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Modes of Thought

  1. What modes are useful?
  2. How can you enter modes?

What modes are useful?

This is the short list I came up with based on my usual way of working.

  1. Task or Result Focus
  2. Creative Focus
  3. Flow
  4. Diffuse Mode

How can you enter modes?

  • Flow*
  • I am not sure this is a distinct mode, it may be a "Composite Mode"
  • It seems like "Task or Result Focus" with some "Creative Focus" alternating loops.
  • Flow is an opportunity to create an artifact of great worth, it reminds me of dwarf fortress.
  • One weakness of the mode is that you might have trouble reentering the work later.
  • Task or Result Focus:
  • gather the task requirements and get to work
  • Creative Focus
  • go to a space with no stimuli such as an empty office room
  • have tools such as notebook, whiteboard, writing tools
  • avoid going into focused mode: pin any research requirements, plan those between creative focus sessions
  • Diffuse mode:
  • anything that completely unbinds the executive mind
  • mindful meditation
  • long mindful walk
  • meandering conversation over dinner
  • read a book
  • take a nap
  • exercise if mindful

What are the modes?

Task or Result Focus

Often strongly supplemented by excel.

Examples:

  • Collecting a bunch of documents for taxes.
  • Correlating a data set by hand, e.g. machines with a certain image.
  • Comparing two financial alternatives to determine the risks and returns.

Creative Focus

Examples: - doing work for a design doc

  1. Iteratively whiteboard and refine while the idea gains concreteness.
  2. Capture the concrete result
  3. Spend some time in diffuse mode
  4. Revise
  5. repeat diffuse & revise until requirements satisfied

Flow

  • Flow is an opportunity to create an artifact of great worth, it reminds me of dwarf fortress.
  • I am not sure this is a distinct mode, it may be a "Composite Mode"
  • I usually run out of energy before finishing.

Examples: - creative focus alternating with "task focus" aka coding/prototyping loop

  1. Jump right to prototyping and get an end to end result.
  2. Identify the components of the result and rewrite or optimize the incomplete ones.
  3. Continue to iterate and decompose the system components until requirements satisfied.

Diffuse Mode

Learning how to learn: exercise, conversation, resting, what else? See notes

  • Mindful Meditation
  • Walking
  • Resting
  • Conversation
  • Exercise*
  • I sometimes feel that exercise does not bring me to diffuse mode, instead I am in some focused mode.