§Taking knowledge work seriously (Stripe convergence talk, 2019-12-12)

Talk outline

• Athletes and musicians pursue virtuosity in fundamental skills much more rigorously than knowledge workers do
  • brief history of Knowledge work (appeal to economic growth, etc)
  • Management science focuses on knowledge work at the level of the firm and the manager, not at the level of the individual
  • We don’t know how to measure knowledge worker productivity
• Core practices in knowledge work are often ad-hoc
• Knowledge work should accrete
• People seem to forget most of what they read, and they mostly don’t notice
  • Deep understanding requires detailed knowledge of fundamentals
  • Complex ideas may be hard to learn in part because their components overflow working memory
  • introducing Quantum Country
  • Testing effect
  • Spaced repetition memory systems are extremely efficient
    • Spacing effect
  • Spaced repetition memory systems make memory a choice
  • Effects of the mnemonic medium on reader memory
  • Mnemonic essays may offer detailed retention of their contents in exchange for 35-50% reading time overhead
• Taking note-taking seriously
  • Note-writing practices are generally ineffective
  • “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”
  • People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use
  • introducing the Zettelkasten
  • Evergreen note-writing helps insight accumulate
  • Spaced repetition may be a helpful tool to incrementally develop inklings
• generalizing: Spaced repetition systems can be used to program attention
• spaced repetition and inboxes
  • Inboxes only work if you trust how they’re drained
  • Triage strategies for maintaining inboxes (e.g. Inbox Zero) are often too brittle
  • Software interfaces often harmfully frame destructive operations as final decisions, not contingent preferences
  • Spaced repetition can lower the stakes around destructive inbox-maintenance operations

Meta

• Stance:
  • presenting work in progress
  • more about asking questions than revealing answers
  • definitely not here to provide usable solutions
• What the audience gets:
  • Eyes opened to a set of fascinating questions that lie behind every day of their work
  • Sense of excitement and possibility motivated by a few examples of possible progress