You know the feeling when you are practicing for a final exam and you recall how easy it was to learn the material in the beginning? And now 4 months into it it may feel “Overwhelming”? Like ideally we would have a crystal clear understanding of it all, but even though it’s crystal clear at the moment when we look at it, over time that can get shaken and stirred.
You’ve probably noticed the same thing when working on a bunch of different projects simultaneously. You complete one project and it’s crystal clear at the time what you did, and after working on an other project for a while, you may come back to one of your other projects and ask “Who did this???”.
So how do we keep the clarity?
I started asking myself this because I working on a lot of projects ( With a lot of “Process Detail” involved in them), and ideally I would have a crystal mental map of all of the projects, what was done, how it was done, and so on, so that I can easily traverse their details conceptually and without actually having to see anything before I go to work on something new. I’ll know exactly where to do and what to do.
In other words I can keep adding Jenga pieces and feel confident that it’s going to hold and if I need to change something I can quickly and easily do so.
If someone were to ask me “How do you make toast”, I have a very crystal clear picture of what the steps are and I can guide them in terms of where to get the bread, on pretty much any level, even how to make the bread, and I can tell them how to set the temperature on the toaster and so on. I’m am a Toast Master! I can even tell them how to butter the toast!!
So I want to be able to do that for all the things I’m working on. That’s the goal.
So in order to achieve this, I started asking myself what it is I’m doing before I do it, and then build clarity on all the steps. This way I’m committing it all to visual memory.
And once I started practicing this, I needed to make corrections. I’ll conceptualize and visualize something I’m about to do or something I’ve done, and then once I discovered differences I pay careful attention to them and in that process become more “Aware” what it is that I’m doing.
For example it could be something simple like open project name X and I thought I named it X, but it could have been named Y, and having clarity on simple little details like this helps And I was surprised at some of them. I was like I really should know this, and that loop is important.
And as I started doing this I noticed that even though I’ve been doing certain things for a long time, and it’s crystal clear what I’m doing when I have tools / UI in front of me, being crystal clear mentally without any of that to help is a different level of clarity and focus. And part of the reason I need to get there is to eliminate blocking so that I have more freedom to create.
I’ve noticed, and this is something obvious to all of us, that once I’ve practiced visualizing step details ( Even simple things like go to this directory and change this file or log into this account and do this) in their full context ( In other words what are the steps and what is their overall context) I feel much more grounded / decluttered / organized.
In other words I know where each bread crumb is and how to find my way around with my mind only.
The other thing that is very useful for me with respect to this is it helps ground me in what I’m currently working on, because I may see lots of other interesting things as I’m working, and I love to jump around, and now I have a “Sandbox” that I can stay in while I’m focusing. So even though thinking out of the box is good, sometimes I really need to stay in the box.
That said jumping around is great for creativity too.
When I do let myself go I’m trying to be more like a canoe in a stream with ores to guide myself, instead of just a ball bouncing around.
One of the things I do is use a question as an “Anchor” and I try to stay focused on that question until I feel I’ve done a sufficient job with it. I may also limit my scope. I may say “OK I’m going allow myself to flow around here, but I’ll limit myself to this question and this area of scope”.
That said it is a nice thing to just be able to bounce all over the place too. I’m trying to be more aware of how I’m projecting my energy now and finding balance in it all. Curiosity is a wonderful thing. So I may bounce around a bit, but at a minimum I know that when I’m done with this coming coming out of “It” with “This”.
Summary
Now when I’m working I either start with I start with now I’m doing A and then I have clear understand of what A is. And this may simply be a question, if I’m not doing A,B,C. And if I simply answer a question, I make sure that I know the answer and that I can recall it later.
If A is a task, it may turn out that as I’m doing A, into turns out to be a little different from what I thought it was.
So then I go back and clarify for myself what A is / how it’s done on a detail level. And so I kept doing this on rinse and repeat.
And later on I’ll review this while I’m driving or not doing actual work, so that I have a clear understanding of A, B, C and so on.
And so as I do this I feel much more at home in everything that I’m doing because I have a crystal clear understanding of all of it. It helps me both keep my focus and stay grounded in what I’m doing.
