Tags: fatigue

Working with agents doesn’t feel like flow — Bill de hÓra

Related to Matt’s thoughts:

…working with agents feels much less like classic deep work, and much more like playing a game. Not to say the work is frivolous—it’s just because it feels like I’m in a game loop.

Flow, at least in the usual sense for me, feels smooth and continuous. The work and your attention starts to line up so cleanly that the experience becomes frictionless. You disappear into the work and meld with it. One notable aspect of flow has been I lose track of time. Working with agents on the other hand, is not like that at all. It’s highly engaging, but in a more jagged, reactive way. I’m focused, but not settled. I’m absorbed, but not merged with the task. I’m paying close attention the whole time, but the attention is dynamic and tactical rather than continuous. I don’t lose track of time at all.

Gas Town and Bullet Hell – Petafloptimism

Matt has some smart reckons on the relationship between time and technology:

The factory bell, the railway timetable, the telegraph wire, the always-on smartphone — each imposed a new temporal discipline, each produced its own characteristic form of exhaustion, and each was eventually (partially, imperfectly) domesticated through a combination of regulation, design, and collective action.

Nobody wants to use any software — Character

I do not want any software

I believe that this mindset is the healthiest way to design and build things that people will use and not hate us for building. For me, it’s a way to remind myself that all humans have a whole rich, challenging life outside of the little screens I’m making for them. So that even when I’m focused on user needs and user problems, I can keep it just out of the corner of my eye: the person I’m making this for doesn’t actually want to be here, and that’s OK.

We want speedy internet and fast-loading services because we want to stop pushing buttons and opening accordions as quickly as possible.

Industry Fatigue by Jordan Moore

There are of course things worth your time and deep consideration, and there are distractions. Profound new thinking and movements within our industry - the kind that fundamentally shifts the way we work in a positive new direction are worth your time and attention. Other things are distractions. I put new industry gossip, frameworks, software and tools firmly in the distractions category. This is the sort of content that exists in the padding between big movements. It’s the kind of stuff that doesn’t break new ground and it doesn’t make or break your ability to do your job.