I found this an interesting analysis, even if based on introspection. That you’ve personally found success with it (a number of times apparently) really notches up my consideration of the idea and willingness to try it, in line with what P.J. Eby said.
One idea I’d like to add, which may be implied in your post but I’m not sure, involves the “wrong jungle” effect. Stephen Covey broke down operation (as an organization or individual, in which case imagine tiny people in your brain) into the following parts: the labor are the people out at front with the machetes hacking through the brush, the management are the people standing behind running seminars on machete use, repairing machets, supplying water, and bringing out a boom box for something to listen to, and the leadership is the person who’s climbed a nearby tall tree and calls out “Wrong Jungle!”
I’ve had a few experiences where I’ll be working away on something, focused on the relatively short term (though more in head-land than your post advocates), making fair progress. Then one day I’ll be musing about the farther future, when playing things through reveals to me alternative courses of actions which are far more likely to be effective.
Sometimes I find that when I get a seemingly good idea for something to do, a project we’ll say, I get excited at the opportunity and start in on it, but when I hold myself back and ask myself to think about where this is roughly going to lead, I find that the whole series of projects is not all that great of an idea. This is especially the case when the one single project is nice and easy looking and the alternative pathway is much harder and more unpleasant. The affective nature of the near choices can prohibit me from considering the likely merits of the long term paths. An example could be looking far forward and realizing that the fun task of putting together an AI is disastrous unless you can confidently make it Friendly, like i detected here. The kicker is that if you find you are in the “wrong jungle” it may be that months or years of work are largely useless, which is all the more reason to put serious and at least moderate effort into making sure you are in the “right jungle.”
My own assimilation of your post for now is that while head-land may be great for thinking what to do in the long term (remembering to keep the plan vague), it might be quite unwelcome in the details of the realization of the plan (“Hey I can see from up on this tree a slight dip in the tree canopy, there might be a drop there, and just maybe some dangerous animals sleep in that dip”). While you didn’t seem to draw attention to this, you didn’t proscribe long term thinking as a whole either so I’m not assuming you haven’t thought of this.
I found this an interesting analysis, even if based on introspection. That you’ve personally found success with it (a number of times apparently) really notches up my consideration of the idea and willingness to try it, in line with what P.J. Eby said.
One idea I’d like to add, which may be implied in your post but I’m not sure, involves the “wrong jungle” effect. Stephen Covey broke down operation (as an organization or individual, in which case imagine tiny people in your brain) into the following parts: the labor are the people out at front with the machetes hacking through the brush, the management are the people standing behind running seminars on machete use, repairing machets, supplying water, and bringing out a boom box for something to listen to, and the leadership is the person who’s climbed a nearby tall tree and calls out “Wrong Jungle!”
I’ve had a few experiences where I’ll be working away on something, focused on the relatively short term (though more in head-land than your post advocates), making fair progress. Then one day I’ll be musing about the farther future, when playing things through reveals to me alternative courses of actions which are far more likely to be effective.
Sometimes I find that when I get a seemingly good idea for something to do, a project we’ll say, I get excited at the opportunity and start in on it, but when I hold myself back and ask myself to think about where this is roughly going to lead, I find that the whole series of projects is not all that great of an idea. This is especially the case when the one single project is nice and easy looking and the alternative pathway is much harder and more unpleasant. The affective nature of the near choices can prohibit me from considering the likely merits of the long term paths. An example could be looking far forward and realizing that the fun task of putting together an AI is disastrous unless you can confidently make it Friendly, like i detected here. The kicker is that if you find you are in the “wrong jungle” it may be that months or years of work are largely useless, which is all the more reason to put serious and at least moderate effort into making sure you are in the “right jungle.”
My own assimilation of your post for now is that while head-land may be great for thinking what to do in the long term (remembering to keep the plan vague), it might be quite unwelcome in the details of the realization of the plan (“Hey I can see from up on this tree a slight dip in the tree canopy, there might be a drop there, and just maybe some dangerous animals sleep in that dip”). While you didn’t seem to draw attention to this, you didn’t proscribe long term thinking as a whole either so I’m not assuming you haven’t thought of this.