For about a year or so I’ve been exploring ways to restructure my life in a more natural, “living process” kind of way. Consider that nature is not in the business of suddenly creating new structures. Instead it takes existing structures and makes small tweaks that reinforce, strengthen, and elaborate the existing structure.
To get a good sense of how this works, read Sarah Perry’s post “Deep Laziness”. She talks about “good fit,” having routines and structures that are right for you, somewhat like having counter-tops at the right height for your body. Her argument is that good fit grows out of small transformations rather than an Ikea-kit of productivity methodologies.
James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, makes the same argument: All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow.
My process, so far, is fairly simple:
Step 1. Come up with a vision for what your life could be,
Step 2. Map the structure of how your life looks right now,
Step 3. Cluster each part of your vision to an appropriate structure in your life,
Step 4. Elaborate and improve each of the clusters.
Clustering Vision and Structure
This is pretty straightforward, yet powerful. Once you have a stack of “vision cards” and a stack of “structure cards”, spread them all out on a table and start matching visions with structures.
For example, I have a vision card “I am aging well.” That’s how I want my life to look, I want my declining years to be full of possibilities even though my limitations may be increasing.
I also have a structure card “I am 30 lbs. overweight.” Because aging well and being overweight are related, I paperclip them together.
These clipped cards are suddenly new structures. As soon as you combine “I am 30 lbs. overweight” and “I (want to be) aging well” you have created a bunch of possibilities – diet? Exercise? Give up and buy a mumu?
These possibilities are what Christoper Alexander called “latent centers.” They are unrealized potentials that surround every existing structure.
As you match your vision cards to your structure cards you’ll probably find a few that don’t really pair up. For instance I had a vision card “I travel and explore.” But for the past two years I really haven’t gone anywhere. So I’ve got a vision card with nothing to pin it to in my life presently. That’s fine.
The next step is going to be deciding where you want to start building.
