Adam Keys is Thinking

The traditional prescription for keeping software easy to work with and amenable to change is “refactoring”. As we’re fixing bugs, adding features, and making new possibilities, we investigate how to change the structure of code so that correcting, changing, or adding behavior is easier. In reverse order — we should make the change easy, then make the easy change to achieve the desired results¹.

I may not surprise you in suggesting that’s often not how things actually work out.

Some code, processes, or data are inherently complex or crystalized in path dependence. After our first urge to simplify is stymied, move on to the second possibility: live with and document the complexity, then keep moving². Everyone wins.

Documenting code is a great forcing function for simplifying it. When I look at code with the intent of writing down how to use or understand it, my perspective shifts, and I’m more aware of the missing affordances. A clarifying parameter name or perhaps a simpler calling sequence. So I make that change (aka refactoring) as part of the process of documenting the code. Everyone wins.

The same goes for processes and data. Writing down how to fix an unprocessed payment or restore data after an accidental deletion flips my perspective enough that I’m not seeing it in the weeds. I can see opportunities for automation, so I take them. Or I can see how to improve a data structure such that errors are obvious to humans or detectable by computers. I make that change, everyone wins.

It’s not always possible to find these little wins. Occasionally, we don’t win!

Some systems, especially the older and critical ones, resist change. The volume of data may be the resistance to change, the process may touch too many people to casually change, the risk of updating code may be too great. If you’ve worked on a billing system, I bet you’re hallucinating memories of it at the mere mention of data, process, people, and code resisting even the smallest change in course.

In that case, the next best way to improve the situation is to improve everyone’s knowledge of the system by writing it down. Document how it works. Even better, elaborate on how it’s supposed to work and how it actually works in some important but problematic circumstances.

Go from tricky code to refactoring. If you’re stymied by refactoring, switch to documenting it instead. Everyone wins.

Alan Jacobs, the attention cottage (Via Austin Kleon). I was not expecting to quote an attention metaphor involving the cardiovascular system and cottages, and yet:

To care only for things temporal is to lose the things eternal; but to attend rightly to things eternal is the royal road to constructive thought and action in the temporal realm. The great artists and thinkers cultivate a systolic/diastolic rhythm, tension and release, an increase and then decrease of pressure. In the latter phase they withdraw, by whatever means available to them, to their attentional cottage for refreshment and clarification — and then they can return to the pressures of the moment more effectively, and in ways non-destructive to them and to others.

But most of us, I think, get the rhythm wrong: we spend the great majority of our time in systolic mode — contracted, tensed — and only rarely enter the relaxed diastolic phase. Or, to change the metaphor: We think we should be living in the chaotic, cacophanous megalopolis and retreat to our cottage only in desperate circumstances. But the reverse is true: our attention cottage should be our home, our secure base, the place from which we set out on our adventures in contemporaneity and to which we always make our nostos.

I often think how much easier, how much more naturally healthy, life was even just a couple of decades ago, when the internet was in one room of the house, when the whole family had one computer connected to a modem that was connected to a landline, and movies arrived in the mailbox in red envelopes.

I love a cottage/workshop/garage metaphor. Doubly so when they recall a time when distraction had yet to pervade our homes and lives.

The past is gone, we’re not going back to Netflix DVD mailers. So how do we carry the idea of inhale/exhale and space forward? I’m trying a few things currently ¹:

Minimize apps with an adversarial agenda. Currently: YouTube is only on my iPad, but the intent is I mostly watch via AppleTV. Twitter, Ivory, and Instagram are only on my phone. Reading apps (Books, Kindle, Reader, Reeder) are on all my devices. In other words, the apps aligned with my goals (read more of what I choose, think bigger thoughts) are everywhere and the ones that want to direct my attention to advertisements (mostly) are only present where my attention is (probably) already scattered.

Hold devices to a purpose. The intent here is that I’m holding my iPad largely for reading, focus, and writing. My laptop is largely for writing, publishing, and collaboration. The Kindle is, obviously focused on reading alone, despite the predations of Amazon into all possible revenue streams elsewhere.

Treat the transition to focus with reverence, if not physical space. When I’m reading or writing, I try to keep my phone out-of-reach. If not in another room. My laptop sits in a (part of the) room where I’m only focused on writing, ideas, publishing, or keeping those things operating smoothly. Whether I’m in my home office or making do on a roadtrip, this is the attention cottage Jacobs mentions above.

It’s not quite as quaint as an actual cottage. But, it does an okay job balancing the pastoral with the modern.

It’s the only way to survive as an engineering leader.

1. Hand off tasks/work to the team
2. Give guidelines, execution tactics, or constraints to keep things on track
3. Set an expectation of what to deliver and when
4. Get out of the way

Delegate not only the main/critical path work, but also “the toys” and interesting/exciting work. Give away your toys.

Even more difficult: don’t tell someone how to do it. Give context (“why”) and constraints. A few style guides perhaps (i.e., codified influence!). But, work with the team to develop the style guide, raise the standard, and enforce the standard. Provide constraints that keep them on track and/or reduce the problem space.

Leadership is about executing through other people. To some extent, that means influencing your team to do the right work efficiently and effectively. That’s delegation in a nutshell.

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.”

— Shunryo Suzuki

The trick being, how can an expert help a beginner, given they know all the false paths. And how can the expert encourage the beginner to help them find new ideas, knowing all the paths they’ve followed in the past?

The distinguishing quality of beginner-ness is that every rock turned over has something surprising or interesting under it. It’s all rabbit holes to fall down or rakes to step on.

When there are no time constraints present, it’s fine to explore these ideas, some of which may not be fruitful. Or, to figure out exactly why the result was surprising and not intended.

When time is of the essence, being a beginner is sometimes pretty dang stressful. Doubly so when the path to productivity is littered with novelty.

Ergo, Make Failure A (Safe) Option.

I feel lucky that I was able to learn a lot about software development in high school and college. Mostly, self-directed; I used Linux during college, spent a lot of time compiling Enlightenment and tinkering with up-and-coming languages you may have heard of, namely Python and Ruby (and to some extent, Lisp and ML).

Beginners today are thrown straight into narrowly guided tutorials and online courses. Then they’re dropped into the wilds of innumerable Unix minutiae, source control, relational databases, multi-paradigm programming languages, styling in browsers, and agile methods. I realized I was firmly in the “expert developer” camp when I could spot all the rabbit holes and rakes-in-leaves three moves ahead. I deftly maneuvered in the dark, knowing by feel where the potential problems were and how to avoid them.

It’s difficult to impart that knowledge to beginners. It’s not principles, it’s compounded experience. Worse, beginners find themselves amidst a hustle culture of “ship a side project alongside your day job and somehow do that whilst traveling the world”. Or, become a “content creator”. Most importantly, I knew a side-hustle and creator¹ lifestyle were not for me.

I’m certain beginners can help me find new and interesting angles. But it’s difficult to thread the needle between listening for insight and skipping ahead to what I know will work. It’s tempting to say, “I see where you’re going, but there are hazards ahead and here’s all the ways your approach could stymy us.” For one, failing is a pretty dang effective way to learn! For another, “don’t do that, I’ll tell you why later” is a pretty lousy way to acquire knowledge.

One lesson I’ve learned from beginners is that probably we should design systems without reliance on understanding the full depth and breadth of the computing world. Folks don’t have the time or energy to get Very Good at ./configure; make; make install² like I did in college.

Beginners are pretty good at working incrementally. They have to, lest they get lost in all the stepping on rakes and learning of minute! Many experienced developers have forgotten how to build incrementally. They glimpse the glass castles in the sky and plow ahead to realizing them, only to find themselves stepping on different kinds of rakes hidden in the leaves.

Expert mistake number one: try to skip past all the beginner’s insights. That is, the beginner’s mind.

Teammates new to software development and new teammates on the team, accidentally or intentionally, can both reveal useful information about your team, process, and software. Information that is otherwise difficult to come by. There are things everyone is accustomed, and thus blind, to that a beginner can tell you straight away.

I have to remind myself that this is a critical moment. Don’t skip straight to “onboarding them onto the team’s culture” by explaining the history and the why-or-why-not. I should listen to the insight, evaluate the idea, and bias to act on it if I can.

A group of experts can make great things. But a group of experts with a beginner alongside can assimilate new ideas and make great and interesting things.

See also:

• Austin Kleon, Show Your Work
• James Clear, This Zen Concept Will Help You Stop Being a Slave to Old Beliefs 

I’m trying to change up my blogging style: write without telling people what to do. Show, don’t tell. It’s a stronger writing position to take. It’s the difference between writing social media “content” and writing from a place of earnestness/honesty.

• Advocate by telling a compelling story.
• Motivate by strength of logic alone.
• Change minds by revealing an obvious truth that was once obscured.
• No shortcuts.

The way I read him, Kurt Vonnegut (might) want it that way. Who knows, he can’t tell us now!

“Try harder” is the worst kind of plan. It’s basically not a plan, a small resistance to planning. An anti-plan that signals virtue but instead reflects shallow thinking.

Don’t say “try harder”.

“Try harder” implies that folks haven’t been working hard enough. It leaves the door open to come up short again, for all the same reasons, with little to show for it.

It assumes folks can throw themselves at a project/problem/task even harder without consequences, like exhaustion, burnout, diminished performance, letting important part of their lives suffer, etc. Not only that, but it’s a terminating thought, the kind of thing you can say, and few people will say “well no, we can do better than that” and end up not solving any underlying issues.

“Try harder” is trying to avoid a tough question: why did I/we come up short last time? “Try harder” is resignation to learning nothing and plowing head-down anyway.

Try harder is literally working harder, not smarter. I highly recommend the latter.

Two prolific, internet-known travelers:

• Craig Mod: writer, walker, photographer, software-adjacent
• Brock Keen: photographer, car camper, road-tripper, Porsche-enthusiast

These gentlemen are particularly good at two things that I am not: getting outside and unplugged, and photography. (Also: walking and camping.) From the outside, their projected life/identity seems like a vacation¹. In particular, they take quite different sort of vacations than I do: not Disneyland nor dog agility-adjacent.

They go out into the world, force a little disconnection. Setting aside this is part of their thing, they are separate from whatever knowledge work they might do.

I often want to better disconnect from my knowledge work, even for a couple of hours each night. And, it occurs to me that I can achieve that on any particular kind of vacation. A trip to a Disney resort is a fine opportunity to shift my mind to the present and to my intellectual/reading/writing interests².

Disengagement en route to thinking

Mod and Keen generate a desire to think by converting walking/driving mileage into boredom and then, alchemy!, better thoughts.

Maybe our generally less-stimulated existences, before pervasive computing and social media, correlate with thinking better thoughts. i.e., does it require some kind of disengagement to be a Great Thinker in the age of pervasive networking and computing?

Keen is not specifically about thinking, whereas Mod is thinking adjacent. Possibly, more about disengagement. Yet, something about it makes me think I could do better thoughts in something like that existence.

Disengagement as precondition to creativity

What if some degree of disengagement is already table stakes? Not disengagement like Waldenponding. More like returning to a clear mind and thinking one’s own thoughts. Like, you have to say no to all the distractions that you said yes to in the first place (whether accidentally over optimistically) to do a great thing/thought. Jenny O’Dell has written the book on this, recommended.

Vacation is a tool for disconnection and disengagement adjacency

I wrote A Vacation is a Tool For Disconnecting amidst a few weeks wherein we vacationed in Disneyland and stayed in a friend’s RV at a public park while Courtney did dog agility. Despite this not being the most disconnected (I was, in fact, very connected) or disengaged (Disneyland is quite stimulating), my mind reached a good place.

I wasn’t dwelling on things. I could stop thinking about work once as soon as it snuck into my thoughts. I enjoyed quiet moments and didn’t rush to fill them with distractions. I photographed and journaled and jotted down ideas on the spot and posted photos to blogs. It was pretty dang good.

But I still found myself sitting there, half-writing and half-journaling, sort of feeling like I’m not prolific enough, even on vacation/disconnection. So maybe disconnection/disengagement isn’t the central thing. Or, ambition and aspiration are orthogonal to personal/work life splits and balances and how they manifest as some degree of “going offline”.

Possibly, if I were on a road trip or walking or in nature or disengaged or whatever, I would find this feeling/vibe anyway. Is that the disengagement or disconnection talking?

Anne-Laure Le Cunff, 4 science-backed ways to build your own mental gym:

Building mental strength is not too different from building physical strength. It’s all about consistency. The same way you would take a few minutes to do a few push ups, you can incorporate mental pushups in your daily routine.

Be curious:

The last one is extremely powerful. Multiple research studies show the positive impact teaching someone else has on the comprehension and recall of any material.

Get creative:

There is evidence that practicing activities such as music, drawing, arts and crafts stimulate our brain in a way that enhances our health and well-being. These activities also have a positive impact on our emotional resilience.

Be mindful:

Choose a topic. It should be personal, emotional, and important to you. Write for yourself. Do not imagine your writing being read by other people. Let go. Don’t worry about style, spelling, punctuation, or grammar.

Get some rest:

A great way to combine short breaks and sleep are, of course… Naps! If you’re fortunate enough to work in an environment where taking a nap during the day is possible, do take that opportunity.

I can’t overstate how good naps are. Second only to easy access to comfort from a dog, naps are the best of work-from-home benefits.

Is a personal blog or general-purpose more like a small shop or your local garage?

They’re a bit of a calm business.

A corner store with a friendly owner/operator. Never grows beyond its means. Operates at relatively-human scale. Greet every customer, have a nice conversation, send them away with something interesting. Aims for an infinite game, not limitless growth. It may not ever turn a profit, but that’s okay; neither do most restaurants or start-ups.

A good neighborhood store might make me think, “I wonder if Sam has anything interest in stock this week?” A good blog should make me hope Sam has new posts, with confidence that they’re probably pretty good.

But, a personal web space is a bit of a sports car in a workshop too.

It’s meant to enjoy, for driving. But also for nostalgia, for looking and remembering. Showing it off is important! It’s not quite as good as what you could go out and buy new, but that’s most of the charm. Working on it is part of the fun, but often a source of frustration and expense.

An interesting garage might make me think, “Hey I wonder what car Hank is working on this week?” A good blog makes me think, Hank’s site is so fascinating, I should go talk to him about it or make my own.

A lovely thing, personal websites are!

In America, the 2024 election cycle is unlikely to amuse anyone. Maybe this is a rallying point for “unifying” the country: a near-universal loathing of our politicians, how they get themselves elected, and the outcomes they deliver to us. Let alone the new media that reports on them.

Ahead of the inevitable hell-cycle, I’ve trimmed my attention sails a bit. The general idea is to remove feeds and notifications from my daily routine which are monetized primarily by writing doom-y, grab-y headlines. I’m looking at you in particular, New York Times. But it applies to just about everything with headlines. I’ve disabled all notifications from The Economist and Apple News. I read them once a week. That’s plenty.

Unrelated to the election, I deleted the Twitter and Instagram apps. The web app is mostly equivalent in Twitter’s case, no loss there. Instagram’s mobile web app is surprisingly mediocre. The point, in both cases, is to put a few more steps, a bit more friction, between me and randomly scrolling an algorithmic, attention-hungry feed. I’ve since found that the friction of loading these two as web apps is great. I do indeed look at them far, far less. On the other hand, their web apps are intentionally just-okay. It seems to me that any organization that can put together an excellent iOS app should be able to do the same on mobile web. Reader, let me tell you, they don’t.

I found the settings in Lyft and DoorDash that prevent them from sending advertisements-as-push-notifications. They do exist! Highly recommended.

Mute lists, they’re also fantastic. All the names and teams and keywords that tend to mean “here’s a post about the political horse-race” are scrubbed from my timeline. Even better, I can see when they’re scrubbed and dip in to see if things are as unproductive as I remember. (Thanks for that little detail, Ivory.)

Previously: Think Your Thoughts.