Announcing Edison v1.0 - The Think, Try, Learn Experimenter's Workbook!

After lots of hard work by the team [1], I'm tickled pink to announce - Ta Da! - Edison version 1.0, The Think, Try, Learn (TTL) Experimenter's Workbook. It's a social networking tool for tracking all the new things you're trying in your life. What do we mean by experiment? Anything you've never done before, that you're a little nervous about, or that you have no guidebook for. (See You Know You're Experimenting When... for more.)

Why should you try this? I've found that thinking of things this way has been a major help in being courageous, enjoying life, and having more fun. When you get into it, I'm sure you'll discover dozens of current experiments you're running in your life (whether you know it or now), including ways in which you're working to improve yourself - losing weight, eating better, or getting more productive (how about some of your GTD projects, or your productivity practice itself?) Check out How Do You Treat Life As An Experiment? for more.

How does it work? It's simple: You create a new experiment for each new thing you're trying [2], make observations while you're doing it, get helpful comments from other Edison users [3], then mark it completed when you're done. You can also participate in the community by making comments on others' experiments, such as giving encouragement or sharing your experiences on things you've tried and learned from.

To get started, simply click Join, type your name, email, and password, then start entering your experiments. (It's the holidays, so how about watching what you eat or keeping a positive attitude?) Or you can look around at some of the experiments our early adopters are running by browsing the main page or scanning the tag cloud. For ideas, check out the range of experiments in Stories From Edison: Lucid Dreaming, Dropping Twitter, Sleep, And Personal Medical Experiments.

It's early days yet, and we'd love to hear your feedback. Use the TTL form, or email me directly. And stay tuned for a little contest with prizes for master Edison-ites, such as people with most new experiments, the most comments or observations, the most positive contributor, and the most surprising, fascinating, or the strange ones :-)

Happy experimenting!

References

• [1] A huge thanks to the Think, Try, Learn team: Liza Cunningham (TTL partner, software entrepreneur, and web designer), Andy O'Shea (programmer extraordinaire and Ruby on Rails developer), and Graham Westerlund (web front-end guru, and HTML and CSS wizard).



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  [2] The system gets you thinking when you make an experiment by asking some questions from the TTL perspective:
  
  
  
  
  • What will you do?
  
  
  
  • How will you test your idea and measure success?
  
  
  
  • How will you know you are done?
  
  
  
  • How will you enjoy the journey?
  
  



• [3] If you've marked it as public, that is.

Madelon Young, 1928-2009

My dear mom passed away this morning from chronic heart and lung disease. She was a heck of a trooper throughout her illness, right up to the end. No complaints, kept her sense of humor, and always said thank you, even when she could barely talk. I'm proud of her.

She was a great mom and I'll miss her a bunch.

Not blogging for a few weeks

(Family emergency, things still shaking out, will resume blogging when I get the chance. I'll also get to some backed-up replies to your comments then. -- matt)

Resistance is Data

In my daily planning guide Where the !@#% did my day go? I discuss task resistance, a root cause of procrastination and something most of us face one time or another. From the Think, Try, Learn perspective, resistance is data, with its attendant opportunity to improve. Start with some questions.

• Why are you resisting the task?



• What is it specifically that is repelling you?



• How long has this been the case?

Then ask yourself how important it is to address this. The good news is that you know about it (the Awareness "A" of the three A's), the seed of taking action.

This applies personally too. Do you have a difficult conversation you're avoiding? A medical problem? Information that the economic impact on your work/company can't be ignored? Or maybe it's simply an unpleasant thought. For me, shifting from reacting to the thing (or trying to avoid it) to thinking about it with a healthy sense of detachment is a relief. And here, the detachment comes from treating your feelings as information to process, not as something intrinsic to you or the problem/situation/challenge.

I'm curious: Have you adopted this approach? How has it changed your perceptions? What data do you having entering your life these days?

Lessons for Work and Living from Julia Child and the Movie "Julie & Julia"

At the risk of being pedestrian, I wanted to share share insights inspired by the movie Julie & Julia, mostly of Julie Child's work (links below). The movie's been written about ad nauseam, but not from the Think, Try, Learn or productive perspective. So here goes! (As an aside, there's a local angle for me: Her alma mater is Smith College - enrolled at birth! - and she was honored by a local farmer's Corn Maze, of all things.)

Of the movie proper, it not only passed the Finish Test (a rarity for me), but was non-violent, moving, funny, and inspiring. We enjoyed it as a family, and Meryl Streep's performance was universally enchanting. I found the Julia Child portions of the movie the highlight (it switches back and forth in time between the two characters). In fact, an entire movie of those would have been even more enjoyable.

The number one insight for me was the importance of experimentation in her work. After all, every new recipe should be considered an experiment. Search for the word in the Noel Riley Fitch biography Appetite for Life and you'll find lots of examples.

Following are some ideas I've I distilled (through the filter of the film) that struck me about work and life. For more on Julia Child: Julia Child in the Wikipedia, her biography at Answers.com, and her book Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One. Enjoy!

• Things don't have to be perfect. For example, look at my blog! Seriously, give yourself a break and allow some leeway in (gasp!) the quality of your work. (My clients regularly shoot for "A+ papers," so this isn't as controversial as it sounds.) For example, in a video she gets some chocolate on the side of a serving dish and says not to worry - it's still good.



• Be a character. She is informal, full of life, and has a unique style, including her use of language. (Here's an idea: Try this experiment: Adopt a new mannerism.)



• Be bold! Experimentation requires courage! When trying something new, like a novel project assignment, acknowledge that you've never done this before (i.e., it's OK being a beginner).



• Lighten up. Laugh at yourself, adopt some colorful language, and appreciate working with your collaborators. Check out How to Enjoy What You Are Doing No Matter What, or my own 18 Ways To Enjoy The Ride At Work. Remember, process and product should both be savored. Enjoy those little delights, such as tasting while cooking (you can see her do this all the time), or a surprisingly good result. There's another video where she drops a fillet (I believe) and laughs it off. Talk about not crying over spilled milk!



• Make yourself better. From Fitch, "After eating, there was a postmortem discussion." Kaizen fans will recognize the value of continuous improvement, something we can adopt personally (this whole blog is about that) and professionally, via staying on top of your industry's developments, adding new skills, tracking decisions and lessons learned, and honing and reevaluating your workflow.



• Redefine mistakes. Though it takes a shift, it's healthy to look at failures or mistakes as opportunities to discover something new. Again from Appetite for Life, "She was constantly experimenting and testing. If a dish went wrong, she said nothing. This was one of her maxims: no excuses, no explanations." Spinning an accident into serendipity is a source of new recipes. I love it.



• Try a new thought tool. In the scene where she and her editor are brainstorming titles, they use that wonderful brainstorming technique involving index cards with words, where you move them around looking for striking patterns or combinations. Good resources include named Rapid Problem Solving with Post-It Notes, (mentioned in On Using Post-It Notes For GTD Projects, Instead Of Lists) and the awesome Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques.