Discussion Forum > Mark, have you broken Simple Scanning yet?
My focus is on ways to better manage the state of mind to help make better choices.
February 1, 2022 at 18:19 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
Alan:
Well, yes. But if you look at video games they are about "making better choices" in terms of getting the highest possible score.
If one had a time management system which worked the same way as a video game it could be a matter of making better choices in order to win the game - but this time it's the game of life and the setting is real life and not a video screen.
I've just started testing a system which I hope is going in the right direction towards this.
Well, yes. But if you look at video games they are about "making better choices" in terms of getting the highest possible score.
If one had a time management system which worked the same way as a video game it could be a matter of making better choices in order to win the game - but this time it's the game of life and the setting is real life and not a video screen.
I've just started testing a system which I hope is going in the right direction towards this.
February 1, 2022 at 21:09 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Mark:
You've probably already thought of this, but one of the reasons modern video games are so engrossing is that they are masters of creating desirable difficulty on a seemingly infinite progressive scale while at the same time presenting the player with short term objectives that are discrete, actionable, and relatively short-term, meaning that there's always the "next challenge" and that challenge is always immediate and rewarding.
In order to do this, they have a very clear separation between long term planning and short-term execution. Usually, unlike life, someone else has designed the levels/worlds with a clear long-term engagement strategy (usually over many iterations) so that when you are actually playing the game, you never have to do that much planning, you just go from one fun thing to the next in a progressively more interesting and novel space.
I suspect this separation between the design and mapping of the progression and the execution of this progression are critical, and the systematic reduction of big wins into small wins is probably a huge part of this.
You've probably already thought of this, but one of the reasons modern video games are so engrossing is that they are masters of creating desirable difficulty on a seemingly infinite progressive scale while at the same time presenting the player with short term objectives that are discrete, actionable, and relatively short-term, meaning that there's always the "next challenge" and that challenge is always immediate and rewarding.
In order to do this, they have a very clear separation between long term planning and short-term execution. Usually, unlike life, someone else has designed the levels/worlds with a clear long-term engagement strategy (usually over many iterations) so that when you are actually playing the game, you never have to do that much planning, you just go from one fun thing to the next in a progressively more interesting and novel space.
I suspect this separation between the design and mapping of the progression and the execution of this progression are critical, and the systematic reduction of big wins into small wins is probably a huge part of this.
February 1, 2022 at 22:38 |
Aaron Hsu
Aaron Hsu
Aaron Hsu:
<< one of the reasons modern video games are so engrossing is that they are masters of creating desirable difficulty on a seemingly infinite progressive scale >>
I wonder if there is another core conflict here:
(A) We want to have a strong, deep, sustained sense of satisfaction with our work and life.
(B) To achieve (A), we need to feel engaged and have a sense of "flow", so that the journey of life and work is engaging, interesting, motivating, creative, and free.
(C) To achieve (A), we also need to be getting the results that matter to us, that move our life and work forward in the direction we want to go, to be achieving the goals that are important to us.
(D) To achieve (B), we need to optimize our personal systems and processes for the flow of attention, energy, and engagement. This is what "standing out" is all about -- intuition, freedom, exploration -- following the work wherever it takes us, and discovering what emerges. But this freedom also has a tendency to threaten (C).
(D') To achieve (C), we need to optimize for the flow of the work -- limiting WIP, driving toward completion, predictable outcomes, reliable execution. But this focus on reliable execution has a tendency to threaten (B).
Video games achieve both (B) and (C) by deliberate design. To achieve (B), they always keep you in a personal flow state, giving you something just challenging enough to keep you interested but not too challenging so as to overwhelm you. To achieve (C), they integrate the engaging action with a never-ending series of newer and better accomplishments that all drive the game's narrative forward.
I think modern television programming does the same kind of thing -- keeping you engrossed in the current episode, while always building toward something larger, never ending.
Eventually, both video games and television programs leave me feeling empty, because it keeps driving forward without every achieving any real-world value. Social media is very similar. But maybe we can use these same dynamics to create a better TM system, so the accomplishments are truly meaningful and valuable to us.
I think TM systems focus on either D or D', but finding a good synthesis has proven elusive. For example, DIT emphasizes D' -- the flow of work -- focusing on commitment, completion, balance of workload against capacity, etc. Whereas the AF "standing out" systems emphasize D -- the flow of attention.
This is one reason I am so intrigued lately with revisiting AF4R. The core AF mechanism of "standing out" drives the system and maintains the sense of freedom, whereas the focus on Unfinished items creates a sense of accomplishment and purpose. http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2787870
<< one of the reasons modern video games are so engrossing is that they are masters of creating desirable difficulty on a seemingly infinite progressive scale >>
I wonder if there is another core conflict here:
(A) We want to have a strong, deep, sustained sense of satisfaction with our work and life.
(B) To achieve (A), we need to feel engaged and have a sense of "flow", so that the journey of life and work is engaging, interesting, motivating, creative, and free.
(C) To achieve (A), we also need to be getting the results that matter to us, that move our life and work forward in the direction we want to go, to be achieving the goals that are important to us.
(D) To achieve (B), we need to optimize our personal systems and processes for the flow of attention, energy, and engagement. This is what "standing out" is all about -- intuition, freedom, exploration -- following the work wherever it takes us, and discovering what emerges. But this freedom also has a tendency to threaten (C).
(D') To achieve (C), we need to optimize for the flow of the work -- limiting WIP, driving toward completion, predictable outcomes, reliable execution. But this focus on reliable execution has a tendency to threaten (B).
Video games achieve both (B) and (C) by deliberate design. To achieve (B), they always keep you in a personal flow state, giving you something just challenging enough to keep you interested but not too challenging so as to overwhelm you. To achieve (C), they integrate the engaging action with a never-ending series of newer and better accomplishments that all drive the game's narrative forward.
I think modern television programming does the same kind of thing -- keeping you engrossed in the current episode, while always building toward something larger, never ending.
Eventually, both video games and television programs leave me feeling empty, because it keeps driving forward without every achieving any real-world value. Social media is very similar. But maybe we can use these same dynamics to create a better TM system, so the accomplishments are truly meaningful and valuable to us.
I think TM systems focus on either D or D', but finding a good synthesis has proven elusive. For example, DIT emphasizes D' -- the flow of work -- focusing on commitment, completion, balance of workload against capacity, etc. Whereas the AF "standing out" systems emphasize D -- the flow of attention.
This is one reason I am so intrigued lately with revisiting AF4R. The core AF mechanism of "standing out" drives the system and maintains the sense of freedom, whereas the focus on Unfinished items creates a sense of accomplishment and purpose. http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2787870
February 2, 2022 at 5:17 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
<<it keeps driving forward without every achieving any real-world value>>
Could Duolingo be an example of achieving flow and moving you forward while also rendering real-life value?
Could Duolingo be an example of achieving flow and moving you forward while also rendering real-life value?
February 2, 2022 at 11:40 |
Charles
Charles
Charles:
I didn't find Duolingo either achieved flow, moved me forward or rendered real-life value.
I didn't find Duolingo either achieved flow, moved me forward or rendered real-life value.
February 2, 2022 at 15:11 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
I think Duolingo is a contentious example without sufficient academic support to justify its claims of effectiveness. I think the most effectively I have seen it used is as an auxiliary tool for someone who is already pretty well established with other methods of learning a language.
February 4, 2022 at 2:29 |
Aaron Hsu
Aaron Hsu
I must admit Duolingo didn't have quite have the hold for me either, neither from addictiveness (I got bored of it pretty easily) nor from being convinced of its value.
I wonder if a better example would be the Guardian website.
Last night I spent hours on the site starting from one article:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jan/25/riba-best-building-award-friendship-hospital-bangladesh-kashef-chowdhury-david-chipperfield-wilkinson-eyre
This continues what Aaron said about the characteristics that make games fun, but I think it might be interesting to examine how their webpage is designed to be engaging:
- each article is "bite-sized", and I don't even have to finish it
- at the bottom of the page, there are related articles (which build on my current interest) and loosely related articles (which I seldom click but can open up a whole new group of articles)
- they only show a limited number of other articles (8 that change quickly, 6 that are stable) to choose from at the bottom so I don't spend ages scrolling through options but click the most interesting one
- when I click a related article, some of the choices change, but some stay the same, so if an article was only the 3rd most interesting to me earlier, it may be the most interesting now
- there are also links to other articles/topics on other parts of the page
I know Mark is already testing out a system, but I wonder how to-dos might be configured to do the same thing. Maybe:
- breaking down tasks, or if the task isn't amenable to breaking down, using mini timeboxes
- limit the number of choices
- as tasks get done, introduce other choices
- the choices change somewhat with each actioned task (more than from "refilling" above)
Hmm. Sounds similar to the 5/2 system, which could of course be modified to something like 15/10 or even 10/9. Reinventing the wheel here, haha. But I wonder how to build in the last feature. Perhaps allowing unlimited new tasks to be added to the "current list" but bumping older items off? It sounds very similar to AF2 then, or AF limited to the last page.
Maybe it'd be interesting as well to examine Reddit as well, another place where I tend to easily spend hours upon hours:
https://www.reddit.com/
Some characteristics:
- Ability to customize what sort of topics to be exposed to
- Randomness in what exactly shows up
- Bite-sized content
- Almost always new content
- Seemingly infinite choices
- No obligation to do anything
- As much or as little engagement with the selected content as you want (e.g. reading comments, posting comments, searching related topics)
It seems Simple Scanning is pretty much the same thing, as long as large tasks are broken down or timeboxed. But apparently that's not enough gamification.
I wonder if a better example would be the Guardian website.
Last night I spent hours on the site starting from one article:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jan/25/riba-best-building-award-friendship-hospital-bangladesh-kashef-chowdhury-david-chipperfield-wilkinson-eyre
This continues what Aaron said about the characteristics that make games fun, but I think it might be interesting to examine how their webpage is designed to be engaging:
- each article is "bite-sized", and I don't even have to finish it
- at the bottom of the page, there are related articles (which build on my current interest) and loosely related articles (which I seldom click but can open up a whole new group of articles)
- they only show a limited number of other articles (8 that change quickly, 6 that are stable) to choose from at the bottom so I don't spend ages scrolling through options but click the most interesting one
- when I click a related article, some of the choices change, but some stay the same, so if an article was only the 3rd most interesting to me earlier, it may be the most interesting now
- there are also links to other articles/topics on other parts of the page
I know Mark is already testing out a system, but I wonder how to-dos might be configured to do the same thing. Maybe:
- breaking down tasks, or if the task isn't amenable to breaking down, using mini timeboxes
- limit the number of choices
- as tasks get done, introduce other choices
- the choices change somewhat with each actioned task (more than from "refilling" above)
Hmm. Sounds similar to the 5/2 system, which could of course be modified to something like 15/10 or even 10/9. Reinventing the wheel here, haha. But I wonder how to build in the last feature. Perhaps allowing unlimited new tasks to be added to the "current list" but bumping older items off? It sounds very similar to AF2 then, or AF limited to the last page.
Maybe it'd be interesting as well to examine Reddit as well, another place where I tend to easily spend hours upon hours:
https://www.reddit.com/
Some characteristics:
- Ability to customize what sort of topics to be exposed to
- Randomness in what exactly shows up
- Bite-sized content
- Almost always new content
- Seemingly infinite choices
- No obligation to do anything
- As much or as little engagement with the selected content as you want (e.g. reading comments, posting comments, searching related topics)
It seems Simple Scanning is pretty much the same thing, as long as large tasks are broken down or timeboxed. But apparently that's not enough gamification.
February 4, 2022 at 7:09 |
Charles
Charles
What about "randomized timeboxing"? Basically throw a die to determine how many minutes to work on a task? This turns tasks into something akin to YouTube videos of 1-6 minutes. Credit and more details here: (warning: language and mature jokes)
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime (dot) com/blog/how-to-gamify-real-life-using-only-two-dollars-worth-of-new-tools
This forum doesn't seem to be allowing me to post these links so I've replaced a dot with "(dot)" - you'll need to do the reverse for the link to work.
Another idea is "polar switching" - basically alternating between doing the "most important" task and the "least important" task.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime (dot) com/blog/more-timeboxing-insights-scaling-and-polar-switching
That site has tons of other insights on productivity even though it looks like it's just about language learning.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime (dot) com/blog/how-to-gamify-real-life-using-only-two-dollars-worth-of-new-tools
This forum doesn't seem to be allowing me to post these links so I've replaced a dot with "(dot)" - you'll need to do the reverse for the link to work.
Another idea is "polar switching" - basically alternating between doing the "most important" task and the "least important" task.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime (dot) com/blog/more-timeboxing-insights-scaling-and-polar-switching
That site has tons of other insights on productivity even though it looks like it's just about language learning.
February 4, 2022 at 7:13 |
Charles
Charles
Informative blog! it was very useful for me. Thanks for sharing. Do share more ideas regularly.
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January 2, 2025 at 5:46 |
villagetalkies
villagetalkies
<< but also the time management approach ought to support the objective.>>
Yes, indeed. In face I'm looking at ways in which time management can be made more addictive (in the non-clinical sense) as I said above.