§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

Core practices in knowledge work are often ad-hoc

Knowledge workers’ routinely involves complex, underspecified tasks like understanding the basics of a new industry or writing a memo on some strategic consideration. Even when these responsibilities are core to their work, knowledge workers’ approach to these tasks is often ad-hoc—created on the spot based on past experience, instincts, aphorisms, and whim. These practices are the opposite of a Executable strategy.

This way of working is highly contingent on both practitioner and context, so it’s difficult for knowledge workers to share and build knowledge about these practices.

Without consistent ground to stand on, it’s difficult for knowledge workers to evaluate and develop their own performance relative to these core tasks. Athletes and musicians pursue virtuosity in fundamental skills much more rigorously than knowledge workers do

Because these processes aren’t considered systematically, knowledge workers typically don’t structure the outputs of these tasks so that they will accumulate into something more valuable over time (contra Knowledge work should accrete).