Discussion Forum > Mood based productivity
I found it interesting how this all came together for me. I hope to have an engaging discussion on it in this forum.
January 11, 2020 at 10:46 |
Sathya
Sathya
Well, this article was truly fascinating and original, although I'm not sure what to do what about it.
January 15, 2020 at 2:17 |
Bernie
Bernie
Debbie Downer Alert:
Whenever I read a productivity article that references Star Wars or Steve Jobs... I just tune out.
Whenever I read a productivity article that references Star Wars or Steve Jobs... I just tune out.
January 15, 2020 at 13:00 |
avrum
avrum
What if it dumps on Star Wars and Steve Jobs?
January 16, 2020 at 3:37 |
Bernie
Bernie
Anyone like to try summarizing the article in 100 words or less? Perhaps we could make a competition of it.
January 17, 2020 at 10:05 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Rambling. I gave up trying to read it.
January 17, 2020 at 15:32 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
I tried reading this article and several other posts on the Praxis blog, but I found the content to be meandering and wordy. I get the sense that they are driving readers to buy Tiago's $800 e-course or subscribe to the premium access, which seems to be repackaged Drucker/GTD/Kanban/Agile sprinkled with Silicon Valley buzzwords and Tim Ferriss-esque grandiosity.
January 17, 2020 at 17:10 |
Jacob
Jacob
Oops.
Yeah, Tiago's writing can be very wordy and non-comprehensible many a times, especially those out of his professional context. I am from India and I am not a IT major.
I had to read out many times to understand and he is quite active of Twitter which gives more understandable (for my low standards) versions of his ideas. Importantly what made it more accessible, is Mark Forster's theory of psychological readiness which I so admire. In that way, both Tiago & Mark seems to be thinking alike - as per my level of understanding.
I have tried to highlight the best points that I found in this article below and sharing it. Hope we can continue to discuss this.
Yeah, Tiago's writing can be very wordy and non-comprehensible many a times, especially those out of his professional context. I am from India and I am not a IT major.
I had to read out many times to understand and he is quite active of Twitter which gives more understandable (for my low standards) versions of his ideas. Importantly what made it more accessible, is Mark Forster's theory of psychological readiness which I so admire. In that way, both Tiago & Mark seems to be thinking alike - as per my level of understanding.
I have tried to highlight the best points that I found in this article below and sharing it. Hope we can continue to discuss this.
January 21, 2020 at 9:09 |
Sathya
Sathya
From the article....
Productivity as we know it is based on delayed gratification, which described a world that was predictable and structured. It was clear what you had to do and in what order — it was just a matter of scheduling and pain tolerance. But delayed gratification is obsolete in a world dominated by VUCA
... a new generation of process-first productivity frameworks has emerged with step-by-step flowcharts and diagrams to help us decide between them. These frameworks sidestep questions like “What COULD I do?” and “What SHOULD I do?” in favor of a much more tractable, interim one: “What CAN I do?”
This is most clearly embodied in the concept of “contexts.”
But access to tools, locations, and people is no longer the primary constraint in doing valuable work. Nor do “energy levels” come close to capturing the subtleties of human motivation. I believe we’re entering a new era: Mood-First Productivity. States of mind, or more colloquially, moods, are bubbling up to the surface as every external constraint on work falls away, one after the other.
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Looking forward to more discussions.
Productivity as we know it is based on delayed gratification, which described a world that was predictable and structured. It was clear what you had to do and in what order — it was just a matter of scheduling and pain tolerance. But delayed gratification is obsolete in a world dominated by VUCA
... a new generation of process-first productivity frameworks has emerged with step-by-step flowcharts and diagrams to help us decide between them. These frameworks sidestep questions like “What COULD I do?” and “What SHOULD I do?” in favor of a much more tractable, interim one: “What CAN I do?”
This is most clearly embodied in the concept of “contexts.”
But access to tools, locations, and people is no longer the primary constraint in doing valuable work. Nor do “energy levels” come close to capturing the subtleties of human motivation. I believe we’re entering a new era: Mood-First Productivity. States of mind, or more colloquially, moods, are bubbling up to the surface as every external constraint on work falls away, one after the other.
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Looking forward to more discussions.
January 21, 2020 at 9:11 |
Sathya
Sathya
First, I had to look this up:
VUCA is an acronym. It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.
Thanks for trying, but it doesn’t yet help. I can summarize your summary as follows:
>The world is chaotic. Therefore delayed gratification doesn't work. (Why?). New process oriented systems try to use context. But context is also obsolete (because universal access to stuff). Energy level also isn't discrimination enough. Therefor mood-based systems.<
This dismisses lots and adds nothing of substance.
Question 1: what is the mood based system? 2: Why is this useful?
VUCA is an acronym. It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.
Thanks for trying, but it doesn’t yet help. I can summarize your summary as follows:
>The world is chaotic. Therefore delayed gratification doesn't work. (Why?). New process oriented systems try to use context. But context is also obsolete (because universal access to stuff). Energy level also isn't discrimination enough. Therefor mood-based systems.<
This dismisses lots and adds nothing of substance.
Question 1: what is the mood based system? 2: Why is this useful?
January 21, 2020 at 13:22 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Sathya, you seem to have got a lot out of the article. Perhaps we could talk about the ways in which it has affected your own approach to productivity and what you personally have learned from it?
January 21, 2020 at 21:03 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Thank you for your kind words Mark.
Here is my attempt at summarizing it - or more of what I understood.
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The fundamental similarity that I am trying to draw between your work and that of Tiago's is the principle of 'psychological readiness'. I liked how you have explained in an article that there is nothing called resistance, but just the time hasn't arrived for the particular task to be acted upon. And that, one is psychologically not ready to take on the task. Tiago calls these as 'moods'. We just need to wait for the right time, the right mood, that our intuition arrives on it, to work on the task. So do when you feel like doing it. Don't force yourself.
I guess AF, Simple Scanning, NLFVP, 5T, Entry by Doing - all systems helped me to actually practice it. Trusting my intuition. Waiting on a task. Letting myself arrive at a point to get on the project.
Sometimes it felt magical when just in an hour I got to complete a project that I have waited and 'procrastinated' on for more than a month or so. The pain of waiting was terrible of course - I didn't have a validation to do it. I told myself why aren't you work on this project.
But yours and Tiago's systems gave me the necessary validation/ conceptual understanding, behind this subconscious process - that it is okay to wait on it. It is okay to wait for the 'moment/ mood' to arrive! It is okay to wait until one is 'psychologically ready'!
----------------------
So, there! Not exactly sure how this would aid the discussion, but hope it helps.
However, in any case, if at all it came out as if I'm 'marketing' Tiago's work or his course - a disclaimer - I haven't taken his course or may never would in the near future. I just found the interesting similarity that give me a bit more confidence. Thought I should share my newfound insight in the forum, that has always been open for such discussions.
Here is my attempt at summarizing it - or more of what I understood.
-----
The fundamental similarity that I am trying to draw between your work and that of Tiago's is the principle of 'psychological readiness'. I liked how you have explained in an article that there is nothing called resistance, but just the time hasn't arrived for the particular task to be acted upon. And that, one is psychologically not ready to take on the task. Tiago calls these as 'moods'. We just need to wait for the right time, the right mood, that our intuition arrives on it, to work on the task. So do when you feel like doing it. Don't force yourself.
I guess AF, Simple Scanning, NLFVP, 5T, Entry by Doing - all systems helped me to actually practice it. Trusting my intuition. Waiting on a task. Letting myself arrive at a point to get on the project.
Sometimes it felt magical when just in an hour I got to complete a project that I have waited and 'procrastinated' on for more than a month or so. The pain of waiting was terrible of course - I didn't have a validation to do it. I told myself why aren't you work on this project.
But yours and Tiago's systems gave me the necessary validation/ conceptual understanding, behind this subconscious process - that it is okay to wait on it. It is okay to wait for the 'moment/ mood' to arrive! It is okay to wait until one is 'psychologically ready'!
----------------------
So, there! Not exactly sure how this would aid the discussion, but hope it helps.
However, in any case, if at all it came out as if I'm 'marketing' Tiago's work or his course - a disclaimer - I haven't taken his course or may never would in the near future. I just found the interesting similarity that give me a bit more confidence. Thought I should share my newfound insight in the forum, that has always been open for such discussions.
January 23, 2020 at 15:01 |
Sathya
Sathya
Sathya:
Thank for the explanation. Certainly you are correct in what you say about my work (though I have tried some different principles over the years).
Are you acquainted with any of Tiago's work other than in this article?
Thank for the explanation. Certainly you are correct in what you say about my work (though I have tried some different principles over the years).
Are you acquainted with any of Tiago's work other than in this article?
January 24, 2020 at 0:49 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
I found this article fascinating but frustrating. Several times, he begins developing something that looks like an interesting new insight, but before he fully articulates it, he changes the subject. 🙂
There does seem to be a common thread on aligning one's productivity around one's changing moods, but I really found it difficult to understand how his whole process hangs together. But from what I was able to gather, his approach seems much more passive and theoretical than Mark's.
For example, he writes << Calm but Focused Me needs to be able to hand off whatever he’s working on to another instance of Calm but Focused Me in such a way that both the current progress and the state of mind are preserved as accurately as possible. Because these two instances are often separated by days, weeks, or months (in an environment of numerous simultaneous projects and constant emergencies), this handoff cannot rely on storing these states in memory, nor can it deteriorate over time. >>
He then describes a rather complex form of journaling that might help capturing one's "current progress and state of mind" so it can be picked up later when one has the right mental state. It's an interesting idea but just doesn't seem very practical to me.
Mark's methods depend on "psychological readiness" but also have many built-in mechanisms to engender that readiness. They also seem a lot more straightforward and practical than Tiago's offering.
One example is "clumping, attenuation, and maturity" - http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2017/12/13/simple-scanning-clumping-attenuation-and-maturity.html
Another example is "flow", which has been described by many people as a key feature of Mark's systems - http://markforster.squarespace.com/fv-forum/post/1767348
The result is that following any of Mark's systems actually helps generate the psychological readiness. This makes one much less dependent on one's changing moods and mental states.
There does seem to be a common thread on aligning one's productivity around one's changing moods, but I really found it difficult to understand how his whole process hangs together. But from what I was able to gather, his approach seems much more passive and theoretical than Mark's.
For example, he writes << Calm but Focused Me needs to be able to hand off whatever he’s working on to another instance of Calm but Focused Me in such a way that both the current progress and the state of mind are preserved as accurately as possible. Because these two instances are often separated by days, weeks, or months (in an environment of numerous simultaneous projects and constant emergencies), this handoff cannot rely on storing these states in memory, nor can it deteriorate over time. >>
He then describes a rather complex form of journaling that might help capturing one's "current progress and state of mind" so it can be picked up later when one has the right mental state. It's an interesting idea but just doesn't seem very practical to me.
Mark's methods depend on "psychological readiness" but also have many built-in mechanisms to engender that readiness. They also seem a lot more straightforward and practical than Tiago's offering.
One example is "clumping, attenuation, and maturity" - http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2017/12/13/simple-scanning-clumping-attenuation-and-maturity.html
Another example is "flow", which has been described by many people as a key feature of Mark's systems - http://markforster.squarespace.com/fv-forum/post/1767348
The result is that following any of Mark's systems actually helps generate the psychological readiness. This makes one much less dependent on one's changing moods and mental states.
January 26, 2020 at 15:12 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
I think Mark's and Tiago's thinking are fundamentally similar and offers a new perspective on how we work.
http://praxis.fortelabs.co/productivity-for-precious-snowflakes-68bb9d312362/amp/
I think both of you should meet ;)