Work has been complicated this week - I’m past the initial excitement and the edges of the job are becoming clearer. It’s taking me longer than I expected to hit my stride - but I’m hoping that it’s just a matter of time. It’s been a big adjustment going back and it caught up to me this week. I haven’t slept brilliantly. It’s left me dog-tired and delivering below my own standards.

When I’ve found myself in this kind of situation in the past I’ve doubled down and pushed myself to work harder, but I now know that this is one of my documented failure modes. The right thing to do is slow down and be more deliberate. Old dog, new tricks. It’s all good.

I’ve been thinking a lot about theories of change. When I see something I don’t like and I want to change it my instinct is to tackle it head on. But, with some exceptions, that’s not the most effective way. Instead I think the ‘model and ally’ approach works better. Model the behaviour you want (going to quiet extremes if you can) and then look for allies to join you.

A trivial example this week: I’m very struck by how cluttered - ok, messy! - the typical desk is at work. It’s undoubtedly good that people feel ownership over their own space and there are no groups I fear more than the office tidy-up militias that form when there’s not enough work for them to do.

But, I’m sure that if I succumb to this office norm, it won’t make me happy. So, I decided my desk is going to be the tidiest and cleanest in the office. I didn’t think about this as ‘modelling’ behaviour until this week someone said to me: ‘your desk is so clean, it’s inspired me to have a tidy up.’ My first ally in an unimportant war against clutter. Not even a war, an incursion. Theories of change.

Outside of work has been thin - I did some more work on my blog, hitting it with the IndieWeb wand. I’ve been bookmarking e-bike sites - haven’t yet seen the ‘one’.

The youngest and I finished watching the Planet of the Apes films - Kingdom. A fine film, but the special effects are so good as to be a bit distracting and the stakes never quite bite as hard as they should. What shall we watch next? We love a good franchise.

Grab-bag

  • I signed up for Inoreader this week. When I worked at Thoughtworks, Google Reader was how we got our news. On the first day, my assigned mentor gave me an OPML file of blogs I should follow. I always liked that - I want to build the same resource to share with people. If you have one, I’d love you to send me a link.
  • Paren-thesis is interesting and detailed. I’m not convinced though - I’ve had one lengthy experience programming LISP and the syntax melts away quickly with a bit of use.
  • “The intersection of the limitations of time, computation, and communication define a set of computational problems at a very specific human scale.” From Understanding human intelligence through human limitations. It’s good to see an argument that starts with the limits of human intelligence and doesn’t proceed from the limits of AI.