Tag / work advice

by yojeanyi

Are we becoming computers? Use the CCC: Chocolate Chip Cookie method

Sedentary multitasking is what machines do, but ever since the pandemic, that’s all WE do. Are we becoming computers? Do we exist just to perform knowledge-systems labor?

We are:

1. Synchronizing activities

2. Entering and exiting schedules

3. Perfecting chocolate chip cookie recipes

⭐⭐⭐Let’s begin:

  1. When doing all life activities in one place, such as a domestic setting, synchronizing everything into one master schedule is tough. Your perception of time stretches and contracts depending on the task… writing a project proposal versus nodding dutifully in an online meeting. Did they said three or five? What’s the topic now?

We’re balancing multiple time-scales:

🌞❄️🍂 long term: years, phases, seasons…

🗓️ short term: weeks, days…

⏱️ immediate: hourly, minutely, unexpected events…

2. Our work-life reality has flattened. To transition between tasks, we must re-expand space with our bodies, not just our minds. Reset and prep for the next task by walking around the house. 5x across the room. Go down the street. Remember to come back. Take an object you will use later—a remote, pen, measuring spoon—and deposit it in the mailbox. When it’s time, retrieve it. This “commute” reboots intentionality. Can a computer do that?

Put a chocolate chip cookie in the mailbox and take a nibble out of it each circulation for dopamine. Can a computer byte? I mean bite? Can the sugar dissolve on its tongue binding to receptors T1R2/T1R3s giving that sweet sensation?

3. There’s no such thing as an imperfect chocolate chip cookie recipe 🍪 as the CCC is perfection itself.

🍪CCC = Perfection🍪

Chocolate : loved and consumed by millions of humans who are not computers.

Chip : you can add any kind of chip into your cookie: nuts, sprinkles, dried fruit, cpus, gpus, ram, or despair that is not made by computers.

Cookie : round, a great and popular shape loved by millions of humans across time but possibly also computers.

by yojeanyi

Leave that mess; sweat equity & creative making with your hands is really really good for you, an obvious human








Make something, and make it with love. 
Or destroy something, and destroy it with relish.







Do yourself a favor and clean up later. I mean, wayyyy later. Let the sweat equity show, look at the mess and materials behind the final product…pencil shavings, paint sploshes, apple cores strewn among the date pits. Striving for the end result is great for follow through, but is it sustainable? There has to be some appreciation, dare I say, enjoyment, in the process, production, labor.





If there is no visible sweat equity in your work, do a thing that does have it (counterbalance). For people who can’t seem to restore their energy, it’s important to balance intellectual/mental labor with physical/emotional labor. Make something, and make it with love. Or destroy something, and destroy it with relish.





An aside: What’s the difference between a task and a project? While tidying up after a task is always good for workflow, don’t confuse a project as a task. Set aside the appropriate space(s) for a project to inhabit. Subsequent “messes” of work-in-progress projects might be unsightly, but necessary. The small amounts of energy spent putting away and taking out projects adds up. 





Leave projects out in the pasture to live their lives. 





Another point: don’t overlook the small things, but don’t let the small things run the show. While micromanagement is good for detailed analysis of net efficiency, once it is built into the workflow, it is appropriate to break it occasionally. In fact, it is necessary to break it. 





Back to replenishing energy: Make a physical thing…with an emphasis on “make”. Get your hands involved. Since we have to eat, a classic one is cooking–either your favorite recipe or a fun new one, but it’s important that it delivers pleasure for you. Maybe cooking or baking isn’t your form of enjoyment, then make a different thing.





I will expand on this for a moment.. “Making” is a creative act, which will be different for everyone. Playing music is a creative act for some, playing a sport is a creative engagement for others. (We can argue that one “makes” the shot into the basket or “makes” a play.) 





Find a making that requires a few muscle groups. It is easy to fall into an avoidant style dynamic with screens so save video games for another area of life. 





Another thought: positive and productive activities that replenish are : self initiated, intentional, and helps you be “present” with yourself and your body. They are responses, not reactions. Many times I have witnessed people reacting to stressors by using the screen to “tune out”. This is not a restorative act and alienates, thereby turning off the ability to be truly present.





So go hang out with your body and make something! 💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫