The Hard Problem of Knowing What You Want, the Hard Problem of Getting Help, and the Scoping Problem.

Knowing What You Want

In our last blog post of the “Deliberate Lifestyle Design” series, we discussed one of the three hard problems of deliberate lifestyle design: The Scoping Problem. In addition to the scoping problem, knowing what you want can be challenging unless you hone in on certain parts of your life, so you can clarify your goals. The questions framework below will help you determine what you want and how to narrow it down into an actionable goal. This is part 3 of 4 of a series, and we’ll be providing you with a set of questions that we use for helping design our lives. This will help you identify and measure what matters. Feel free to make a copy from our Google Doc here, and fill it out. At the end of the series, we hope each set of questions will help you live a more deliberate life, too.

Start by Knowing what you want

Procedural Questions

Please feel free to make a copy of this Google Doc and write down the answers as you answer these questions. Combine the answers from the previous blog post doc, and our next upcoming blog post, so that you can begin to understand more about your goals, how to execute them, and how to measure them.

1. Do you know what you want?

         1.1. Is it goal-oriented? (Is it made up of specific goals that are discretely achievable)

         1.2. Is it journey-oriented? (Is there an activity or state of being you would like to achieve)

         1.3. Is it fear or avoidance driven? (You want to stop, escape, or forestall something)

2. Simplify

         2.1. Is your goal refined to its simplest terms? Ask the 5 Whys, which are a tool to identify the root cause of an event/decision/goal/etc.

         2.2. Is this an ultimate goal, or is it actually a theory about how to fulfill some other goal? If it’s a theory, how can you test the theory faster, with less effort, before accepting, revising, or rejecting it?

3. Can you reduce the cognitive load?

         3.1. Delete and simplify - what can you remove from your life to help you more easily achieve your goals

         3.2. Establish great defaults

         3.3. Get help: (see also The Second Hard Problem)

                 a. From a person:

                         - at the accountable-for-outcomes level

                         - at the process level

                 b. From a tool:

                         - that makes you faster or more capable (For example, Todoist can help you keep track of things to do, making you more efficient in completing tasks for a goal. You also don’t have to constantly think about what you might be forgetting or if you did something you promised yourself you would).

                         - that operates autonomously (automation) (For example, a Roomba that cleans for you, so you don’t have to. You reduce your cognitive load because you don’t have to think, plan, or schedule cleaning anymore).

4. Other optimizations: Find ways to spend more time doing the right thing or less time doing the wrong thing

         4.1. Tighten your OODA loop (increasing your speed of adaptation)

         4.2. Enrich your OODA loop’s inputs (act with more information)

5. Can you automate with rules + task orders / text messages sent to a person or service company?

         5.1. Can this be done remotely?

         5.2. Can anyone else do this besides you?

         5.3. Functional recomposition:

                a. Can you outsource or automate parts of the process if you standardize or genericize them?

                b. Can you make important parts of the process doable remotely to minimize or speed up the in-person part?

         5.4. Security is important. What credentials do you need to share for actions to be taken on your behalf? Is that sharing narrowly fit for purpose?

‍

Broadly, there are two “last meter” challenges to automation:

1. Computable situational awareness: you have automated observability, and the relevance of the data to your goals is documented and computable

2. Connected control: your control signal can reach an effective actuator

‍

In our next blog post, we’ll talk about how to get help and scope your problems so you can achieve more. Sign up for our platform today to help you live a more deliberate life.