Young Hands Club

This week was relatively successful, though there remains a lot of work to do to close the gap between my plans and actions.

I published two TMSR OS articles, Heading TMSR OS and Contribution Guidelines for TMSR OS, both about an hour past my deadlineFor the former, I didn’t make the greatest use of last weekend and for the latter, a family friend made an unexpected visit Thursday night which ate up time I’d allocated to write., but nevertheless were good to get out. The former clarified my priority articles for the week to come with the mission statement and long term vision and reasons why it’s +ev to contribute on the docket.

Each took ~7 hours, where I had planned 6. This includes background reading and digging for source material to quote and guide.

I kept up okay with moving conversations forward in the logs and blog, primarily with trinque, but also got clarity from bvt, spyked and lobbes on their status and plans for the month.

The one thing that held me back the most this week was letting myself get distracted in the evenings. I planned to work each evening from 7:30-9:30 with the last half hour a reflection on the day. I only managed to achieve this 2 of the 7 days and otherwise spent time with my parents during that time. Bad planning and execution are both at play, but I think the latter moreso. The primary gain from spending time with them was further insight into the habits and environment of my childhood as not much has changed in terms of my parents routine since then. I’ve replaced many of the bad habits, e.g. watching TV, in adulthood, but there are still residual effects. These aren’t new insights I’m reflecting on, I’ve known about this for a while and there’s diminishing marginal returns to dwelling. I took the unplanned easy way and so should expect to be messed up.

The immense pile fallen atop my head is the biggest challenge of my life and I can’t afford to mess myself up. Missing those hours puts my rhythm off beat, cuts down my momentum and makes it more likely I stay up late white knuckling to hold on. That’s not sustainable and not necessary.

The second thing that held me back this week was a bit of perfectionism that may have tended to spinning at times. Reading the logs for so long built a lot of appreciation for the signal to noise ratio. Nevertheless, the burst to increase the momentum of this project is my responsibility. Shifting to the bias of cutting down on latency and taking my lumps from my betters when I do err is the impact move I can make to improve my performance.

I did manage decent physical and language exercise and overall am positive and looking forward to a week of improvement on all fronts to come.

Note: This review is about a day late.

1. Things my Master assigned me:

1. TMSR OS development.
1. (6h) “Heading TMSR OS” article detailing what I perceive my responsibilities and deliverables to be. (At all costs)
2. (4h) My Decmeber Work Plan. (AAC)
3. (6h) “Contributing to TMSR OS” article outlining guidelines/expectations. (AAC)
2. Work through the fabled outlines article backlog. (Time Permitting)

2. Things I want feedback on/help with.

1. Help uncovering areas of improvement in TMSR OS and JWRD management.
2. I’m overdue to publicly consider the implementation of MP’s suggested JWRD pivot to making the operation as remote management/delivery as possible.

3. anything else that takes up a significant amount of your time.

1. (30h) TMSR OS
2. (12h) JWRD : 5h of management. 7h of relationship development ((Setting up meetings for week of the 16th in VT, and first weeks of January in Panama)).
3. (21h) Following the forum and conversing when it’s my time. I’m planning to block off 14:00-15:303 and 19:00-20:30 UTC to properly eat and engage the logs and blogs. Not sure if this is enough time, but think I need to work in blocks to maximize my focus.
4. (7h) ((30 mins in morning, 30 mins before sleep)) Daily Review/Preview to start up, wind down day.
5. (3h) Weekly review/preview.
6. (5h 15m) 45 minutes of exercise each morning.
7. (5h 50m) 20 min Spanish, 30 min French each morning.

Summary

With my bearings better established, a more sensible approach to planning and likely greater external stability, I’m really looking forward to seeing how well I can be present and engage this week and what can be achieved.

To recount the flow of events and how I changed :

With TMSR OS my highest priority this week, focus at the start of the week was aimed at responding to comments in the log and on the Implementing TMSR OS article.

Through conversation, re-reading and thinking, my role as the coherent entry point of the project was clarified. I yet have weight of responsibility to load on my shoulders to carry to manifest this role, but the primarily clarification is the starting point. I’ve started drafting outlines of articles to express and clarify what this mean in terms of concrete actions and deliverables, which I’ll begin to publish next week.

A medium to long term strategy and potential profit center for the project was surfaced.

dorion_road: It occurred to me this morning, this tmsr-os project could be utilized medium to long term in both lifetime support consultancy and the hottest business idea in btc (code review and code insurance) ventures.
dorion_road: I haven’t developed it very far past what’s in those articles and what we’ve done to develop JWRD, but seems like there is a medium to long term profit center to establish.
ossabot: Logged on 2019-05-17 19:17:54 trinque: republic is scant of profit centers

This needs a lot more thinking through and development, but I have a suspicion there may be something big here.

The efi/uefi problem was identified as the largest challenge to sane computing and spyked took ownership of mapping the uefi-{1,2} cleavage as a starting point.

My next priority was to reconcile previous plans and execution. I found writing the article and the conversation that followed afterward to be quite instructive. The later providing me a shift in perspective to the upside of a detailed, yet flexible, plan with buffers to accommodate unplanned events and the learning process and where extra time is seen as an unexpected piece of good fortune, not the expected turn of events.

Though I didn’t make it through any of my backlog, I think the week was very productive in the sense of getting my bearings and sense of direction for carrying out my TMSR OS responsibilities. There remains a project’s worth of ground to cover, and a project manager within myself to grow, but having a compass is key.

Note: This review is published later than I had planned. The reason being the family dog of 17 years was put down Friday afternoon. This was originally scheduled for next Tuesday, but the old boy didn’t have the greatest night last night and the family made the decision. Being someone who hasn’t yet faced many close deaths, I took the experience seriously for the sake of taking checking in to the reality of life and death ((I’ll have an article with my thoughts within the next couple weeks)). The deed being done mid afternoon, I planned to publish this evening. However, I fell asleep listening to music after supper and awoke after a few hours to get this published. My plan for tomorrow and the week ahead will be delivered Saturday, 14:00 UTC.

In taking The Pageboy’s Pledge, I’ve submitted to asking my Master for help with killing whatever stupidity I’m carrying on sight.

As these pages well document, a primary approach in killing the false egos, feelings and inner idjits is prospective reporting on activities and reviews of how well one adhered to his plan. For context from the font.

mp_en_viaje: asciilifeform, looky, management is a rational activity. like medicine. when you go to the doctor’s office, irrespective of what you say, he’s going to seek the answer to a very specific set of questions, which he has pre-determined, and which he is not adjusting to you in any way — on the contrary.
mp_en_viaje: if you proceed to explain to him how you don’t feel urine tests are an adequate measure of your kidneys, because they’re made of light and so something with a stroboscope would be rather preferable, he’s going simply output a mental health specialist recommendation. because he does not care what you say ; he does not care what you think ; the process you are engaging in by going to the doctor is not open to your intellectual contribution in the s
mp_en_viaje: ense of revolutionarizing the fundamentals.
mp_en_viaje: management is exactly the same thing : a rational process. it is for the same exact cause just exactly as disinterested in your personality, your worldview, or the mask you put on things to make it possible to get out of bed in the morning.
mp_en_viaje: management is the art and practice of optimizing known processes, and of reducing all phenomena to known processes. that’s all it is, and all it does. it is a mighty useful thing, too, but not for
everyone.
mp_en_viaje: management is only useful for rational agents, which is to say, they who do not expect to form some kind of personal relationship with it ; but instead use it, which is to say, permit it to operate upon them.
mp_en_viaje: you have been, systematically if ineffectually (though i’m sure it looks exactly the other way from inside) attempting to escape management. this is an unhealthy state of affairs, and one that bars you from meaningful interaction with other people.
mp_en_viaje: it’s not a matter of “mp”. it is a matter that, alf as he finds himself, incapable of any rational process besides retrospective description, is not actually in a place where he can do anything with anyone else. exactly like the given example of the fallen rock.
asciilifeform: see, diana_coman , did not misread.
mp_en_viaje: yes, i’m very much aware “asciilifeform would rather roll out gossipd, trbi, sane comp irons, etc. ~with~ participation of mp_en_viaje” etc. the problem here is — you will do no such thing. what you will do, instead, is reconfigure your own desk into some sort of shape you and you alone deem meaningful, and that’s all. because it is not POSSIBLE, for the man who can’t say either “i will do this” and then do it, nor “i said i would do this, but d
mp_en_viaje: idn’t, so this is how i’ll be different from now on”, it is not POSSIBLE to do anything worthy of such lofty names as “sane computing” or even “programmed vcr”.
asciilifeform: incidentally to tie in old thread, http://btcbase.org/log/2019-06-22#1919350
a111: Logged on 2019-06-22 20:59 mircea_popescu: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-06-22#1919261 << what i find deeply irritating it’s that it tends to be republican work that gets dropped in such situations.
mp_en_viaje: you HAVE TO be able to work with others in order to make things. there’s no way out of this. and you HAVE TO be able to plan, and execute, and review plans and executions, to work with others.
mp_en_viaje: this is business 101, everyone who ever worked with people in any capacity understands it as a necessary part and parcel of what their life experience meant ; much like everyone who’s ever been to
the doctor understands that such contributions as “gimme the white round ones, they’re the best” are not proper.
asciilifeform: entirely willing to work with people, review plans, etc. but if mp_en_viaje declares ‘ i have snails here in terrarium faster than asciilifeform ‘ then i have no counter-argument, what sorta counter could there be.
mp_en_viaje: if you bother to review the source material, you might discover that is entirely ~your~ contribution.
mp_en_viaje: and yes, i get it, it irritates you to high heavens your work isn’t moving faster. that’s fine. but it is also not the topic here.
asciilifeform: mp_en_viaje: then what was topic ? the lack of a per-ch release calendar ? attempted already, all it did is to add to asciilifeform’s reputation as charlatan. and for that matter i dun recall any successes among the other folx with day jobs re multiweek calendars for pro-bono worx.
mp_en_viaje: this pos sure picked the time to be flaky
mp_en_viaje: asciilifeform, you never discussed WHY it just added to reputation of charlatan. why did it ?
mp_en_viaje: what are you doing differently to avoid it ?
mp_en_viaje: wtf is this, “i don’t like the way the tests results are coming out so ima impugn the lab” ? “i’m not fat, i’m just stressed and besides everyone this side of ozarks looks like this” ?
asciilifeform: left off making promises which i dun have the resources to make good on, is all of it
mp_en_viaje: gimme a break, the infantile copouts.
mp_en_viaje: you;re supposed to LEARN HOW TO make promises. much like you were supposed to LEARN HOW TO manage BingoBoingo
mp_en_viaje: not “run away to bedroom because nyah nyah”
asciilifeform: waitasec, he’s the chair, why asciilifeform is to manage him ?
mp_en_viaje: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-06-30#1920894 << nope, real time is exactly not it. exact same shiot as retrospective, really, purely irrational. to be rational, it must be PROSPECTIVE. science makes predictions not “in real time” or after tjhe fact. BEFORE the fact.

While I have to and want to be rational, learn to keep my word and work with people, from the jump as a Young Hand, my planning has not been adequate and as Diana Coman, pointed out a couple weeks back, my reivews also left out a direct look at my results :

“but pointing it out to make sure it’s pointed out by me” – heh, good for you; and no, it’s not that it wasn’t noticed, it’s just that you’ve been allowed some extra time to speak up on it. Ftr, the convo on time management came up precisely because of *all* those missed and messed up deadlines + estimations, not just the one you acknowledged.

Acutely missing here is a direct look at your original plan vs how the week turned up, especially since you had already done some tweaks there – how well did those work & to what extent were they actually what was needed?

Here I sit two weeks ((Perhaps the two most dynamic weeks of my life.)) and two deadlines later to make my review of the dysfunction to fix.

The original, high-level plan was:

As I failed to deliver multiple tasks last week, I’ve made the adjustment of stating deadlines for delivery.

1. Things my Master assigned me:

1. (8h) Article on my experience living in Panama, 71 months in. Deadline: Wednesday, November 13th, Noon EST
2. (8h) Convert Latex source of JWRD business plan to blog article. Deadline: Friday, November 15th, Noon EST
3. My series of posts adding meat to the bones of The Fabled Outlines.
1. (1.5h) 2.1-2.2: Prospecting from Prospect Point : recollect the process and struggle of settling into the islands, the pleasure of making new friends and the refuge of sanity provided by calling the lead pool.
2. (3h) 2.3.1-2.3.{3,9}: How many Banks in a Bank : describe the layers of asset custody and the layers of data custody of the bank’s infrastrucutre.
3. (1.5h) 2.3.4-2.3.8: Learning to Work : Describe my n00bishness and how I worked through it with a good guide for the purpose.

2. Things I want feedback on/help with.

1. JWRD Computing Business Plan.

3. anything else that takes up a significant amount of your time.

1. (20h) JWRD : 3h of management. 11h ((4 90 minute sessions + 2.5h of commute (walking) + 2.5h prep and review.)) of session preparation and delivery. 7h of local relationship development ((Touch base with as many relationships as I can within the allotted time as this is my last full week in Panama for the calendar year.)).
2. (21h) Following the forum and conversing when it’s my time. I’m planning to block off 14:00-15:30 ((9-10:30 local time)) and 19:00-20:30 UTC to properly eat and engage the logs and blogs. Not sure if this is enough time, but think I need to work in blocks to maximize my focus.
3. (7h) ((30 mins in morning, 30 mins before sleep)) Daily Review/Preview to start up, wind down day.
4. (3h) Weekly review/preview. ((Shift to publishing review by midnight UTC Saturday and plan by 15:00 UTC Saturday.))
5. (5h 15m) 45 minutes of exercise each morning.
6. (5h 50m) 20 min Spanish ((With so many English speakers in Panama and English heavy work, gotta keep the gears greased.)), 30 min French each morning ((Currently halfway through Pimsler audio heavy with reading supplement course. Reaching out to French speakers locally.)).
7. (5h) Begin packing for travels, preparing to be away 6 wks. My departure flight is a red eye on Wednesday, November 20th. Goal is to be packed Sunday to provide plenty buffer.

I made a more detailed plan dividing up the days into hours and scheduling the work to be done.

On Monday, November 11:

Morning: planned and executed: exercise, language practice, a preview of the day, log and blog reading/responses, and got an hour of drafting on my life in Panama article.

Afternoon: planned and executed: wrote emails to JWRD clients and prospects, arranged a sit down meeting for Tuesday and delivered a JWRD session.

Evening: planned and executed further two hours drafting of the Panama article and a review to wind down the day. I did not plan for, but ended up supporting Jacob in processing his bid making for the JWRD auction ((Which included pricing courier fees.)). The later lead me to getting to sleep after I’d planned.

On Tuesday, November 12:

Morning: I woke up about an hour late than planned and executed exercise, language practice, a preview of the day, log and blog reading/responses. MP took interest in learning about Gales Linux and a talk was arranged for that afternoon.

Afternoon: I attended a meeting over coffee with local prospects that I’d scheduled from 11:00-12:00 than ran to 13:00, but was productive.

The Gales conversation in #trilema was not planned, and the anticipation and processing of the conversation took further unplanned time.

Evening: I planned and did sink 2 more hours into the Panama article ((I did find myself a bit anxious in writing the piece, fundamentally revolving around being real, i.e. striking the balance between highlighting the positives and negatives. On the one hand, I didn’t want to oversell it and on the other, I don’t need to unnecessarily aggravate locals with more power than myself.)). Tuesday evening was planned to be the final drafting time, which Wednesday morning reserved for final review and publication.

I did a review of the day and preview of tomorrow to wind down, but my records are not good enough to tell me what time I actually did it and went to sleep. I’m pretty I was behind schedule.

On Wednesday, November 13:

Morning: I woke up knowing the noon deadline was unlikely to be met and provided an update in #o. I still got exercise, but left off Spanish and French practice.

I processed the morning log and I sunk 4 hours into the Panama article.

Afternoon:

Evening: I burned 4 hours of midnight oil and missed the moved deadline by 5 hours, but managed to publish Life on the Isthmus, 83 months in with which I’m satisfied ((The article I mean, not missing deadline #2)).

On Thursday, November 14th:

Morning: I cut the planned exercise and language practice knowing there remained much to do for the JWRD business plan to be fit for publication, having a client session in the afternoon and keeping up with logs and blogs.

I sunk 2 hours between the outline and starting on the draft.

Afternoon: Planned and executed client session.

Evening:I had originally planned to have the JWRD article drafted and ready for Jacob to review here. I didn’t manage that and spent the time catching up.

On Friday, November 15th:

Morning: I followed and supported Jacob in processing his bidding in the Pizarro auction, which I hadn’t well planned. I chipped away at the JWRD article, but I let the noon deadline pass without a mention.

Afternoon: Midday I got a short exercise in and by late afternoon/early evening, I sent my draft to Jacob for review.

Evening: I processed Jacob’s feedback and pressed publish on JWRD Computing: The why, how, what and way forward. ~11 hours after the deadline.

On Saturday, November 16th:

Morning: After paying off some sleep debt, I woke up to feedback that was more positive than I had hoped for. I went for a long walk in the morning city sun to begin to let the feedback sink in.

Afternoon: I responded to the logs and blogs and further processed the change in my situation. This primarily revolves around dead psychological weight I’d accumulated from the time I spent in the shadows.

Summary:

A glaring problem degrading the quality of this review is my time and action keeping degraded as the pressure of the week mounted. Inexperience and inept planning left me without any actual buffers and I made cuts, e.g. sleep, exercise, clock time spent, etc., that are not sustainable.

I didn’t manage to improve in the planning and reporting processes in the two weeks since. I allowed, travel, being in a remote area while hunting and spending atypical time with family and friends for the holiday further stress this weakness ((This is not an excuse, but an admission.)). This week I have a lot more external stability and with my increased responsibility I must strengthen my hands at this fundamental work.

So help me my own intelligence and cursed be my own stupidity that is holding me back!

I’m looking forward to my quiet time to think and write normalizing for the first time in a couple weeks.

1. Things my Master assigned me:

1. Reconcile differences between plans and execution. Deadline: Wed Dec 4th 12pm EST.
2. Work with Jacob to move Gales Bitcoin Wallet process forward.
3. Write article about what I appreciate about hunting with photos of last weekend. I’m deprioritizing from missing last week’s deadline to time permitting given new higher priority responsibilities. It’s possible I get this one out this week and I’m motivated to do so, but don’t want to overload myself.
4. Chew through articles in the fabled outlines queue.

2. Things I want feedback on/help with.

1. The analysis of the planned schedule and actual schedule.
2. I have yet a lot of previous feedback to adapt to and don’t want to ask for too much until I’ve enacted the feedback given.

3. Anything else that takes up a significant amount of your time.

1. (12h) JWRD : 5h of management. 7h of relationship development.
2. (20h) TMSR OS
3. (15h) Following the forum and conversing when it’s my time. I’m planning to block off 14:00-15:303 and 19:00-20:30 UTC to properly eat and engage the logs and blogs. Not sure if this is enough time, but think I need to work in blocks to maximize my focus.
4. (5h) Daily Review/Preview to start up, wind down day.
5. (3h) Weekly review/preview.
6. (5h 15m) 45 minutes of exercise each morning.
7. (5h 50m) 20 min Spanish, 30 min French each morning.

These past weeks, I’ve been pulled in many different directions. While it stretched me in good ways, I’ve been longing the for focused work I’ll have this week. I changed to planning through Friday to move to Friday review/planning schedule longer term and shorten the feedback loop on this week of catch up.

I woke up Monday to receiving the call to head the TMSR OS project. This is the highest honor and biggest responsibility I’ve had placed on my shoulders. While the week yielded a positive start to the project, only the first steps were taken from the many more required for success. There is substantial momentum with the project, but my priority moving forward is to generate the biggest burst I can manage.

It has yet to sink in what to takeaway and say about taking such weight on my shoulders happening simultaneously with my first family Thanksgiving festivities since 2013. My first impression is I appreciate it playing out as such because deeply touching my roots while fruiting my most important fruit provided me a wide lens perspective. I managed to keep up reasonably well with the TMSR OS project through Friday. The weekend was spent on quality exercise and meals with friends and family, attending the Killington Cup ski event and mountain night life with friends and a long overdue challenging family conversation Sunday that was clarifying and productive and long term I expect to be rejuvenating.

With my schedule stabilizing for the first time in 2 weeks in the week ahead I’m excited and relieved to have the quiet time to process the communication I’m due to pay, including the still missing article on the inadequacy of previous plans and execution causing the missing of deadlines.