2010 08 04

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Contents

Feature Cast for 2010-08-04

(00:17) Intro

(03:13) Hacker Word of the Week: finger trouble

(03:46) Habits of an Infovore

  • I've had several people recently remark on my ability to consume and synthesize information
    • I humorously refer to this quality as being infivorous, or an infovore
    • There is a kernel of truth to this humorous notion
    • I've very carefully adapted my habits around information consumption
      • To avoid the sort of evolutionary hiccups say that might plague
        • An omnivore switching to a vegetarian lifestyle
    • I think a lot of burn out people associate with the info flood of the internet
      • Is really a lack of adaptation of skills and habits
      • To an environment that offers a different course of fare
        • From the pre-network, pre-digital world of information sources
    • It is that skill that lets me squeak out a modest volume of blogging
      • Using only about an hour or so a day
    • Originally, I didn't read and retain information anywhere near as well
    • I cannot even clearly recall exactly when I really started tracking
      • Many of the issues I care about to this day
    • Part of my reasoning for starting the podcast and improving the blog
      • Was to force myself to process and better retain the stories I found
    • Of course, having a permanent record of what I've read and my comments
      • Augments my existing ability to recall items
      • By allowing me to search for some story I only vaguely remember
    • Given that I didn't start out as such a voracious infovore
      • I thought it might be useful to share some thoughts
      • On how it is that I digest all of the articles and posts that I do
    • There isn't any really big secret to it, really
    • In fact, part of it is intentionally working to keep things simple
  • I definitely am not a multitasker
    • There has been some pretty clear recent work explaining
      • How humans are poorly wired for multitasking
    • http://thecommandline.net/2010/06/07/the-effect-of-multitasking-on-the-brain/
    • The NYT article to which I link follows an individual
      • Struggling with the effects of trying to routinely multitask
    • It neatly ties in the research that explains why such attempts fail
    • It includes an interactive app to test your ability to focus
      • In the face of distraction
      • A heuristic for how well you can multitask in a limited capacity
    • I buried the needle on the test, maxing out the score for focus
    • It is likely that regardless of tools, techniques and practice
      • I am pre-disposed to being able to concentrate
      • Despite the distractions that are ubiquitous in this post-network world
    • The problem with trying to do too many things at once it seems
      • Is that you open yourself up to being pulled away from any given task
    • The same division of your attention makes your more receptive to distraction
    • To effectively complete a task
      • You need to be able to continuously attend to it
      • Enough to complete it correctly and completely
    • Like writing this very feature
      • Where jumping away to email or social messaging
      • Breaks a train of thought
      • Which can result in the draft being disjointed and less coherent
    • I try to avoid distraction, though I am not always successful
    • When working on a demanding task like coding or writing
      • I will often shut down email and social messaging
    • Leaving them turned off for the duration of course takes some will power
      • Though practice at it can often help
      • It can retrain your expectations, to be mindful that most distractions can wait
      • Email and updates from friends will still be there when you get back to them
    • I would never try to tackle two or more demanding tasks at the same time
    • I know I cannot even juggling one such effort with mere distractions
    • In that light, truly switching over more involved chunks of work
      • With any expectation of success is downright foolish
    • So my first bit of advice is resign yourself to giving up multitasking
      • Or at least try to minimize the cost of distraction or interruption
  • BREAK
  • I am a serial monotasker
    • I intentionally only work on one thing at a time
    • Each type of task I work on has a distinct goal
    • When I am looking for stories in my feed
      • I avoid bogging down, I don't read any particular piece at that time
      • I try to figure out with a minimum of effort
        • Whether a story has some interesting wrinkle
        • Or meshes well with the topics that interest me
      • I can put off deeper reflections on stories
        • Simply by being able to collect them
        • For the reading and review necessary to write them up but later
      • That breaking up of two different tasks into two different times
        • Let's me dedicate my focus to the particular demands of each
      • It actually makes each go much more quickly, effectively
        • Than if I was constantly switching between looking for stories
          • And spending time digging into them more deeply
      • Sieving through stories this way also is forgiving of collecting too many links
      • When I switch to the reading task, I can still throw out a story
        • That didn't deliver on whatever interest prompted me to collect it
      • I use Google reader for my feeds because I can gather feeds into tags
      • This lets me sift through stories from roughly similar sources
        • Or that cluster around a particular topic
      • I can read through different tags with more or less attention
        • Depending on whether the feeds in it
        • Have higher or lower signal to noise ratio
      • Anything at all that I want to look at later with greater attention
        • I simply star so that they are collected into a separate, transient bucket
      • I work at this digital beach combing in ten or fifteen minutes spurts
        • Roughly four to six times during the day
      • If my day job is particular demanding on a given day
        • I may go through my feeds less frequently but for a bit longer
        • Usually when I am in this catch up mode
          • I also try to decide on whether a item is interesting
          • Much faster than usual, really more on my reading time to iteratively filter them
      • My grazing task is also much more tolerant of interruption
        • Because I keep it intentionally light and fast
    • The really focused time I spend just about every day, for an hour or so
      • Is spent on reading through the items that I star as I graze during the day
      • That reading is much less resistant to interruption
        • So I try to net that down to a tight window
      • I actively defend my focus when working on that task
        • Shutting out sources of distraction as much as I can
      • I pursue each item I need to read and comment
        • One at a time, exclusively working a single story
        • From start to finish, avoiding skipping ahead
      • I have a very clear idea of what it means to finish something on my reading stack
      • Being able to break up a long string of the same kind of task
        • Means that if I really have to, I can find reasonable stopping points
    • I guess the general advice here is to understand how the tasks you do repeatedly
      • Break down into activities you can pursue one at a time
      • With an appropriate amount of focus
    • Dedicate time to work through a condense group of such items
      • Resisting the urge to switch from one type of work on completing something
      • To another kind of work that demands different capabilities
    • Repeatedly working through similar tasks, in sequence
      • I find tends to help reinforce focus
      • Probably because it works much like any kind of practice
    • You start to get more efficient working serially like this
      • By realizing how to streamline parts of the work as you repeat it
  • I've carried over lessons from coding into reading and writing
    • Multi-tasking is very disruptive to coding
    • I work very hard to protect my work against interruption
    • The more you rely on your memory alone
      • The more likely you are to lose something
      • When you have to switch focus to something else
    • When coding, I keep to do lists and notes on what I am doing
    • If I do get interrupted, then I can very quickly figure out
      • What it was I was doing and get back to work
    • This is what I meant earlier when I mentioned reducing the cost of distraction
    • It is inevitable that something will pop up
      • That needs you to take care of it immediately
      • At the expense of whatever you are working on at that moment
    • I think it is foolish to believe otherwise
    • This works not only for handling interruptions
      • But for intentionally taking breaks from work
    • Being able to stop when I want is critical for my work-life balance
    • So it is a valuable defensive skill in the face of inevitable interruption
      • But also an ability you can harness for positive reasons
      • To give yourself the necessary pauses to relax your mental muscles
    • If you can step away from work, whether profession or personal
      • Can yield benefits in allowing you to chew over new information or problems
      • In the back of your mind, given your conscious attention a break
    • I would not say that distraction, then, is entirely a bad thing
    • Rather, let's say that unintentional distraction is what can lead to burn out
    • Intentionally harnessing the able to switch to something else
      • When your are perhaps starting to get a bit fatigued
      • Can have the opposite effect, saving you from churning on any given task
      • So long that you become less effective at it than when you are fresh
    • The work flow I already described for the two different ways I deal with new information
      • Intentionally let me break when needed
      • Or more quickly recover from unavoidable interruption
    • I avoid building up any kind of long running string of info
      • Rather chopping up what I am working on into the smallest bits possible
      • So that I can just quickly push small bits of progress into a queue
      • Cementing the work I've done up to any given moment
      • And making it easy to pick up where I left off
  • BREAK
  • I build in breaks so that I am not continuously attached to the internet
    • This goes beyond the intentional distraction I already recommended
    • Serial single tasking also has its limits
    • You can go for quite some time by splicing together
      • Longer, more dedicated runs at complementary tasks
      • Like light focus info grazing and deeper focus digestion
    • At some point, though, you need to completely shut off the tap
    • There is a cumulative mental wear and tear that isn't relieved
      • Merely by switching focus completely to the next kind of work
    • I always try to finishing my deeper reading, writing by early evening
    • That means that once I am done, I can completely unfocus
    • For me, this usually means spending time with my family
      • Or reading or enjoying some other media purely for entertainment
    • Stepping away from the constant consumption of information
      • Also allows for some time to digest it
    • When I first started reading blogs, other frequently updating sources
      • I don't think I appreciated the need for a pause to aid comprehension
    • I have a secondary schedule that affords me a necessary respite
    • On the weekends, I don't filter through feeds actively
    • I might catch up once a day but it isn't a priority
    • My writing also changes in character
      • From shorter comments, often just link dumps
      • Over to more in depth analysis and discussion
    • On days off from work, there is more time for me to mull stories over
    • All the same, I try to limit the time I spend reading and working
      • And leavening my info consumption with family, friends and other pursuits
    • If you don't find a sustainable schedule for breaks
      • I think that is when you run the greatest risk of burn out
    • For me, small breaks are enough, built into every day and every week
    • You might need a different break schedule
    • I have friends who take regular information diets
      • Disconnecting with the net for weeks at a time
      • In order to enjoy a much deeper detoxification
    • Pay attention to your energy and enthusiasm and when it just starts to wane
      • That's when you want to give yourself a chance to rest
      • Not after you are starting to get worn down by the stories your following
  • I keep things simple
    • I've looked at tools and methods designed to organize personal projects
    • Each comes not only with a learning cover but a maintenance cost
    • If they don't map well to the way I already approach project work
      • Then their is a constant drain on my efforts and attention
    • The cost to use them never seems worth it
    • It can be in the form of simply remembering to look at some special purpose tool
    • For instance, I tried OmniFocus but it never really helped me
    • It was another application I'd have to spin up, for one
      • And entering and tracking tasks required enough input
      • That I constantly failed to keep it up to date
    • Most of the other things I've tried have yielded similar experiences
    • I suppose some people might not mind the cost
    • In the absence of a data rich tool, I do well enough remembering tasks
    • That probably pegs my expectations, that any organizational app
      • Needs to work as seamlessly as my memory does
    • That's a pretty high bar to clear
    • Simplifying drastically gets me the closest
      • Using simple text files and my favorite programming editor, vim
    • This extends to all the online tools I've described
    • It certainly would be possible to set up a more complex workflow for RSS
    • A handful of simple tags or folders and starring items is enough for me
    • The point of the exercise is to encourage reading, understanding and writing
    • A work flow that is complex can often provide an excuse
      • To push data around without accomplishing any of those goals
    • It can also give the illusion of being productive, organized
    • I find that to be true more broadly of tools and techniques
      • Like OmniFocus and such free form databases
      • As well as Getting Things Done
    • You might find a different balance works well enough for you
      • But beware of that false sense of progress and make sure
        • That any tools and processes you use yield real results
  • A small amount of effort can go a very long way
    • You just need to have a clear sense of what you want to accomplish
    • Are you taking in a lot of information to improve your understanding of complex issues?
    • Or to spot the next coming thing worth investing some time?
    • Maybe you are trying to improve your ability to recall events in a longer trend, like me
    • Eliminate anything that doesn't move you a big step towards your goal
    • I think you'll find that the lightweight approach you are left with
      • Accomplish more than you might have expected
    • Keeping things minimal also encourages you to more easily
      • Set aside your information consumption without feeling
        • Like you are setting down and picking up a heavy load each time

(19:17) Outro

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