Hello World!
Somewhat recently, the person I report to [my reportee if you will] expressed a core concept to me. The instruction he provided me helped me get to a strong grasp of a concept I have flirted with maybe most of my adult life.
I've distilled this concept from there to a more tangible idea I am calling Functional Efficiency*.
From the eyes of a software engineer...
In classic software engineering, the problem that is solved is that of creating software engineered in such a way that it provides value. A lot of thought goes into creating software. A lot of thought, and also a lot of smashing on keyboard keys and a lot of swinging a digital mouse.
There are times when the thinking is drudgingly slow; other times, it speeds by. Generally, the speed mental formulation moves in waves as you trudge through building mental maps if problem spaces, then speedily produce the structure and details within those maps and send them along to digital storage with those arms and hands.
Those speedy times: they become more frequent. as long as you continue to do the same sorts of things, the less you have to think about how you will do them. So when I code in Android, I can have pretty infrequent periods of mental mapping and loads of time producing digital artifacts.
I'd like to focus on those speedy times where I quickly push code onto and around the screen through whatever tools I'm using to facilitate my efforts.
During those speedy times, there is a race going on. My arms and hands are racing my mind. Most often, my mind is handily winning that race. My brain often idles waiting for my hands to play catch-up [it waits on those engineering tools a lot, too.]
I look at the idle time my mind is waiting for my body as a loss. I can't be as effective with my time because much of that time becomes waste - waste as a bi-product of a sub-optimum Functional Efficiency. That core functional task of producing software, if I can increase the efficiency of my arms and hands, could be made more efficient.
Interestingly enough, the part of this equation that is so damning is, if my arms and hands don't work fast enough, I won't have enough time to spend building mental maps of problem spaces - the part of software development that provides me with the most bliss.
Functional Efficiency... more generally.
Directly put, if you perform some sort of functional work for a large percentage of your work life, you should seek to become more capable of increasing the rate at which you produce that work. You should work towards a highly optimized Functional Efficiency. And, be real with yourself; most of us have years and years to work at it.
Remember that instruction that was handed to me by my reportee? It was that, if I wanted time to focus on the things that I wanted to focus on, then I would need to complete my work with enough time remaining to do those other things.
I need optimized my Functional Efficiency. How about you?
If you have any desire to do other things than the core functional duties you do now, you should evaluate whether or not you can take more time to do those other things by becoming more functionally efficient.
In software, I get there by tweaks to my software development environment (how I set the software in my computer up to facilitate work). I ensure that I can type fast. I learn keyboard shortcuts for things I do repetitively.
With the extra time provided through this effort at optimization, I can spend my time blissfully building mental maps of problem spaces. My reportee stays happy as well.
May the path you have chosen bless you and be a blessing to those it meets.
Randall
* After capturing this flow of consciousness, I looked up the term functional efficiency. In The Free Dictionary [1], it is defined as "the ability of the neuromuscular system to monitor and manipulate movement during a functional activity so as to expend the least possible amount of energy". Perfect.
[1] https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/functional+efficiency
#personaldevelopment #professionaldevelopment
Somewhat recently, the person I report to [my reportee if you will] expressed a core concept to me. The instruction he provided me helped me get to a strong grasp of a concept I have flirted with maybe most of my adult life.
I've distilled this concept from there to a more tangible idea I am calling Functional Efficiency*.
From the eyes of a software engineer...
In classic software engineering, the problem that is solved is that of creating software engineered in such a way that it provides value. A lot of thought goes into creating software. A lot of thought, and also a lot of smashing on keyboard keys and a lot of swinging a digital mouse.
There are times when the thinking is drudgingly slow; other times, it speeds by. Generally, the speed mental formulation moves in waves as you trudge through building mental maps if problem spaces, then speedily produce the structure and details within those maps and send them along to digital storage with those arms and hands.
Those speedy times: they become more frequent. as long as you continue to do the same sorts of things, the less you have to think about how you will do them. So when I code in Android, I can have pretty infrequent periods of mental mapping and loads of time producing digital artifacts.
I'd like to focus on those speedy times where I quickly push code onto and around the screen through whatever tools I'm using to facilitate my efforts.
During those speedy times, there is a race going on. My arms and hands are racing my mind. Most often, my mind is handily winning that race. My brain often idles waiting for my hands to play catch-up [it waits on those engineering tools a lot, too.]
I look at the idle time my mind is waiting for my body as a loss. I can't be as effective with my time because much of that time becomes waste - waste as a bi-product of a sub-optimum Functional Efficiency. That core functional task of producing software, if I can increase the efficiency of my arms and hands, could be made more efficient.
Interestingly enough, the part of this equation that is so damning is, if my arms and hands don't work fast enough, I won't have enough time to spend building mental maps of problem spaces - the part of software development that provides me with the most bliss.
Functional Efficiency... more generally.
Directly put, if you perform some sort of functional work for a large percentage of your work life, you should seek to become more capable of increasing the rate at which you produce that work. You should work towards a highly optimized Functional Efficiency. And, be real with yourself; most of us have years and years to work at it.
Remember that instruction that was handed to me by my reportee? It was that, if I wanted time to focus on the things that I wanted to focus on, then I would need to complete my work with enough time remaining to do those other things.
I need optimized my Functional Efficiency. How about you?
If you have any desire to do other things than the core functional duties you do now, you should evaluate whether or not you can take more time to do those other things by becoming more functionally efficient.
In software, I get there by tweaks to my software development environment (how I set the software in my computer up to facilitate work). I ensure that I can type fast. I learn keyboard shortcuts for things I do repetitively.
With the extra time provided through this effort at optimization, I can spend my time blissfully building mental maps of problem spaces. My reportee stays happy as well.
May the path you have chosen bless you and be a blessing to those it meets.
Randall
* After capturing this flow of consciousness, I looked up the term functional efficiency. In The Free Dictionary [1], it is defined as "the ability of the neuromuscular system to monitor and manipulate movement during a functional activity so as to expend the least possible amount of energy". Perfect.
[1] https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/functional+efficiency
#personaldevelopment #professionaldevelopment