Matt's Idea Blog

Attention Data Hounds: What Personal Data Are You Tracking?

matt — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:08:39 -0500

I'm working on a roadmap for the Personal Informatics movement (you'll find a quick summary of the emerging field below), which I'll post later this week. In the meantime, as readers of my site (i.e. people who actively improve themselves, either via productivity or more generally) I'm sure many of you are already tracking data about yourselves. I would love to know about what personal data you have coming in, and how you use it. (Well, not too personal ;-) The topic is all categories about the human condition, such as health (diet, sleep, mood, medicine), relationships (friends, family, dating), work (I shared a bunch of productivity ones in Micro-Experiments), finances, parenting, and so on.

So please share: What are you tracking? Why? Did you have any insights about yourself? What kinds of changes did you experience? How sure are you that what you did caused the changes? Would you recommend what you tried?

In my case, a few that I've tried include time tracking (Daily Planning and Time Blocking), diet (using a version of The Hacker's Diet), mood, and mental interruptions (during the day I ticked off every time I was drawn off-task).

Happy tracking!

An Incomplete Summary of Personal Informatics

I'll give this a whirlwind treatment, though the topic deserves a better description. Disclaimer: I'm biased. I see tremendous potential here for self-improvement (especially via small steps - it's why I wrote You Did WHAT? 99 Playful Experiments To Live Healthier And Happier), and for leveraging social media to help each other. There are gaps and missed opportunities (next post), but I think this is big.

Briefly, the personal data movement involves recording quantitative information about ourselves with the rough goal being: data collection -> personal insights -> individual behavior change -> collective societal improvements. This is happening now due to an intersection of new tools, mobile technology, and ubiquitous connectivity. Of course people have been tracking things about themselves for ages (as long as there's been writing, I suspect), with a more modern example being Benjamin Franklin's tracking of his virtues during his week.

Surprisingly there's no Wikipedia article for it (though there is one for Omphaloskepsis), so the best starting point is two articles, The New Examined Life and Know Thyself: Tracking Every Facet of Life, from Sleep to Mood to Pain.

For tools and sites, there are too many to mention. I know of two general ones for tracking and visualizing personal data (Mycrocosm and Daytum), one blog (The Quantified Self - know any others?), and a ton of sites that support specific (I'll call them "vertical") areas of life. Following are a few:

MyMonthlyCycles (menstrual cycles)
Trixie Tracker (infant feeding schedules)
Bedpost (sex)
CureTogether (medical conditions)
Tweetwhatyoueat (diet)
Academic Ladder (scholarly writing)
Nike + iPod (running)
Happy Factor (happiness)
Joe's Goals, stickK (habits & goals)
Mood Tracker (mood)

Question: How would you define this?

Did, Doing, To Do: Why your Past, Present, and Future Selves Need to Chat

matt — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:07:06 -0500

Who is going to control your destiny, the "past you" or the "present you?" [1]

Recently I've been drawn to the notion of how our actions are informed by our past, and how they impact our future. I've particularly found it helpful to think of myself as three people: my Past Self, Present Self, and Future Self. I haven't found a solid reference for this from psychology (I'm sure it's out there [2]), but I want to share my thinking, and to get your impressions.

The perspective I'm trying for is that of asking how well we treat them. What if someone could hear your conversations? Would they think you're a saint? A genius? A jerk? Let me give it a shot.

Talking to your Past Self

I can think of three reasons to visit the past: Nostalgia, self-esteem, and insight.

If a thought from the past gives you pleasure, then naturally spend some time with it. Well-made memories are a treasure. But limit yourself; the past is over. Treat those memories as something you take off the shelf, savor, then put back with respect. Warning sign: "That was the highlight of my life."

To treat your past self well, honor her. She did hard work to get you here, after all. Celebrate how courageous you were, how much you experimented and tried. No one else could have done it.

That said, I believe the highest use of the past is to learn, that is, to chew up experiences that turn your present self into an improved future one (more loving, smarter, or kinder, say). Productive use of the past is via debriefs (pointers in Personal Lessons Learned In 2008) and analyzing and capturing lessons learned. Hard-earned experience without capture and reflection is waste.

A special challenge I face in my relationship with the past is around doubt. Second-guessing your Past Self with questions like "Why did I do that?" or "Did I do the right thing?" is toxic and unproductive. It's disrespectful. To combat this, renew trust that you made the best choice given current information. Blaming our past selves for not knowing what we know now - for not knowing the future, in other words - is absurd. A constructive way to handle these thoughts is to detach a bit from that person. He tried something (hear hear!) and got some information. It's your job to integrate that. Be grateful.

Talking to your Present Self

Clearly most mental effort should be in the present. Do you agree? It stands to reason - this moment is your only decision point [3], your only chance to affect the future. This is when you put your lessons learned into play through enlightened choice. You know that list of tasks your Past Self created? Work them. You see that blocked out project time on your calendar? Use it.

Watch your task appetite, though. You want it all (that's human nature), and you can only do one thing at a time (that's human circuitry), but take care how much you defer to your future self - it's easy to overload that person coming up.

This is also your sole chance to celebrate your accomplishments. Zipping right past them without giving a little cheer is a lost opportunity for happiness. Come on - you rocked! Warning sign: A culture that asks "What's next? Let's keep moving, people!" without pausing. "The best is yet to come" might tell you something too.

Reflection takes place here. This is when you connect where you planned to be, what your current goals are, and what new actions will take you there.

Finally, watch your self-talk. This is probably the most common self-help concept on the planet, but I honestly haven't found a book or idea that's been helpful. A popular one is Shad Helmstetter's What to Say When you Talk To Yourself. Any suggestions?

Talking to your Future Self

A final crucial activity is how you prepare your Future Self. What kind of gifts can you give? I admit it - I love this category. I'm an information collector and prospector. I capture all but the tiniest tidbit that might be valuable. News stories, interesting phrases, cool job descriptions, and especially blog ideas, product ideas, and new ways to help clients. Yum!

For productivity, pay attention to planning (see Simple Project Planning For Individuals: A Round-up). Look ahead in your calendar to see what you might need for all the projects coming his way, and pave the way. Do this by working back from due dates and working out hours needed to accomplish each one on time. Consider blocking out time for specific ones, as I described in Testing The Classics: A Time Management Experiment: Time Blocking. He will thank you, trust me.

Books deserve a special mention. They're an investment and a resource for when the time comes for needing that knowledge. I know that I can't know it all (anti-knowledge is a strength), and these books represent an act of faith that my future self will need them some day. It's a kind of preparation for the unknown, I suppose. Much more in On Keeping An Umberto Eco-like Anti-Library, especially in the incredibly insightful comments.

A practical note: Preparations can save yourself a ton of work. For example, my internet connection went out at home. It was frustrating, especially due to poor timing. After the standard stages - denial, anger, etc., I consulted my notes from the last time it happened [4], and fixed it in 5 minutes! Hooray past self!

To enable these conversations, keep a log of what you did, decisions made (see A Key To Continuous Learning: Keep A Decision Log), and your thinking at the time. This journal is what you'll mine for insights.

Wrap-up

What do you think? What are your tricks and methods for working with yourselves? I'm curious!

References

[1] From Seize the Day!: How to Best Use What Can't Be Replaced - Time by Michael F. Woolery.
[2] Do you have a good reference for this perspective? The best ones I could find weren't great hits. They are: The One Self and the Many Selves, Exploring Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future, Handbook of Imagination and Mental Simulation, and Possible Selves (the latter two Google Book previews). Perhaps most interesting (if tangential) is Genograms: "Seeing the family in its historical perspective involves linking past, present, and future and noting the family's flexibility in adapting to changes." Check out Genograms: Assessment and Intervention. Page 65, Genogram 3.2 shows Bill Clinton's Family. What engineer wouldn't love such a diagram?
[3] The Mission Control people call this a "Series of Nows" - see A GTD-er's Perspective On Mission Control's "Productivity And Accomplishment" Workshop.
[4] Don't have a good note-taking flow or filing chops? Give me a call!

The Beginner's Mind Operationalized: Cut-Throat!

matt — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:36:17 -0500

(In a big departure this week I'm going to risk sharing an experience I had a few months ago. I was playing "cut-throat" racquetball [1] for the first time with two friends, and had a Think, Try, Learn breakthrough. I humbly submit my unedited journal entry from this experience. Have you had any similar experiences? Share! -- matt)

A HUGE, formative experience today seeing the methods in action playing the three-man version of racquetball called "cut throat". I had the absolutely best time of my life. I was able to enter the experience with an experimental attitude: "This is an experiment! I'm new to it, I don't know what the game is, how it's played, or any strategy. I am happily ignorant."

We started with my two partners who are experienced with the game explaining the rules and game play. It took me a little while to understand, but my attitude was to not get too wrapped up in remembering everything at the outset. I trusted that I'd learn as we went along. This was major shift in attitude for me. Previously I would have been pretty uptight about not knowing the rules, but this was much lighter.

Then we started to play, and I was very successful in observing myself with affection as I learned the game. I savored my little successes, such as returning a tough shot or succeeding in the (counter-intuitive) technique of hitting the ball off the *back* glass all the way to the front. It was a blast! At one point I had some concern that I was being *too* playful with it and not being serious enough for my partners, but they were patient and understanding, which I was grateful for. Later they told me they enjoyed sharing my delight during the games.

Compare this to how this would have been for me in the past. First, I would have had an expectation of performance, which would have set me up for judging the endeavour's success based on a completely inappropriate measure. I was a beginner, after all. I would have been happy only with successes that I wasn't able to achieve except by luck! Most of the game would have been a series of frustrations.

Additionally, I would have been fixated on winning. Again, this measure is but one of many I could have chosen - perhaps the worst one if my goal was to enjoy the process, rather than counting points. Again, the judgement is disconnected - is *channeled* - into something highly positive: reveling it what *is*. Instead, I was able to appreciate my performance based on my improvement DURING THE GAME. My learning was that fast, that intense. Yes, my partners ended up with far more points than me, but I still had a fantastic time. And hey, I got some points myself, and made them earn theirs a few times.

Regarding my partners, my view would probably have been *oppositional*. They would have been obstacles to my success, based on my measurement of it. Instead, I looked at them as guides. They gave a little helpful advice, complimented me on good plays, and got to enjoy their relatively high level of skill and performance. My perspective enabled my sincerely appreciating their ability to play the game so well. This is far more positive than feeling envy or jealousy.

I respected my own bit of courage in trying something new. When we think of children trying new things - my daughter trying basketball - we sometimes take it for granted. After all, they're *always* trying something new. But it's easy to be tough on ourselves as adults in the same situation. Partly this is due to our having mastered so much, we're not comfortable being beginners. But why?... This is more "Let's see what I can do!" than "How good am I?"

Overall this is the beginner's mind operationalized - a mindset and methods to switch into this mode for something new, and it was amazing. This is very different from hearing the ideas - "beginner's mind", "mindful", "present", etc. Here I was experiencing it with child-like joy, and all because I treated it like an experiment. Maybe one way to put it is that I structured my thinking to avoid the >>constraints of expectation<<. I was able to relish my being brand new to it - something that can only happen once for each endeavour. it's like your first kiss; you want to be fully in it because it'll never be as fresh

References

[1] See Wikipedia's Racquetball article and Cutthroat Racquetball at Racquetball for Beginners.

IdeaLab: Risky performance, kill your Netflix, and don't be so certain

matt — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:46:25 -0500

These last few weeks have been nutty as I implement my workship plans (see Testing The Classics: A Time Management Experiment: Time Blocking), so I'm going to cheat and share some quick bits I've been collecting on Twitter. Comments?

Should every performance be an experiment? It depends. If you are beta-testing new ideas, then yes, experimentation is important. It's also risky. However, for mature performances, less experimentation makes sense. But with minimal experimentation comes complacency.
Want more time, more money, & less stress? Cancel Netflix. Why less stress? Mostly it's the burden of "I've bought it I have to use it." (Question: What's the economic term for this?) I also found myself frequently searching for instant selections that looked appealing. I ended up lowering my standards a lot to match what I found.
Time management tips from 2nd grade girls softball: a) 2x2: Swings hard vs. Connects. Depends on success rate. Either wasteful or amazing. b) Waits until last minute then swings fast: No planning, pure reaction. OK if intentional and tactical. Terrible if strategic and avoidable.
Twitter navel-gazing: More than anything else, Twitter's value is as an excuse to make conversations.
Good Enough is hard to swallow. Good Enough is medicine for perfectionism. It's a reverse application of Parkinson's law. But man it's tough to let go of wanting it just right.
Uncertainty is a function of experience.
The unknowns always happen at the end of projects, not at the start. To protect against this, constantly test, and keep your iterations tight. (Credit to my TTL collaborator Liza.)
Honest but bad: Actual response from submitting a request to a city library: "Our response may be fairly rapid or it may take us many weeks or months to respond." While they're trying to help, this isn't specific enough to matter. Basically it means "Don't depend on anything from us," i.e., they might be a black hole. I'll phone them instead.
Divergent and convergent phases have their own energy. Continuing the diverge/converge cycles idea, divergence courts discovery, while convergence witnesses birth. Where are you in your projects now?
Every warning sign has an interesting story. Don't feed the animals. Bridges freeze before roads. Patient loading and unloading zone.
Before jumping into a response, ask yourself, "How big a deal do I want to make of this?" Some things simply aren't worth it.
Did you work two days straight on one project? Why was that necessary?
Amount of time I spend in my outliner: 45%? In browser: 45%? You?
How do you know what you did actually WORKED? Or didn't. Did you measure it?
Certainty is dangerous. (Ask Robert Burton). However, does faith = certainty?
The more audacious your goal, the more painful the process. You buy it?
Resist the urge to start over completely from scratch (2nd system syndrome). Most often it's better to evolve current version. Agree?
A reader asks if it's possible to eliminate keeping a master projects list. Well, yes, but it's essentially cheating: Keep a single actions list, but group them under projects (or "None"). This is merging the two, but it's a list trick - you're still maintaining two levels. (See Extreme GTD: How low can you go).
Don't be discouraged if you wind up at the same place again. You are not the same person as before; you know something new.
Relationships are projects. Not all, though.
Relationships are experiments. ""

Testing the classics: A Time Management Experiment: Time Blocking

matt — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:45:43 -0500

Nothing beats project anxiety like a plan. -- me :-)

You know me - I love experimenting on myself almost as much as on you. Or my clients. Kidding aside, I've studied many, many techniques to manage ourselves as we work, and a classic on is time blocking, AKA time mapping (see [1] for more). It's a simple idea: Schedule regular chunks of time with yourself for important tasks. The experiment I've tried for the last few weeks is applying it to three largish projects coming up (higher education workshops) with a relatively short timeline (less than a month). The advantage is it forced me to make steady progress on projects to prevent last minute scrambling, stress, and failure. The result: Worked great!

Following are the details, along with a few rules and caveats when time blocking.

(Updated 2009-06-08 to remove confusing project plan image.)

Planning and estimating

My first step was to get my head around all the work I'd committed to. The three workshop projects ranged in complexity from updating an existing full-day one, through adapting one for a shorter program, to creating a brand-new 90 minute one from scratch. I applied the planning ideas I'm developing (see Simple Project Planning For Individuals: A Round-up) and came up with the number of hours needed per project: 8, 12, and 18 hours, respectively. I tried to be conservative in my estimates, but ultimately only time would tell (uncertainty is a function of experience).

I then calculated the number of days available for each project from the day I started: 15, 24, and 19 workdays, respectively. Thus, to stay sane and on-target I needed to spend the following time every day for the next four weeks: 1/2 hour/day, 1/2 hour/day, and 1 hour/day. In other words, because of my (happily) agreeing to take on the jobs, I'd committed to working on these three projects 2 hours EVERY DAY. That was a shock.

Implementing

The next step was to simply create repeating entries in my calendar for the three blocks. Here's a screenshot from iCal for a typical week. (Note: Not all client work is shown in this view.) What you should focus on is the orange chunks.

You'll notice a couple of things. First, while they were all initially scheduled for the same time each day (in the morning - my prime time), you see that they've been moved. This was the first thing I learned - my life is unpredictable and varying enough that planned times don't always meet reality. So I adapted by negotiating with myself and pushing them down. I'm sure you see the possible problem: Pushing them completely off the bottom, i.e., not getting some done. I found I was consistently able to honor my commitment to myself (a zero tolerance rule), but this meant working late some nights - part of the deal of being a self-employed parent.

One novel thing I did that was helpful was using each block as a project accountability record. I did this by simply editing each appointment after finishing it by adding a short description of what I got done. This kept me honest. This little record-keeping didn't replace my full project plan. Like all my projects, that was captured and tracked in each project's outline.

Finally, if when I was deep in the flow I extended the time beyond what I'd allotted. The rule, though, was no borrowing from the others! This information was useful in after-action project analyses, esp. in answering, "How did estimated and actual compare?"

Wrap-up, Questions, and Challenge

Though I've tried smaller versions of this, overall the experiment validated this approach, and I'll continue recommending it to clients.

I'm curious: Have you (or do you) used this for yourself? For what projects does it work best? What have you learned that you'd like to share?

If you haven't yet tried time blocking, I'd like to challenge you to give it a spin on your next new project. Call or email me if you'd like help. I'd love to hear how it goes. Cheers!

References

[1] See Time Design ("consistently setting aside time for high priority activities") or Julie Morgenstern ("allotting specific spaces in your schedule for tending to the various core activities of your life").

I know about you! (I think)

matt — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:40:45 -0500

What I like about you,
you hold me tight.
Tell me I'm the only one,
wanna come over tonight

(With apologies to YouTube - The Romantics)

The results are in from the fabulous IdeaMatt survey [1]. A big congratulations to the 12 lucky winners; enjoy your Amazon booty!

At the risk of making sweeping overgeneralizations, I will tell you a bit about yourself based on my sample, and how I plan on changing (or not) as a result. Let me know if this sounds like you.

What you do: You do all kinds of work [2], in all sizes of organizations, with a correspondingly wide range of responsibilities. I'll continue to keep the ideas I write about generally applicable.
Primary interests: The message was clear: By far, topics on productivity are most interesting to you. In addition you like inspiration, book recommendations, self-improvement, and general "unstick/made me think" posts. I'll make a renewed emphasis on time management. At the same time, I'll continue weaving in my Think, Try, Learn perspective to productivity, and more broadly to self-development and living.
Post length and frequency: For the most part you're happy with both. Of course it may be that those who didn't like what one reader called "deep dives" have stopped reading, but I can't help that. For my own time management sanity I'll work on getting posts more concise.
Productivity challenges: You've pretty much got your act together, productivity-wise. Can I take credit for that? A little, maybe :-) Some exceptions seem especially to be procrastination and work-life balance, accompanied by: clutter, concentration, information overload, interruptions, personal information management, perfectionism, goals, and team productivity.
Products of interest: You are interested in buying:
- Books ("The Productivity Missing Manual," "Think, Try, Learn: A scientific method for discovering happiness" - $20 range),
- Informational Guides & How-Tos ($5-$10 range), and
- Workbooks & Courses ($25-$100 range)
A smaller portion of you found appealing a Micro-Blog Subscription published throughout the day ($5/month range). In the near future look for my Engineer-Approved, No Woo-Woo Guide to Solving Procrastination (working title :-) along with other unique productivity-minded goodies.
Services of interest: While some of you were interested in one-on-one desk-side consulting, most of you preferred my virtual offerings, including:
- Facilitated book study group (read, discuss, and apply ideas from influential top authors),
- Productivity mastermind group (weekly conference call. discuss productivity practices, share and learn from fellow members),
- 6-week Individual programs (Daily Planning, Goals-to-Action Reconnect, Media Diet, Procrastination Experiments),
- Rent Matt's Brain (targeted thinking and brainstorming for your project),
- 6-week Group programs (Project Planning Boot Camp, Workflow Self Study, Work Audit), and
- Executive coaching (3, 6, and 12 month programs for building a sustainable practice)
Make sure to let me know if you're excited to start one of these right away. I can have any of them ready within the next 6-8 weeks, some sooner.

Thanks again for your feedback. As aways, I love to hear your comments.

References

[1] See Make This Blog ROCK: Take A Quick Survey. You Could Win A Prize!
[2] Sample job titles: Research Executive, Clinical Physicist, MD, Consultant, Attorney, Senior Pastor, Parent Educator, Sr. Architect, IT Manager, and Owner & Artist.

New! Matt's Guides: You Did WHAT? 99 Playful experiments to live healthier and happier

matt — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:07:17 -0500

I am delighted to announce the first in my series of productivity and living guides, You Did WHAT? 99 Playful experiments to live a healthier and happier life. While there will be plenty of productivity ones coming soon (including a forthcoming one on procrastination), this one popped out first. (As Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art, "But the muse had me. I had to do it.")

This one is my guide to small activities you can easily try that help you be more engaged with your world. Unlike other books on improving your life, our approach uses small observations to foster change naturally through awareness.

The book starts with an essay introducing our unique perspective on treating life as an experiment, details the procedure for how to run them (including managing your experimenter's notebook and celebrating your results), and then lists 99 of them grouped by topic - Mindset, Emotions, Relationships, Being present, Community, Just for fun, Health, and Work.

Here's a sneak peek of a bonus one from the financial realm:

Saving Money: For one month count the times you eat out at a restaurant. Don't worry about changing your behavior, just tally them up. Afterwards, look at the final numbers. Did the total surprise you? Did you become more aware of the cost? Did you find yourself thinking about whether to instead eat at home? Were there any patterns you could discern?

I invite you to buy a copy, and to feel free to share your stories [1] with me. Cheers!

You Did WHAT?

99 Playful experiments to live a healthier and happier life

Downloadable PDF
Price $9

References

[1] As an aside, our site thinktrylearn.com is on hold while we finish up our first prototype of edison, our experimenter's log that will let you track the experiments you start, make observations rapidly via your cell phone, and share what you discovered with others. On top of that will be a large self-help repository documenting the major ideas and techniques for personal development, along with suggested experiments. We'll tag each with categories like productivity ("Does GTD work?" "For who?" "For how long?"), health ("What diets have others had success with?"), personal development, etc. Finally, we'll ultimately have a statistical AI layer on top that will act as a guide to answering the question, What methods have most helped people like me? Overall this TTL PLATFORM will replace the current "search engine" mode of getting help (1. Search a massive self help section. 2. Find a thousand possibly-related pages. 3. Wander through the top hits on your own. 4. Maybe try some, probably with no careful testing. Etc.) Instead, our approach will be a more personal (and scientific!) one, based on trusted guidance and empirical results. More as it progresses!

ExperimentLab follow-up: That's not MY garbage. Or is it?

matt — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:21:45 -0500

Our last ExperimentLab was That's Not MY Garbage. Or Is It? where you picked up someone else's garbage. I'd love to know: How did it go?

Sometimes laser, sometimes blind: How natural converge/diverge cycles explain progress

matt — Sat, 16 May 2009 10:32:54 -0500

(Reminder: There's still time to take my survey and help make this blog work better for you. Not to mention getting to enter to win an Amazon gift certificate :-) Click here to get started. I'd sure appreciate it!

As I continue developing my consulting practice and simultaneously move my Think, Try, Learn (TTL) philosophy ahead, I've seen an important cycle I want to share with you. This comes up because sometimes during projects I'm frustrated when I don't feel like I'm getting traction. Some examples of when this happened/is happening: Writing the TTL book, creating new workshops, building the TTL platform, getting a handle on productivity metrics (see How Do You Measure Personal Productivity?), defining my blog's topics and style, and deciding my consulting market. What was going on?

After observing this multiple times I realized there's a natural cycle when doing something new, and I've come to think of it in two stages - divergence and convergence. I don't have all the answers, but I'll give it a go.

Divergent thinking happens when you're getting your head around the thing - groping in the dark, if you will. Indicators: Feeling of no clear direction, trying wildly different approaches, taking (appropriate!) risks, making lots of mis-starts, and generally learning a hell of a lot.

Convergent thinking is when you've got enough from the divergent phase to laser in. This is when it clicks, you have an insight, and your energy changes from discovery to direction.

Have you experienced this yourself? For me, a few questions came up:

How do I know when I'm in one?
How can I enjoy my time in each?
When is it time to move between?

My thinking follows.

How do I know when I'm in one?

To identify where you are in the cycle, I've identified some characteristics of each. (A tip of the hat to Anne McGee-Cooper's Time Management for Unmanageable People. Her ideas about divergent and convergent personalities with respect to productivity have been influential.)

Aspect	Diverging	Converging
Learning curve	Steep	Shallow
Tangible output	Lower	Higher
Structure	Low	High
Discomfort	Low	High
Direction	Unclear	Clear
Certainty	Low	High
Perspective	Breadth	Depth
Attention type	Radio telescope	Laser
Expansion	One to many	Many to one
Process	Intuitive	Logical

How can I enjoy my time in each?

While you may be different, what's hardest for me is gracefully manage divergence. My urge to know the answer overwhelms enjoying the process, and I despair. I found it helps to be gentle with myself, to capture everything I try and learn, and to realize that this is something that cannot be skipped. It's the ticket that gets you in the door of originality. Can it be frustrating? Absolutely. But you can get relief by letting go of expectations (where you think you should be instead of where you are) and by appreciating how much you are learning. Finally, realize by definition that you probably weren't ready to do something different.

For the convergent phase, this is a time to focus and bring it into being. Use good self-management tools (I can help) and keep in mind that ideation is relatively easy, but fewer people have the skills and determination to make it real.

Both phases take courage, so be proud that you've put yourself into this position. Remember, when you're doing something original there are no shortcuts.

When is it time to move between?

The cheap answer is "You'll know when the time is right." But like any cliche, it is meaningful when you experience it, but unfortunately it's descriptive, not procedural. Here are a few tips: Converge when you've seen just enough - don't be a perfectionist and think you need to know it all. Ask whether you've grabbed ahold of the big pieces, and trust that the rest will come when necessary.

Diverge when you're stuck or need inspiration. Don't push, get broad. Do not worry, you'll be back.

Note that in the same project you can have a back-and-forth between the two. It's why in TTL we talk about "Iterations, recursions, interleavings, and orderings" (see How Do You Treat Life As An Experiment?)

I'm really curious:

What do you think about this?
Where else have you seen this described?
Have you experienced times in your life when you were more comfortable with one over the other?
Where else does this natural cycle come into play?

Make this blog ROCK: Take a quick survey. You could win a prize!

matt — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:32:33 -0500

I'm working to make this blog a better experience for you, and you can help tremendously by taking a quick survey. It'll take about 10 minutes, and at the end you can enter to win one of a dozen $10 USD Amazon gift certificates I'm giving away. I'll leave it open for ten days, so click here to get started!