Friday, August 23, 2013

2013 TKR: Optional thinking: Draft; Un-; Zen; Final

Optional thinking: Draft; Un-; Zen; Final
Self-help--Thinkerer
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  • Draft thinking: like draft writing
  • Unthinking 
  • Zen thinking 
  • Final thinking 
The people in your head. Be everyone you can be
Draft thinking
  • Draft thinking is like draft writing. 
  • You follow a trial line of thinking
  • You can follow several lines of thought
  • And later pick the best 
  • After you see how the different lines work out
  • Mulling it over
  • Effective procrastination
Why would you use draft thinking?
  • To think through possibilities and alternatives
  • To talk to other people about possibilities and alternatives. 
  • To gather information
  • To find out about the costs in money, time, and effort
  • To see if your resources are up to the job
  • To develop and evaluate tentative plans
  • To defer decision and commitment until you believe the payoff is worth the effort. 
  • To defer decision and commitment until you believe in your plans and resources
  • To let other people know your thinking and get their inputs before you commit.
How do you do it?
  • Arrange cues that fit draft thinking: paper-pencil, computer notepad
  • Make notes of ideas, plans, actions, questions as they occur to you.  
  • Don't censor yourself. 
  • If you talk to people about it, be clear that this is draft thinking. 
  • When you think of action, imagine yourself doing the action.

Resources
  • Scratch pads
  • Pencil
  • Computer with notepad
  • Web page with search bar
Main characters from your head team
  • Un
  • Engineer
  • Explorer
  • Networker
  • Storyboarder
Pratfall plans
  • Keep in mind that this thinking is a draft.  
  • It is not what you will use. 
  • It is something you will rework later if it looks useful
  • Don't throw away ideas.  Write notes about them.
  • Don't think of any suggestion as something you will definitely do
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Unthinking
  • The Un family handles this kind of thinking. 
  • The opposite of orderly and rigorous thinking.
  • This is the basis of
  • creativity 
  • originality
  • humor
  • brainstorming,
  • Also called
  • procrastination
  • hesitation
  • laziness
  • ADHD
What’s it for?
  • To get new ideas
  • To talk to other people about new ideas
  • To gather information and make new connections among old ideas
  • To look for different ways to interpret your goals
  • To look for alternative ways to reach your goals
  • To understand why this goal is important to you
How do you do it?
  • Look for assumptions you can question.
  • Look for conclusions you can doubt
  • Look for ideas you can reverse
  • Arrange to make notes on scratch paper or yellow pads
  • Write down some words that describe what you want to think about
  • Be messy. Just write words. Don’t bother with sentences
  • Write a few words that describe the goal you are after
  • Write a few unusual ways to achieve your goal. Don’t be realistic
  • If you talk to people about it, let them know that you are gathering ideas
  • Brainstorming, ideation, getting ideas in virtual worlds
Quick  Quotes
Pick a page.  Pick a quote . Ask yourself how this item fits your task.
Main characters from your head team


  • Un
  • Explorer
  • Networker
  • Storyboarder
Pratfall planning.
  • Don’t let your Canter in on this job
  • Your Canter just protects you from new ideas
  • Save evaluation for later
  • Write. Don’t load your brain with stuff to remember
  • Don’t stop too soon. You’ll be smarter tomorrow


*****
Zen thinking
  • depends on the quiet parts of your brain
  • outside of consciousness
  • an idea or a memory pops into your head
  • prime your brain by draft thinking
Other names you could call it
  • incubation
  • the back burner
  • hearing the quiet parts of your brain
Names other people may call it
  • Goofing off
  • procrastinating
  • indecision
  • hesitation
What’s it for?
  • Get the quiet parts of your brain to work on the problem
  • Get new ideas
  • Get viewpoints from the quiet parts of your brain
  • Be sure you are getting your whole head behind your plan
How do you do it?
  • Spend some time in draft thinking. Then decide to hold off the decision
  • Set the problem aside and see what it looks like in a day or so
  • Sleep on the matter
  • Or do something completely different. Exercise. Play a game
  • Expect that new ideas will bubble up from the quiet parts of your mind
  • Expect to think of things you want to investigate
Main characters from your head team
  • Never mind.  Leave it to the quiet parts of your brain
Pratfall plans
  • Don’t expect anything to happen without draft thinking first
  • Don’t expect anything to happen if you have already decided what to do
  • Write your ideas. Don’t overload you brain
*****************************
Final Thinking 

  • Freezing the design
  • Writing the plan
  • Setting the schedule
Other names you can call it
  • choosing
  • planning
  • deciding
  • making a commitment
  • convergent thinking
Names other people may call it. 
  • planning
  • decisiveness
  • determination
  • commitment
What’s it for?
  • Focus on a single alternative. 
  • Develop concrete plans.
  • Set a schedule.
  • Get other people involved as needed.
How do you do it?
  • Write down the steps
  • Write on notes or cards that you can easily move around
  • The important thing is to list the steps. You can fix the order later
  • If you are not sure you know all the steps, go back to draft thinking
  • You still reserve the right to change your mind
  • Treat this job like writing. Clear writing causes clear thinking

Main characters from your head team


  • Vulcan
  • Engineer
  • Storyboarder

Pratfall plans

  • Plan for screw-ups and choke points
  • Expect to see sub-problems that will demand draft thinking
  • Don’t rule out trial runs
  • Now is the time to listen to your Canter. And the Canter in other people
*****
  • What do we do in Virtual Worlds? 
  • Search on page with Google Chrome: Ctrl+f, search bar upper right 
  • Google search this blog, column on right
  • or put site:virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com at the end of the search terms
  • Annotated screen shots made with Jing
  • Creative Commons License, attribution only.
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