Tag Archives: productivity

Let It Go: The Incentive to Resolve Conflict

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In academia, in politics, in life, I often see two intelligent adults build a rift over a disagreement (large or small), fail to resolve it, and continue for the rest of their life with the rift in place.

It’s ego. It’s human nature. But it makes life more difficult. My advice (to myself and others) is to always let it go no matter what. Linger in the muck of anger for a few days, take a few naps, and then patch up the damaged relationship in whatever way that it will no longer be an anchor on your mind. The weight of conflict can take away the freedom to enjoy this short life and to form meaningful friendships along the way.

In politics, shallow bickering seems to be the modus operandi. Somehow it has become a commonly accepted notion that conflict helps win elections. Showing what someone else did badly is more effective than showing what you did well. Perhaps that might be the case in politics, but I still hold out hope for the personal interactions of regular human beings. There are very few conflicts I can imagine that cannot be resolved through a little swallowing of pride. It might hurt for a day, a week, a month, but it will make life more enjoyable, more productive, and more meaningful in the long term (years, decades).

I’m often reminded of the Borat clock radio “great success”:

There will always be someone with a clock radio that you can’t afford. Let it go.

A Lesson from Deadlines: Cut the Useless Crap Out

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During the last two weeks I have been working intensely on a paper for a conference. At 15 pages, it’s about twice the length of a normal conference paper I’m used to, but that wasn’t the challenging part. Writing is easy. The hard part is all the thinking over a pen and paper, all the programming, and all the reading / learning that goes into just getting to where I can ask the right questions and all the work after that. Since the topic of this paper was a somewhat new area for me, this process was especially painful.

I learned (or rather re-learned) something important about how to get and stay productive. First is you have to love what you’re doing. “Work” isn’t really hard when you are enjoying it. But that’s obvious. Second is you have to cut all the useless crap in your life out and just get to doing the things that you want to get done and don’t stop until they are done. That seems obvious as well, but I think my brain is designed to deteriorate into a lazy, distracted mess if left unchecked. Here’s an inspirational video of Steve Prefontaine at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In case you were wondering what “distraction” is, it’s the process of you now clicking on that video:

Prefontaine did not click on YouTube videos, he just ran and ran and ran.

Let’s take Facebook for example. The problem is not how much time I spend on Facebook. The problem is that I jump over to Facebook many times a day for 1-2 minutes, and by doing that, break the flow of thought that I had cultivated around the task I was working on. That’s the main lesson for me, from the past two weeks, that I’ve learned many times in life already, that it’s important to construct your day, week, and life in general in such a way that you get several uninterrupted spans of time during the day when you do nothing but a single task. You don’t move, you don’t eat, you just fill your brain with a single task. It’s basically just meditation.

By the way, I don’t mean to pile on Facebook. I think that it’s much much more than a shallow self-indulgent addiction. I think it connects us together, perhaps not as well as a beer on a Saturday night, but it’s pretty damn close. It gives a chance for introverts such as myself to talk to friends I don’t see enough, or jump into conversations that are too intellectually involved for in-person shooting-the-shit type of conversation.

Hikikomori: The Dim Underworld of Society’s Ghosts

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I was introduced by a friend to the word hikikomori which is a Japanese term that refers to a person who seeks extreme degrees of isolation. Apparently, this is a widespread phenomenon in Japan.

After reading about it a bit online and watching some videos, this seems to be almost a part of their national identity, and is closely connected to the growing power of computer games to consume an individual’s life to the point that all other activities fall off the radar of interest. It’s a drug with the addictive power of hard drugs, but without the associated ability of those drugs to kill you.

I think many of my ex-girlfriends would characterize me as someone who doesn’t get out nearly enough. I think it’s important to hear that, and understand that, but it’s also important to be able to live life the way I want to without regret. I love good intelligent conversation with close friends. I love reading books that challenge me or fill me with awe. I love doing jiu jitsu and judo. And more than that, I love learning cutting-edge ideas and coming up with new ones myself in and around the field of computer science. Often times, all that somehow adds up to me having to say “no” to a lot of parties and social outings. This creates a perception of hikikomori, but I think that’s very far from the truth.

I’m not scared of life, of people, and of pursuing my passions with all the dedication I can muster.

But I very much find it fascinating that there is large mass of people who are pursuing their passions, and in so doing somehow gradually fall off the path that is healthy for their happiness and productivity, and find themselves trapped in the cage of their sterile habits and dim isolated existence. I suppose it is the danger that anyone with a singular passion risks. But a successful life requires successfully walking the line between crazy and happy.

The Diablo 3 Existential Crisis: A New Age of Evil is Upon Us

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Diablo 3 will be released tomorrow, or as the following opening cinematic explains: “The powers of hell are on the way… It has begun…”

I have a long history with Diablo and Diablo 2, and so the pull of it is strong. I have very little time to play it, nor frankly does anyone have time to play it, because it’s not a game that you can play in moderation, unless you have some kind of superhuman self-restraint. Let’s be honest here.

That said… I told myself that I will play it but only if by the end of May I finish the journal paper I’m working on now, and also if I win a gold medal at the jiu jitsu World championship on May 31st. Both of these are difficult but achievable goals if I continue working hard. So I’m using the extremely addictive drug that is Diablo 3 as a reward to push myself.

Much like a drug addict who has beaten the habit, I have a certain approach to games like Diablo 3 that basically can be summed up with “will it really be worth it in the end?” In a way, the answer of course is no, but then again perhaps the same could be asked of life in general. Like many things we take on outside of work (and sometimes work itself), it’s an escape. It’s a chance to get away from the difficulties of the real world, whatever form they take, and immerse yourself in a universe where hacking away at demons with a giant sword somehow has meaning, and even more, can make you truly happy.

So, for at least another 2 weeks, I will let the fires of hell burn outside, and continue my peaceful life in academia, focused on publishing not slashing, occasionally running into a co-worker with dark circles under his eyes who has clearly given into the dark mystical attraction of another Blizzard title.

Coffee is a Way of Life

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Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day or 146 billion cups per year. In terms of per capita consumption, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, and Brazil has us beat.

The most popular reason that women provide for drinking coffee is “it’s a good way to relax”. On the other hand, men go with the vague but aggressive “it helps get the job done”. That it does.

My own experience with coffee has evolved over the years. Something about the process of drinking coffee, almost just the habit of it, focuses my mind on what I’m doing. It has become part of my comfort zone, a key element of a productive environment. When I smell coffee, my brain goes into the mode of “okay, time to get s*** done”. But “focus” doesn’t just mean focusing on work. I enjoy reading over a hot coffee, thinking about life, and how insanely absurd everything is. It puts my own little problems into perspective and helps me consider the things that really matter in my life.

Of course, the taste of coffee ain’t bad either. I look forward to waking up, making a fresh cup of coffee, and sitting down to eat steel-cut oatmeal while thinking about something I’ve read the night before.

Hard Work or Hardly Working

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Main point: Everyone has a personal definition of words like “productive”, “busy”, “hard work”, but progress is driven by the evolution/expansion of these definitions.

Yes, here comes another obvious “wisdom” of the relativist variety.

I like to use sport for analogy, because sport somehow boils down the basic struggles of life into a concrete measurable game of skill and chance. So let’s talk about the treadmill (here’s me running on a treadmill). I used to think that an 8 minute mile was hard. I mean I have friends that are runners and can keep a 5-6 minute mile pace for several miles, but I never even acknowledged that as reality.

To me an 8 minute mile was something I could do, but would have to put in a lot of “hard work”. Anything faster than that was for physical freaks, who I completely ignored in my analysis. The reality however is that those people struggled with an 8 minute mile as well at some point in their life. But unlike me, they did not settle with this limit. They changed their definition of “hard” first to 7 minutes, then to 6, and finally to bellow 5.

I did the same a couple years back with a 6 minute mile. I just one day decided that I will run at a 6 minute mile pace for as long as I could. I would not quit until my body completely quit. It was torture, but I actually did it.

I think the same is true with everything we undertake in life. I too often settle for my idea of what is “hard work” and don’t try to push the limit. But that’s where growth happens: trying to do the things that seems obviously impossible. It turns out that some of them are actually possible.

Since I don’t run much, and suffer through it every time I do run, I like to use running as an indicator of my mental toughness (or lack thereof). For this reason, I hope to one day be able to run a 5 minute mile. Of course, my real goals are all surrounding research and academia, but those are a lot more difficult to put into words and numbers than the time it takes to run a mile.

The Best and Worst of The “One Percent”

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Main point: Money is not a measure of a man in that wealth is neither an indication of productive genius nor morally flawed character.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is born out of the frustration at the growing income inequality in America.

More than anything else, in my mind, this is a reflection of our society’s relationship with money. The “market” values a CEO much more than it did 30 years ago. Big banks have gained power not because they somehow went against the values of the masses, but because they went with them.

I think the arguments on both sides have been trivialized to the point of absurdity. To me, the top 1% of income earner is no better or worse than the 99%. I respect productive genius. Some individuals that represent that are in the 1%. Some are in the 99%. Money is one of many possible indicators of greatness. A wealthy person is one who has often excelled in a business venture. That is admirable, but no more admirable than someone who has excelled in a scientific field, an olympic sport, or in the arts, all of which are quite likely to produce little income unless the person is also able to make a business of their skills and achievements.

Our society has great men and women: the real 1% (of which I’m not one). That 1% should be admired, respected, striven for, and never confused with the top 1% of income earners.

So I don’t mind the OWS protests when they are solely about money, and not about putting down the best that our civilization of proud ants has to offer.

Turn Off Facebook When It’s Crunch Time

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I’ve turned off facebook temporarily by adding the line 0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com to my hosts file.

The reason? I have two major presentations coming up. One on August 24th and one on September 7th. The list of to-do items for those is not unmanageable but every to-do item in the list is a major undertaking that’s consuming all my time and mental energy. I mean all my time. My only non-work activity is sleep and occasional exercise.

Despite what it often looks like, I actually don’t use Facebook that much. Most times, it’s a quick view, quick comment, 3-4 times a day. However, turning off facebook has been a symbolic gesture for my brain, to make sure it knows that there’s no messing around… I have to focus, for long stretches of time, day after day, and get this s*** done.

I recommend this to others that are coming up against a tough deadline. It helps.

Staring at the Wall for Inspiration and Innovation

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The world is full of distractions. We try to deal with it by designing productivity systems (e.g. Getting Things Done), when for many people (or at least myself) what is missing is not a good system but some quality wall-starin’ time.

By that I mean long continuous blocks of time in which to think. Focus on one problem, and don’t go off on mental tangents, indulge is technology-enabled distractions, etc. Think about the plan for the day, about how to accomplish the most important task in front of you at work, but also think about more general things like where you are in life, what your life-long goals are, and even more broadly the why questions that can be found unanswered in most existential philosophy literature.

That’s what is too often missing for me… time away from the computer, from deadlines, from rushing from point A to point B, or even from brainless relaxation. It’s a time for the mouse to pause it’s long trek through the maze and ponder the cheese.

Living Without a Cell Phone

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Per month, I send about 20-30 text messages (almost all as a response), and talk for about 30-60 minutes.

The bottom line is I just don’t use the cell phone to a degree that many people do. Why? Because I view it as a source of distraction. The productive aspects of my life are centered around periods of 3-4 hours where I focus on a single task without interruption or stress caused by the possibility of interruption.

Turning my cellphone off eliminates this possibility. The only problem with this is that true emergencies may go undetected by me for a day or more. This hasn’t happened yet, but it’s a distinct possibility. My family knows that I turn my cellphone off, and since they live 5 minutes away, I hope they also know to come get me in case of serious emergency.

The problem I encounter as a person that spends a large amount of my time programming is that I’m missing out on the mobile experience. I develop apps for Android, and yet I don’t own an Android phone that can run those apps. I test and simulate them using an Android emulator. This may seem like an absurd irony, but until a cell phone is distinct from the devices I use to get work done (laptop, desktop), it will remain a source of distraction that is belt left in the off state for the majority of its existence.