Thoughts on the Plan of Attack to Abate 1 MT of CO2
In accordance with my desire to make the blog a bit more relaxed, I will occasionally write brief updates on my thoughts on my fellowship, research, and my newly set goal.
Today, I am going to write about my "plan of attack", although I am hesitant to say it it much of a plan - yet.
First off, I wanted to offer a few reflections on my goal of abating 1 megaton of C02. My 21 month deadline is quite arbitrary and while I have wondered if the short deadline will come in conflict with my other ambitions, goals, and values for my life, it does provide a sense of urgency that will push me harder than if I had simply said I want to achieve this goal "at some point in my life". However, I am encouraging myself to see the potential conflicts as simply being individual problems that I can assess and solve just like any other problem.
For example, to achieve such a goal I would likely need to start a business. While I am interested in starting a business someday, I don't think that I would naturally begin immediately after finishing the fellowship in September. However, if I really want to meet this goal, it is almost necessary that I do start right after the fellowship. There are a few issues I see with starting a business right away. Some of them are fears about not having enough knowledge or experience, but these are exactly the kind of fears I want to push myself to overcome to achieve the goal. The more substantial concern has to do with funding. Starting a business takes money and I don't really have much money of my own. I could ask my parents for some seed funding, but this conflicts with my own values of self-sufficiency. I think I would prefer to start working at a job and slowly growth a business organically in my free time. After I have saved some money and the business starts to get some traction, I would then consider quitting my job to fully commit to my endeavor. While this may take longer, I maintain my self-sufficiency. I need more time to think this over, but perhaps I just need to let go of this idea of self-sufficiency and accept that I am a privileged kid who has parents that would probably be willing to provide some amount of seed funding to get me started. I guess it all depends upon how badly I really want to achieve my goal. If I want it badly enough, nothing should get in my way.
While I am still really excited to work on this goal, I still need to stay true to the fellowship. I have made a commitment to this fellowship, and it would be best for me to see it through. Therefore, I have decided to spend only one hour each day towards my goal for the duration of the fellowship. This will ensure that I continue to work on this goal, while reserving the bulk of my time for the fellowship.
My roadmap doesn't extend very far and only has a few mile markers. The big one is to have an idea that has demonstrated some traction when the fellowship ends in August. I need to come up with a metric to measure that traction and set a "traction threshold". To get me to that point I have resolved to spend January coming up with 5 different paths. By the start of February, I will decide which path I find most promising and then try to see if I can get any traction on that path. I will define certain metrics that need to meet certain thresholds to be called a success by the end of February. If I meet those thresholds by the end of the month, I will continue with that path. If I do not, that I still stop and move onto the next path. While I am working through this process, I will continue to be open to adding different ideas to my inventory of paths, but will only allow myself to have 4 other backups. If I want to add an idea, I will need to get rid of an existing one. This will be a form of quality control.
I will simply iterate the process of setting goals for the end of the month, working to achieve them, and then assessing my success to decide if I should continue on this path. I do think there are certain unknowns here. Perhaps a month won't be enough time to get much progress at all by spending only one hour a day. Perhaps, I will need to extend the assessment period to two months. Reflecting on the process itself is part of the learning process, but I will simply start with this basic monthly idea and make adjustments where necessary. I suspect much of the art and skill will be in coming up with good metrics and thresholds to decide whether to continue or move on.
I just realized I basically have adopted the approach outlined in the Lean Startup which is no coincidence. Soon I will write up a post to review my notes from the book. Then I will use the language of the book and hopefully the description of my process won't be so confusing.
Today, I am going to write about my "plan of attack", although I am hesitant to say it it much of a plan - yet.
First off, I wanted to offer a few reflections on my goal of abating 1 megaton of C02. My 21 month deadline is quite arbitrary and while I have wondered if the short deadline will come in conflict with my other ambitions, goals, and values for my life, it does provide a sense of urgency that will push me harder than if I had simply said I want to achieve this goal "at some point in my life". However, I am encouraging myself to see the potential conflicts as simply being individual problems that I can assess and solve just like any other problem.
For example, to achieve such a goal I would likely need to start a business. While I am interested in starting a business someday, I don't think that I would naturally begin immediately after finishing the fellowship in September. However, if I really want to meet this goal, it is almost necessary that I do start right after the fellowship. There are a few issues I see with starting a business right away. Some of them are fears about not having enough knowledge or experience, but these are exactly the kind of fears I want to push myself to overcome to achieve the goal. The more substantial concern has to do with funding. Starting a business takes money and I don't really have much money of my own. I could ask my parents for some seed funding, but this conflicts with my own values of self-sufficiency. I think I would prefer to start working at a job and slowly growth a business organically in my free time. After I have saved some money and the business starts to get some traction, I would then consider quitting my job to fully commit to my endeavor. While this may take longer, I maintain my self-sufficiency. I need more time to think this over, but perhaps I just need to let go of this idea of self-sufficiency and accept that I am a privileged kid who has parents that would probably be willing to provide some amount of seed funding to get me started. I guess it all depends upon how badly I really want to achieve my goal. If I want it badly enough, nothing should get in my way.
While I am still really excited to work on this goal, I still need to stay true to the fellowship. I have made a commitment to this fellowship, and it would be best for me to see it through. Therefore, I have decided to spend only one hour each day towards my goal for the duration of the fellowship. This will ensure that I continue to work on this goal, while reserving the bulk of my time for the fellowship.
My roadmap doesn't extend very far and only has a few mile markers. The big one is to have an idea that has demonstrated some traction when the fellowship ends in August. I need to come up with a metric to measure that traction and set a "traction threshold". To get me to that point I have resolved to spend January coming up with 5 different paths. By the start of February, I will decide which path I find most promising and then try to see if I can get any traction on that path. I will define certain metrics that need to meet certain thresholds to be called a success by the end of February. If I meet those thresholds by the end of the month, I will continue with that path. If I do not, that I still stop and move onto the next path. While I am working through this process, I will continue to be open to adding different ideas to my inventory of paths, but will only allow myself to have 4 other backups. If I want to add an idea, I will need to get rid of an existing one. This will be a form of quality control.
I will simply iterate the process of setting goals for the end of the month, working to achieve them, and then assessing my success to decide if I should continue on this path. I do think there are certain unknowns here. Perhaps a month won't be enough time to get much progress at all by spending only one hour a day. Perhaps, I will need to extend the assessment period to two months. Reflecting on the process itself is part of the learning process, but I will simply start with this basic monthly idea and make adjustments where necessary. I suspect much of the art and skill will be in coming up with good metrics and thresholds to decide whether to continue or move on.
I just realized I basically have adopted the approach outlined in the Lean Startup which is no coincidence. Soon I will write up a post to review my notes from the book. Then I will use the language of the book and hopefully the description of my process won't be so confusing.
