From dream to done
On how to stop sketching in paper and start getting our stuff done
Hello, Hypers!
You already know about my new book if you read this newsletter from your email client. Don’t worry, I won’t advertise it any further. I just wanted to highlight that this is the last of many projects I have completed these last two years.
But four or five years ago, this was unthinkable for me. I have always been intellectually active (at least much more intellectually active than physically active). I was always coming up with ideas or embracing the ideas of others. I started to write or code many times. But I always ended up burnt out. I never finished anything.
The change is not because I became more disciplined or less lazy. As you will see, I’m still pretty lazy. This week I want to share with you what (I think) have been the events and lessons that made me a person who takes projects to the end. Some personal stuff coming!
Learning to be Humble
Maybe the title of this lesson is misleading, but it’ll work. As you will see, this humility I’m referring to is more about not being ignorant. In the standard sense, I have always been humble.
For most of my life, I have been learning how to solve problems. This knowledge is invaluable for me. But there is a drawback hidden. The problems they taught me to solve were well-defined and I always knew there was a solution for them. School problems can be hard, but they lack of one level of complexity that is key for real life.
Starting a new business, looking for a new scientific fact, or any other creative task that we face in our lives, are very different from school problems. Defining the problem itself tends to be the hardest part, and we have no guarantee about the existence of a solution. For a school guy like I was, these challenges could be very intimidating.
The more important lesson that contributed to my mind shift was to embrace these complexities. But to embrace them, you first need to realize they exist. That’s where humility starts playing a role. I was used to the idea that, no matter how hard a problem was, if I spent a lot of time trying to solve it, I’d eventually solve it. In the worst case, I would ask some friends or teachers for help. This led me to approach real-life problems as school problems.
I had to realize that I was underestimating real-life problems. When you can’t even define the exact solution or the exact problem, you need to do things differently. Is like walking into a dark room, as you can’t see anything, you need to make little steps, you can’t run. After many of those little steps, you can have a decent picture of the structure of the room. Also, your eyes get adapted and take the most out of any little source of light available.
When facing real-life problems, we need to learn what is the problem and solve it at the same time. The uncertainty is high, as in the dark room. We recognize this uncertainty and then embrace it.
Realizing Things Are Never Done
The amazing Spanish guitar player Paco de Lucía said that he would prefer to create a single album instead of doing tens of them. He would be polishing each piece of this album during his whole life and the album would be only finished after his death. This is very similar to the case of Donald Knuth and Tex. The versions of Tex are curiously numbered. Each version number is a better approximation of Pi. For example, let’s suppose the current version is numbered 3.14, then the next one will be 3.141, it adds one digit to the Pi approximation. It is stipulated that after Donald’s death, the last version of Tex will be released: the version Pi. After that, Tex won’t be updated anymore.
This idea of something that takes a lifelong effort is the realization that perfection is impossible. The best we can do is to spend our lives trying to achieve perfection. This is very upsetting, we want our projects to be done, but there always seems to be something off with them.
I understood that things are never really done. They are always at a point between not done at all and perfect. We have two options: leave it at this point, or spend more effort and time perfecting it.
That’s why I always make my own definition of done before committing to a project. For example, I know my book is far from perfect. But I don’t want to spend all my life writing a book. I defined the scope and the requirements to consider it done (like not telling lies or including engaging illustrations). After that, I let people to judge my work. If the book is a success I could try to make a better edition or write a similar book. But if nobody buys it, I’ll be happy not spending a lot of effort for nothing, maybe I’ll need to write about other topics or just focus on another completely different thing.
Some years ago I would be burnt out because the result was not the ideal one. Today I just follow my priorities and stick to a plan.
Hacking Myself
Last but not least, the last main change that boosted my productivity was to discover what worked for me. It could sound trivial, but most of the time we are following what worked for others or worse, what others say worked for them. We need to listen to ourselves. To our minds and bodies.
When I was an Undergraduate student, I realized that sleeping is critical for my performance, as it is the case for everybody. But somehow, the toll of a bad sleep (or no sleep at all) seemed to be higher in my case. My friends liked to start their school projects near the deadline. They stayed coding all night long to finish before the deadline, but I discovered I couldn’t. It was counterproductive to me.
I started to code a little bit each day. Those accumulated little efforts allowed me to deliver each project on time, with no rush, and sleep my mandatory seven to eight hours per night. Also, I discovered how much more productive I am in the first hours after waking up. I started to treat those hours like gold. Nothing can deprive me of them.
Apart from those little and personal tricks, I don’t do anything special. I like to party, drink a beer (or a cocktail, or both), play the guitar regularly, and spend a lot of time on the sofa (that’s something I have to work on). I think the important thing here is to know ourselves, discover what works for us, and what we really want.
Solitude helped me a lot with this. I spent a year far from any friends or family. This time was great to know what worked for me and what I really wanted. Of course, I’m not recommending you to retreat to a remote place in the world to do the same (actually I’m not recommending anything in this post). Just spending time listening to ourselves instead of others should be enough.
Conclusions
Finishing a project is one of the best feelings in my life. It is a boost that leaves me wanting more. Although I make sure to take the time to celebrate. But what is really amazing for me is that little mind shifts are the difference between this happiness and burning out.
In my case, the most important changes were:
Understand the complexity of real-life problems
Realize projects are infinite games and we need to know when to stop
Know what works for my body and my mind
Of course, there are other things that have contributed to my productivity. Maybe I’m not even aware of some of them.
I hope you have enjoyed this post…. Actually, I’m going to do some book advertising.
If you can read Spanish then you can also learn the economic, mathematical, and technological fundamentals of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. In my book Criptomonedas y Blockchain: un nuevo tema para después de comer, I include a lot of reflections about crypto technology. It is now on pre-sale, and you can order it for just 3.00 USD on Amazon until September, 22nd.
(If the book succeeds, I’ll publish the English translation soon!)
See you next Tuesday!
Solitude is so valuable to me. Have you ever tried going for a daily walk? That has helped me to stay relatively fit even when my activity levels in other areas go down.