Today marks day three of a few weeks off from work. My wife and I couldn’t synch our time off yet this summer, so we pushed off our plans for a proper vacation later in the year. I needed time away from systems and simulations engineering and a slow down at work opened up the ideal opportunity for extended time away from the office. I’m grateful for the chance to recharge my enthusiasm for both my day job and self assigned side projects. My purely interest driven work has been in limbo since earlier this year except for a few client side CoffeeScript hacks.

The air quality is exceptional after the muggy heat wave we had late last week. As I walk besides the ocean, the water has taken on a nearly tropical cyan hue. I can feel my internal clock unwinding as I enjoy an unstructured schedule and give my full attention to the moment. These are the days I dream of, care free and distant from immediate task driven concerns and distractions.

Speaking of distractions, another beach goer just reminded me:

“Don’t miss the beach cause you’re on the phone”

Now it’s time I follow their advice.

beach waves by victusfate

While probing the above trend, I wondered what happens when we segment each year into months, weeks, days and hours. Do the same benefits result from balanced intervals of work and down time? Is there an optimal rhythm for attaining peak productivity? If so is it unique for each individual? And finally how do we determine the best balance for work intervals?

Before exploring the questions posed above, I’d like to briefly review the rationale for expectations on the modern work force. Just a hundred years ago much of the US labor force was still dedicated towards agriculture. After the peak period of the industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was relentless transition of the labor force from farms to factories. The modern work day was born out of the friction between big businesses and labor unions.

If a robot can do your job, ultimately, one will. http://nyti.ms/m136ef

June 10, 2011 10:53 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@mattmireles

Matt Mireles

One of the fallacies of the industrial work culture, is that employees working longer hours leads to greater productivity. This faulty line of reasoning was predicated on making the analogy of humans to machines. For trivial labor which is capable of automation this assumption wasn’t far from the truth. But the never-ending work day analogy breaks down for dynamic roles which require critical decision making. These are precisely the type of jobs which drive the US economy today, and many of them are not what you’d expect.

Work life balance

I continue to see sharp professionals and entrepreneurs herald their busy weekends and long nights at work as a badge of honor. To these ladies and gentlemen, I raise a counter example. One subtle error in judgement made while exhausted can cost your business significant dollars and man hours to rectify. Beyond critical decisions, the overall quality of our work deteriorates due to a lack of exercise and rest.

If juggling periods of work and other activities is key to optimizing personal productivity, how do we define an exceptional personal equilibrium. Unfortunately I know of no algorithm which defines the delicate balance between song and silence. Experimentation is required.

Individual expertise and reputation, combined with investments, and lifestyle demands are (soft) boundaries and forcing functions on how much (additional) income we need to generate each year. They help define how much is enough. Ambition and enthusiasm drive us far from questions of satisfaction, into the realms of social status. The scales tip heavily in favor of work when our reputation is on the line. The closer we associate our labor with our sense of self, the harder it is to take time off.

“Starship captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. The secret is to give them what they need, not what they want.”- Scotty, offering La Forge advice on handling Starfleet captains

“I cannot change the laws of physics! I’ve got to have thirty minutes.”

Another tip of the hat to one of my favorite hacker archetypes.

Almost without exception, writing trustworthy software takes two or three times longer than junior engineers and managers estimate. Seasoned engineers know better. Plug and play is a saying best reserved for Legos.

Tuesday I began coding an image simulation program in c++ which I suspect will weigh in at under 1k lines of new source. I was given 24 hours to complete the task. It’s a straight forward optical and digital focal plane sim that takes in a description of sensor parameters and objects, and produces image data (without complex backgrounds).

In addition to the functional requirements, the software should have minimal dependencies for easy porting (it will run under Linux although are libs have been crafted on Windows systems), and it needs to run faster than real time (single process). Those requirements translated into the necessity for a small bundle of new code to do the job.

I got a bit cocky while slapping together the headers and structures. Instead of writing and testing one element at a time, I wrote all the processing steps in one fell swoop. It was great seeing everything compiling so quickly without the mental overhead of a heavy weight code base, in contrast to my current main project which is coming to a close. Everything went smoothly until I began carefully thinking about all the steps that require testing:

• I/O for common params
• I/O for individual fields of view
• transformations of input data into common units
• initialization of all object state
• ensuring sure base classes that are part of stl array structures have clone methods to handle their children pointers copying. I came across auto_ptrs for future tasks, but tracking down that careless error took 20 minutes longer than it had to
• identifying a test case that exercises all components
• constructing test data including reasonable sensor attitudes, object state, and varied conditions
• generating intermediate output data at each step. The visual studio 2010 debugger is inadequate for reviewing object state compared to visual studio 2008
• visualization of output data. My old standard cube viewer and it’s predecessors work with a specific file format. Matlab provided a rapid plotting tool
• and the list goes on…

One bunny trail after another

Just shaking down the file I/O took an hour to pass muster. While doing so I uncovered a number of required inputs that were left out of the first pass, and moved a few parameters from specific elements to common structures. After that review everything fell into place on the input/control side.

Constructing a fairly robust test case demanded additional geometric transformations. After adding those components I noticed the conversions from radiance to counts looked off. Tomorrow morning I’ll do a thorough review of those optical transfer equations, and make sure the results match what I expect.

Modular testing is a wide angle lens for the mind’s eye

What I reminded myself over the past couple of days is that there’s no short cut to writing good software. When you’re rushed to deliver functional programs on a tight budget, it’s worth putting the breaks on to review each element individually first.

“I’m giving her all she’s got captain!”

On rare occasions it’s ok to pull out all stops and crank out reckless code like a runaway train.

Just be sure to clean up after yourself when things settle down. If the situation never settles into a sustainable rhythm, odds are you’re in a soon to be extinct business.

I can balance that lingering weariness with part time projects driven purely by my curiosity and interest. But even the energy and enthusiasm I draw from self directed side work only goes so far. There comes a time when I must take a break. 

Even while rapidly converging to this limit break this morning, two open questions struck me. Do folks who absolutely love their crafts need vacations? How do they recognize the signs that it’s time for a break?

This is a problem I’d like to have.
 
Craftsmanship can only go so far without the practitioner dreaming about the intricacies of their labor. Without an intense emotional commitment, our attention is liable to stray to simpler, more attractive tasks. The fine balance between challenge and reward is like scaling a twisted slippery glass stairwell without rails. Along the staircase amateurs become journeymen, journeymen become experts, and in rare moments experts ascend into masters. It’s easy to ignore that the base of the stairwell is thick in fallen souls when you only look up, and yet it’s not falling that’s so terrible, but the fear of it. 

Artisans experience immense joy from practicing their craft. It is this fascination and relentless drive which brings them back again and again to refactor a fine piece of work, and either destroy it or yield a masterpiece. Driven beyond all sane boundaries, when does a master recognize the need for a change of pace and direction?

“The job of the smart business person isn’t to fish in waters where coders are cheap. It’s to have enough initiative and vision that the best coders in the world will realize that they’ll do better with you than without you.” – Seth Godin

“Getting an interview through a tech recruiter is like having your mom set you up on a date.” – me

That last rule of thumb is based on how I perceive the global market changing over the next decade for highly skilled work forces. Multi-year long, full time positions will become the great minority (core company teams). They the predominance of life long labor is a vestigial artifact of the industrial economy. Technical experts will be sought after by public and private reputation, and through their personal networks.

Elite businesses that dominate the network economy will function with smaller permanent staff who own a share of the success (or failure) of a company. Companies will hire a small legion of talented consultants for specific projects. Many of the fluid work force may regularly work together in loose company like formations (aka the Hollywood model). A dynamic work force will better serve the needs of a rapidly shifting market place.

Consider the following hypothetical example: This month ACME needs a handful of designers to help put the finishing touches on their latest packages. But the past several months they staffed up with dozens of engineers and technicians to build captivating yet bizarre products. ACME’s ideally staffed to meet the expected ramp of demand brought on by WSGDC, Wiley’s Super Genius Developer Conference, and has no problems trimming down afterwards.

The attention cult adores fame for a number of reasons, with good odds on cashing in at the top of the list. It takes little imagination to perceive of the dilemma which substantial attention introduces.

The temptation to cash in on fame is palpable

Once well known a creative can pursue a conservative path of upgrades and spin offs on prior work, overcoming a number of challenges while doing so. Alternatively she can continue to embrace the same risks that brought her fame in the first place. One of these directions is a steeper ascent towards mastering a craft or style, the other at least temporarily, satisfies the hunger cry of an empty bank account¹.

Rebuke adoration of the crowd, embrace expert criticism

Effortless to say, not so easy in practice. When last I visited this subject, the decision was clear and remains so. With neither fame nor mastery, I choose to cultivate pro chops. Schedule allowing, I consider any and all work that I’m confident will expand my expertise and repertoire. Credit is not a dominant criteria while developing skill, although a pat on the back never hurts. At present I’ve got an overloaded schedule, but look forward to having more time available in a couple of months.

Notes:

1. Gradients vs Benjamins: Are you climbing a hill or enjoying the view? If you do both at once you better have wings.

Somewhere along the way, between garbage input, inconsistent coordinate transforms, and concurrent execution everything went south. The easy plug and play wonderland you were pitched has been replaced by a gruesome truth. In reality your work will rely on a sinister rats nest of dependencies and complicated constraints.

Your nerves are rattled, the project deadline is looming and for the past couple of weeks all you’ve discovered is one can of worms after another. Team members introduce delays based on the problems they ran into. Managers setup more meetings to ensure the project is on schedule, forcing you to travel and devouring your precious and ever dwindling productive time. Project managers demand resuts even when the product is far from ready to ship, and don’t even think about excuses…

SAY WHAT AGAIN

Schedules never get better

It’ll be a cold day in hell when you hear a project lead tell you that you’ve got additional time or that requirements have been reduced. Like rain falling, you can count on budgets shrinking and everyone’s schedule slipping right but yours.

Every project is composed of a multitude of smaller tasks and yours is no different. Now it’s time to prioritize which features will get executed, and which will be put on the shelf scrap heap (don’t kid yourself).

Slice and dice the work into required plumbing, immediately possible, short term, and larger efforts. Throw bigger efforts into the scrap heap right away. If you work hard, and are lucky you’ll complete a few short term niceties before you’re done. And you will ship, because that’s what builders do.

(incredible line)
Enjoy this fortune cookie Sunday post.

Nomad, you’ve been wandering the desert for decades, what is your secret?

The nomad responds,
“You expect water?

Predict its coming,
Understand its flow, and always
Know that which you seek.

No, it’s not water which I’m after. If it were I would have left the desert long ago.

What I seek is Thirst.”

Every time I think I know exactly what I want, immediately something else bubbles up beneath the surface that I value far more. The common theme is freedom. The thinking goes, earn enough wealth, and you will be free. And yet…

money cannot purchase freedom from pursuing it

We all share a persistent search for purpose. Only through meaning, may we experience satisfaction in our life and labor. A moment of contemplation makes vividly clear the distinction between the pursuit of wealth, and directly nourishing that which we need, liberty.

After walking enough connected mazes the importance of this point is painfully clear. If we’re unaware of the distinction between where our current path leads and where we truly wish to be, we are destined to wander without end. We have only one life to distinguish between that which is our water or our thirst, so it’s critical we make efficient use of that dwindling resource.

An inner compass is our truest guide

You shouldn’t accept anything I preach at face value, but I hope you hear my thoughts. I’m wise enough to know how foolish I am. A reminder of caution: be wary of anyone who exudes endless confidence, they’re the most likely to lead you off a cliff.

x+y = y+x

This one’s not:

1. wake up a couple of hours earlier
2. skip morning exercise
3. race from car, to train or plane
4. arrive at a hopefully fantastic company, doing work you love
5. work late at said epic job
6. long trip home, dequeueing planes, trains and automobiles
7. say hi to spouse, wave at unconscious kids before passing out
8. go to 1

This post is about our drive, ferry, train, blimp, and submarine rides to and from work. Commuting is a topic near and dear to me for a number of reasons which range between minor and unavoidable. The primary costs of commuting are time and money, and I place a premium on the former.

Wednesday I had the unfortunate pleasure of a 5-6 hour commute (one way) to Tewksbury. Luckily that distance or greater commute is only required once or twice a month. Although those are relatively isolated events, they factor in as “batch” commuting costs.

The bigger issue is doing meaningful work. All the attractive startups and larger tech companies are in the city, which is a 1.5-2 hour commute from
where I currently live. As much as I enjoy the serenity of long walks and natural surroundings, I’m willing to forgo those pleasures to create and discover more satisfying work.

Sadly even in the tech field, most companies are bound by industrial age thinking of people going where the work is. We haven’t quite mastered telepresence, but the good news is that distributed work flows are rapidly evolving.

Driven by insatiable curiosity and a burning need for product experience, I have diverged from my original career path¹. In particular my interests have shifted heavily towards application design, development and marketing. I seek nothing more than to bring incredible products to life and hear the silence of satisfied (busy) customers. For that, I have no choice but to commute for now, the city holds all those opportunities.

Down the road my wife and I look to move out to the west coast where we can couple reasonable commutes with great business opportunities, while in the short term we converge closer to Manhattan.

Notes:

1. My current profession tends towards an environment often at odds with creative problem solving.
   • Ideas are fiercely guarded even within organizations, while execution is a secondary consideration.
   • The concept of sunk costs completely escapes most veterans in the field
   • Customer budgets are surreal and unpredictable – aka the market
   • Competition is subsidized by very expensive products or government grants, leading to high overhead costs for smaller companies which focus primarily on services. To remain competitive engineers are required to perform at X times the speed of colleagues and are “penalized” by a large multiplier on compensation. Get a big raise, burn through funding faster.

Sell ads based on my data; sell my data based on ads.It’ll be cool when companies learn how to make 4¢ from something other than my life.

March 29, 2011 9:11 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hotdogsladies

Merlin Mann

“We’ll feed the rats to the catsand the cats to the ratsand get the catskins for nothing!”—Hüsker Dü, “How to Skin a Cat”

March 29, 2011 9:31 am via BirdhouseReplyRetweetFavorite

@hotdogsladies

Merlin Mann

Tried to ask Bob Parsons for help with My Elephant Problem.Accidentally bought 9 years of PachydermTonight® Ivory+® and InstaTrunk® Lite®.

April 1, 2011 7:52 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hotdogsladies

Merlin Mann

Merlin’s been nose deep in writing a book, but somewhere along the line he lost his way, allowing himself to turn the crank at the price of his authentic voice while sacrificing priceless family time. I like to believe he can have his cake and eat it too, if not for him (or myself) than for the notion that it’s possible.

I’ve shamelessly included a glimpse of his line in the sand, if you don’t mind getting choked up, I suggest reading it in its entirety.

Well. If you’ve made it this far, you, like my editor (who is awesome), will have realized that this is not a chapter of “email stuff.”

It’s a very long, wooly, histrionic, messy and uncomfortable story about hospital beds, piggy jammies, and styrofoam hats. I seriously doubt it will please my editor. Who is awesome.
So, no, I really hope she doesn’t cancel My Book Contract. But, it does occur to me that said contract is the last and only thing my publisher has to intimidate me into doing things I don’t want to do. Things I think will harm my book, my integrity, and my life.

Once that threat is made good, the game ends. They can sue me and yell and stuff. Which would suck, but at least no one would be demanding my book have fucking pussy willows on the cover. Which, as I sit here, feels more and more unbearable to me.

In any case, I don’t control anything that anyone does. It took a long time for me to really get that.

It’s such a funny thing. Threats–like hurricanes and rectal exams–are only scary until they arrive. Once they’re over, they’re just the basis for funny stories. But, you do nearly always survive them. And, if you didn’t survive? It wasn’t because of a lack of fear. Like I say, the universe doesn’t particularly care whether you’re scared.

Oh, well. I like my editor. She’s awesome. I hope she doesn’t cancel My Book Contract. I hope we keep working together.

But if it goes away today, tomorrow or further on? Well. As a favorite novelist of mine used to say: “So it goes.”

I’ll figure this out tomorrow. Or Monday. Or later. Tonight is Daddy-Daughter Night. And, no fucking way am I missing two in a row.

Now, as far as My Goddamned Book? Truthfully? Wanna hear the really complicated part?
This is not me quitting the book. No fucking way. This is me doubling down on the book–on my book.

I will finish my book very soon. Not because of (or in spite of) any contract, and not because of (or in spite of) any editor, and certainly not because of (or in spite of) any tacit demand for empty cranking.

I will finish my book because I want to finish it. Because it is very, very important to me to finish it.

But, again, let’s be clear– what I finish will be my book. And, it will be done my way. And, yes–you Back to Work fans knew this one was coming–my book will have my cover that I choose. It will not have fucking pussy willows or desert islands or third-rate kerning. It will be, to quote my editor (who is awesome), “messy.”

My book will help and comfort the people that I want to reach. And, yes, much like my editor, my book will be awesome.

I truly hope my book pleases her.