In this issue: ways to unstick my thinking, movies we’ve seen, and links what caught my eye.
DTSTTCPW, WAYMISH, YAGNI
I’m working with other members of our cohousing community on an email newsletter, promoting information sessions, and generally raising our online profile.
I started feeling overwhelmed by the number of tasks that spawned more tasks and of how to track them all. I immediately began looking for a technical solution, such as a marketing calendar implemented in Airtable — a tool I’ve never used before but doesn’t it look cool??
This is an aspect of my mind I’ve known for a long time: it leaps to the most complicated solution first. And then about halfway through implementing that, I discover the simpler way.
Perhaps that’s just the way my creative process works. But when I find myself going down rabbit holes, I try to interrupt those loops by remembering these mottos I’ve picked up over the years.
WAYMISH: “Why Are You Making It So Hard?”
It’s not a great idea to ask yourself questions starting with “Why” but I like this one. The answer to the “why” is usually that I’ve ignored a simpler way that I have pre-judged as inadequate or uncomfortable. By not trying that simpler way, I am only making the effort more effortful.
DTSTTCPW: “Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work”
This and the next motto come from the world of Extreme Programming.
Don’t interpret this as a command. Not the quickest or the best, but the simplest, the least complex. Not the solution that definitely will work, but might work. Not a solution for all time but just what is needed to get you past this logjam, right now, that’s holding up the other work you need to do.
YAGNI: “You Aren’t Gonna Need It”
Don’t add something that “might be useful later.” Don’t over-optimize before you know what’s needed. Don’t add complication if it isn’t necessary right now. There may be a time to plan for five years down the road but now is not that time. Take care of what needs to be done right now.
• • •
These mottos can help pop me out of that complicated dream so that I can look freshly at the situation and its actual requirements; a solution may actually come faster that way.
What happens next with my marketing question? Back to pen and paper. One of my managers advised me to make a process work on paper first before attempting to automate it. I may find that that’s really all I need for right now.
On the blog
I’m still grinding out daily blog posts for #blogvember (and still hating on that hashtag). I have settled into a pattern of short posts on various productivity reminders I’ve internalized over the past decades. After November, I will not try this daily-blogging stunt for a while, though. I resonate with Derek Sivers’s take on daily blogging (less is enough) rather than Seth Godin’s (get in the habit of writing, finishing, and publishing).
This stunt has been useful, though, for dredging up lots of stuff I know that I take for granted. But until the website as a whole has more of a focus, I think the blog is a time-suck that diverts me from other higher-value activities.
Here are some posts from the last two weeks that are kind of OK:
Movies & TV
Harriet (2019) — A hot-blooded movie that takes the incidents of Harriet Tubman’s life and, at times, ratchets them up to melodrama. As a slave narrative, there is the ugliness of violence and injustice; as a hero narrative, Harriet exhibits powers, experience, and preternatural knowledge that no ordinary mortal has. The atmosphere of danger and loss is lightened by moments of humor and mystical revelation. With a riveting central performance by Cynthia Erivo. (Carolina Theatre)
Booksmart (2019) Are Los Angeles high-school students on the brink of graduation really this wild, sweary, and off-the-chain? Loved the performances by the two leads, Beanie Feldstein (Molly) and Kaitlyn Dever (Amy), and the moments when the veering narrative paused for a lovely scene of Amy swimming underwater in the pool or an oddball animated sequence. Molly and Amy don’t really know their fellow students, each other, or themselves; each member of the supporting cast learn this also, in sometimes quite touching ways. A familiar tale with a modern twist. (Hulu)
Jojo Rabbit (2019) There were times when I thought this story of a small German town near the end of WWII was going to paint the Nazis as “Hogan’s Heroes” dummkopfs. Director Taika Waititi as Jojo’s imaginary friend Adolf Hitler is quite mad and little Jojo is surrounded by a society gone mad; all the adult actors sport slightly jokey German accents (all the dialogue is in English), as if to wink at the viewer to not take this too seriously. Yet there is danger and real physical threat; enough threat so that you can’t relax your guard yet they also provide a space for the comic moments to dance. The film’s rapid pace keeps Jojo and the viewer always a little unsure quite what movie they’ve wandered into. It’s good and worthwhile, but maybe not for all tastes. (Carolina Theatre)
The Good Place season 3 (2019) With Schitt’s Creek, one of my top favorite sitcoms. Fantasy stories are tricky; the world’s rules can change with the wave of a magic wand. The Good Place is set in a fantasy universe and I buy every one of its oddball characters, insane plot twists, and season-ending cliffhangers. Plus brilliant comic acting, plus delivering the required 7-laughs-per-minute. I’ve never bought Eleanor and Chidi’s romance, but Kristen Bell and William Jackson Harper are so appealing that I go along with it. D’Arcy Carden’s Janet just gets better and better; like Brent Spiner’s Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Janet is the show’s beating heart. (Netflix)
Oddments
Omnia dicta fortiora si dicta latina. Everything sounds impressive when said in Latin.
I am a recent convert to Bandcamp; they sell digital music directly from indie recording companies, bands, musicians, and composers. They also have a storefront for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, with some good selections from their back catalog. But this is the one that caught my ear: Sounds Portraits from Bulgaria: A Journey to a Vanished World. Weird, uncanny music from — as the title says — a vanished world.
Soooo…this decade is the 2010s (twenty-tens)? Wikipedia helpfully points us to the various ways of counting up a decade:
First, any period of 10 years is a decade. Duh. Kind of obvious, but easy to forget.
Counting off based on a shared tens-digits; so the nineteen-sixties.
An ordinal decade, counting “from a year which ends on the digit 1 to the following year which is a multiple of ten.” So, 2011-2020 will be the second decade of the 21st century.
A nominal decade is about 10 years and refers to the events considered to fall within or around that period. So, The Sixties, The Roaring Twenties, and so on.
Coming Up
Thanksgiving, holidays, violent food binging, and we break out the Christmas playlists. Plus, the end of this crazy daily-blogging stunt and back to a slightly more active way of spending my life-energy.
I’m Michael E. Brown. One of my goals with my website and this newsletter is to improve and sharpen my writing. So if you have any feedback, please send it along!
This was issue #0006 of Learning As I Go for November 24, 2019.