Productivity is often a distraction. Don't aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible. Instead aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing. -- Kevin Kelly
Instead of a todo list where your goal is to get everything done as quickly as possible, have an explore list where instead of feeling good when you cross things off, you feel good when you add more items you can explore.
For example you might have a task to read 1 page of a book on fractals, and then as you read that page, you add an item to explore the math described about the fractal, another item to program the fractal, experiment with zooming into the fractal, research into a different way to display the fractal..... etc. The goal isn't to just tick off the task of reading the first page in the fractal book; the goal is to keep digging deeper and deeper until you can't go any further.
Todo List:
- [ ] read first page of fractal book
Explore List
- [ ] Read first page of fractal book (points 6)
- [ ] (research) investigate math used to create the fractals
- [ ] (do) finish sample math problems at link...
- [ ] (do) program fractal in python
- [ ] (experiment) write an infinite zoom for the fractal
- [ ] (experiment) display the fractal in 3d?
- [ ] (research) how does this fractal relate to music?
To gamify the concept, you would give yourself points for each sub-item you add to the main task, and then challenge yourself to get higher and higher point values.
Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it. - Greg Anderson
I'm currently working on a small cli that implements this concept. One result I hope to get is a list of things i've done, along with the number of points each task gets for having sub-items, and then see what kind of tasks are deep, and what tasks are shallow.
On a side note, programming with chat-gpt/co-pilot. makes prototyping concepts much easier. It allows you to get past all the heavy lifting of setting up boiler plate code to handle arguments and setup the program, allowing you just focus on the problem you want to solve.