GHDR Report 0606: Inverted Assumptions

⊕ show captionABOUT THE PHOTO // I had large engineering prints of The Ship made at Staples, which are pretty cheap! There was a lot of background design and world building that went into making these diagrams.

It’s time for a really late June Update for Groundhog Day Resolutions! This report has been particularly hard to write because a lot of insights happened one-after-the-other, causing me to re-evaluate what I’ve been doing for the past twenty years.

This is a super-long report because I’ll pulling many years-long threads together. The TL;DR is that I’m commiting to a huge wager:

The next three sections describe how I can to that conclusion and what I’m planning to do moving forward. It’s a lot! I think it’s probably more useful as an example of how one person is attempting to make big shifts in direction. I’ve tried to keep the sections more conversational by pushing the detailed exposition into the maginalia.

1. Inverting Traditional Assumptions about Productivity

It’s been challenging to figure out how to convey this in a way that wasn’t super dense and hard to read, so I’ll just start by blurting out where I’ve been stuck for years:

Before, I figured that I just needed to find my discipline and stick to improving. But after twenty years, I started to question this. Like, what if I was trying to do things that required the equivalent of being really tall, but I’m actually short? Or trying to paint a color that people tell me exists, but I have never seen it? As someone diagnosed as neurodivergent and gender non-conforming, I figured that that I might have a different set of strengths/weaknesses to work from.

So I tried flipping things inside-out and backwards to see what would happen, starting in 2025.

I’m calling them Inversions. Here’s the first four.

What’s common in all of these inversions is that they are human-firstSee the entry Values-First Productivity, which describes the core ideas of human-first in the context of productivity. approaches, as opposed to efficiency- or production-first. This is important because my actual goal is not creative independence after all, but something much closer to my heart:

That’s a significant change from “creative independence”, which is an inversion in itself:

So that’s all great and everything, but it’s hard not to feel embarrassed about all the time I’ve wasted getting here. So much fighting to get so little done! But maybe I have not been using the right framing.

I can definitely say that I have not been slacking for twenty years. I just haven’t been doing the things that directly make money because my rational side was not listening to my heart.

• I have produced a LOT of supplementary material related to productivity. The most visible artifact are the productivity tools.
• I’ve also consistently tracked Groundhog Day Resolutions since 2007, bundling dozens of hard-won insights into hypothetical models.

I don’t think that work lacks value or validity. It only seems that way because they don’t conform to traditional metrics of efficiency and success. My approach has been different.

• Instead of following recipes, I’ve deeply analyzed my tasks to create maps of understanding.
• I’ve pursued plausible solutions like “creative independence” and now “values-first productivity” based on what I’ve discovered through a series of documented experiments.
• As understanding grew, I integrated what I learned into larger systems that moved me a little closer to whatever it was I’m moving for, a strategic horizonStrategic Horizons is a way to visualize uncertain goals at a distance. It’s described in detail here..

It has been a wandering path, with backtracking when hitting dead ends, or admitting that the crossing I chose was not navigable given my limits. But I have been continuing to move and grow despite the lack of traditional closure.

There is a strategic concept in military science called asymmetric warfare. In my case, the asymmetry is that I am but a single person without traditional strengths that make traditional paths to success feasible. I have different strengths and operating constraints related to my specific neurodivergent traits and personal beliefs.My developing thoughts on Asymmetric Productivity are noted here.

The upshot of that is that I actually do know what I’m doing. That is highly reassuring! I’m not failing at being good at productivity. I am using a different strategy altogether, and it’s based on lots of empirical evidence.

2. How It Comes Together

I’ve speedrun through a lot of theory in the inversions I’ve listed above, but maybe it will make more sense if I state them in terms of structured action:

• I’m leading with my personal values of authenticity, transparency, and curiosity.
• I’m using these values to anchor the cultural values for communities of belonging.
• I’m articulating these values as the charter for an example vessel (The Ship) as proof of concept.
• I’m operationalizing these values into operational directives to provide clarity in intent and action.
• I’m applying asymmetric doctrine to adapt to needs as they appear, refining and documenting it as I go.

I’m essentially giving myself permission to follow my own path as it is directed by my specific traits and beliefs. I can also justify this permission because I have a very clear sense of how everything fits together.

For the first time I feel like I can see the entire structure I’ve been working toward, but the execution gap still presents a challenge. I addressed this in the May 5 Report by formalizing Ship Operations and then drawing this operational diagram:

⊕ show captionSee the appendix Ship Diagram Process for how this diagram was conceived and made

I have a spaceship, metaphorically speaking now. The diagram shows how everything I’ve been doing in the past in the context of the future. All I need to do is start, and I have some ideas on how to make this more interesting!

3. Telling a Good Yarn

I’ve talked about a lot of struff above, and want to write about it in a way that is approachable and interesting. I also happen to like world building and story telling techniquesThis is why I started my professional career as a game developer, though I didn’t know that was the reason at the time., so why not integrate that into how I tell this story?

There’s the idea of having a “through line”Wikipedia defines the through line as “A connecting theme or plot used in media such as films and books”.

FUN FACT: The term was coined by late 1800s Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski, who laid the foundation of contemporary acting through his students that moved abroad! “Method Acting” is one branch of his legacy. for a piece of writing, and I don’t think I have ever had one before in all my years of writing. What I’ve done a lot of is sharing my experiences and impressions on productivity as a log of what happened; while that can be categorized into themes, it’s not the same as having a deliberately articulated point of view.

The problem was that I had no idea what my through line was, though I do already do narrative-driven designNarrative-driven Design is my term fo “making difficult solo work more interesting by writing about about myself in the third person as if I were doing something much more exciting”. I have notes on it here. as a way to push through boring tasks. So why not combine the through line with narrative-driven design?

I came up with these key ideas, based on the separate of my story into Sri as Character and Sri as Director. Below are main points that I think matterThe appendix Sri’s Writing Doctrine gets DEEP into the weeds. It might be of interest to other serial narrative designers or bloggers developing their writing voice..

Ultimately, what I want to do is:

This is not the way I write now. I have theories on how to achieve this.

As Character Sri

• The through line: “Isolation is killing her slowly despite adapting to the world. Will she realize this and figure out what to do about it?”
• The Wager: “Will Sri see the pattern in time? Will she be brave enough to leave the comfort of her nest? Will her determination see her through in the face of past failures?”
• The backstory: Sri is starting a new journey that puts the past in the background. All the years of GHDR before are prequel material, the training that shaped herSee the appendix Timeline of GHDR Evolution . She swings toward romantic narratives and adaptive approaches to life, desiring a world where all the animals are friends, but has to face the reality that some of them want to eat each otherAs noted before, All the Animals are Friends is explained in detail here..

As Storyteller Sri

• My Directorial Rule - Show Sri’s truth as truthfully as Sri is truthfulHere “truth” is derived from values of authenticity, transparency, and curiosity; it is “truth to myself.” See Values-first Productivity., emphasizing patterns related to Sri’s through line, wager, and backstory.

• My superobjective - Show Sri not at heroine, but as someone facing isolation as a universal human pain. Sri’s story is just one of many, examined in detail without commentary. The audience is trusted to draw their own conclusions. What is unusual is Sri’s cognitive profile: a highly-articulated neurodivergent understanding of the world, answering universal questions about isolation in unconventional ways. For audiences facing the same isolation, Sri’s struggle is a vehicle that carries their own from a different perspective.

• My super-superobjective - Ultimately, the goal is to help audiences root for themselves as they root for Character Sri. Her desires to see “all the animals become friends, even when they try to eat each other” is a simple premise with relatable complexity. As a piece of serial writing, I want to present this as a story that could be, and by extension a story for everyone who follows along.

• The Bridge between Audience and Story - Sri’s asymmetric approach to life as an underdog with neurodivergent traits also acts as instruction. The steps she takes, in clear details and delivered in her voice, is additional world building that is provided as marginalia and footnotes instead of cluttering-up the interesting storyThis is my adaptation of the maxim Show Don’t Tell. My past writing is largely exposition and reporting, which makes for tedious reading..

Anyway, this is an opportunity to apply Narrative Design to my Ship idea, with myself as a character who is documenting what they are doing to make it work. It’s exciting and a little weird. I don’t know if it will work, but that is the adventure that I am looking for. If I can tell the story tell, maybe I’ll reach the people who will want to join me.

Next Steps

Woof, that was a lot! Moving forward I am putting all previous years of Groundhog Day Resolutions into the background. It’s history that comes up only when the story I’m telling needs it. This is a new start for a new story with a newly-aware character that is starting a new adventure on a Ship that they just conjured out of thin air.

To capture the vibe, I’m using this phrase:

That applies not just to me, but for anyone who sees themselves in that story. It is about connecting people with each other, people learning to see each other and find patterns of hospitality. Something like that! I will find out.

Because this Groundhog Day Report took so long to write, I am exercising the option to take July off and not feel compelled write a long report. This report is the foundation. It’s time to get this Ship moving and see if it can hold out against the cold impersonal vacuum of the universe.