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The ninth issue packs some punch and some pearls of wisdom. Take your pick and come back to us with your experiences.
A Quick Word
Usually, when an individual plans a day's work, he sets up the objectives that he intends to accomplish that day.
This is no more better or worse than a fitness freak who religiously walks into his gym everyday, picks up a heavy weight in his right arm,
does only the biceps curls till he is exhausted and then goes away... 
We certainly work in order to attain our objectives, but there is more to work than just attaining objectives.
To get a feel of the most dangerous thing about setting only the "Performance Objectives", imagine how do you feel when you set up a performance objective for yourself and you are unable to meet it?
Does it seem like a failure?
Does it seem like a day wasted?
Do you start worrying about the next day?
What if, in addition to setting up a performance objective, you also set up "Learning Objectives" for yourself? Before embarking on the task, howsoever small, you set for yourself objectives on what you would learn while working on this task, and what you would have learnt at the end of the task.
In that case, even if you fail at meeting a performance objective today, you would end the day with some precious learning that will make you feel better about today and make you perform better tomorrow.
Imagine if you were achieving all your targets and learning a lot, but at the end of it, you end up feeling dull, bored, exhausted, stressed and absolutely disgusted with your job.
Well, what's the big deal, you might say!!! That's already happening to most of us ... :-))
Can you think of a way out of it?
In addition to setting up "Performance Objectives" and "Learning Objectives", you need to set up "Experience Objectives" as well.
How do you want to feel while performing the task?
How do you want to feel at the end of the task?
By learning how to balance your "Performance Objectives", "Learning Objectives" and "Experience Objectives", you can aim to develop a successful, meaningful and enjoyable work-life.
"Experience Objectives" is what differentiates a mall from the corner retail shop, and this is what will differentiate a champion programmer and an average programmer.
Before, setting on to the next task, ask yourself:
1) What do I want to achieve?
This is the easiest question to ask. You have already been doing it very successfully.
2) What do I want to learn while doing this task?
What are the learning objectives you can possibly set for yourself?
Your learning objectives could be:
 to learn how to take pressure with ease
to learn how to simplify a complex problem
to learn how to get out of a frustrated mood
to learn how to use "inheritance" effectively
to learn how the given platform's "Event Handling" works
to learn how to write meaningful and interesting "comments"
to learn how to explore the symptoms of a bug more deeply
There is a whole spectrum of learning available to you while working on any task.
How would it be to learn hundreds and thousands of other possibilities for setting "Learning Objectives”?
3) What do I want to experience/feel while doing this task (and at the end of it)?
Can you think of the experience objectives that you can possibly set for yourself?
You can choose to feel confident, feel stress-free, feel a flow of creative ideas, feel like a master programmer, feel like a genius, feel a free flow of ideas, feel excited, feel a sense of accomplishment, and so on.
How would it be to learn hundreds and thousands of other possibilities for setting "Learning Objectives”?
When you set objectives for Performance, Learning and Experience, you are dissolving the unnecessary pressure that you might create for yourself by focusing only on your performance objectives.
Moreover, you can add a lot more depth, meaning and enjoyment to your work.
Imagine, if you do this for a year, how much more accomplished, learned and fun-filled your work-life would be?
Imagine, how your life would have been today, if you were already doing this for the last five years?
How is this simple technique going to impact your work-life?
Try it out, and share with us your thoughts at artisticprogramming@reinventsoft.com
DID YOU KNOW?
...that the original idea and patent that led to cellular phone technology comes from the movie star, Hedy Lamarr?
She knew a great deal about weaponry by listening to her first husband, Fritz Mandl, an armament manufacturer. She left her husband when he became increasingly involved in deals with the Nazis and made her way to London, then on to Hollywood.
She'd kept her mind active on what she'd heard about the problems of radio controlled missiles and how easy it was to block the simple signal. She realized that if the signal jumped from frequency to frequency quickly (like changing channels on a TV or radio) and both sender and receiver changed in the same order, then the signal could never be blocked by someone "listening in" who didn't know how the frequency was changing.
In those days before the transistor was invented it was difficult to design a way for this to be accomplished. Composer George Antheil suggested using something similar to piano rolls, from player pianos, to keep both sides in synch. Together, he and Lamarr patented the "Secret Communication System" in 1942. At that time the idea of using the paper rolls was too cumbersome to be practical.
When the transistor did become available the Navy used the idea in secure military communications and when transistors became really cheap the idea was used in cellular phone technology. By the time the Navy used the idea, the original patent had expired and Lamarr and Antheil never received any royalty payments for their idea.
In 1997 she was honored with an award at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference for "blazing new trails on the electronic frontier." Hedy Lamarr died on January 19, 2000.
To understand some phenomenon or a set of phenomena, first rid your mind of all preconceptions.
Rene Descartes
F-O-O-D For Thot!
We all have learnt the "Scientific Methodology" in the first year of learning science at school—observe, postulate a hypothesis and test the hypothesis.
Consider, what would you think of these two individuals?
Individual 1:
1. He didn't compare what he knew with what he was considering.
2. He was not trapped by theories.
3. He let his imagination drive his mathematics.
4. When he published his first paper, he never bothered to give any citations or references.
Individual 2:
1. He said, "I hate hypotheses. They contain all the harmful errors of the past. I am more willing to admit that I don’t know than to postulate a hypothesis".
The software industry gives far too importance to processes than they deserve. Processes are devised by ordinary minds for the ordinary minds in order to keep them ordinary. Blindly following processes not only make your life dull and boring but also turns you into an automaton that can blindly follow steps to solve problems.
This is not to say that we do not need processes, but that we need "intelligent processes".
What do you think the processes should do for you?
What kind of processes do you think will help you perform better as well as enhance your individual skills and intelligence?
By the way, can you take a guess who the two individuals mentioned above are?
Write to us at artisticprogramming@reinventsoft.com
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