The Pursuit of Betterment Lab

Dave Gray recently suggested putting together a “purpose” page, articulating what one currently sees as their purpose. As a die-hard generalist, enthusiastically pursuing what often appears to be a wildly unrelated collection of things, this struck me as a challenge. Could I articulate a single purpose?

Maybe not, but questions that seem difficult to answer are often those most worth pursuing, so I spent a while thinking about it. And, I’m now attempting to articulate it. That articulation will probably need refining as I think more about it.

But, interesting to me, I think I might have a singular purpose. It actually does tie my professional work to my pursuits that may or may not become professional work to the ones I have no intention of being for anyone other than myself or people close to me.

My purpose is the Pursuit of Betterment. I love learning new skills. I adore the race to competency. I love getting better at those skills. I also love building tools that help people do their job better. I love helping people figure out a better way of working.

All of that is pursuing my own betterment and helping other people do the same. This is what my “lab” looks like where I pursue this purpose, though I also work at home, in my wood shop, in the back yard, in the kitchen and wherever else makes sense. I thought about cleaning it up before taking a photo, but the reality is that this is what my workspaces typically look like.

Below are questions Dave included in his conception of what a purpose page includes.

Q. What is the future you want to create?
One where I work at getting better at the things I care about, and help others do the same. One where I keep making and building things: music, beer, stories, furniture, and whatever else interests me, and help others do the same.

Q. How do you track progress?
The progress on my own individual skills are measured in different ways. Helping others is largely tracked in counting the people I’ve either directly helped or been told were helped, as with many software systems. I can clearly do better at tracking moving forward.

Q. How are you doing so far?
I have a long list of things I’ve learned to do competently. In my professional career, I’ve spent 20 yrs building the applications people use to work and shaped the processes the users of those applications.

In the last few years, I built a software framework that makes building software that helps people work together better much easier. I have worked to start a company around that product called 7 Interruptions and am working on a book that will show people how to reduce interruption at work and be more effective along with their work team.

I’m a moderator in an online writing community, offering advice and support to people looking to be better at writing. I’m working on writing novels and short stories for publication.

I’m in an Irish band, where we all help each other become better musicians. Someday, I might like to help people outside the band learn the joy of music.

Q. What are you NOT doing?
Because I already am doing such a variety of things, I’m not looking for places where I can be merely additive to someone else’s idea. I want to be multiplicative instead, by helping other people leverage their own efforts and time.

Much of my efforts thus far have been focused on helping people fish. I need to focus more on teaching people to fish. And get better at it. Because I can only catch so many fish myself.

Q. What have you learned so far?
I’ve learned a great deal about how to learn. I’ve learned that so many of the challenges people face are similar. They’re not identical, but they do “rhyme”.

I’ve learned that my systems thinking approach to life isn’t as common as I once thought it might be.

Q. How can you help others?
In casual conversation, I can help provide clarity in your efforts to get better at something, offer strategies and techniques to apply to your situation. I’m also always willing to share my experience with the specific skills I’ve worked at myself: software, writing, folk music, cooking, bbq, brewing, woodworking and anything else you’ve seen me express enthusiasm for at some point.

Professionally, I’m looking to help teams with their processes and workflows, both at a consulting/advice level and building software to support those workflows on my software platform.

Q. What help do you need?
I’m looking for people to talk to about how interruption and bad workflow is disrupting your ability to work together as a team.

I’m looking for organizations that want to get better at whatever THEIR purpose is and can invest some money in improving processes and building tools to support those processes.

I’m looking for organizations that also help other organizations get better, where partnerships around our software product could be beneficial to all sides.

And, finally, I am always open to observations you may have about my purpose that you may see that I can’t.

j@wynia.org

-J Wynia