TITLE: William James and Focus
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 18, 2008  3:51 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
I've long
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-07.html#e2004-07-19T10_52_37.htm">
   been a fan</A>
of William James, and once
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-08.html#e2005-08-09T16_00_17.htm">
   wrote briefly about</A>
the connection between James's pragmatism and my doctoral
work on knowledge-based systems.  I was delighted yesterday
to run across this quote from James's
<A HREF="http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/prin11.htm">
   The Principles of Psychology</A>,
courtesy of
<A HREF="http://www.43folders.com/2008/06/13/zerstreutheit-and-attention-management-cure">
   43 Folders</A>
and
<A HREF="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-stone/is-it-time-to-retire-the_b_106624.html">
   Linda Stone</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Attention] is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and
vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible
objects or trains of thought.  ...  It implies withdrawal from some
things in order to deal effectively with others....
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-02.html#e2005-02-16T11_18_14.htm">
   Prone</A>
as
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-05.html#e2005-05-31T17_50_20.htm">
   I am</A>
to
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-04.html#e2007-04-12T18_54_42.htm">
   agile moments</A>,
this message from James struck me in an interesting way.
First of all, I occasionally battle the issue that Stone
writes about, the to-do list that grows no matter productive
I seem to be on a given day.  (And on lazy summer June
days, well, all bets are off.)  James tells me that part
of my problem isn't a shortage of time, but a lack of will
to focus.  I need to make better, more conscious choices
about what tasks to add to the list.  Kent Beck is fond of
saying something to the effect that you may have too many
things to do and too little time, but you ultimately have
control over only one side of the equation.  James would
tell us the same thing.

My mind also made a connection from this quote to the agile
software and test-driven development practice of working on
small stories, on taking small steps.  If I pick up a card
with a single, atomic, well-defined feature to be added to
my program, I am able to focus.  What is the shortest step
I can take and make this feature part of my code?  No
distractions, no Zerstreutheit.  Though I have an idea in
mind toward where my program is evolving, for this moment
I attend to one small feature and make it work.  Focus.
James would be proud.

I think it's ironic in a way that one of the more effective
ways to reach the state of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-03.html#e2005-03-04T16_06_50.htm">
   flow</A>
is to decompose a task into the smallest of tasks and focus
on them one at a time.  The mind gets into a rhythm of
red bar-green bar: select task, write code, refactor, and
soon it is deep in its own world.  I would like to be more
effective at doing this in my non-programming duties.
Perhaps if I keep James and his quote in mind, I can be.

This idea applies for me in other areas, in particular in
running and training for particular events.  Focusing each
day on a particular goal -- intervals, Long Slow Distance,
hill strength, and so on -- helps the mind to push aside
its concerns with other parts of the game and attend to a
particular kind of improvement.  There is a great sense of
relaxation in running super-hard repeats when the problem
I've been having is, say, picking up pace late in a run.
(I'd love to run super-hard repeats again some day soon,
but I'm
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-06.html#e2008-06-09T16_48_00.htm">
   not there yet</A>.)
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