The Ultraworking Podcast

Gray's Biopsychological Theory of Personality, developed ~1970 to ~1982, posits two different brain systems: A Behavioral Activation System (BAS) which prompts and regulates appetitive motivation, goal-seeking behavior, hope, etc — and a Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) which prompts and regulates avoidance of negative stimuli.

We overview the science some and then make some inferences about what might be going on in the people's brains, as regards to motivation, in the post-pandemic world.

Greater control of attention? Sounds good, eh?

Chris and Sebastian explore implications of Reinhart and Goodman’s 2014 paper “High stakes trigger the use of multiple memories to enhance the control of attention” — some science and some hypotheses on practical short-term and long-term implications.

Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23448876/

DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bht057

Chris Natterer and Sebastian Marshall of Ultraworking talk about bringing full focus to planning.

A lot of times people do planning somewhat lazily.

Which is bad.

Discussion of why and cultivating more full focus and intensity.

A lot of attempts to install systems - on a team or individually - fail. Here's how to make it more likely to succeed.

Commentary and extrapolation from Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theory of Flow State, as applied to the video game EVE Online. Some practical application for emotional management, learning, and systems theory in other endeavors.

Relevant links:

"Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience": https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202

"Is EVE A Bad Game, Or Is It Just You?": https://crossingzebras.com/is-eve-a-bad-game/

Short guidelines for better writing. ACM = Audience, Content, Mechanics

Mentioned on the show:

"Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/

"This Sentence Has Five Words" by Gary Provost: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/373814-this-sentence-has-five-words-here-are-five-more-words

"On the Sublime" by Longinus: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17957/17957-h/17957-h.htm

"Memories of Silk and Straw" by Junichi Saga: https://www.amazon.com/Memories-Silk-Straw-Self-Portrait-Small-Town/dp/0870119885

"A great deal of strategy work is trying to figure out what is going on. Not just deciding what to do, but the more fundamental problem of comprehending the situation." — Richard Rumelt

Exploring why momentum tends to be high at the start and end of projects, and lowest in the middle.

You can get the best of both of worlds in terms of being conservative or aggressive with goals and target-setting by setting by both a conservative baseline target and an aggressive stretch target for the same work session.

Not a typo. Latin word.