Knowledge Work Should Accrete

After Andy Matuschak

  • having a long-term Interest Vectors, or a set of open problems helps with guiding the "molding" of current projects so they fit into (and help build up) long-term goals
  • one example is agreeing to give a talk on topic in which you are interested in, but not intimately familiar with yet, so the process of preparing the talk also helps build up understanding (forcing function)
  • another example would be building small experiments testing small hypotheses orbiting around a bigger theme - of course balance is important here, so when you're using a project to learn new technology, you probably shouldn't also try to do something "wild"
  • in general Don't Solve Isolated Problems (after Richard Hamming)