Minding, Metering & Measuring Attention: QMN014

Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster, Monday, 13 May

(Today’s report is a 4 minute read)

Today’s Quartermaster is guest hosted by Chris Erickson. Chris is Director of Media at Tandem Theory in Dallas and a former Green Beret with 1st Special Forces Group. With relationships and skills spanning marketing, media and military realms, Chris is actually the guy who connected KS and I earlier this year. You can catch more of his work at The Epoch Times or on Twitter at @EricksonPrime. (BJM)

BLUF: The Pomodoro Technique is a way to engineer and hard code productivity into your day. It isn’t for everybody, but it has the potential to be a game changer if applied correctly. The great thing is that you can try it right now to see if it benefits you.

Chris here. In the late 1980’s, a man named Francesco Cirillo developed what he called The Pomodoro Technique, a strategy to boost productivity via carefully segmented time management. Basically, every project you are working on throughout the day is broken down into periods of time on which you work and when you rest; you work 25 minutes and then rest for five minutes. These short increments break up your day and tightly control your time budget, forcing you to focus on the task at hand at what you are doing at every minute of your work day. The TL;DR is that The Pomodoro Technique is an attempt to engineer and hard code productivity into your day. It isn’t for everybody, but it has the potential to be a game changer if applied correctly.

When I was honorably discharged from the United States Army in 2015, it was after more than a decade serving in high-risk situations, with more than half of my time spent as a Green Beret. Head trauma, both during training and in combat, left me with severe memory issues and an impaired ability to focus. Upon my transition to the civilian world, I found myself struggling to perform at the same high levels I had so effortlessly experienced in my life. Tracking tasks that needed to be performed and staying focused on what I was doing became an immediate need that I needed to be filled.

A simple extension in my browser, a timer that alerted me to work/rest cycles, introduced me to the basic of The Pomodoro Technique. This was the first step in unlocking how to maximize my mental performance after I noticed that I was no longer meetings the standards I had set for myself. I work in an industry that frequently requires you to log and track your time, so I began to build Pomodoro into my operations plans. At the start of my day, I update my task list in my Bullet Journal and can then plan on how many “sprints” I need to complete to knock them out. It has made me a more efficient individual and a better leader. It has also made me reevaluate how I look at my time; calendar space is now sacred space. Armed with a knowledge of how much I can accomplish, I no longer allow my time to be monopolized by those who would not think twice about destroying my ability to conduct my essential tasks.

I’m not saying that The Pomodoro Technique is some sort of panacea that will fix everything that is wrong and disorganized in your life; it may very well not be for you. However, if you aren’t taking hard looks at how you spend and manage your time, you’re probably wasting it. At the end of the day, your time is the most valuable resource you have. You can’t negotiate for more later, you need to find out how to protect it and maximize it in the here and now. (CME)

MORE NLP FOR BETTER DECISIONS: Algorithm Proves to Be Better Than Humans in Detecting Fake News (2 min) “Samples were created by writers who took real news stories and created fake stories out of them, leaving certain text intact, while inventing facts and attempting to mimic the voice of the original article and fed to the AI along with real, unchanged news stories. Mihalcea's team found that their algorithm accurately detected fake news stories 76% of the time, as compared to a human rate of 70%.” (KSA)

MEASURING IMMEASURABLES: How a former Green Beret has changed the Colts' thinking (15 min) Looking at character to determine investment risk. “Decker may very well be one of the most interesting men in the NFL, a former Green Beret from the U.S. Special Forces unit who successfully catapulted a 22-year career in the military into a job in professional football. Though his title with the Indianapolis Colts is a bit vague – director of player development – his duties are not. He probes draft prospects, digging into their psyche, and tries to uncover what others can't. He coaches the scouts, counsels the players and meets with the head coach. Perhaps most significantly, he offers the general manager a set of eyes that are indifferent to the on-field talent that so often clouds evaluations in this league.” (BJM)

NEEDED: A BETTER APPROACH: Confronting the risks of artificial intelligence (13 min) “The most visible ones, which include privacy violations, discrimination, accidents, and manipulation of political systems, are more than enough to prompt caution. More concerning still are the consequences not yet known or experienced. Disastrous repercussions—including the loss of human life, if an AI medical algorithm goes wrong, or the compromise of national security, if an adversary feeds disinformation to a military AI system—are possible, and so are significant challenges for organizations, from reputational damage and revenue losses to regulatory backlash, criminal investigation, and diminished public trust.” Given our reckless adoption of smartphones and the disastrous effects it’s had on developing minds, it’s obvious we’re not prepared as a society for the speed at which we now adopt new tech. Maybe considering how deliberate the Amish are with new tech is the right idea. (BJM)

Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.

KS Anthony (KSA) & Brady Moore (BJM)