What You Do, You Become#
| Field | Label |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-05-23 |
| Time | 10:00 PM |
It's generally true that proportionate to the frequency of a task, task speed and ease, increase. The exact rates vary at different times per task specifics and individual perticularities but largely, they increase along time with regular completion.
Yet, tasks aren't discrete. They are loose directives nesting other tasks successively. Their interaction with require different abilities, skillsets, and base knowledge that is deceptively hidden by unconciouness decisions and behavior.
Consider "wash dishes" as a task. It requires an understanding of what washing is. For example, what the end criteria is, and what appropriate start conditions are (one wouldn't want to wash dishes without washing their hands first right?). Moving onto "dishes" the assumption is that one knows which are clean and which are dirty. They'd need to know what the difference is and then mechanically, and delicately lest they shatter, retrieve, wash, and put away the correct dishes.
This seemingly complex ordeal gets better with time. There are even domestic and industrial dishwashers which greatly reduce the work humans would do. In fact, it is quite rare that large food establishments don't have mechanical means to wash dishes. They have found it worthwhile to purchase such equipment but we are not a business. Nor are we a food establishment in need of mass "wash dishes" tasks to complete. What we are is difficult to pin down, but we are creatures enveloped in different subspaces of task realms corresponding to our roles and responsibilities.
For all the tasks we end up doing, we do get better at them, but that is no reason to do all the tasks ahead of us.
The enacted complexity of task completion has a different affect to us than machines. On completion, the machine's state is reset to what it was before. Perhaps with some minor decay. Us on the other hand, accrete in the areas touched upon by the task. Experience bosters our abilities. However, less talked about, we decay too. Our decay is in whatever we didn't do instead and the contradictory directions our latest lessons pulled us in. This is why we must be selective in not just what we act upon but how we act it out.
Washing dishes is a trivial decision. How we read, write, or speak, less so. It then makes sense to be guarded upon new sets of responsibilities. To be directed in what task realms we fall into. To be intentional. It is better to do something over nothing, but inefficent to be undirected in execution.
In short, what you do, you become.
%1 Better#
| Field | Label |
|---|---|
| Date | 2025-05-01 |
| Time | 10:00 PM |
| Spark | Reflecting on speedups |
At some point, routine tasks become automatic and don't seem to exhaust anymore cognitive resources than mostly mindless tasks like walking and speaking. Yet, those tasks still occupy some portion of our minds. Furthermore they can request additional resources if the complexity deviates more than what was typically encountered. Of course, after some time of a new environment we acclimate to that complexity. A hiker thinks less of the rugged terrain they step on than a city dweller. But, if that hiker were to stop hiking for a few weeks or months their effort to walk amoungst that terrain would increase.
Applying those ideas in a cognitively demanding landscape one could see how there is some merit to entirely eliminating or reducing mundanity. To acquire an aptitude in a routine task temporarily, only to forget, or to not apply in a generalizable manner those resulting abilities, does seem a waste or inefficient.
With any practical programming ability one is able to skirt some of the slowdown but is not sensible to do so for all routine tasks.
So then what tasks then are sensible? I feel that for myself the answer is that which I want to prioritize in life. Outside of family, friends, health, and career, the needs I have after are what I should focus on.
That's the big picture. In practice, surprisingly there are few widely applicable insights I've encountered in my own journey of reducing friction. Guidelines on what to improve, what to really improve and where to stop.
Lesson #1: Fail Early
It is critical, that if one is trying anything, that there is some evaluation criteria on whether it is worth doing now, worth it later in the future, and then beyond. There are some tasks for which the payoff is at the end of much investment. Others bring yields earlier. Some tasks bring marginal yields at the start and then decline in value later (think about clean up tasks after trying out some organizational system).
Everything has a cost and a benefit whose value fluctuates on different dimensions in non-linear, staggered ways. While it's not easy to predict, it is much easier to evaluate the past and see where to look next.
Lesson #2: Usage is Validation
If you find yourself regularly using your shortcut or improved process that's a great hint that something is working. Be mindful that there could be confounding external variables which influence it but most likely something about the new thing is working. Even if it's not globally optimal, the existance of a process actively followed is better than one intermidiately. Like a scientist, examine the causes and see which affordances are genuinely leading to more intentional behavior.
Lesson #3: Short Feedback Loops > Long Feedback Loops
It is easy to get emotionally invested in large projects and for those feelings to superceed practical concerns such as if it is worth continuing or if others are finding value in it. To be pigeonholed should be avoided but also be mindful that sometimes such projects are the ones that payout the most. A middle ground to reach is to create successively large subprojects that expand in function to the larger aim. This is where the concept of a MVP comes in. However, instead of one that is most fitting of the demands of a situation, it is barely that. The minimal part of mvp must be emphasized. It must be understood as barely functioning.
It must be simple too, but no simpler than needed. Sometimes this means constraining the features and interaction but this is for the better. As primary users of our own systems, especially ones to cut down on routine/mundane tasks, we must use them. Otherwise is it a project thrown in the wrong direction.
If a project is to be cancelled then the reasons why are equally as important as the reasons to continue if it were successful.
Concluding thoughts
I wouldn't list out all the ways I do this and all the tools and systems I've tried but there are a fair number. Some have sticked and others less so. While earlier in my journey I saw these speedup processes as a magical means to greater ability, and they certainly help, this is not the case. The habits of mind and the values one cultivates are far more helpful.
Though, that doesn't mean that no effort should be dedicate to cut down on inefficiency.
Secondly, new tools and systems which prior systems depend upon are always coming out. There is a lifespan to most optimizations one can try out. For me, I'm trying to dedicate my time to those that I can see myself using for a long time. I still dedicate time to those that may be short lived but I am aware of their lifespan.
It is difficult to say what tasks are worth improving but for me, I find it fun to try. In that, it isn't as bad a loss if an approach doesn't work out. It teaches me what doesn't work and I get to learn some new way of thinking. Perhaps, framing optimizations in that way, can be helpful for other trying to optimize their lives too.