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olimayThis is probably going to be a bit jargony, but I hope to clarify and build on it later.
Over the years, I've had a lot of trouble getting some kinds of work done. My main failure point: I don't get started soon enough or often enough, until things are pretty dire or it feels impossible to catch up.
Here are some preliminary mental practices I'd like to experiment with. There's a step, I hope, towards avoiding my major points of failure. They integrate ideas from GTD, Mental Contrasting, Tiny Habits, and AJATT.
Process A - incremental, probabilistic outcomes
1. What is the desired outcome? What does its completion look like?
2. What are intermediate outcomes that raise the chances of achieving the desired outcome?
3. [Recurse]
Process B - next action
1. What is the smallest, most trivial step I can take that will increase the chances of this particular outcome?
2. When and where and how can I perform this next step?
Process C - mental contrasting
(make sure to run processes A&B first)
1. What does the desired outcome look like? Does it seem feasible? (If not, go back to Process A.)
2. What are the obstacles (in the present or near future) to taking action on achieving the desired outcome, and what is the context for these obstacles?
3. What will I do (what is my plan) for when such an obstacle appears?
Process A is a top level thing that can get applied recursively to the branching intermediate outcomes. It can be helpful to run it again to reassess the outcome graph.
Process B gets run on outcomes, starting with the smallest (the "leaves") first.
Process C gets run as next actions from Process B become apparent. But it's especially useful for working towards medium-level outcomes. Process C is essentially the Mental Contrasting technique developed by Oettingen et. al. The literature on mental contrasting says that it works well if the outcomes seem feasible, but that mental contrasting actually reduces motivation if the outcomes seem way too hard, or unfeasible. So it's important to break things down and to make things clear and specific.
Over the years, I've had a lot of trouble getting some kinds of work done. My main failure point: I don't get started soon enough or often enough, until things are pretty dire or it feels impossible to catch up.
Here are some preliminary mental practices I'd like to experiment with. There's a step, I hope, towards avoiding my major points of failure. They integrate ideas from GTD, Mental Contrasting, Tiny Habits, and AJATT.
Process A - incremental, probabilistic outcomes
1. What is the desired outcome? What does its completion look like?
2. What are intermediate outcomes that raise the chances of achieving the desired outcome?
3. [Recurse]
Process B - next action
1. What is the smallest, most trivial step I can take that will increase the chances of this particular outcome?
2. When and where and how can I perform this next step?
Process C - mental contrasting
(make sure to run processes A&B first)
1. What does the desired outcome look like? Does it seem feasible? (If not, go back to Process A.)
2. What are the obstacles (in the present or near future) to taking action on achieving the desired outcome, and what is the context for these obstacles?
3. What will I do (what is my plan) for when such an obstacle appears?
Process A is a top level thing that can get applied recursively to the branching intermediate outcomes. It can be helpful to run it again to reassess the outcome graph.
Process B gets run on outcomes, starting with the smallest (the "leaves") first.
Process C gets run as next actions from Process B become apparent. But it's especially useful for working towards medium-level outcomes. Process C is essentially the Mental Contrasting technique developed by Oettingen et. al. The literature on mental contrasting says that it works well if the outcomes seem feasible, but that mental contrasting actually reduces motivation if the outcomes seem way too hard, or unfeasible. So it's important to break things down and to make things clear and specific.
