What is the relationship between uncertainty and success?

It seems to me that a certain amount of uncertainity is necessary to be successful (however you define it) - that there is an element of the unknown when trying new things. Then again, there is also low-risk success. Thoughts?

"Above all, think of life as a prototype."

"Above all, think of life as a prototype.  We can conduct experiments, make discoveries, and change our perspectives.  We can look for opportunities to turn processes into projects that have tangible outcomes.  We can learn how to take joy in the things we create whether they take the form of a fleeting experience or an heirloom that will last for generations.  We can learn that reward comes in creation and re-creation, no just in the consumption of the world around us.  Active participation in the process of creation is our right and our privilege.  We can learn to measure the sucess of our ideas not by our bank accounts but by their impact in the world."

Tim Brown in Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation

Insights, stories, and surprises from Edison, December, 2010

Here are some of the cool things users of my Edison tool (the Think, Try, Learn experimenter's journal) are experimenting with. Is there anything you've been thinking of trying out? Go for it! Thanks, everyone.

Health and diet

I've joined Rofellos in keeping a food log. His is at Effect of Keeping Food Log on Nutritional Behavior and mine is keep a simple food log for the next few weeks.

In Legumes and Body Comp, Rainman03 is, for 21 days, eating legumes with most meals to see if it will affect weight and body composition.

Chad Fowler, in Slow Carb Diet, is following Tim Ferriss's Slow Carb Diet from The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman (a typically Ferriss provocative title) including weekly binge day, AKA a cheat day. (Interestingly, Rofellos is doing something similar above with his "skip" day.)

In keep feet warm while mountain biking in winter I'm experimenting with different footwear solutions. Andrew suggested Ski Boot Heaters, which kicked off a little search where I found this MTBR thread and the Hotronic FootWarmer. I decided the relatively low-tech Pearl iZUMi Barrier Cycling Shoe Cover along with Seal Skinz and SmartWool socks like these. The combo has worked well so far in as low as ~30 degree F weather.

Productivity

MrRee and James Bishop are trying sitting on exercise balls a work to test body and mood (see sitting on an exercise ball and Sitting on an exercise ball for work, respectively).

Syler is Implementing the GTD System and Its Effect on Mood, which, wearing my time management hat, is exciting because she's actually testing David Allen's claim of "stress-free productivity" in his book, Getting Things Done (highly recommended).

Ralf Westphal experimented with Make my office paperless and ended up adopting it permanently, based on such a positive result (he says "I never need to worry about whether to throw away of keep some paper.")

Self-improvement

David Guzman is keeping track of Lessons Learned during his volunteer work, something I've found value in (see Some thoughts from tracking "lessons learned" for a year) and reported on the last two years in Personal Lessons Learned in 2008 - The Intersection of Past, Present, and Future and Lessons Learned for 2009. Unfinished Business, Only the Best, and You Never Know.

Other treats

As a one-time "micro experiment" I tried cooking blackened salmon. It was a smoky mess, but tasted great.

Finally, as a nice example of a an experiment apparently in an actual science lab, sonicity asks, Does a small flask give me enough cells for plating?

James Bishop is Washing dishes with rubber gloves to test getting rid of a rash.

Ambrose Didymus (a pseudonym from Theodora and Didymus?) is going to Grow a cocoa plant in Melbourne, Australia

What will you track over the holidays?

[cross-posted from Quantified Self]

A touchy-feely post this week, I'd love to hear your suggestions on meaningful things we might track during the holidays, now or whenever they are celebrated. Here are a few ideas I had in the social and health categories. What are yours?

• # social events participated in
• # laughs
• # times you stopped and took a breath
• # family stories told
• # people you told how you feel about them
• # smiles obtained
• # offers of help to someone
• # times you felt gratitude
• # times you gave the gift of listening
• # times went for a walk
• # servings food
• # alcoholic drinks consumed
• # sweets consumed

A brief interview with Gretchen Rubin, experimenter extraordinaire and author of The Happiness Project

I am pleased to share a short email interview I had with Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Gretchen's approach to her book meshes well with my Think, Try, Learn work: She set aside a year to explore lots of possible ways to make herself happy, courageously tried them out, shared them with her blog readers as she went along, and then wrote up the resulting wisdom, principles, and stories for others to learn from. I hope you enjoy her answers.

Follow these links to learn more about her:

• Her home page
• Her Happiness Project blog and Facebook page
• Her @gretchenrubin Twitter account

Thanks, Gretchen!

Why should people experiment with their lives?

It's exciting to try something new, to push yourself in a fresh direction. Novelty and challenge bring happiness.

You experimented with many things during your year-long project. Where did you get the ideas for what to try?

Everywhere! Novels, philosophy, science, my friends. I look constantly for ideas.

When you were doing your project, what were some of the surprises you encountered? How did you handle any nasty ones?

I realized that some of my bad habits were worse than I thought. Gossiping, for example -- I gossiped a lot more than I realized. Nagging. Speaking "in a mean voice" as my daughters put it. When I really tracked how much I indulged in these behaviors, I realized how much room I had to improve.

For someone who just read your book, what would be some small starting experiments they could try to kick off their own happiness project?

Make your bed. Sounds so trivial, but so many people mention that one as something useful. Keep a one-sentence journal, where you write just one sentence about your day.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to try new things, but is afraid to experiment?

Start small and manageable. It's astonishing how a small action, over time, can lead to large results. So pick something that you know you can really stick to, and do it.

In what ways was the process of writing your book experimental?

I'd never written in the first-person before, so that was a whole new challenge.

What was the risk of perfection getting in the way of your enjoying the process? How did you get around it?

I think I am a perfectionist up to the point of usefulness. I don't have too much trouble with over-perfectionism. "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" is one of my Secrets of Adulthood (cribbed from Voltaire).

When the inevitable slip-ups, goofs, and mistakes came up, how did you keep a playful attitude?

Ah, that was a major struggle! "Be serious about play" is one of my catchphrases.

In what ways is treating things experimentally important in your own work and life?

It shaped my entire life.

What experiments are you doing right now, professionally? What about personally? Any surprises?

I'm still working on my happiness project. I make more resolutions all the time. One of my latest ones, that I'm really enjoying, is to "Cultivate good smells." The sense of smell is so vital to our lives, and yet it's easy to overlook. I'm trying to pay more attention to this aspect of my ordinary day. [I simply love this one. Anyone want to Try It in Edison? -- matt]