How to build an aeroplane in your backyard (or speak Vietnamese or...)

December 28, 2015 3:28 AM

Sam Potts' 5 point plan for doing projects (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (41 comments total)

tl,dw:

1. Tell everyone your plan
2. Find a lucky notebook + pen
3. Ain't no sense worrying
4. Go to Mexico
5. Do not give up
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:29 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

5. Do not give up

The other 4 are superfluous.
posted by STFUDonnie at 5:35 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wow. I could not disagree with this plan more, especially 1 and 2. Here's my suggestion:

1. Do not tell anyone your plan. Know in your heart that the reason we create anything is to first and foremost satisfy our own needs, curiosity, and self. Keep your plan private and surprise everyone with your finished product.

2. There is no such thing as a lucky pen or notebook. Thinking there is is just a way for you to delude yourself that you're "working" when you're searching for items that don't exist (and believe me, you can make a life of that search). Instead, have faith in the process of creating rather than the tools involved in creating. Know that all time spent preparing to be creative (getting the right pen, app, computer, keyboard) is time wasted.

3. Stop thinking. When you're not working on your project, do not think about your project. When you are working on your project, don't think, do. For instance, the action needed to write a novel is writing, not thinking. To take a page out of AA: "You can’t think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking." Don't think. Write.

4. Work on your project for a fixed amount of time every day until it becomes habit. That amount of time needs a minimum and a maximum. For instance: no less than 20 minutes a day and no more than 50. Try and do it at the same time of day each day.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you're finished.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 5:39 AM on December 28, 2015 [55 favorites]

My lifepath is littered with lost and unused lucky notebooks and pens.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:48 AM on December 28, 2015 [18 favorites]

While I agree this is mostly poppycock, I'm going to disagree won the pen and notebook. Well, kind of. There are definitely tools out there that turn an enjoyable creative task into pure drudgery. Those are to be avoided. But you will never regret choosing (or creating) tools that sing to you, that fit your hand, that make you sad when they're laying idle. You don't have to insert a strip of exotic hardwood into your face and end vise jaws, but, having done so, I kind of wonder why I'm not downstairs cutting shoulders right now!
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 5:54 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

5. Do not give up

Endeavor to persevere.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:09 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

What if you're Mexican and already in Mexico?
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:15 AM on December 28, 2015

Everybody in Mexico already has a plane in their backyard.
posted by The Baffled King at 6:19 AM on December 28, 2015 [9 favorites]

Is it mocking motivational nonsense? Because otherwise it's nonsense.
posted by Peach at 6:20 AM on December 28, 2015 [6 favorites]

I've always done step #1 because avoiding embarrassment is my prime motivator in life so I make sure to tell as many people as possible what I plan to do and the fear of shame is enough to actually make me do it.
posted by octothorpe at 6:30 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Isn't building an airplane in your backyard kind of...stupid? Unless you can get it out of there?

That's what you would hear from me in that meeting. You badass you.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:40 AM on December 28, 2015

I totally tried #1 years ago as motivation and now everyone knows me as the guy who never became a fire fighter.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 6:40 AM on December 28, 2015 [7 favorites]

Shame as a motivator? Ha! Shame and I are comfortable companions. Just like Seligman's dogs and their electrified floor.
posted by jon1270 at 6:42 AM on December 28, 2015 [6 favorites]

You Should See The Other Guy's advice more sense to me.

As a kid I learned from watching the adults around me that the most likely sign that something would never actually get done was if it was talked about. As an adult I began to hear people telling me to announce my plans as if it were some kind of magic. I was a little confused; I tried it and saw that it didn't work. Obviously it must work differently for different people.

I'm back to not telling people my plans unless my plans involve them.
posted by maggiemaggie at 6:55 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

My new plan is just to find the right lucky notebook and pen. I think it will work out, I've been thinking about this for a while.

Man, I've got to write this down.
posted by sebastienbailard at 6:55 AM on December 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

Step 0.5 Research "Lucky Notebook"

Step 0.6 Travel to the furthest mountain top in Tibet to ask monk where to find "Lucky Notebook"

Step 0.6.6 Return embarrassed at his answer
posted by sammyo at 7:06 AM on December 28, 2015

The thing about carrying around a small Moleskine notebook and a pen in your pocket is: your ideas are going into real space and not cyberspace. Perhaps I'm being silly, but writing my ideas down in a little notebook helps me keep them in mind better by making them more persistent. I probably have hundreds of todo lists and idea files on my computer, but do I ever look at them?
posted by jabah at 7:19 AM on December 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm in the pro-'tell everyone' camp. I'm fairly certain I only finished nanowrimo because I told the world and didn't want to be a disappointment.

Also, because people know I'm vaguely studying certain languages, I get invited to these practice speaking groups, and so as not to embarass myself, then I really do have to study.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:26 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

According to several studies, telling people goals actually makes them less likely to happen.
posted by clockwork at 7:26 AM on December 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm going to scratch build an airplane when I turn 50. Probably a Zenair STOL 701 or 750. I wanted to do it sooner but my wife said it would be less tragic if I left our daughters orphans when they were teenagers instead of toddlers.
posted by ChrisHartley at 7:29 AM on December 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

I take issue with #1.

Not because of the shame factor, but there's something about the power of an idea, the crucible my brain turns into as it shapes/forms/develops the idea into a project/story/thing, the pressure that's necessary for that transformation to take place - that immediately dissipates the moment I tell someone else about it.

I don't know what that phenomenon is - maybe someone else can speak/has spoken more articulately about it. Telling someone else about a plan/project/idea invariably strips the idea of its potential.

I also take issue with #2 - the magic notebook may or may not appear at some point, but don't let that stop you from writing on the backs of envelopes now.

And with #4 - an extravagant adventure is just more pencil-sharpening, and expensive pencil-sharpening at that. To refresh/reboot/find inspiration, go for a long, long walk. Solvitur ambulando.

And with #5 - not all ideas are valuable in their own right. Sometimes time spent on a poor idea is the prep work necessary for a good idea. Step back once in a while and assess as objectively as you can. Everything has value, and lessons learned from failure are very valuable.

I take no issue whatsoever with #2.
posted by headnsouth at 7:34 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Is this something I would have to have finished something to understand?
posted by notyou at 7:42 AM on December 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

HELP! I'm in Mexico with my lucky notebook and nothing is happening!
posted by Joe Chip at 7:54 AM on December 28, 2015 [9 favorites]

I always get stuck on the internet doing endless research on the best lucky notebook and pen and where to find them at the best cost and free shipping. Maybe my plan should have been "become a curator of lucky notebook and pen blogs".
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:10 AM on December 28, 2015

My formula:

Step 1: Go Do The Thing. Be Very Bad At It. Take A Class Or Read a Book On The Thing.
Step 2: Repeat Step 1. Do It Over And Over For A Very Long Time. Become Rueful And Self-Deprecating.
Step 3: Outlast Everyone Else Who Is Trying to Do The Thing, Because They Very Sensibly Quit.
Step 4: Find Out You Know More About The Thing Than Most People Who Are Trying To Do The Thing.
Step 5: Take Up Another Thing And Be Very Bad At It. Meanwhile, Get Introduced To Strangers As Someone Who Does The First Thing Very Successfully.
posted by Peach at 10:38 AM on December 28, 2015 [8 favorites]

N.B. I have used this formula for running a marathon, fencing competitively, writing a book, and classroom teaching in a number of subjects and to a number of grades. Also for knitting.
posted by Peach at 10:39 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

And here I sit, wondering how Gibbs is going to get that boat out of his basement.
posted by HuronBob at 11:01 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

You Should See the Other Guy

I like the cut of your jib.
posted by GrapeApiary at 11:18 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

If your project is to find a lucky notebook and pen, step 2 recurses infinitely.
posted by ctmf at 11:50 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

Step one: Read book by Malcolm Gladwell and learn that you can succeed by following your instincts.

Step two: Read book by Malcolm Gladwell and learn that you succeed by convincing enough other people to go along with you.

Step three: Read book by Malcolm Gladwell and learn that it takes 10 thousand hours to become successful at anything.

Step four: Fuck this shit

Step five: Read book by Steven Pinker…
posted by TedW at 12:09 PM on December 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

The secret to completing a major independent project is not letting people convince you to stop. That's it. Everything else is just breadcrumbs and trivia.

If you can keep the apes at bay all you have to contend with is gusto and physics, which are both amenable to focus, patience, persistence and time.

But the apes. Oh, man. The apes'll come after you no matter what. Their chief export is unsolicited advice on how to self-normalize. They'll stack up on you. They'll stick emotional keys into your rationalization apparatus and twist til it turns. They'll appeal to false balance, imaginary moderation, authority, ignominy, statistics or worse. They'll bleat til you're blue. If only you'll lay off this crazy idea. Come on, now.

Even the people who love you will often try to convince you to stop. Bless.

But many, if not most, really cool projects require a devotion hard to explain. So don't get caught up explaining. Smile, nod, ignore, proceed.
posted by Construction Concern at 2:28 PM on December 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

"Magic notebook"? Oh, you must be talking about gear-wankery. No amount of sharpening and honing and expanding your knife collection is going put food on the table, kids.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:08 PM on December 28, 2015

People are different from each other, I guess. I've found that when I have a writing project percolating, it builds up pressure inside me. Every time I talk about it to someone, especially in any detail, it bleeds off some of the steam. If I talk about it too much, I let off too much pressure and the project collapses.
posted by not that girl at 3:21 PM on December 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

Pride may be your greatest asset. That seems to assume that I am not a puddle of seething self-hatred only looking for new excuses to prove to evryone what an all-talk loser I am.
posted by Iteki at 4:03 PM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Step 0: Don't share the meta-plan for your project or you will be mocked mercilessly
posted by Joe Chip at 4:52 PM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

There's no way that I would have worked up the courage to apply to grad school and go through with actually attending and finishing if it weren't for the shame of bailing.
posted by octothorpe at 4:55 PM on December 28, 2015

Grad school is all about shame from beginning to end.
posted by Peach at 5:01 PM on December 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

I actually did try to quit grad school about three weeks into my first semester but my adviser, who's an ex Navy top gun instructor, told me to quit whining and get the fuck back to studying my predicate calculus.
posted by octothorpe at 5:41 PM on December 28, 2015

So, basically, Good Will Hunting, but with Michael Ironside.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:00 PM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

My favourite new quote (unfortunately I forget the attribution. . . ):

"Creativity is just the belief that something is worth doing" - the trick being sustaining that belief long enough to finish.
posted by ianhattwick at 1:09 PM on December 29, 2015

Telling someone else about a plan/project/idea invariably strips the idea of its potential.

I remember reading about studies that say it is a bad idea to tell anyone else about your plans, because the simple act of telling creates a false sense of accomplishment even before you start. Or something like that.

Going to actually look up where I read that now... here, a blog post with a few links to those studies.

Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you're less motivated to do the hard work needed.

... NYU psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer has been studying this since his 1982 book “Symbolic Self-Completion” - and recently published results of new tests in a research article, “When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap?”

Four different tests of 63 people found that those who kept their intentions private were more likely to achieve them than those who made them public and were acknowledged by others.

Once you've told people of your intentions, it gives you a “premature sense of completeness.”

posted by bitteschoen at 1:44 PM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]