Do things when you don't want to do them.

Great things happen by way of small, consistently performed steps. The days you don’t want to show up are the most important days for you to show up. Dedicating yourself to a big goal feels good until it’s day 300 and your out of money and haven’t slept. Those moments when it doesn’t feel good, and they don’t have to be that overtly dramatic, are the days we learn the most about ourselves and each other. Carrying through those days with grace, poise, and compassion is an extremely useful skill to learn to see your goals through.

One way I’ve found to do that is by focusing in on this day. Today.

I’ve spent a fare share of my academic and professional life pursuing big ideas. From spacecraft, to rockets, to spaceships, to mental health, to, now, climate change. Along each step of the way I’ve heard of the importance of innovation. How we are innovating faster than the competition or going to create something out of nothing. While possibly true, technology isn’t all about innovation. It’s equal if not more tilted towards execution. We fixate on the dreams, big ideas, and lofty ideals. But that’s all they are until you can turn them into reality.

In an age of endless distraction, those who can deliver effectively are rare. Often we lose the details, the executional excellence, the hard-fought knowledge, because we turn our heads a little bit too quickly from the path of difficulty.

I’m starting to realize that the hunt for new, better systems distracts us from understanding the systems we are in and their interconnectedness. Every point of friction or anomalous behavior we face in our lives is a teacher. They show us reality and then we can begin to understand how we can shape it differently.

Take the first colonists for example. Amazed and dumbfounded by the surplus of fruit and nut trees. They praised the landscape for bearing such treasures. What they failed to realize is they were quite possibly in an intentional, manufactured landscape. A massive orchard cultivated by the native people. A landscape that helped them and the earth thrive (See “1491” by Charles C. Mann).

Their pursuit for better opportunities in a foreign land distracted them from questioning what they were witnessing. How often do we see something we don’t understand and attribute it to a hidden, mystic force that some how dodges our ability to see and understand it?

Not everything is so complicated. Not everything is so complex. Disregarding the mathematical notion of complexity, informally we are quick to note something as complex when it exceeds our capability to understand. Over time, we understand more of the system and it’s workings. Turns out it isn’t so complex after all. Complexity tends to be relative to the observer.

I ran across an interesting framework that attempts to explain this. The Cynefin framework categorizes problems into four categories in a quadrant: chaos, complex, complicated, and simple. Chaos is where panic and confusion reign. Complex domains are where an input has no clear association or immediate effect on output. Complicated means there there are established best practices but they may require significant expertise to do. Finally, the simple domain is were there is a clear, simple relationship that can be understood easily.

When we start something new, we often feel it is chaotic. Why did they code it this way!? As we spend time with the system, we learn more of it. It becomes a bit familiar. We experiment with small changes and see what happens. We metaphorically dip our toes to rest the water. Eventually we build up a corpus of knowledge and good/bad patterns. Then we emerge with wisdom, the effortless application of that knowledge and patterns. We move across the domains of the Cynefin framework. It starts with small details and ends with mastery. It ends with an ability to truly shape reality.

When we endlessly chase technological innovations we lose sight of how to apply those innovations. Or, we have no desire to go through the effort to have those innovations adopted. Innovating for innovation’s sake wholly detached us from the motivation and meaning of the pursuit. We’ll be the colonists who blindly accept the face value of the situation.

I think a lot about those native people and try to imagine the processes they put in place to design such a landscape. I fail hopelessly. It’s so foreign to me as someone living in this age. Almost all of our actions are dictated by instantaneous gratification. Or the output has to be measured to determine its utility. Our environments are designed to give us immediate feedback. It’s difficult to strategize about the long term by only looking at the things right in front of us.

This thought feels unsettling to me. As a builder, my day to day involves looking squarely at the short term. I have to pay attentional to each detail of the system I’m building. I can measure progress through tickets completed, code commuted, etc. While it can feel good to see I wrote more code today than yesterday, it doesn’t mean that I understand something better or am closer to anything. My focus on the details of the situation in front of me isn’t sufficient to understand the workings of the system, but it is necessary.

You can understand you are standing in an orchard if you don’t realize those are trees above your head. Grander realizations require acute focus and mindfulness along with the space to reflect.

Which is why I firmly believe that technological innovation is a derivative of applied, consistent execution. You have to put yourself into whatever system you are working in, tinker with things, like it, adapt it, kick it. Only through that experimentation and antagonization can you understand it better. Leading to deeper, more meaningful insights. Which in turn leads to innovation.

Quite mundane things can lead to great discoveries and often on the days you don’t feel like discovering something. You can never know what will lead to a great discovery. What I do know is that pursuing only the grand discoveries or breakthroughs for their own sake narrows our perspective and closes our minds to alternate paths. Seeking ever-green innovations and technologies whiplashes us into a constant state of distraction. Quitting too early or not showing up shuts us down completely and prevents any movement.

What works for me is to focus on the now, contribute daily, be present with others, and to give myself some compassion.. Innovations, technological curiosities, head-pounding frustrations are all destined to come. In the turbulence I center on what is in front of me to stabilize, focus, and execute.

Great things are on the horizon. But in their due time and through daily action and reflection. Thoughts and ideas are speculation until you chose to act and follow through on them. Whether you want to or not, each action teaches us a little bit more and is imperative to reach higher levels of understanding. Even if you don’t make much progress today, it’s infinitely better than zero. Keep going.