The reasons that have sparked this thought process are not sharable; however, it relates to quite a few things in our lives, and society at large, that I thought it worth sharing. It relates to the often used delaying tactic to action is the amount of knowledge we have. That we need to know more before we get started — leading, of course, to inaction.
There are always times when this is the case, but more often than not it is simply a logical fallacy. A barrier to action that our mind puts in our way. Take, for example, losing weight. There is no knowledge gap here, we all know that to lose weight in very simple terms we need to eat less and move more. Yet more than 30% of the UK population are inactive, and 63.8% of the population are either overweight or clinically obese. Without discussing the nuance of the figures and descriptions here, they clearly illustrate knowledge is not the issue.
Every person that ‘suffers’ with procrastination knows that they should be working on something. They have enough knowledge of the tasks to complete, it may be right in front of their face — but much like those that want to lose weight, they have an action problem. I know how to become a better writer, I have to write more and hone the skills that I have. I don’t need to learn more about writing, I just need to sit in the chair and do it. Yet, for whatever reason, I have an action issue.
I talk to so many people who say something similar to “I really want to be x”. Exchange x for a whole range of things. A better writer, a photographer, a better runner. Whatever ever is, there’s no knowledge gap to doing it, but no action either.
Sebastian de With, on Threads:
This is apparently incomprehensible to some people on this website, but to many people it’s actually a good and beneficial feature that Apple doesn’t let you install software on your iPhone from anywhere else.
It has been a while since I paid any attention to Apple payments and other things going on in the developer world. Not because I don’t care, but because I don’t really have an opinion and what I do think as a user might not always be very popular. So I usually just stay quiet.
I, as a user, have absolutely no desire to install another App Store on my device, nor buy my apps from anywhere else. It is a terrible experience on desktop to need several stores to just play a few games, and will only make things worse. I will also happily pay a little extra to be able to manage all the payments that I make to companies in one place and easy to access on my iPhone. However, I can be happy with my view point and also think that Apple treats developers horribly.
I work on an app, which is in the apps store, so I know all about getting approval from the fruit overlords, and must say Google are fairly difficult too. However, thankfully, they do not take 30% of sales from us because that would be a ridiculous amount of money to lose and then perhaps I would be jumping up and down more!
Just because I do not feel as strongly as some does not mean I don’t care, nor does it mean I don’t understand their frustrations. There is no-bystander apathy going on here, but at many points I don’t say things because I hold this rather Ambivalence state — Which tends to not chime very well with the developers I speak to.
This week, I’ve had two lengthy meetings at the end of the working day. Important, interesting meetings, but exhausting, and it brought to mind the often overlooked skill of scheduling things for the best possible time.
The instinct for those convening with others is to arrange a meeting when they have time. The first thing the participants know about it is a calendar invite with green or red buttons (and occasionally a yellow), with very little thought about the other things going on around them and the capacity to be at their best at the scheduled time.
I am a morning person; I rise early because of home commitments and often start work at 6am or earlier. Due to this, important tasks are always the first things that get my attention. Not because I eat the frog, but because this is the point in the day when I am at my best — I am high energy. By the time 5pm rolls around, I’m frequently exhausted and very low energy. So a long meeting at this time will be a real struggle.
Whereas if I have to arrange meetings, I typically put them in first thing, with little regard to people who might need a bit of time to ‘warm up’ into the day. By spending a bit of time and thought on the working practices of the people around us, specifically on our teams, we could all have a better experience and get more done.
Being aware of the difference between high and low-energy periods of the day has been a good productivity boost. For quite a while, I’ve highlighted tasks with high and low markers to make sure I am getting things done at the right point in the day. If I have some creative work to do or a problem to solve — that’s high energy and gets done first. If I have some research to complete or reading waiting for input — that’s low energy and can be done later in the day.
As I wrote about yesterday, I have been using my time to build a blog. This effort stems partly from annoyance and partly from a desire for extra learning. The blog is built on a static site generator called 11ty, and I’ve developed it to a point where I am relatively happy with it. However, with all the messing around and developing a replacement for what I already have, at what point do you just say ‘Forget it’ and give up?
There’s been a considerable amount of work that has gone into my new blog. It’s a website filled with static files, but it also has a CMS backend to manage it all. I’ve added webmention and micropub endpoints to make publishing frictionless. It wasn’t an easy task, but it has all been done to replace something that I already have. My makeshift setup pales in comparison to just paying $50 a year and running it on micro.blog.
This gives me a setup that someone else manages, with no hassle, and it’s (relatively) able to do the things I want it to do. With the caveat of a bit of flakiness here and there and some opinionated choices regarding features. Remove all the extra social things, and it becomes a very cost-effective blog hosting solution, with many more features than my static site built with Netlify.
These smacks in the face don’t just happen with blog hosting. There’s a stark realisation sometimes when, after a few days, the reality becomes apparent that the new phone you got does exactly what the old one did. The new productivity app you fiddled with for hours doesn’t mean you get more done. A fancy new pen or notebook achieves the same thing the cheap ones do.
Don’t get me wrong, I have learned a great deal of new skills and used some of it to pass modules in my qualification. However, while messing around with micropub endpoints this morning to try to get my new thing to do exactly what the old thing does well, at some point you just give up.
Straight off the bat, I understand I’ve made these types of statements before. Following the iPhone 14 launch, I had ‘no interest’ in purchasing anything, and a few weeks later, I had a 14 Pro Max and an Apple Watch Ultra. However, with that said, I have absolutely no interest in the Vision Pro, so I have stayed quiet about it. That is to say, this whole post is coming from this standpoint.
Due to this apathy, I’ve been reasonably sheltered from the gushing by others online. I’ve got the words muted on Mastodon, and it has kept most talk out of my feed. However, while laughing along to Andy’s recent face hugger post, I began to type some thoughts into my notes app, and it turned into something publishable. Spoiler alert: they haven’t really changed from my .
That’s not to say I don’t see the use case. I understand the appeal of such a device, to be engrossed in something so much that the outside world is cut off. The feeling of immersion in something is a remarkable experience. The desire to be fully immersed in a film or computer game is understandable – I am just not convinced it is worth the downsides.
I enjoy nothing more than sitting in my office, noise-cancelling headphones on, playing brain.fm, and being engrossed in deep work. Perhaps going to the cinema and sitting in front of a gigantic screen with surround sound. In neither of these situations have I thought, ‘This would be better if I could put this screen on my face.’ For me, at least, any VR headset, even a £3,500 one with creepy eyes on the front, doesn’t solve problems I encounter.
Recently, I think Apple has also realised this and switched the marketing. From being all-in on the Vision Pro solving working and media consumption problems, they have switched the messaging to emotion. Many of those lucky enough to try one have a strangely unified emotional response to spatial video. With one such reporter being brought to the brink of tears.
Who am I to argue with someones feelings, but outside of this, the utility of this expensive purchase is extremely limited. Perhaps that’s the point. The Vision Pro is for those with money to spend on something with limited use. The technology will no doubt get cheaper and become easier to purchase, but from my anecdotal experience, there are already plenty of people with cheap Meta devices gathering dust.
Apple may well have developed technology to try to combat motion sickness, but there’s no getting around the sickness from spending £3500 only to realise you need to create problems for it to solve.