying feelings in enough to unstuck. This process is called effective labeling.
• For bigger problems, set timer for 10 minutes and free-write about the task.
• There is something emotional and somatic about big work projects
• Pair it with favourite activity.
• Can ask friend to cowork with you.
• Hand: Watchout for learning as procrastination, get input from more experienced person.
• If there is misallignment in head, heart and hand, reconsider approach.
• If the problem 3H are alligned yet procrastinating. Problem is not within you but environment/system
• Procrastination can become gateway to self discovery.
• The greatest perfection lies in imperfection. -Lucilio Vanini
• Striving for sustainable excellence rather than fleeting perfection.
• All or nothing perfectionist approaches are often not the most successful.
• Intentinal imperfection is slow and steady.
• What is most important right now? In which domain do i strategically choose short-term mediocrity to enable long-term excellence.

To put the principles of intentinal imperfection into practice, you must adjust those three ambition dials:

1. Identity perfectionaist patter: Become aware of when and how you are unrealistically striving for perfection. If you feel stretched, write down all current commitments and describe what success would look like for each.
2. Challenge your unrealistic targets: Looking at the list of highly ambitious objectives you have commited to is usually enough to convince you that you cannot possibly accomplish them all at once. Dig more pretending you are helping a friend and be brutally honest.
3. Choose progress over perfection: Decide on parts of your life and work where you will drop the ball to achieve execllence in other areas. It doesn’t have to be a certain aspect of your life for the next week or perhaps it will be only for today/tonight.

• Failure is inherent in the process, it is not to be feared but embraced as a tool that directs us towards the next step in our journey of discovery.

• Metacognition tools(Weekly review): positives in + column, negatives in - column, next action, mood, emotion in -> column

The secret to better decision:

1. Persist: Not playing a game of levelling up and chasing linear goals, persistance-showing up consistently over along period of time, long enough that you can start seeing the compund interest in your work can be a powerful differentiator.
2. Pause: While experiment, continuing what is started despite getting negative results- Be brave call it out. Quitting the projects that dont go anywhere is essential if you want to stick out the real ones
3. Pivot: What part of the pact can be adjusted so as i can keep learning and growing despite changing circumstances? Staying nimble and making adjustments when required, you can keep your experiment on track through changing tides.

• Be iterative, not dogmatic. Spproach this process with humility of a scientist, not the rigidity of an officer following orders.

• Pact should evolve with you.

• Both external and internal signals influence our actions
• Accept the outcome, choose to remain curious about the future rather than dwell on the past.
• When things break - Disruptus - To break apart. We need a healthy form of letting go.
• BUddhism: suffering arises from atachment to desire, including desire to control over outcomes.
• Taoism: Wu wei - effortless action - acting in harmony with the flow of life without force/resistance
• Vairagya: Allows us to be experience greater levels of tranquility by detachment.
• Research- Active acceptance - acknowledging and embracing a situation or risk without resistance, but with proactive planning and action
• Resigning Acceptaence - means abondoning outward directed actions, however this behaviour is aombined with negative expectations about the future and loss of hope.
• Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. Its about learning to dance in the rain. - Vivian Greene
• Accepting life’s distruptions doesn’t make you passive, it makes you agile.

The two step reset:

” I could see that the practice of surreder was actually done in two very distinct steps; first, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultatnt sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you”

Step1: Processing the subjective experience

• “Anxiety can help you to foace a potential threat, anger can help you stand up for yourself, and sadness can signal to other people that you need their social support”
• What i am feeling right now? Eg. tense, worried, nervoud, uneasy, concerned, etc. Or you can express in terms of a landscape leveraging primodal correction, like, majestic yet terrifying mountain.

Step1: Managing the objective consequences

• Pinpoint the direct impact of the disruption by zeroing in the most noticeable effects to map our potential consequences. This can be quick list or visual map. Think of this as the next wave emanating from the point of distruption. Then evaluate each potential consequence. Is it significant, is it -ve, +ve or neutral. Can it resolve on its own or something must be done.

• Encorages on learning in public with several example including hers
• We are wired to function at our best when tapping into shared knowledge and the support of the community.
• Flow states happen more easily in group activities than in solitary ones.

book url: Tiny Experiments paperback, Amazon