Is inertia inevitable? \ stacker news ~Design

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206 sats \ 25 comments \ @cryotosensei 23 May 2024 Design

Diligence is one of my best traits. If I decide to do something, I will work on it doggedly until I get it done.

So, I volunteered to present something on an online webinar aimed to engage educators in my fraternity. I have done it two times before, so even though the idea of presenting virtually to a foreign audience was daunting, it won’t paralyse me into inaction. I have used some Gen AI tools to streamline my lesson planning. My sharing was on that, so I felt that I had a decent amount of content to cover.

Here’s the thing: I sat down in front of my laptop yesterday afternoon, planning to work on my slides. Aside from answering an email to my Head of Department, I got right on the task. No procrastinating and other time-wasting processes.

I discovered that I needed quite a bit of warm-up time before I could get into the flow. Maybe my cognitive switching cost was too high? It felt like switching on an engine and waiting for it to warm up before I could drive the car.

So my question is, do you immerse yourself in the flow like a snap of the fingers? Are there ways in which you shift from first to fourth gear in as little time as possible? Or do you take it easy and go with the flow?

I’m asking because I need to work on those slides this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so any insights will be appreciated.

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32 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 24 May 2024

I'm like I can either be in 4th gear or in neutral. I don't know other gears.

'Inertia' can be removed by gulping a few rounds of country beer. 😜 This is my way. Sometimes I remove it with a Marlboro Red, only once or twice in a month. Sometimes it just takes a cup of coffee or tea.

However most of the times a walk on the terrace or at some wilderness help me shed my inertia.

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

Glad that you can avail yourself of nature’s bounty so easily!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 25 May 2024

https://m.stacker.news/32474

I live in the lower Himalyas and they are beautiful with a wonderful climate all around the year.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby 24 May 2024

Depends what I am working on. Sometimes it takes me a while to get into the flow and other times I just dive right in and keep rolling until it’s done.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

Thanks for letting me know that I’m just human!

21 sats \ 5 replies \ @Satosora 23 May 2024

You just have to start doing something. It might not be the meat of the slides, but maybe just organize the titles of the slides and start the groundwork. Get a framework to work from, then go at it. Once you are in the groove you can get a lot done.

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

I think the thing about me is that even though I teach English, I don’t plan things myself. I just like to go with the flow n connect the dots n tie up loose ends as I go along. Haha. Maybe I should listen to my own advice.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Satosora 25 May 2024

They provide all the material for your teaching? I remember they did this during covid, and we had to teach online. It was a whole different style.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

I contribute to the development of the curriculum, yes. But because I teach arguably the weakest students, I often have to adapt and come up with my own resources, with the help of Gen AI haha.

I taught a few classes at a tuition centre before. Once, I had to teach students face-to-face while not neglecting other students who attended via Zoom. Simply ridiculous.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 25 May 2024

Yes, it was bad for a while. Half the class was on zoom while the other half was in the classroom. It was impossible to cater to both.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

Was there anything you enjoyed about living in Taiwan?

I would love to live in Taiwan sometime, given that I speak Mandarin, but I doubt anyone will hire me to teach English because of my skin colour

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21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 May 2024

This probably won't be much help, but I usually dive into a project after it starts occupying my attention.

Maybe you could manufacture that situation by going for a walk and thinking about your presentation. Then when you sit down to work on it your mind will already be in high gear.

42 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

It may help because I usually use walking after I’m done with something - as a way to reward myself. I have yet to use walking as a method for my mind to marinate ideas, but it seems to be the to-go method for some Stackers. I will experiment with it sometime.

What worked just now was a hangry 18-month-old demanding for her breakfast! You betcha I didn’t ruminate on my slides. Finished them in record-breaking time n settled her physiological need. If those participants find my slides lacking, too bad. Haha

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 25 May 2024

Another good approach: done is often better than perfect.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

Yes, Sensei’s mantra is Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.

I think I stole it from Gretchen Rublin

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @didiplaywell 23 May 2024

I was fortunate enough to be decently younger when by chance I came through a phrase by Pablo Picasso: "inspiration will find you working". That phrase coming from the master got me thinking "how humble, that amidst his fame in such a snobbish environment, he acknowledges his mortal weakness and tells you how to address it". That gave me confidence that he was saying the truth. And he was.

63 sats \ 8 replies \ @didiplaywell 23 May 2024

That said, I did realize much latter on all of the inner workings that come to play regarding mental inertia, for again I always look for mechanical interpretations:

Yes, inertia is inevitable. It's a fundamental primitive survival mode which the brain will always strive to achieve, because in the beginning, anything you were doing repetitively better be to keep you alive, so by recognizing repetitive patterns the brain can replace costly and slow conscious computation with fast and cheap mindless repetition (of a task that's supposedly essential and that's why you are doing it), increasing your chances of survival. Of course the brain do not interprets "essential" from "non-essential", but that way of operate was, for our ancestors, completely compatible with those definitions, and that's the reason they survived, and that's the reason those are the genes that were passed on. We are still chimps living in a world that haves evolved much faster than we can adapt.

That of course couples with our ability to adapt to changing conditions, but still the brain will look for unchanging conditions, being naturally averse to change, for if you were alive before the change, by default change means decreasing chances of being alive (in the same sense that "a sound in the bushes is something that will kill me, don't stop to check, run right f now or you are dead").

Due to that, shifting always implies strength, cant be something natural, must be enforced. Thus the phrase of Picasso: "just, start".

20 sats \ 7 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 25 May 2024

I'm curious to know how you found the space and presence of mind to think through things so deeply in the high-stress and volatile environment you had to navigate during these past 3 years. and how you found the time to read, even

21 sats \ 6 replies \ @didiplaywell 25 May 2024 freebie

This past 3 years, while distressing, pale in comparison of the stress I have had in previous years due to other circumstances, which is the reason I was able to overcome the recent times facing the problem straight up. In all of such conditions, I thankfully have the natural reaction, as you always hear me to say, to look for mechanical abstractions. Going deep in understanding thus has never been a matter of finding peace but a matter of being merciless with the unsubstantial.