up:: Efforts MOC
How ideas and efforts play nicely together
The best way to understand “efforts” is to walk through an example of how “efforts” naturally support existing ideas.
For example, check out Sensemaking happens by triangulation. It started out as an idea I had. I wanted to better understand what “sensemaking” was and how it worked.
- So I made a new note.
- It was called “triangulation”
- I looked up stuff and brushed up on the history of triangulation in navigation.
- Slowly, the note developed into a direction I could not plan for ahead of time.
- I adjusted the title to match what was growing within the note.
- So “triangulation” became “Sensemaking through triangulation”
- I felt the spark of wanting to share this idea.
- That’s when it became an effort!
- That forced the title to change one more time.
- So “Sensemaking through triangulation” became Sensemaking happens by triangulation. Yes, that’s much stronger.
- Then I made it into a workshop lesson.
- Then I replaced it in the workshop because I wanted to get us more on hands-up repetitions.
- But I still liked the idea, so I rewrote it into a youtube video
- …and a twitter thread
- …and later I even rewrote it for my newsletter
- …and later, I want to get it up on my website.
- …and always, I have this treasure to fuel my own thinking.
- That’s the power of thinking in “efforts” and not projects.
Go back to the first bullet. Can you imagine if tried to call this a “project”. A project of what?! I didn’t even know what I was trying to do! It would have smothered my spark of curiosity and replaced it with feelings of guilt for not completing it—whatever “it” was.
It was only because I eventually framed this note as an “effort” that I benefitted from the space to breath with the idea and allow it to grow into one of my favorite ideas!
Had I been worried about some sort of project-driven output, with a hard deadline, this idea would have never evolved to what it has now become.
This is the power of “efforts” over “projects” when it comes to developing your ideas.
If you work in a corporate environment with clear deadlines and less creative work, you’ll be fine with projects.
If you work with ideas, you’ll finally feel free with efforts.
Back to: Efforts MOC