Don't Don't Break the Chain... Make the Chain!

Make the chain!
(source: Wikipedia)

One of the worst productivity tips I've ever heard came from Jerry Seinfeld.  Here's the "tip": never skip a day of work.  Specifically, as a comedian-writer Seinfeld's goal was to write as much as possible.  To this end, he marked a calendar with a big red "X" for every day he worked.  After a few days of this, a chain of X's would form.  Then came the productivity goal: "Don't break the chain."

I've tried this trick for some activities and I've found it to be a terrible piece of advice.  Here's why: I always failed.  Eventually, I broke the chain.  Eventually, life reared up and made it impossible to stick with a habit.  Something always comes up: illness, events, deadlines, fatigue.  And guess what?  Failing sucks!

The problem with "Don't Break the Chain" is that it is an avoidance goal: it frames a goal or habit as something not to do.  The problem with this is that doesn't describe the behavior that one should be doing and leaves too much room for failure, as I've described.

Instead, I propose the following counter to Seinfeld's tip: "Make a chain."  Track every time you do something.  Make a check mark. Stick a sticker.  Put a coin in a jar. Whatever.  Just give yourself credit for every time you do it right and keep track of how many times you did it.  In this case, it doesn't matter if you skip a day.  Pick up the next day, or the next.  Or the next week.  Small failures don't matter if your goal is to make a huge chain; just pick up where you left off.

This has worked great for me while I've taken up running.  At first, I got all bummed out when I missed a day of my running plan: I broke the chain.  But then I reframed the goal as "make the chain" and now I can never fail.  If I miss a day, I just pick up where I left off.  Each workout I complete, I cross it off.  I see a permanent record of my progress that cannot be taken away.

Stay happy :)

The Three Brain Virtues

Benjamin Franklin: A balding ape.

As I mentioned last time, I've been reading the incredibly engaging and inspiring biography of Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson - "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life".  In the context of this blog's founding concept of self-improvement via self-awareness, I took note of Franklin's famous "virtues" and related tracking system that he devised to improve in each area.  Of course, I am hardly the first person to be drawn to Franklin's virtues: there is an entire website dedicated to virtue tracking for the sake of Pete!

Despite the worn ground around the thirteen virtues of Franklin, as a self-satisfied brain philosopher, I can't help but take a crack at my own set or cognitive/neuro-science inspired set of virtues.  Before doing so, however, here are Franklin's virtues, as reported by the Wikipedia article describing Franklin's life:

1. "Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."
2. "Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."
3. "Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."
4. "Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
5. "Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."
6. "Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
7. "Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."
8. "Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."
9. "Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."
10. "Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation."
11. "Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."
12. "Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."
13. "Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

Upon review of these virtues, I can't help but notice that successful practice of each relies on a central capacity for impulse control.  I've pontificated on this concept to nausea and beyond, but the fact remains that implementing the virtues requires the ability to have an impulse to do something but also having the cognitive self-control necessary to quash that impulse and redirect attention to a more "virtuous" activity.

So, I draft my own virtues with an eye toward the "fundamental" cognitive characteristics that would support any other set of virtues, Franklin's or otherwise.  I like to think that these are somehow the foundation for doing anything based on a plan rather than based on a whim:

1. Self-awareness - the ability to think about your own thoughts, to analyze those thoughts, and to compare how you are thinking to the way you would rather be thinking.

2. Focus - the ability to attend to something of choice and hold attention despite distractions.  The ability to maintain a line of thought.

3. Resilience - the ability to try again even when you fail.  The ability to get back on the horse.

And...  That's it!  Wait, what?  How can that be it?  When I think about virtues, they have to be very personal and specific things.  We all put value on different ways of living.  However, to actually stick to any set of resolved virtues takes a short list of cognitive skills, and I think that list is simply: metacognition, focus, and resilience.

Why?  Because a virtue is like walking on a tightrope.  First, you need to know if you're even on the tightrope or on the ground.  You need to also know if you're on the right tightrope, or if you even want to walk any tight rope.  This set of decisions require metacognitive self-awareness: we need to recognize our own thinking and behaviors and be able to compare these to some alternative.

Second, you need to stay focused while on the tightrope.  Eyes on the rope, careful foot placement, move, stay centered, etc.  If you're mind is frequently wandering to topics like monkey poop, then you'll be falling off the rope a lot.  The same goes for a virtue: we need to focus on the task of being virtuous without letting distraction or temptation creep in.

Lastly, you need to get back on the rope!  Tightrope walking is hard, as is sticking to any goal of personal change.  You will fail.  Again.  And again.  We all do.  If you're committed to being a good tightrope walker, you're going to have to get used to the idea of falling and getting back on the rope.

I'm convinced.  If you're not, let me know in the comments or with an email.  I look forward to convincing you that these are the "simple" characteristics we all need to do anything we need to do, virtuous or otherwise.  I'm definitely right on this one....  

Missing Monkeys

Free-range monkey.

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic for the ol' Happy Homunculus recently.  I'm blown away that almost a year has passed since my last post and I'm starting to feel the itch again to write.

I am also a bit embarrassed that my last post was about barriers to writing and creativity.  Although I am inclined to give myself a pass on this lapse: I did have a son and earn a Ph.D. in the last year (thanks).  But, those excuses are only good for so long.  It's about time to get back on the wagon and start writing.

Moving forward, I am resolving to make the Happy Homunculus a bit more of a cage-free monkey, roaming where the siren song pulls me.

I wish this increase in motivation was from some deep, inner well-spring of mental drive.  Alas, my desire to write again has been inspired by two books I've recently read: "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" by Walter Isaacson and "Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" by Atul Gawande.  Both books extol the virtues of writing as a means to refine a thought-process and demonstrate the power of the written word for exchanging lasting, important ideas.  I extend my thanks to both Mr. Isaacson and Dr. Gawande for the much needed dissolution of my writer's block.

My gut tells me to trust my gut

My gut says: trust your gut!

Is there an optimal strategy for making a big decision?  Should we trust our intuition (our "gut") or should we engage in some methodical, step-wise approach?  You know, writing out the pros and cons.

I care right now because I'm trying to make a big decision: what do I want to do with my life?  Yikes.  So, yeah, I'm interested in learning a bit about how to tackle this.

I stumbled upon research suggesting conscious thought is better in some contexts while intuitive decision-making is better in others.  For example, check out this tidbit on decision-making.  In that example, the conclusion was that experts performed best when they relied on unconscious thinking.  Also, it sounds like expertise became less useful to expert decision-makers when they engaged in a conscious decision making process.

Hmm.  So what does that mean for me?  Here's what my gut tells me to do... When making this very complex decision I will engage in four steps:

1. Collect shit-loads of information - In essence, my goal is to actually become an expert on the topic that relates to the decision.  What are all the variables?  Pros, cons? List 'em out and learn them all.  Gather as much information as possible about the decision and feed it to my brain like some giant super-computer (which is sort of is).  But don't decide immediately.

2. Sleep on it - Next, I let all that information percolate through my nervous system.  It will create new connections and recognize patterns.  I will not be consciously aware of most of this.  Also, getting more sleep will speed the process along and help with fidelity.

3. Repeat as long as possible - Every decision has a timeline.  I will repeat the info-gathering and sleeping steps for as long as possible.  How long can I reasonably delay making the decision?  That may be a decision too, so fold that into the larger decision-making process and keep repeating for as long as is reasonable.

4. Trust my gut - Finally, once I've spent as much time as possible considering all the variables, I will trust my gut.  At the end of that time, my super-computer-like brain will print out a small slip of paper (essentially a fortune cookie) and I will do what it says.

Why does this make sense?  Here's my philosophy: the "conscious" part of our brain is a very tiny part of our brain.  Also, it's evolutionarily new and isn't very good at multitasking.  However, our brain has a lot of processing power that goes on behind the scenes and which contributes to all our decisions and actions.  We ignore all that parallel processing at great risk.

Also, big decisions are very complicated and require an understanding of a lot of moving parts.  While our conscious mind is a shitty multitasker, our brain at-large is great at multitasking (think driving and talking on the phone).  Why not exploit that?

So, that's the plan.  Hopefully it's a good decision...

Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

Uncomfortable? Yes.  Smart? No.

When I'm bad at something, I feel like 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.  In other words, making mistakes makes me really uncomfortable.

Unfortunately for my feelings though, becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable may be the single most important thing I can do to become a better person.  Researchers and educators are beginning to appreciate that embracing failure and learning from our mistakes is a critical skill if we want to be our best.  And that appreciation is beginning to catch on in the popular press.

For example, when the New York Times Magazine published "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?", the piece quickly became one of the most emailed articles.  But it didn't stop there.  A month later, Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post reminded us "How we succeed by failing" and Jonah Lehrer pointed out that mistakes explain "Why [...] Some People Learn Faster".

Soon bloggers picked up the scent: Zen Habits suggested we face our failings (and in public) and LifeHacker showed geeks like me "How to Identify and Learn from Your Mistakes".  The punchline: coming face-to-face with our failings is essential to improve on them.  By putting our heads in the sand, we may feel better in the short term, but in the long term nothing changes.  If we're lucky, the ostrich strategy will allow us to feel all warm and fuzzy about ourselves.  If we're unlucky, our failings will come up and bite us.

Intellectually, I think we all appreciate that we need to work on our weak points to get better.  But all this great advice misses a critical reality: it sucks to suck.  Being bad at things is emotionally painful.

So what do we do?  My vote: train our brain to like the pain.  Not all uncomfortable things are bad, and we have the ability to re-label feelings consciously so that our feelings of pain become badges of honor.  So, instead of reacting to discomfort with "this sucks", we can tag on an addendum: "this sucks but look how tough I am".

Put simply: discomfort is proof we're willing to become better.  Being willing to withstand some pain shows that we're ready to change.  From now on, every time I make a mistake and feel like an idiot, I'm going to embrace the feeling: if I weren't pushing myself then I wouldn't be making mistakes.