Representing values, not just goals, in productivity tools

I like @edelwax's perspective on goals & values, and how it's more important not to sacrifice your values for your goals than vice versa. (goal = *what* I want to achieve) (value = *how* I want to live my life) medium.com/what-to-build/…

Dec 16, 2019

It's making me seriously think about how to include more about values in complice.co 🧐 Most productivity apps represent neither deep goals nor deep values... they just have a bunch of random tasks.

Andy Matuschak @andy_matuschak · Apr 24, 2019

Funny to contrast the ubiquitous to-do app's model with intentions which might deeply matter to someone, like "I want to make sure I'm taking my ideas as seriously as possible." Tasks are such a misleading way of thinking about intention. But hey, it's easier to build a to-do UI!

So Complice being goal-based is already way better than most systems. But how to represent values? I've done it implicitly by having certain daily Complice intentions like "curate my attention intentionally", but it doesn't keep me in touch in the moment.

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Mar 25, 2019

Plus, in relation to that last point around recording things vs not... Complice is explicitly saying "what are your goals & priorities? how do you make sure your day is focused on those and not random busywork?" 🎯"what do I want to make happen?" not "what's on my plate?" 📥

Here's an initial thread of me reflecting on how Complice guides people towards ways-of-being that are more intentional, and attempting to speculate on other possibilities.

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Dec 11, 2019

OSes & ways-of-being 😍👇 Part of what is messy about contemporary technology is the everythingness of everything. Hard to stay focused in reading a book while reading it on a device that's also everything else. twitter.com/andy_matuschak…

More that can be said about this but for now I want to highlight that there's a striking parallel between goals & values  left & right 🧠 brain hemispheres (I'm talking in terms of McGilchrist's new model, not the old debunked one)

Part of what was confused about old hemisphere model, in fact, was that it was about goals—"what does each hemisphere do?" There's no useful overarching general answer to that Q, but there *is* a deeply meaningful difference between hemisphere *values*! 😮

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Jun 2, 2019

One model I've found myself dancing with over the past few years is called More than Cool Reason: "Withness-thinking or "systemic thinking" and "thinking *about* systems" Withness and aboutness are two very different modes of thinking! PDF: lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Mail/xmcam…

Also anyone who digs this thread might also dig my thread about goals vs systems:

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Dec 16, 2019

The term "pre-success failure" from @ScottAdamsSays' book is a gem. His related idea that you should have systems and not have goals is absurd. (have both!) Scott cites Olympic athletes as examples. 🤨 Take 3 guesses what goal an Olympic athlete has... 🥇🥈🥉