Attempts find the work and study blocks get it done. What reliably goes wrong in the second week of a run, and why your own records will make you look better than you actually were
The arrangement is simple and you should be able to state it in a sentence:
attempts find the fights, sittings do the work.
Every sitting attacks exactly one thing, named before you start. That constraint
is doing more than bookkeeping. A sitting that attacks nothing in particular is
the study equivalent of farming a lane in a game that has already been decided
somewhere else — it feels productive, it produces a win in your log, and it
moves nothing.
If you find yourself wanting a sitting that fits nothing on your list, that is
real information, and usually good news: you have probably just found a fight
you could not have named last week. Add it. The list is supposed to grow — a
list that has not changed in a fortnight is one you are no longer reading.
Every sitting is a win. If your win rate is above about eighty per cent your
win conditions are too easy, and you have quietly converted the mechanism into a
device for feeling good. The verdict has to be able to come out L or it is not
a verdict.
The boss that never dies. One boss sits open for the entire run while others
close around it. It is not hard, it is unnamed — a kill condition you cannot
check keeps a fight open forever. Rewrite the condition, don’t grind the fight.
Ceremony creep. The protocol acquires a field, then a second one, then a
weekly review. Every field you add is a reason not to run it on the day you
least want to.
The mechanism becomes the subject. You spend Tuesday improving the tool. It
is the most enjoyable failure in the whole course, it looks exactly like work,
and the thirty hours are the thirty hours.
Assume this rather than hope against it. The specific mechanisms, all of which
have shown up in this course’s own history:
Currency inflation. Whatever you score, the standard drifts. Things that
weren’t worth a point in week one are worth one by week three, the totals
climb, and nothing changed. Guard against it by checking an old entry against
a new one and asking whether you would still score the old one the same way.
Retrospective editing. You judge a sitting kindly an hour later. Judge at
the end of the sitting or not at all.
The missing rows. The sittings you didn’t log are not random. They are the
bad ones, and their absence is exactly the shape of the problem.
Change one rule and write down why. A mechanism you have not adjusted after two
weeks of real use is one you are not actually reading.
The slides, as text
Every slide in order, with a description of each figure. Generated from the deck source, so it cannot fall behind it.
1
Running both mechanisms at once
SLOP3733 · Week 11
FigureA stone wall lit from the left, with one patch scuffed pale by repeated impacts at the same height, and four chalk tally marks beside it counting the times it was attempted.
2
The arrangement, in one sentence
Attempts find the fights. Sittings do the work.
Every sitting attacks exactly one thing, named before you start.
3
That constraint is doing more than bookkeeping
A sitting that attacks nothing in particular is the study equivalent of farming a lane in a game that has already been decided somewhere else.
It feels productive. It produces a win in your log. It moves nothing.
4
If a sitting fits nothing on your list, that is information
And it is usually good news: you have probably just found a fight you could not have named last week.
Add it. A list that has not changed in a fortnight is one you are no longer reading.
5
The four failures of week two
FigureForty faint horizontal lines and one bright gold line among them: everything a long session produced, against the one thing short enough to keep
6
Every sitting is a win
If your win rate is above about eighty per cent, your win conditions are too easy.
You have quietly converted the mechanism into a device for feeling good.
The verdict has to be able to come out L, or it is not a verdict.
7
The boss that never dies
One boss sits open for the entire run while others close around it.
It is not hard. It is unnamed — a kill condition you cannot check keeps a fight open forever.
Rewrite the condition. Do not grind the fight.
8
Ceremony creep
The protocol acquires a field, then a second one, then a weekly review.
Every field you add is a reason not to run it on the day you least want to.
9
The mechanism becomes the subject
You spend Tuesday improving the tool.
It is the most enjoyable failure in the whole course, it looks exactly like work, and the thirty hours are the thirty hours.
10
Your log flatters you, and here is how
FigureThree ways a log flatters the person keeping it. First, currency inflation: the same task, not worth a point in week one and worth one by week three, with the daily totals climbing while nothing changed. Second, retrospective editing: a verdict written L at the end of the sitting and crossed out and rewritten as W an hour later. Third, the missing rows: three weeks of sittings drawn as a grid, with the unlogged ones shown as empty outlines, and the empty ones clustering into two runs rather than scattering. The caption reads: the sittings you did not log are not a random sample. They are the bad ones, and their absence is exactly the shape of the problem.
11
Currency inflation
Whatever you score, the standard drifts. Things that weren't worth a point in week one are worth one by week three, the totals climb, and nothing changed.
Guard against it: take an old entry and a new one, and ask whether you would still score the old one the same way.
12
Retrospective editing
You judge a sitting kindly an hour later.
Judge at the end of the sitting, or not at all.
13
The sittings you didn't log are not random. They are the bad ones.
And their absence is exactly the shape of the problem.
14
What to do this week
Change one rule, and write down why.
A mechanism you have not adjusted after two weeks of real use is one you are not actually reading.