Negativity in Task Reductionism

My initial view of this project was to collect data on habits, and later on self development and mastery. From the data I was hoping that rules and maxims would emerge. Mind you I don’t exactly know the exact difference between rules, laws, maxims, and theorems, etc… but I feel that they have started to emerge.

One recent one is what I’m calling the Law of Task Reductionism.

And I’ll define it like this:

If a complex task is not broken down into its component parts, failure becomes a negative emotional reflection on one’s character.

The corollary to this law is that :

the chances of failure (defined as failure in improving the skill, loss of efficiency, and as abandoning the endeavor in general) increase substantially

Per Timothy Ferriss’ DiSSS protocol, the reverse seems to be true. That when complex tasks are broken down, individual aspects can be improved upon with relative ease, and “mission success” and efficiency increase substantially.

I’ve found this to be the case in my current cycle of improving my writing. When faced with a writing task, things can get emotional. I fumble, efficiency is lost I get nervous, and though I’ll get the task done, it comes with it a large amount of questioning as to my abilities personally and needless expenditure of emotional energy. But when broken down, I’m surprised by the amount of progress I make in relatively small amounts of time.

Character attacks are a critical problem in this type of self help. You push writing, and people mention how much weight you’ve gained. The habit mania - the urge to do multiple tasks all at once (which has little chance of success) increases. And with it comes cycles of worthlessness and other emotions that prevent stability of practice.

When a task is just a thing, not a reflection of who you are, emotions subside and you’re able to progress calmly and steadily.

Which brings me to my Maxim of Character Reductionism:

Do not associate tasks you approach for self improvement as a reflection of your character. This disassociation prevents habit mania and promotes rapid improvement.

Widgets and an Expanded Plan of Habit Formation Towards Mastery

Habits are a pain, Mastery of a skill is even more of a pain. But doing this for several habits? That’s a war on multiple fronts.

I’ve had a year’s worth of habit formation under my belt - it’s not even a problem to form one anymore. When I think about pushing this project for the future, I think about a smooth graph of habits working in harmony with one another. What’s this look like?

Imagine an entire plan for a year comprised of superhabit formation, growth cycles smoothly kicking in, ratcheting up, switching of to other skills, a year that’s a symphony of perfectly progressed advancement in all skills. Harmony is achieved by pressing just enough, but not too much to interfere with the continual upkeep of other skills.

What I feel hasn’t been discussed are small protocols that kick in at those breaking points - I’ll call them WIDGETS for now, after the small third party programs on websites or computers that kick in when you need them.

And that’s exactly what I want them to do - a small kick when the system needs it that then go away once their mission is complete.

What are some examples?

-Timothy Ferriss’ DiSSS protocol to push skill mastery
-Protocols for absorption and flow states for progression
-Flow and ritual protocols for regimentation, specifically to avoid worrying and thus leaching willpower when I’m not working
-Having absorptive habits or hobbies to help in not obsessing about pushing skills when not working
-A litany of past successes in order to push past HABIT MANIA - the feeling of needing to do everything at once because everything needed to be in place yesterday
-Other protocols for specifically getting past the emotional aspects of breaking points - like Vipassana to push past depression or that drowning feeling
-Taking weekends off in order to preserve sanity

I think this might be different from a previous idea I had - nested habits . Nested habits are protocols within an already established habit, while widgets would be auxiliary protocols to make sure the whole program (across all habits) is moving as smoothly as possible. So that may or may not include skill mastery pushes.

Timothy Ferris, Rapid Skill Mastery, and My Writing Habit

Timothy Ferriss talks here about how to become world class in any skill within 6-12 months.

It’s a great talk and it touches on a lot of things I’m about - minimalism, and optimizing progress. And it talks about complex skills that are composed of a number of smaller skills. Conglomerate skills that have a tendency to easily frustrate people because there’s not something you can latch onto. Cooking was one such skill for Ferriss, and the reason why he called his book on mastery The 4-Hour Chef.

His methodology is DiSSS.

Deconstruction, Selection, Sequencing, and Stakes

Deconstruct a complicated task, focusing in the first 5 sessions to avoid basic mistakes people make in the task. Select the minimal skill that the majority of the larger skill relies upon (the Pareto Principle), question sequencing with the knowledge that in many cases doing things out of order might be better, and up the stakes to increase behavioral change through motivational factors. He adds that repetition of deconstructed skills when it’s not for real (learning how to sautee with coffee beans on a carpeted floor) is key, as is the belief that it can be done, questioning best practices, and focusing on removal and minimalism.

My question: how do I apply this to writing?

After brainstorming and thinking a lot, here’s my protocol based on my key weaknesses when writing any given article:

Week 1

Research. I have a tendency to get bogged down, so I’m going to practice quickly researching articles. What do restaurants have on their menus? When were places opened. In a lot of cases it may just involve cutting and pasting in a list. I should avoid getting bogged down in research and general internet distractions.

Week 2

The majority of articles are good because of transitions which meld research fragments and personal descriptions to a storyline. On my writing blog I’ve already researched an analyzed a number of transitions. So I’ll just choose transitions that work between the research points - this is also sequenced out of order, per Ferriss’s advice. 

Week 3

Actually writing the middle adding personal descriptions to the research and the transitions.

Week 4

Doing the same for endings. 

Week 5

Editing

The idea with all this is that beginnings are actually not really key. I can take a lot of articles and write them from different high points in the action. But the other things are, in my opinion, key points starting from research and descending.

My plan is to ATTEMPT to do this similar to a newbie mission - 2 articles in one hour, for 2 hours. Depending on how fast I get, I want to expand that to 3 per hour for 3 hours. The key is to do this quickly yet well, working on broken up skills in order to gain familiarity and to be able to execute each part with no hesitation because I’ve done it so many times.

I believe that I will be able to pare this methodology with habituation, which is why I’m not including the Stakes aspect to this. I might be wrong, I might need it, but we’ll see. This skill pushing will constitute completion of the instance of habit exercise, i.e. a “check” for having completed my habit of writing for the day.

This might not work. I might have to do each task until it becomes the new ratchet point, and I have NO idea how long that will take. Do I need to do each part longer? Is this the growth phase, and after this 5 week cycle will I have to come up with a new daily minimum? Probably. Do I need to record the writing habit again until the daily minimum becomes a superhabit? Will Ferriss’s skill mastery methodology trump my own habit heavy methodology? I have no idea…but I’ll find out.