Authentic August – Day 19 (29 days ’til 28)
The other day I was watching this chess video and learned about the concept of simplification. Without getting into too much detail, simplification is the process of taking a cluttered chessboard – meaning there’s still a bunch of pieces left in play – and making it less cluttered. So if you and I were playing, basically we would start a sequence of capturing each other’s pieces until there are only a handful left. With the board less cluttered, gameplay becomes more straightforward, and voila! we’ve simplified the game. As a strategy, simplification is useful to the player who has more pieces on the board, because after trading sequence is complete is, that player should still have the advantage.
But why the chess lesson, Q?! I have no interest in chess!
Well, faithful reader, it’s because simplification isn’t just a chess strategy, it’s also winning life strategy! Especially if you’re like me and you have a habit of biting off a little more than you can chew! At least this is what I immediately thought of when I was watching that chess video.
I have a tendency to pick up a lot of different projects and hobbies, and that’s because I have a lot of different interests. As the saying goes, I am a jack of all trades, but a king of none! And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if what you’re after is mastery, then it’s best to focus on one thing at a time. So we want to simplify to amplify! We want to prune our projects down so that the ones left over are given the necessary space to grow! We want to declutter our chessboard so that the game is easier to play!
Now I go through pruning stages all the time, so I’m pretty accustomeed to analyzing my projects and hobbies and deciding which need to be placed on hold or dropped altogether. But something I’m not accustomed to is momentum! So let’s take a brief detour and talk about momentum, and then I’ll lead us back to talking about simplification.
I’m experiencing momentum at a more frequent rate this year, ever since Mrs. Covid asked me to stop socializing. All this alone time means I get to work on my projects for longer periods of time, so it makes sense that I would catch the momentum wave more often than ever before. And this is what I’m learning about it: momentum is rather addictive! I’m far from a workaholic, but I can see why people get that way.
Anyway, I’m noticing a trend with my momentum spikes… whenever I generate some momentum, all of a sudden I think I’m Superman lol! I start picking up one too many projects, which ultimately lead to burnout. But again, we want to simplify to amplify.
Despite my many interests and hobbies, I am a striving minimalist. I don’t think those things are necessarily mutually exclusive. I am a fan of minimalist design. I watched the movie Minimalism years before Matt D’Avella was a famous YouTuber. I read Marie Kondo’s book before she blew up on Netflix. So in the midst of some recent momentum I’ve had, I guess this post is just a friendly reminder to myself to slow down a bit and to keep things simple. To master the basics before moving on to the more advanced stuff. To simplify the chessboard so that the game is easier to play.
With LOVE,
Q.