
How to do anything - terkalate
http://justinkan.com/how-to-do-anything
======
gnosis
_"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting
started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable
tasks, and then starting on the first one."_

Mark Twain

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is an awesome quote. Probably not Twain though :-)

And while you really can't necessarily _achieve_ anything this way, you can
make progress. So if you decide to say mine minerals on the moon, you can
start making progress toward that but it may be that you never do find a ride
up and back.

~~~
ced
_It's like trying to reach the moon by climbing a tree - one can report steady
progress, all the way to the top of the tree!_ Dreyfus

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mmanfrin
I'd love to see a todo app that was not the same linear list of things, but a
tree of subtasks. I input one thing, then it asks me "Can you break this down
in to subtasks?". To which I type in subtasks, then it continues to ask me for
each iteration until I can break it down no more. Then, it presents a list
with the smallest-unit item first.

~~~
aheilbut
<http://checkvist.com> is great for this.

~~~
daeken
I've been using Checkvist for everything task-wise for years; can't recommend
it highly enough. The API is also super easy to use, if you want to integrate
it into your dashboard and such.

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plinkplonk
"I recall a disagreement I had with a friend many years ago. My claim was that
anything I set my mind to was achievable; he thought this idea was
ridiculous."

You can do anything you set your mind to _if you have infinite time (and
money/other resources)_. As a thought experiment if you are an immortal
billionaire with perfect health, you can do anything you want.

Fitting a plan (to successfully complete audacious goals) _into a context of
limited resources_ is the real challenge. This is why startups talk of
'runways' and scrounge for funding.

(that said, breaking things down into smaller steps is useful)

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eterpstra
I'm sorry, but this is one of the most link-baitish titles to a blog post I've
seen in a while. It's a nice little chunk of wisdom about problem-solving and
motivation, but it's certainly not showing me how to do 'anything'. The
problem of me not being the starting quarterback for the Patriots is not going
to be solved by following this advice, sadly.

~~~
hello_newman
It does teach you how to do anything. Just break down the problem. One
stepping stone leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to
another and so on. A journey (anywhere, metaphorically speaking) is just a
collection of individual stepping stones and accomplishments.

This may be too simplistic, but lets take your quarterback problem. Let's
assume you are able bodied, in shape, in high school (gotta start then if you
want to make it to the pros) and made the football team.

1\. You made the team 2\. You become back up quarter back 3\. Work your ass
off at training to become starting QB or at least when he goes down you get a
chance to show why you should be starting. 4\. You become starting QB 5\. You
work your ass off to make plays, win games, and become recognized not only as
a great QB but also as a great leader, because the QB is the leader of the
team. 6\. Get accepted into a recognized college and repeat the above.

All you have to do is follow the guidelines set by yourself, fill in the
blanks, and repeat. I do not mean to go on a tangent, but the point I am
trying to convey is everything you want to accomplish in life can be done if
you bust your ass once someone somewhere gives you a chance to do so.

~~~
eterpstra
It's not too simplistic, you hit the nail on the head. My knee-jerk reaction
to this post was to roll my eyes (mainly because of the title), because it
seems like the OP is just stating the obvious - you have a lofty goal, and you
reach that goal by breaking it down into bite size problems that you know how
to solve.

It's easy to forget, though, that my job as a software developer is to solve
small problems all day in order to tackle a larger problem, and that not
everyone has this day-to-day experience. So outside of our tribe, this article
may not be as 'common sensical' as I first presumed.

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abstractbill
Yes, this works [1]. Much harder questions are _what_ to do, and who to do it
with.

[1]: The only difficulty is when you encounter a combinatorial explosion of
potential solutions. It will work _eventually_ , but it might take too long.

~~~
devindotcom
I have to say, these "footnotes" are getting out of hand. That was just
another sentence, not a link or citation. Or are we doing this ironically?

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hello_newman
I have said it before, but I love SVBTLE. That being said, this was another
great article. It just repeats what has been told to you since you have been
in elementary school; break down the problem.

Breaking down problems, step by step, into smaller digestible pieces allows
self confidence when you can check on task off a list. It allows you to tackle
one facet of the problem and stack layers of knowledge. I think the problem
with most things is "paralysis by analysis"; you see a problem, say a start up
idea, that you want to do but you have no idea how. You get too involved in
the minutia of things and become paralyzed before you ever start.

Another great line: "I recall a disagreement I had with a friend many years
ago. My claim was that anything I set my mind to was achievable; he thought
this idea was ridiculous"

Not only is this a great line, because you REALLY can accomplish anything you
set your mind to, but it is also a fundamentally different way to look at the
world. You see obstacles for what they are; obstacles. You don't see them as a
reason why you can't do something.

The more obstacles in your way, the more reason why you have found something
worth your time doing. Obstacles let you know what you're doing is important,
worthwhile, and because it has obstacles you have already beat at least 50% of
the people out there because they will likely give up when presented with a
challenge that they do not know how to solve.

Great article.

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nate
I think one of the key things Justin is doing while he's making this list is
that just keeps asking, "How can I do this?" Turning all these tasks into
questions of how, is a powerful short-circuit in your brain to get you to stop
saying, "I can't do this."

Daniel Pink's latest book To Sell is Human helped brings up another
interesting aspect of this. He highlights a study in the book where people
were able to get more things, I believe it was puzzles, accomplished when they
got themselves into a questioning mindset.

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ivankirigin
Many people should apply this to their work. But I think it also applies to
life goals. Too often people don't reflect about what they really want and how
they might find a path to get there.

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fxthea
This idea combined with the learnings from the Art of War are a great way to
get things done. The key to the Art of War is that it teaches you to recognize
"Resistance" which often manifests itself in the form of procrastination, but
not just any procrastination, procrastination that makes you think you are
actually making progress.

~~~
plinkplonk
"The key to the Art of War is that it teaches you to recognize "Resistance""

you mean "The War of Art" (by Pressfield) not the "Art of War" (by Sun Tzu)

~~~
fxthea
Whoops yeah I mean War of Art.

------
Glyptodon
It seems more correct to say: "You may achieve anything you set your mind to"
rather than: "You can achieve anything you set your mind to."

Many people have set their mind to things and failed. Many have done so and
succeeded.

Either case is clearly better than being overwhelmed into motionless atrophy.

------
andrewljohnson
This sort of journey leads to true invention. In seeking to build something
you don't understand as a whole, you must explore the underlying components.
And when you find the bit you need that hasn't been built yet, boom!
Invention!

I think building a (successful) start-up is a lot like getting a PhD. You make
a bump on the circle at some point: <http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-
school-in-pictures/>

~~~
bmelton
Moreover, this is how most 'puzzle' based interviews are done.

I've said this before, and I don't think it's any big secret, but the silly
questions you hear in interviews almost never care about getting the right
answer, but test to see if you can work a process to at least get to a
plausibly believable answer. Or at least that's what I've always looked for
when interviewing.

I remember asking a guy "How many jellybeans can you fit into a school bus?",
and he started working the problem out. He guessed at the dimensions of a
jelly bean, then asked me something about how many cubic feet are in the
interior of a school bus, then began working out the problem mathematically.

This was exactly the right process, at least by my estimation, though there
were other really interesting ways people approached the problem. A
surprisingly large number of people just said "I don't know", without
bothering to go any further, and one guy even got mad at us being one of those
"stupid puzzle shops" and left in a hurry.

The reason I remember the one guy though, was because at the end, he asked me
something like "I think the answer is such and such, with an approximate
margin of error of 10% or so. How close am I?" When I confessed that I had no
idea what the answer was, and that I was really just looking to see how he
came up with the process, he laughed louder than I've ever heard anyone laugh
ever before. I told him his guess was likely closer than anything I might have
come up with on my own, and we eventually hired him and he proved to be great.

The skills necessary for good problem solving are myriad, but at least to me
(and apparently Justin Kan), it starts with breaking problems down into bite-
sized chunks. Another big thing for me (that I didn't see in the article) is
in asking questions for things you don't know. Nobody knows everything, and
I've found that the best engineers I've worked with have always been pretty
systematic about clarifying things they weren't clear on. That's huge too. If
you need to know whether we're talking short bus, field trip bus or regular
old school bus, ask. An answer for one is probably not the answer for another.

~~~
kamaal
>>Moreover, this is how most 'puzzle' based interviews are done.

Correction.

This is how most puzzle based interviews are supposed to be done, but aren't.

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cryptozeus
This we here time to time from these successful people. Is it safe to assume
that, justin carries around a notebook with 100s of small tasks and executes
them one by one ? I always wonder if these people talk about breaking tasks as
small as possible then what kind of system do they use ? I can not imagine
using todolist app or something like evernote for this kind of huge projects.

~~~
justin
Generally by the time you are working on a truly giant project, you are using
project management software to coordinate all the minor todos of each
individual (and you have already gone through the process of breaking the
larger tasks down into bite-sized pieces). This post was more a reflection of
how I tackle initial, seemingly insurmountable problems at the individual
level.

In order to manage this personally, I use Workflowy (<http://workflowy.com>),
which is a good semantic representation of nested to-do lists, which is
essentially what you are creating for this process. Yes, my Workflowy contains
hundreds of small tasks. They aren't necessarily executed in order.

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aviswanathan
Ignorance is bliss. I think by not knowing (and intentionally ignoring) how
difficult something appears to be, it's easier and manageable to tackle it
step-by-step. With that frame of mind, small steps are accomplishments, and
you're motivated to continue as opposed to continually thinking about the
overall goal and how many steps are required to get there.

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kamaal
For those who already don't know about this, GTD is the best place to start on
anything related this. Also start watching various talks by David Allen to get
a total perspective of how this works.

And for those who want a quick heads up. Continue reading...

The crux of the issue is that the human brain is not good at storing thing
like lists, or lists of lists or lists of lists of lists .. ad infinitum. The
problem gets more complicated when you to manage these list structures in your
brain. Its very difficult to do this to-do, done, priority and triaging etc
activities in your brain itself. Chances are that, if you put all that stuff
in your head you will- Either forget most of them and focus what you brain
thinks is the highest priority(which most of the times disastrously ends up in
a task called 'procrastination') or that your mind will spend great deals of
time, energy and psychic resources to maintain those list structures. The net
result is much resources are spent maintaining that list structures than
executing them. This is when you get that overwhelming feeling of 'I am
stressed' or 'There are too many things to do, I cant take it anymore'
emotions.

What is the result?- you either mess up real badly forgetting things or get
overwhelmed and give up.

There are a few exceptions to these cases. During the times of
crisis/interesting-situations your brain does a superb job of prioritizing
things and putting all the focus on one most important task at hand. This is
the reason why when your life is in danger or when you start work on a very
interesting project you brain automagically tells you to do tasks X, Y and Z
without even you consciously knowing about it. A few more exceptions to this
are moments of 'Flow', when you are in a moment of 'Flow'[1], when you
experience flow you will not need a list set up to help you out. But you will
need GTD to get into 'Flow'[2].

To summarize it all:

    
    
        1. Your brain needs a purge from time to time.
        2. You need some way of maintaining task state outside
        your brain. My advice is use a diary and pen/pencils.
        3. You need to visualize things. Not just your schedule.
        I mean everything. Even if its a simple program you are
        writing, put it down on a paper first. Visualize it.
        4. I repeat. Purge your brain. Put things down on paper
        first.
        5. Make plans, break them down and execute.
        6. Pick interesting projects. Helps in getting into
        'Flow'.
        7. REVIEW THE PROGRESS OF YOUR PLANS(without this its 
        all useless)
        8. Ponder on the 'Next task' for every task you do.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29> [2] The book by
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is a nice place to start on this.

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zoba
Sounds like the theory behind <http://waypoint.fm>

Basically, everything is doable if its broken down into small chunks. The
methods for stuff that people have already done should be shared.

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yarou
So...essentially object oriented programming for your life (divide and
conquer) :)

