This is all terribly abstract. Don't worry, I have concrete
examples.
Let's say you want to build and maintain a great relationship with
someone.
I will make a bold claim that this isn't a goal:
- One is never "done" maintaining a relationship
- A relationship is never perfect - there is always at least a
teensy-weensy bit of room for improvement
- If you aren't satisfied with the relationship in a week, is it a
failure?
- A month?
- A year?
No, building and maintaining a relationship isn't something you
achieve, it's something you *do*. Having a good relationship with
someone is a direction: either you're getting a little bit better,
staying the same, or getting worse. It will fluctuate, of course,
but I'm talking about the *overall* direction.
This is true of mastering martial arts, or being a great
programmer, or artist, or writer. None of these things *ever
end*. They are life-long pursuits.
They are directions.
Goals are still fine
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Some things *should* be goals. If you want to publish a novel in
your lifetime, you're eventually going to have to finish it.
I would argue that a person ought to finish *lots* of things.
Some of these things will likely be intentional goals. And
finishing goals can be satisfying.
So by all means, have some directions in your life which point
towards some goals.
But:
Beware the failed goal. Or the unreached goal.
Strangely, even successfully *finishing* discrete goals can be
unsatisfying, leaving you with a "now what?" feeling.
I *do* have a goal for my Nim phlog series: to write a Gopher
server and client. But it's just a part of a much larger
direction for me: re-learning Nim and going forth to produce
increasingly ambitious systems-level software.
The great thing about having a direction is that *any* amount of
progress counts.
Maybe today isn't the day to have a big block of time to devote to
your project. It happens. And maybe this week isn't a good week
for blowing away a bunch of milestones.
I've had bad *months*.
Maybe you can only do five minutes today and ten the next. No
problem, if you're working on it, if you are making measurable
progress, you're going in the right direction. You're succeeding.
But planning your direction and *heading in that direction* are
not the same thing.
Only movement towards the direction counts.
Make a minimal plan and start.
Time doesn't matter
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Of course time matters. That's silly.
But, gosh, it's amazing how little it matters in terms of getting
big work done.
Does it matter if a beautiful painting was created in a single,
long afternoon or if it was accomplished in fits and spurts over a
year? A decade later, all that matters is the painting.
Something a little more close to home:
Imagine you visit an awesome, successful software project and you
see the following timeline:
- Feb 2007 - started project, so excited!
- Mar 2007 - completed a
- Apr 2007 - completed b
- May 2007 - completed c
- Dec 2007 - completed d - project works!
- Jul 2008 - completed e
- Sep 2010 - completed f
Does this look like a failed project?
Who cares about the timeline, right? It's 2018. The software is
great. The timeline has *ceased to matter*.
But for all *we* know, the developer might have felt like a
complete failure from May 2007 to Dec 2007. Maybe they completely
lost interest. Maybe they considered giving up. Maybe they even
*did* temporarily give up.
All we can see now, in hindsight is that again and again, this
person came back and continued on the project. Items "a" through
"f" are done and in 2018, that's really all that matters.
Less tangibly, any skill you develop in fits and spurts over the
years is going in the right direction *as long as you are better
now than you were before* - it *does not matter* how long it's
taking.
You can still keep track of directions (as you would goals)
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I keep TODO lists like everyone else.
(Aside: these days I use VimWiki, which is just a collection of
formatted text files with minimal wiki client features in Vim. I
have a separate entry for each project.)
What I've found is that I'm treating my projects less and less
like traditional TODO items. Anything small enough to just "check
off" the list doesn't even make it to my VimWiki - I take care of
those things in a paper notebook.
My projects these days tend to be drawn out over months and
months. I have a job and a family and a household to run. Spare
time is carefully rationed. :-)
So instead of thinking of my projects as "goals" that I can't seem
to ever finish, I've come to think of them as "current
directions".
As I look over my entries, I just ask myself if I've done anything
in that direction lately.
If so, then great!
If not, is the project something I'm still interested in?
Other than that, I try not to beat myself up about the glacial
pace!
What I'm really trying to say
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Clearly this whole phlog post is a thinly veiled way of saying
that I made a tiny bit of progress on my "Nim Day 5 - Types" post
against all odds. In the board game of life, the little marker on
the Nim track has inched forward.
Come to think of it, "board game of life" might have been a better
analogy to run with for this post...
Also process, not product
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By the way, I've also seen this idea called, "focusing on process,
not product," which is another great way to put it.
It's way too easy to get discouraged about having to *finish* a
"product" or not feel like you have enough time to make good
progress on a "product".
But a "process", well, all you have to do is show up and do
something.
And I'll be darned if just showing up and doing something doesn't
usually result in getting a lot more done than I'd expected.
The product becomes a side-effect of the process.
Okay, that's probably enough new age mumbo-jumbo for now. Back to
the programming.
