Results of First Idea Experiment

I spent some time writing down observations. Some of them I didn't use as starting materials for my idea synthesis reaction, such as:

- It rained this morning.
- My cats are sleeping.

But some of them I did use. These were all observations of my own behavior and feelings. Here's a sampling:

- I like playing computer games.
- It's easy for me to start playing and hard to stop.
- I usually feel like I wasted my time when I play for too long.
- It's hard to stay focused at work.
- I struggle to get myself out the door when it's time to exercise.
- I'm always glad after I get my exercise that I did it.

From those observations, I noticed some patterns. The patterns are:

- Some things are hard to start doing, some things are easy to start doing.
- Some things I'm glad I did, some things I'm not glad I did.

Pretty much all of the actions/tasks/behaviors that are hard to start doing are things that take mental and/or physical energy. They are things that require effort and exertion. Things that are easy to start doing don't require energy. You can do those things while sitting or lying around. You don't have to think hard.

This can all be represented by four quadrants, like this:



Quadrants 1 and 4 generally don't pose problems in people's lives. If something is easy to do, and it's the kind of thing you'll be glad you did, then you just do it and there's no struggle. If something is hard to do, and you don't want to have done that thing, pretty much there's no problem not doing that thing. For example, owning a monkey is difficult and I have no interest in owning a monkey, so there's no challenge for me to keep myself from owning a monkey. A quadrant 1 example is breathing. Breathing is very easy, and I want to have done it. There's no struggle. I just breathe. (Thankfully I don't have asthma and I'm not trying to live under water or on the moon.)

Quadrants 2 and 3 are the problem areas.

An example from quadrant 2 is exercise. I'd like to get more exercise than I do. It's something I'd like to have done: gotten enough exercise every day. But it's hard. It takes effort and energy and sometimes it's painful and it can be too cold or too hot. It takes time. But I feel much better afterwards and I'm glad I did it.

An example from quadrant 3 is web surfing. I love surfing the web. I'm sitting down, I don't have to think hard, I just sit there and click, click, click and look at this and look at that and I'm entertained. Before I know it, I've wasted a few hours reading articles and watching videos that I can't even remember. I don't feel good, and I could have used that time to exercise!

So, how can I tip the scales such that I do more of the things I want to have done and less of the things I'm not happy I did?

Here's an article I read that seems helpful (ok, so maybe I do find some useful things while surfing the web):

Engineer Life: Set Up Habit Changes So It’s Hard to Fail

The basic idea is to make it hard to do the things you don't want to have done and easier to do the things you want to have done. For example, I might require myself to stand up whenever I want to play computer games. Or, I could somehow make it easier or more fun to get out the door to exercise.

I'm not coming up with good ideas at the moment, so maybe it's time to do another idea experiment to see if I can come up with some good solutions.

Ideas Come From Thinking

This sounds really obvious, but ideas come from thinking. Ideas come from observing and thinking. Comparing this to organic chemistry, the observations are the starting materials and the thinking is the heat & stirring and the product is the idea. If you take observations and stir them together with the heat and light of thinking, you will get ideas. They won't always be good, and sometimes your yield will be low, but that's how it is done.

Taking the chemistry analogy a little further, if your starting materials are contaminated (faulty observations), or your glassware isn't clean (clouded thinking, perhaps), or if extra ingredients are accidentally added (assumptions) the results won't be as good.

How do we make good observations? Here are some guesses:
1. Try to observe things. Period.
2. Try to observe with as little interpretation as possible.
3. Be aware of assumptions that can act as their own additional starting materials.

What are the thinking techniques that are equivalent to good lab practices?
1. Start thinking!
2. Be open to various options -- don't just stop with the first idea or conclusion.
3. Draw parallels and make analogies.

I'm going to try to put these theories into practice and report the results in my next post.