Book notes: Tiny Experiments by Ann Laure Le Cunff

I first heard about Ann Laure Le Cunff’s book “Tiny Experiments” on a couple of podcasts. The first was focused podcast by Mike Schmitz and David Sparky and the second one was on Bookworm. The book is about organising life rather than a productivity book as such. ALLC starts off with an argument about the futility of linear productivity systems and smart goals. Instead the idea here is that peoples lives are more complex and therefore it is useful to think in terms of building or factoring these complexities. She recommends you engage in small experiments to continuously improve your life.

Pact

A powerful solution is to make a pact with yourself on some regular tasks that you will do an x period of time. For example say you want to avoid browsing a certain distracting web page for 21 days (because 21 days apparently can help you to build a habit). So set a date and start on the task. ALLC gives her own example about writing the book. I have not made a pact yet but it seems a good way to stay on course.

Concept of kairos or time in quality

In the forth chapter of the book she writes about time as Chronos or quantitative time and time as qualitative or time measured in the qualitative aspects. For example some of us fare better during day (larks vs owls), she claims it for real and asks that we monitor our time as to when we are in course of our day to day we are at our best or peak. I know that I used to be quite good at night but I have also observed that my peak performance time seems to be around 10AM. ALLC would advise setting up cognitively demanding tasks around the morning in my case and set up routine tasks that may not take much thinking or admin tasks such as emails and meetings around afternoons when my energy levels tend to slack.

Sequential Time, Rituals, and Exercise

She talks about setting up sequence of tasks and warns against multitasking. One of the other points is about setting up rituals that can move you to a kairos moment. For example, slow walking or slowly brewing a cup of tea. I think it is worth doing these things as I have found a quiet time to do a rapid Tratak type meditation or brewing a cup of tea works wonders for me to being back the focus. Another point that she brings up when you find your energy level sagging is to do some simple exercises , even as simple as a short walk or moving your wrists or shoulders or static exercises.

A Nonconventional Take on Procrastination

She has an interesting take on proscrastinaton which ALLC describes along the lines of emotional issues people have. So anytime you find yourself procrastinating on something ask yourself three questions to troubleshoot: is it important to do it now?is it exciting for you to do it? Do you have the skills to execute the task at this time? If your answer to each of these questions, and you still find yourself procrastinating,it is time for you to search for external factors such as systems issues why you find yourself procrastinating. Perhaps the workload or workplace is not suited. Perhaps the context of the work.

Plus Minus Next Steps Affective Labelling Mapping

Another interesting take is on say a daily or weekly review where you can construct a grid with three columns: write the good things that happened in the day, the work pending or what you did not achieve and in the third column write what will make a difference in the next step. I thought this was a particularly insightful technique.

Two other techniques or rather experiments that she talks about in the book refers to are affective labelling where she advises what you should do if you face with adversities that throw you off. The first technique is to write your feelings (“affective labelling”). The second is to map out the consequences. Now ALLC also says that if, while you are in the second activity and you feel unsettled, a god plan would be to name the feelings and continue. The steps help you to stay grounded even in the face of extreme adversity and help you to stay on course and remain calm.

Indeed it makes sense to me coming from a more meditation and integral yoga background. As Sri Aurobindo writes in several of his lectures and in the Synthesis of Yoga, if you can vision yourself outside of your body and can see yourself “thinking”, that externalisation of the processes are helpful to get you in a state of grounding when the going is tough. Somewhat similarly Alan Wallace, the great Buddhist Lama, commenting on the works of Dudjom Lingpa in his book Fathomng The Mind,writes about understanding or meditating on one’s own mind. In this practice as well, you can learn to tap into your substrate consciousness. So you see that ALLC has a point in how you can remain steady in a state of adversity. I really think these experiments and strategies are worth giving a chance.

Overall, I liked how she framed the concepts of pact, energy mapping at various times, the plus minus next steps for daily review and naming emotions. At times it seemed that there are far more tools and experiments and she has covered a lot of ground in the book. The book is well worth the effort.