Ira Glass on the Taste Gap

These youtube videos by Ira Glass of the glorious radio show This American
Life make up one of the most inspiring 12 minutes I've ever seen:

http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/2007/02/ira-glass-on-storytelling.html

The biggest revelation was this one, in Glass-speak which I have
painstakingly transcribed (because I love it):

"there's a gap - that for the first couple of years that you're making
stuff, what you're making isn't so good, ok, it's not that great. It's
trying to be good, but it's really not that good. But your *taste*, the
thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your
taste is still so good that you can tell that what you're making is kind
of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? Like you can tell that
it's still sort of crappy. A lot people never get past that phase, a lot
of people at that point they quit. And the thing I would just like to say
to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know, who does
interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they
had really good taste and they knew what they were making wasn't as good
as they wanted it to be. They fell short...

You gotta know that it's totally normal, and the most important possible
thing that you can do, is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put
yourself on a deadline so you know that every week, every month you're
going to finish one story, whatever it's going to be.... it's only by
doing a volume of work that you're going to catch up, that you're going to
close that gap and the work you're making will be as good as your
ambitions."

And then, god bless him, he plays an old, embarassing tape of himself on
the radio, to make the point of how after *8 years* working at it he was
still pretty bad. And yet, eventually, he *got* it.

The Weekly Review

This is such an essential part of how I work now that when I miss it for
some reason I feel a sense of confusion and anxiety. However when I do
complete it I feel just the opposite.

Like most of the revolutionary changes in my habits over the last 16
months, this is from Getting Things Done. But this one is the motor that
powers everything else about the system. Basically all the lists I use in
my daily work get updated and cleaned up, and so do all the papers and
objects in my working area.

I block out early friday afternoons for this - recommended because if the
process turns up something urgent then you can still catch people at work.
I have to make sure to allow no less than 2 full hours. The fact that I've
missed no more than a handful of weekly reviews in the last year - in the
middle of a work day on a typically busy week, all through writing my
thesis - speaks to how critical it's become.

So what it involves is going down a checklist that I made in Microsoft
Word and print out each time. I changed it around a lot at the beginning,
but now it's pretty much stabilized. Here's the short version, of the
absolutely key parts of my weekly review:

* Dumping my pockets, backpack, and desk clutter into my inbox (this step
is great - today I realized I've been carrying a loaf of bread in my
backpack to school and back for three days)
* Pruning all my to do lists
* Copy reminders and notes from my pocket index cards into my PDA
* For every project on my list, check out that the timetable is on track,
and figure out what is a visible, physical action I can do towards it to
put on a to do list.
* Process all my inboxes (more on this in future, but basically go through
every item one by one and put it away, chuck it, or do one step towards
dealing with it, until the inbox is empty)
* Go through my deferred work boxes, to make sure nothing is mouldering in
there
* Empty my garbage and recycling

My real list is much longer, since it's such a habit I can easily attach
more items to it that need to happen regularly - like making backups.

Interestingly, the emptying garbage & recycling is one of the best
results. There's an insidious bit of mental resistance to getting rid of
something if you have a full recycling box, and fixing that alone can help
organization a lot.

When this is all done, my desk is clean and clear. Everything is in its
place. In the words of my favourite kids book, Rhyme and reason reign once
more, sense and sanity prevail. And not just physically, I know that my
projects are mentally in order, since I've looked at them and their
deadlines and figured out what the next step is for each. I can leave to
enjoy my saturday with a lightness in my step.

Magpieing: How my collectors work

I had this image of like a giant bin I could carry along with me, like an
apple-pickers sack if you've seen one of those, and I could pick out and
collect all the shiny and fascinating things I heard or saw or thought of
and toss them in the hopper to be saved for good. Because I'd been
thinking about the problems of creativity, how many ideas you come across
in a day and forget about, and also how people manage to think of the
perfect quotation to head their book chapter, or give weight or wit to a
best-man's speech. Certain people must have found a way to build their
private hoards, like a magpie.

So about a year ago I discovered that I can comfortably sit on five
ordinary index cards in my back pocket, along with a pen clipped on the
outward side. As people who've hung out with me lately know, I can whip my
stack of cards out at a moments notice to make a note. Quotations,
research ideas, to do items, upcoming events, people's names, all go on
those cards.

Then at least once a week I enter it all into my PDA and replenish with
fresh cards. This is a certain amount of work, and takes at least half an
hour a week, but I've found that it's totally worth it. It means that if
something comes up for me to work on in the future I can act on it
immediately, making a note, rather than attempting to mentally store it
away. It's nearly perfect in its capturing of book recommendations,
projects to try someday maybe, and events around town. But it's really
changed things in how it lets me save random inspirations I have
throughout the day. For instance I will share with you this one, from last
month:

"The fantasy of an edible world, made of candy or chocolate. Does that
mean on some level we'd really like to bite everything we see?"

Ok they're not all gold. But that's the great part: good or bad, it's out
of my head and down on paper, freeing up space for the next idea to come
along. As David Brooks says, "your brain is a great place to have ideas,
but not to store them."

Why index cards and not directly into my PDA? Well it's slightly less rude
to be writing on an index card, since people might think I was checking
email (even though my Palm was manufactured during the Clinton
administration). I'd take them places I wouldn't take my palm. But the big
point is just that little bit of extra time to write using the touch
screen could mean just enough resistance for me to decide to be lazy and
skip this one (pretending that I'll write it later). It's got to feel
pretty much automatic.

The quotation collector is working great too, already giving me a glorious
heap of endlessly ponderable thoughts, like this one also from April:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend
to be." -Kurt Vonnegut

This is what sold me on the PDA in the first place: a practically
unlimited storage space for bits of text and lists (and searchable!).
Paper just won't do for a permanent storage medium for this, because it
inspires rationing and stinginess: it should be ok to have one month where
I collect and store *a thousand* quotes - maybe even all from the same
source if you really hit a vein. In the realm of digitized text it's ok to
be a packrat.

The funnest part of it I'm finding are the lists that aren't so essential,
but come along with the rest for free. Without them I would have already
forgotten my enjoyment of the words chthonic, paragon, chirality and imbue
last month (in the Words list). And my unexpected favourite is a list I've
been keeping of Phrases, funny, catchy or interesting strings of words
that have caught my ear. They come from rap songs, newspaper headlines,
advertising, the web, tv shows, comedy routines, overheard conversations,
spam, and my own brain. Keep in mind while reading this list is that I
made no special effort to notice these in April, and by just emptying my
collectors this list essentially made itself. (please see me about
permission if you wish to use one of these for your band name)

2007 April
fill your boots
haplessness, hype and hypnosis
You can allure femme covert?
fleeing inmates seldom analyze the consequences
If it wasn't for disappointments, I wouldn't have any appointments
Desperate lark
A flying screamer, and a crasher too
All persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
accidents in a very busy place
Shields up, lock the door and keep your dukes up
We're all concerned about how gross you look.
looking like you just got diagnosed with cancer of the puppy
spurty knowledge
the only way out is through
two-story outhouse
If this isn't nice, what is? (I don't know what is)
The first of your many reverse masterstrokes
The weather is not trippy, perhaps it is the way we perceive it that is
indeed trippy...
Who will survive, and what will be left of them?
I believe in an eye for a tooth and a tooth for an eye. I like to mix it
up like that.
Reincarnation is making a comeback
Kittenball
Feeling dangerously well
Pick up your whiskers
This teetering bulb of dread and dream - Edson
Soul shards
Dessert in motion
fast snails
That's where I'm a viking
I like people with big egos. They remind me of me.
If you're going to laugh about something in 5 years, you might as well
laugh about it now.
Love not given lightly
SCIENTIFIC PROOF THAT I'M JESUS CHRIST AND GOD
Designated mammal
Hasta la bye bye
Now he walks through his sunken dream
Even the blues gets the blues

(I wrote that last one down in the middle of the night, and I have no
idea what it means. Any thoughts?)

How To Get Things Done With No Deadline

From the wonderful and inspiring blog by famed Buffy writer Jane Espenson,
some advice about how to finish projects regularly without setting
yourself artificial deadlines - which rarely work for me, so the job ends
up expanding to fill the time allotted for it:

"Well, save me from myself, because the answer seems to be: take on
another project. Suddenly, that distant deadline looks a lot closer,
doesn't it? Because I know there's that other thing that also has to get
done in the same amount of time. Now I'm working -- fast, smoothly,
without a lot of hand-wringing and pacing. Just writin' without thinkin'.

My father always says 'give the job to the busy person.' He means that the
reason that the busy person has so much work on their desk is because
everyone knows that they're the one who will get it done. There's a lot to
be said for making yourself the busy person."

http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000204.php

This idea makes me feel a little scared, even gives me that sensation in
my gut remembering what it can be like to be overwhelmed with commitments.
And yet I think there's wisdom there. As I greatly improve my organization
and hence ability to manage multiple projects, I actually find I *want* to
take on more. For instance, becoming the VP of education of Queen's
Toastmasters. In general, these projects are getting done - largely
because I see the other ones lined up behind them.

Zooming In

I've been working at getting good at projects that require a lot of tiny
errands that have to be done at specific times and places, like doing my
taxes. So getting things done smoothly without a lot of mental effort. But
when it comes down to it, there are certain projects that just demand
extended concentration - and those include any project that really takes
creativity. I've just read two articles, one in Time and one in Walrus,
about how harmful multitasking turns out to be, and I think they mean this
kind of project.

So I think of it as "zooming in" on a task, an image I like because it
includes the most important part: excluding things that are outside the
focus of the task. To do good writing, for instance, it really seems like
I have to have pushed other things out of my mind - and off my desk. Off
the desk is easy, I just dump everything in my inbox (or file it away if I
want). Then thanks to my Zillion Folder Filing system, I can have a folder
in front of me with *just* the things that are relevant to that project.
Often it helps to grab a fresh piece of paper.

Clearing a space mentally is harder. When you've got half a dozen
deadlines or undone tasks - even other parts of the same project - nagging
at your mind, it gets hard to concentrate for more than 10 consecutive
seconds. The only solution I've found is better time management. You have
to be sure that you have *plenty* of time to focus on this one thing, and
nothing else. That means budgetting that uninterruptable time, at least an
hour usually, and making *hard barriers* on either side of that time to
stop other tasks from seeping in, even if they are urgent. Often for that
to happen I have to make sure I've decided when those things *are* going
to get done. This is why I try to always block out my day the night
before: "project A before lunch, and not even thinking about project B
until after lunch"

Of course the other thing that can prevent focus sometimes are other, more
emotional issues: guilt, insecurity, all those negative inner voices.
Those can be reflective of bigger things than the scope of this blog, but
two quick strategies that sometimes work: arguing with those voices, in
writing (what the psychologist Martin Seligman calls disputation); and
sometimes when I can't actually do the work, I can *plan* the work - as in
the tactic I read somewhere of pretending you've given up on the task, but
you have to write a detailed list of instructions for what the person who
*is* going to finish it needs to do.

The Ten Year Rule

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945

Fascinating article about the psychological concept of chunking, and how
it takes about 10 years of hard work in any area to become a master of
that area:

"Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but 'effortful
study,' which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond
one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens
of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument
without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained
student can overtake them in a relatively short time."

That fits in well with my maxim of "experience alone is a poor teacher" -
that you need continual feedback and consideration, as well as always
pushing yourself further, to benefit from experience. I've seen how it's
possible to get good incredibly fast if these conditions are met. Which
gives me hope for all the abilities I haven't even started trying to
master...

I found the link on a great screenwriting blog by Alex Epstein, at

http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2006/08/push-envelope.html, who
adds about the process of chunking:

I think I do that, in my field. When I have a screenplay in my head, I
sort of "feel" it. I don't think in terms of beats, though beats are what
I write down. I think in terms of story structures. In other words I don't
see a beginning, a middle, and an end; I see a beginning-middle-and-end
that all go together... Comedians do the same thing. Ken Levine wrote in
one of his posts about how Jim Brooks [of the Simpsons!] would come up
with entire pages of dialog on the spot. It wasn't that he was having one
insight after another. He had ONE BIG INSIGHT that gave him the whole run
of jokes.

The Emergency Break Glass Kit

Sometimes you just know you're about to waste a whole afternoon. You've got time, but you're feeling so groggy or unmotivated or indecisive that you know those hours are going to slip away. For times like that, I envisioned an emergency kit that you would break the glass on with a little hammer, and it would contain all the things you need to get energized and accomplish at least *one* thing.

Maybe I'll make that someday, but what is almost as good and that I make use of every so often is this list of commands for me to follow, unthinkingly, when I find myself in that predicament:

1. Have a snack (I keep protein bars in my desk)
2. Drink a short can of cola (ditto)
3. Sweep everything on my desk into my inbox (sometimes mere clutter slows me to a halt)
4. Take out a blank piece of paper and write down the name of 1 project to make progress on for 2 hours solid. (having too many projects vying for my attention can also be a source of paralysis)
5. Brainstorm all the ways I can make progress on this project
6. Pick one of those ways, decide what the next simple, physical action would be towards that. If the task is an unpleasant one, launch web browser and do 10 and 2s.
7. Two hours later, go home!

For a while I was trying to make something out of a shoebox, that would contain the pop and protein bar, and these instructions. I still want to someday. What would you put in your emergency kit? Some other suggestions for what might go in:

* A cd burned with high energy music
* A map to go take a walk
* Inspirational phrases
* Step by step list of exercises
* Smokebombs. Because those are always handy.

Saturdays Are Off

I take saturdays completely off. I might take the evenings of a few other days off, but saturdays I *have* to take off. Jim Davies, a hardworking, successful cognitive scientist, showed me how this works; definitely read about his philosophy here. It struck a chord with me because I'd read a Garison Keillor advice column years ago about a man who was being driven almost to insanity, on the tenth year of his PhD, stressed out every single day and yet no longer making any progress at all. "Mr. Blue" advised him to take one day completely off, to reconnect with life and at least briefly lift the burden of his career worries.

So that's what I've done every week for about 10 months now. I kept it up all through the writing of my masters thesis, through many other scary deadlines, breaking my rule only twice that I can remember and that was when I was just getting used to it. It *is* possible, and a glorious thing.

Some saturdays end up being about rest and self-indulgence, like spending most of it catching up on some tv show, but many are about having adventures and trying new things. What I've really come to treasure is the looseness of the day. Saturdays are for serendipity and digressions, randomly running into people and spending the next 3 hours hanging out. On saturdays my theme songs are "The 59th Bridge Song" by Simon and Garfunkel and Mr. Tambourine Man: "I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to."

Today was a great example. I slept in late after going dancing last night (friday nights are the other time that I almost always take off), then wandered downtown to get my hair cut. Afterwards I strolled on Princess St, as I often do of a saturday - it's the long main street in Kingston and offers constant interest in the form of shops and people. I lunched at a deli I'd never been in before, and tried a czechoslovakian pickle recommended by the counter lady. Then I went with Jamal and Michelle for a matinee of the ridiculous, wonderful spectacle of Ghost Rider. For dinner I ate enormous amounts of sushi served in a wooden boat with Meghan and Tyson. And now I'm writing in this blog. Soon I will watch an episode of Friday Night Lights, or read my book about Baltimore homicide detectives. All these things I do because I feel like them, without the tiniest bit of guilt or having any obligation to think about work once (although it's not uncommon that I get good ideas on my day off! That loose mindset is great for creativity)

I can justify this not just for my sanity, but for productivity. The flipside is that I put in a nearly-full day of work on sunday (often getting a slightly later start). It's nice and quiet in the office, completely free of distractions. Sunday is frequently my most productive day of the week. I used to have weekends that were two days where I could never fully enjoy myself and yet got hardly anything done. Instead I have a great time on saturdays, and on sundays get more done than I used to in two days - usually more than on any other day of the week.

Give it a try!

The Importance of Alone Time

Interesting advice from a cutting-edge web development company:

"When you have a long stretch when you aren't bothered, you can get in the
zone. The zone is when you are most productive. It's when you don't have
to mindshift between various tasks. It's when you aren't interrupted to
answer a question or look up something or send an email or answer an im.
The alone zone is where real progress is made.

Getting in the zone takes time. And that's why interruption is your enemy.
It's like rem sleep - you don't just go to rem sleep, you go to sleep
first and you make your way to rem. Any interruptions force you to start
over. rem is where the real sleep magic happens. The alone time zone is
where the real development magic happens.

Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one
can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first or the
last half of the day the alone time period. Just make sure this period is
contiguous in order to avoid productivity-killing interruptions.

A successful alone time period means letting go of communication
addiction. During alone time, give up instant messenging, phone calls, and
meetings. Avoid any email thread that's going to require an immediate
response. Just shut up and get to work."

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch07_Alone_Time.php

The Joy of Outboxes

I'm going to write a longer entry about the greatness of inboxes, but
something of immediate use is an outbox: a place you can immediately put
stuff in to be taken to the office, or from the office. The important
point is that it's got to be within arms reach. At work it's a plastic
tray, at home it's one side of the top of my dresser. When I leave either
location I automatically scoop what's in my outbox into my bag.

This works for the same reason as a lot of the things I've recently
adopted: it means I can act *immediately*, even thoughtlessly, when I
think of something I have to do - instead of making a mental note, which
a) often doesn't work and b) adds to stress as I have to keep reminding
myself over and over. Goes to my outbox, goes out of my head.

Swaying To The Top

"When the Bass brothers financed the first Biosphere, that earth in a
bubble out in Arizona, the trees all failed in an interesting way. All the
trees in the biosphere were droopy and lacked the strength to stand
upright. They grew, but were too weak to stand. They studied the problem
and found the answer. No wind. The Biosphere bubble lacked any wind so the
trees had nothing to make them sway. It was the swaying, pushing against
an invisible yet very palpable force, that gave them the strength to grow
upright, stand reaching up to the sky."
- reader of David Byrne's online journal

This is such a beautiful metaphor, and quoted on so many christian
websites, that I was afraid it would turn out not to be true. Not so. From
a transcript of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers:

ALAN ALDA You know what else I noticed that you don't seem to have- out in
this big open space, anyway- is wind.

BERND ZABEL That's correct.

ALAN ALDA That's a big element that's missing, isn't it?

BERND ZABEL Which causes a problem for these trees. When you look here,
these acacia trees, they have very funny forms. And what we found out
later on, that if a tree grows, to harden the tree it needs wind action.
Every time when a tree moves, it builds actually outside what is called a
stress wood.

ALAN ALDA So that strengthens the tree?

BERND ZABEL So it strengthens the tree. In our case here, the tree is
growing without any wind, without any disturbance, and it actually becomes
so top heavy that they break off.
- PBS Scientific American Frontiers

What's Your Learning Style?

I had the interesting experience today of filling out the Kolb Learning
Style Inventory, homework for my university teaching course. You answer 12
questions, and it gives you a readout on where you are along four learning
style dimensions. These are Active Experimentation, Active
Experimentation, Reflective observation, and Concrete experience. From
there they show how different combinations of strengths in these areas
make up different overall learning styles.

I only half buy this stuff (mindful of the Barnum effect and the often
unearned authority of things that have numbers attached to them), but it
has been a valuable experience calculating my own score and seeing what it
can say about me - as well as the alternatives to the way I learn. I turn
out to be a highly Converging learner, because of my Active
Experimentation and Abstract Conceptualization. Especially the latter was
really high, the result of ranking highly statements such as "When I learn
I like ideas and theories" and "When I am learning I am a logical person".
(big surprise)

Somewhat disturbingly, this learning style is thought to work best in
highly technical professions like economics, engineering and computer
science. The learning style of the scientist and mathematician is more
Assimilating (Reflective observation and Abstract Conceptualization) Could
knowing this help me to become more comfortable and affective as a
scientist, by developing my more Assimilitating side?

I recommend you give this a try if you have the chance. I feel that not
only will it help me to teach people with other learning styles and
appreciate their different strengths, it's made me think about what I can
do to take advantage of these other types of learning. Interestingly, some
foreign and awkward skills I am working at these days, like socializing at
parties and lifting weights properly, are probably really working those
underdeveloped learning styles. Kolb provides a semi-helpful table of
advice for what to try to improve on each style:

For Diverging (Reflective observation and Concrete experience)
* Being sensitive to people's feelings
* Being sensitive to values
* Listening with an open mind
* Gathering information
* Imagining the implications of ambiguous situations

For Assimilating (Reflective observation and Abstract Conceptualization)
* Organizing information
* Testing theories and ideas
* Building conceptual models
* Designing experiments
* Analyzing quantitative data

For Converging (Active Experimentation-Abstract Conceptualization)
* Creating new ways of thinking and doing
* Experimenting with new ideas
* Choosing the best solution
* Setting goals
* Making decisions

For Accomodating (Concrete experience and Active Experimentation)
* Committing yourself to objectives
* Seeking new opportunities
* Influencing and leading others
* Becoming personally involved
* Dealing with people