[Earthworm] Starting of an intent (vs the Bee)
You know what an earthworm is, so lets take what we both know and build an analogy for what I'm about to start trying out.
Cutting down to the one single idea:
eat -> digest -> enrich -> output Doesn't need to be messier than that.
This Earthworm initiative is a declaration of later posts to come: to manage and form with intent my attention against my backlog.
aka "Continuous partial attention" --Linda Stone
A followup analogy is the Bee. I am typically the Earthworm, and now aspire to be the Bee--more selective on the intake. Lets see which one thrives. (I don't think a Bee-headed Earthworm is a good analogy...)
Per-post, I'll take a select set of articles I've chosen to read from my backlog, link them, discuss them, and move forward from there.
Some tenants (to be continuously updated):
- "Save for later" is a polite lie
- Protect a small quiet window of deep candidates
- Close every attention-loop with one+ sentence(s): "what did i take from this"
- Budget by time, not item count
- Read with a pen
- Keep a running outline to hold the thread
- A text file and the habit of compressing beats any app
- the feed will never hand you a conclusion, so stopping is the conclusion, manufactured by me
Some tools to experiment with:
- the commonplace book (1600s technique): passages and reflections
- Feynman technique: one sentence to a beginner, watch for handwaving
- Spaced Repetition: documenting my forgetting curve
- Mitigating 'screen apnea': shallow/holding breath while at screens
Some later reading:
- "Four Thousand Weeks", by Oliver Burkeman
- 'something something forgetting curve' --Ebbinghaus
- 'continuous partial attention' --Linda Stone
If this intent dies here, then I can at least call back to it eons hence, rather than try to reform it anew in another era.