Pull, Don't Push

One of the things I struggle with is balancing the desire to get things done over the long haul with the need to respond to things in the moment. To my surprise, I’ve been applying tools for managing this balance at work but failing to do so at home. Over the holidays, I spent some time trying to work out how to fix this oversight.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: At the beginning of every month, I sit down and make plan of what I want to accomplish during the next several week, based on the data I have about what I’ve been able to do in the past and what I see coming down the pike. Where I get into trouble is that I get attached to the plan. When something comes up in the middle of the month, I try to stick to it — even if what comes up is something I want to do. A conversation with Gwen in early December woke me up to the fact that I’m not as flexible or spontaneous as I think I am or as I want to be. I’m missing out on opportunities because I’m too attached to my planned outcomes.

The irony is that as an improviser, I’m supposed to give up my attachment to outcome, to trust in the process and in my partners, to respond in the moment to what happens. At work I’ve been doing more and more of that. To realize that I’m not doing it in my personal life is… an opportunity for growth.

So with that in mind, I took a long, hard look at my personal planning process and discovered a few things. I’m essentially using a Scrum process, with month-long iterations. One option to increase my flexibility would be to reduce my iteration length. I could do my planning on a weekly basis rather than a monthly one. There’s some appeal there, but I found that I was more interested in another option: I could move to a Kanban-based approach.

So with that in mind, I sat down to read Personal Kanban, which had been recommended to me around Thanksgiving. The book is pretty simple; if you read this slide show, you’ll know 90% of what the book says. That’s slightly unfair, because the book also has a lot of stories about how the authors and people they know have used it, but the essence of it is this:

1. Visualize your work
2. Limit your work-in-progress

I completely agree with these two principles, though I’m conflicted in how I felt about the book. I wanted a little more “how” to go with all of the “why.” I get that you have to adapt this framework to your own situation, but I was hoping for more guidance about how people have adapted it so I could see potential fits for my situation. (Appendix A does this a little, but it’s much later in the book than I hoped it would be.) I also felt like the book took a long time to get to the point. When I was outlining it for my notes, I jumped over entire chapters that I was able to summarize with a single sentences. It did not have what I would term economy of expression.

These misgivings aside, I found the core ideas of Personal Kanban compelling, and I’m experimenting with it. The first change I’ve making is one I was toying with already: I’m only working on one “project” at a time. I don’t have a timetable for finishing that project; I work it on it as I have the bandwidth to do so, and when I’m done with it, I pull the next one. What I’m noticing so far is that while my overall productivity may be down slightly, my sense of well-being is up. I’m feeling better about what I’m doing. Most importantly, I’m responding to opportunities as they come up — like the chance to watch hockey with Gwen.

Private Key Art

Gwen and I managed to catch the Picasso and Braque exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art the day that it closed. The exhibit, comprising a double dozen prints and half that many paintings executed by the pair between 1909 and 1912, explores the beginnings of Analytic Cubism. Picasso and Braque worked closely together — often side-by-side — during this period, and the exhibit explores their similar, though not identical, explorations of the boundaries of art.

Talking about it afterwards, Gwen and I agreed that the best way for us to take in Cubist works is to not think about the original objects the artists were looking at. When we do that, we inevitably try to reassemble the work into those objects, which is usually an exercise in futility. (That’s not always true, as several of Braque’s prints involving bottles of Bass demonstrated.) I remarked at one point that the Cubist style is a kind of “artistic cryptography”: You can’t recover the original without having the key.

Other thoughts:

• I’m not sure why, but I liked Braque’s pieces in this exhibition a little better than Picasso’s.
• There’s something about the way they both reduced forms to sharply-defined areas of color and texture that led to a preponderance of pyramidal shapes in these works.
• Their primary choices of subject material (cafe still-lifes) make me think how nice it must have been to hang around in cafes being artistic all day.
• The layout of the exhibit itself was a bit Cubist, though perhaps unintentionally so. There was no route through the gallery that created a single, coherent narrative. Perhaps we were supposed to simply absorb the whole from different angles.

The Obvious Child

Has it really been a week already?

***

“Stand down, Marine. She’s just a kid.”

The flamethrower Corporal Howser was holding dipped slightly. “The Major said to sterilize the ship, sir.”

“That’s what we’re doing. Burn the bodies, wipe the data storage, and point this hulk into the sun,” the Lieutenant replied. “We’re taking the kid with us back to the Agamemnon, so the doc can take a look at her. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, sir.”

“It sounded like you did. Major Danforth thought everyone over here was dead. Turns out that’s not the case, so we’re making adjustments. Now stand down, Corporal.”

Howser managed half a salute before turning and heading down the corridor towards the ship’s drive reactors, flamethrower at the ready. Lieutenant Mitchell turned back to the storage locker where the little blonde-haired girl huddled.

“It’s okay,” Mitchell said, holstering his sidearm as he knelt down and pulled a protein bar out of his pack. The girl couldn’t have been more than four years old. She watched him, her mouth slightly open, her eyes tracking his movements as he unwrapped the snack and offered it to her. She did not move.

“Go on, take it,” he said. “You should eat something. How long have you been in there? A few hours? Days? I bet you’re hungry.”

As he said the word “hungry,” a spindly tentacle shot out of the girl’s mouth, crossing the one-meter gap between them in the blink of an eye. The stinger at its tip pierced the back of Lieutenant Mitchell’s throat, and he began to gag. The girl collapsed forward, and he fell back into blackness.

The parasite wasted no time in hijacking his central nervous system. The five days it had spent in the girl’s body was more than enough time to adapt to human physiology. Within minutes, Mitchell’s body was up and moving about again. When Corporal Howser returned, the little girl was finishing off the protein bar the Lieutenant had given her. By the time the Marines returned to the Agamemnon, it was all over but the shouting.

The People Who Dwelled In Darkness

Another story for Chuck.

I feel like this one didn’t quite come together. I’d love to take another crack it with some more time and a few thousand more words.

***

“We found their camp just across the river,” Lyssa said to her mother across the white plastic breakfast table. “They obviously weren’t expecting pursuit.”

Sandra nodded, poking her spoon at the cereal Lyssa had carefully weighed out. During her pregnancy, the Overseer was entitled to an extra half ration. The rest of the time — despite the opulence of her quarters — she ate no better than the rest of the Dwellers.

“And when you found them?” her mother asked as she lifted the spoon to her mouth. The diffuse light from the overhead fixture disguised the lines on her face, adding to the effect of pregnancy by softening her normally harsh expression even more.

“We waited until moonset and then slaughtered them in their sleep,” Lyssa replied, taking a spoonful of her own breakfast. The protein liquid tasted off.

“Good, good,” Sandra said. Her mouth puckered, and she looked at her daughter.

“I’d seen reports from Production that they’ve had a few bad batches recently,” Lyssa said.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” her mother said, dipping her spoon into the bowl for another bite. “The occasional funny taste beats starving out in the Wild.” She chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “So?”

“We waited until sunrise, then brought the stolen food crates back to the Dwelling with us.”

“Had they eaten much?”

“About fifty daily-rations worth.”

“And there were only a dozen of the thieves?”

“They were hungry,” Lyssa said. “If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have been desperate enough to try something this bold.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” her mother said. “I don’t know why you must always go on these dangerous missions yourself. You could just as easily send one of the Culled to oversee the business.”

“They would just as likely join those thieves as hunt them down,” Lyssa said, pushing the empty bowl away from her. “Most of them would think they have as good a chance in the Wild as they do here.”

“Nonsense. So long as the Culled continue to pull their weight in the Dwelling, they’ll continue to have a place,” Sandra said, and Lyssa heard the voice of the Overseer return.

Two days before, Lyssa had overseen the Reclamation of twenty-six Culled men who had been declared a Drain on Resources. She did not share her mother’s optimism about the Culled’s loyalty.

“I go because I need to see all parts of our society,” Lyssa said. “If you wish me to succeed you as Overseer, I need to understand the whole, not just pleasant parts that Dwellers see every day.”

“The beasts of the Wild are hardly part of ‘our society,’” her mother said. “They have no laws or rules to speak of.”

“We are defined by how we treat others.”

There was silence for a time as the Overseer pushed her still half-empty bowl away and sipped her tea.

“Have you picked a Stud yet?” she asked at last, placing her hand instinctively on her swelling belly. Her daughter’s was lean and taught.

“No.”

“I know, it can be so hard to choose between good options,” her mother said, smiling. “Which ones have you tried out?”

***

When they lay spent and naked under the canopy of trees, their bodies glistening in the waning crescent of the moon, their breath coming smoothly again, Lyssa finally spoke.

“You told them how to get inside, didn’t you?”

Her dark-eyed, bronzed-skin lover did not reply. Instead, she rolled to face away from Lyssa, pulling the edge of the blanket over to cover herself.

“I was worried you were with them, Moira,” she continued.

“And if I had been?” Moira said over her shoulder. “If you had found me with them? Would you have killed me as casually as you did them?”

“Of course not. How could you think that, after all of the clothing and medical supplies I’ve smuggled out for your band?” Lyssa said, reaching a hand out to stroke Moira’s bare back. “That’s why I had to lead them, to make sure nothing happened to you.”

The Wild girl did not respond to Lyssa’s touch. “What would you have done if it had been me?”

There was silence for a time between them. At last, Lyssa rolled off the blanket, stood, and began to dress.

“It’s time for me to bear a child,” Lyssa said when she was clothed again.

This time Moira rolled toward Lyssa, still clutching the blanket around her.

“What?”

“If I don’t, the Arbiters will declare me a Drain on Resources.”

“They would murder the Overseer’s daughter for not bearing children?”

“It’s not murder. It’s maintaining the balance. If we don’t breed, humanity will die out. And there’s only so much food to go around.”

“Which is why you murder nine boys out of ten before they are a month old,” Moira said, turning away. The shadow of a tree branch cast a jagged shadow across her back.

“How many bulls does one herd need?”

“You’ll need to practice your moo-ing, then.”

***

“It is the judgment of the Arbiters that you are a Drain on the Resources of the Dwelling,” Sandra said. “You will be taken to Production for immediate Reclamation.”

Lyssa bowed her head. “I submit to the judgment of the Arbiters,” she said. “And now, you will yourselves be judged.”

She touched the button on the transmitter she had concealed within her jumpsuit, and the first of the bombs exploded, shattering the ceiling of the cavernous central hall of the Dwelling and tearing hole in its side. Sunlight streamed in, dazzling the crowd as it began to panic. The second detonated a moment later, bringing the remainder of the supports down, and creating a cascade of structural failures that quickly spread throughout the complex.

***

Two days later, when her band of Wildlings scavenged the remains of the Dwelling, Moira found Lyssa’s body lying face down, not from the corpse of her mother. When she turned it over, she found a smile on her dead lover’s face.

Every Day is New Year's Day

I’m going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
Gonna pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I’ll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again
Amen.
Say it again
Amen.

Jackson Browne, “The Pretender”

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. Last year I linked to Scott Berkun’s article on why we’re so bad at keeping them and how to make better ones. This year, I noticed Alistair Cockburn’s Post-hoc New Year’s resolutions, and I thought it was fabulous. And I find it strange that we often wait for a special occasion, like the changing of the numbers on the calendar, to try to make change in our lives, when we have the opportunity to do it whenever we want.

So I’m not making any New Year’s resolutions. Sure, I’ve got things I want to accomplish in 2012. The way I’m going to get there, though, is by making Today’s resolutions, and This Week’s resolutions. I don’t live my life a year at a time, so I don’t like trying to make resolutions at that scale. I’m going to pick the things that I need to do now, and do those every day until I need to do something different. When will that happen? Maybe a year, maybe less; I’ll know when I get there.

I understand the symbolism of New Year’s resolutions, and I understand the importance of symbolic resolutions to help inspire you. More important, though, are resolutions that help you do the hard work, day after day, that get you to your goal. And those can happen any day of the week.