The Ultraworking Podcast

“Think lightly about yourself and deeply of the world” — one of the precepts of the death-bed testimony of Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), one of the greatest swordsmen in Japanese history along with a skilled painter, caligrapher, writer, and philosopher.

Ultraworking’s CTO Lee Knowlton joins Sebastian Marshall to talk about Miyamoto Musashi, the Dokkodo, “The Way”, and what modern people could learn from this wonderful document.

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Jumping-off point to more study:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dokkōdō

“Reality Has a Surprising Amount of Detail” by John Salvatier is a gem of a piece. This show looks to make you aware of the phenomenon and its implications for learning a domain as a beginner vs mastering a domain over time.

Link to article: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail

Have you ever thought about why you’re interested in the topics you’re interested in? Chris and Sebastian explore the research paper “Triggering and maintaining interest in early phases of interest development” by Renninger et al, for practical takeaways on how to build more interest in topics by matching the activities to your personality level.

Mentioned on the show…

The paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210656118301685

PrinciplesYou: https://principlesyou.com

At least implicitly, every project is either scope to time or scoped to quality. But most people don’t do this explicitly and suffer for it. Just learning these phrases will level up your projects a lot.

Discomfort can be pushed through, but actual physical pain as a warning signal should not be disregarded. Ultraworking’s Head of Teamwork, Andi Banez, joins Sebastian Marshall to explore.

Oh, it’s *really* good to do.

Ultraworking’s Chris Natterer and Sebastian Marshall discuss how Chris switched his keyboard layout and typing style from the default “QWERTY” keyboard to the more-efficient “COLEMAK” layout — with some surprisingly informative universal lessons about learning and skill progression.

During multi-week hyper-busy periods, quick timeboxed lookaheads can be valuable.

Standardized Work Without Kaizen -> Bad.

Kaizen Without Standardized Work -> Bad.

Standardized Work With Kaizen -> Quite possibly good.

Sensors for personal use, like the Oura Ring and Apple Watch, have gotten way better over the last 10 years. While they're still maybe not "fully ready for primetime" — they can already be used to get interesting information and gains. Chris Natterer and Sebastian Marshall discuss Chris's sensors, metrics, and some science around it.