Hacker News Reader

Comment by Towaway69 | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been lucky enjoy to have been able to live around my unconscious. I made a conscious decision to allow my unconscious to guide me through life.

The original idea to do this came from Le Corbusier[1] who once described his process of working as being a phase of collecting details on a project, a phase of doing something else (allowing his unconscious to work on the project) and finally he would sit down and complete the project.

The disadvantage is that I never know when inspiration hits and when exactly I will get something done. It’s important to be organised and have everything written down is my approach.

Also I give myself time and room to explore possible solutions from seemingly unrelated areas - a kind of zen navigation[2] for project work.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/667285-he-had-a-tremendous-...

View on HN

Your process sounds like something a writer might say. Are you a writer?

I am saying based on how writers/poets etc are depicted. Waiting for ideas to arrive, sometimes they keep they keep waiting for it, sometimes it hits them on a random event.

I do a bit of writing but also many other things including coding and art.

This isn’t something I would be doing/recommend if I were to be working in job where creativity isn’t a big part of the job.

Rick Rubin has a similar philosophy, he describes it in his book “The Creative Act”. Has he been an influence on you?

I never knew - I've listened to plenty of music produced by Rick Rubin but have not read the book, thanks for the headsup!

From his Wikipedia page[1]:

> "I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be."

For me, in other words: go with the flow, resistence is unless ;)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin

Do you have more details on your strategy?

I organise my thoughts using a mind map - keeping my mind free of “oh I have to remember that”-situations. But keep everything written down, hoarding ideas to have ready when needed.

Trust in the future and allow random events or interactions to play a meaningful part - ie be open to doing unexpected things.

Have time to reflect. I don’t wake with an alarm clock, I wake with my thoughts and dreams.

Same here. Tons of notes. No alarm clock.

Any specifics on how you organise your notes?

I created a two-dimensional interconnected loopable mindmap that is ever expanding (definitely not the classical form of mindmap). I find this a good approach for me, better than the one-dimensional linkable wiki style of notes - that I used to use.

What do you mean by loopable mindmap? What software do you use for this?

By loopable I mean that the output of a node/leaf can become its own input or any other ancestor.

The mind map software I’ve used was unidirectional with links coming out from a central node/leaf. What I missed was linking leafs back to the origin or other branches.

After all, our minds are interconnected and definitely not unidirectional - at least mine!

I use Node-Red[1] to create my mind map which has the added advantage that my mind map is “executable”. Node-Red is actually a visual programming environment and has nothing to do with mind maps except visually. I created some specific Node-Red nodes to represent leafs/nodes of my mind map.

[1] https://nodered.org

How can you fit your method together with the many nuances around making a living? Surely you must structure your day to day somewhat, no?

Yes there are definitely structures in my life - I live within the bounds of project deadlines.

However within those bounds, I try to do those things that come easiest - that is, those things where I have the confidence to say that I see a possible solution. I avoid forcing myself to do something where I do not have the feeling of having an approach/solution/idea.

Instead I do something else and 99 times out of 100, an idea pops up and I return to the original activity/task/project. However there is no time limit when this will happen. And that is the unplannable part of my approach. I do stick to deadlines by delivering what has been done and having good excuses for those that have not - delivering on time is more important the completion.

I try to stay busy with tasks so things do get done and loose-ends are tired up. Something is always completed and with it, progress is made.

On the other hand, when I have no ideas, a moment of silent meditation/power-napping/slumber helps to calm the mind. As I get older, I have come to realise that planning is necessary but shouldn't dominate. Calming the mind and emptying it helps my unconscious to catchup, i.e, reorginise, restructure and plan but an unconscious plan.

There is no guarantee that the approach I take will work, in many cases, I make a learning that a particular approach was not a good idea! But that then becomes the result: to have made the learning and do it better/differently the next time.

Important is also to stay positive and never forget to see the positive learnings from attempts that fail. That is the hard part: be prepared to fail and learn from that. I try not to be hard on myself for perhaps taking the wrong approach - hindsight is 100%, everything else is guesswork.

Within the bounds of a project, what I'm describing is nothing more than explorative solution identification - i.e., from point A, we want to get to point B but have no correct or defined path to take. So how to find the correct path? I don't know and a random or "unconscious" approach is as good as anything else - with the assurance of not going around in circles by maintaining good documentation (for me that's a 2 dimensional mind map).

this is my approach as well :peace:

Reply on news.ycombinator.com