“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it” – Ferris Bueller (on his day off)
I’ve noticed that without deliberate reflection and acknowledgement, both time and accomplishments seem to pass by quickly and disappear.
Even when we acknowledge our accomplishments or note the passage of time, we only tend to do it at significant milestones. Too often our lives are punctuated by the big moments while we forget the incremental improvements we make along the way.
However, I think it is in the daily updates that we find the most insight into how we got wherever it is that we arrived.
Continuous Delivery & Improvement
If you’ve never read the Agile Manifesto or the Twelve Principles behind the Agile Manifesto, I strongly encourage it. The whole exercise might take you 2 minutes.
In summary, Agile methodology focuses on working collaboratively on a daily basis to continuously and quickly deliver working software, and regularly taking time afterwards for reflection and fine tuning.
These principles and ideas can extend beyond software development.
What’s New?
If you look up your favorite app on the App store (or Google Play store), you’ll see a section called “What’s New?” This is where to find the most recent notes from the developer about new features.
Some apps update on a weekly basis, some monthly, and some even longer. With each update, there are notes from the developer about what changed. This can include new features, bug fixes, or sometimes just humorous copy to see if anyone is paying attention.
Software is initially developed, continuously worked on and improved, and updates are posted. If you think about it, don’t we sort of do the same thing on Facebook and Linkedin? Aren’t we sharing to let people know about new things we’re working on, or sharing some “bug fix” about how we’ve overcome an obstacle?
Becoming Superhuman
I want to be careful here. I don’t intend to suggest that we should think of ourselves as computers or applications that can be optimized to become better productivity machines. So, please don’t take that away from this post.
The bigger point is that in every moment of our lives, we are the sum-total of all of our experiences before that point. We are, in fact, in a constant state of change. Our lifecycle includes initial development, continuous improvement, and bug fixes.
One of the things that I appreciate about writing regularly, is that it serves as a way to document progress in thinking and action. By shortening, those cycles of reflection and documenting the attempted fine tuning, we reclaim agency over our future from an unforgiving clock and calendar that keeps racing forward.
Daily Releases
We could let time pass us by without reflection. We could make progress but neglect to document it. We could comfortably live an unexamined life, set our goals and then “let God take the wheel.”
Nothing is wrong with any of that.
However, the process of Becoming Superhuman requires constant learning, thinking, communication, leadership, and action. In order to best accomplish these feats, one simple thing we can do is slow down frequently enough to reflect and document this amazing journey called life.
This way, we can absorb what we’ve learned, expand our understanding through thinking, share what we’ve learned through communication, lead the way for others, and document how we have taken action on the things most important to us.
Jeff Gibbard Version History
Jeff Gibbard v.2022.08.10 (1 days ago)
Changed scenery in an effort to avoid recurring attention and focus issues. New blog post on Daily Releases completed and scheduled for release.
Jeff Gibbard v.2022.08.09 (2 days ago)
After morning coffee, system shows no sign of bugs. Executive dysfunction seems to have disappeared in this release as extreme productivity took its place. Made a few people smile. Mediocre output at the gym, improvements coming soon. Late night activity once again proved to be the most hyper-productive time of day.
Jeff Gibbard v.2022.08.08 (3 days ago)
System went online early. Achieved inbox zero at noon. Catastrophic system failure at 1:00pm, all systems offline due to executive dysfunction. Root cause identified as not enough sleep and time paralysis due to a 30 minute meeting 3/4 of the way into a 4 hours time block. Bug fixes in the works.
