Meta-Discipline Edge

I'm a bit obsessed with exponentials in terms of how they come about in various forms based on seemingly simple foundations.

Linear actions like maintenance work have a compounding effect in them but this can only be fully realized through automation and consistent routine.

Automation here can be understood via delegation to tools or the elimination of manual steps entirely. Both can be correct, to a certain extent. More on that later.

You know, during the old days, discipline was seen as a virtue inherent to success and tasks were purely manual. I'm talking about an era where showing up and doing the work, repeatedly, was the only path forward.

I think nowadays and across the board, repetitive procedures have become way more streamlined, shifting the focus to high-level strategic thinking.

Generally, it's just an observation that I tend to be aware of every time I optimize a small part of my life and then explore its scalability and human impact.

With technology that enables automation, scaling becomes virtually limitless, constrained only by the quality of the system design.

Meta-Discipline

The core dynamic here is that automation doesn't eliminate the need for personal development (PD), as that would just create dependency without growth, however it simply elevates the habits we need to cultivate.

New discipline on the block is meta-discipline, a habit of dedicating time to designing the system that does the work.

A practical example here that I usually experience is with my kind of daily sketching practice.

For many months now, I have committed to drawing one sketch almost every single day on paper. Grab a pencil, find a subject, draw for 30 minutes, done.

Some depths require you to take the plunge yourself
Image Source

It built my technical skills in this domain through sheer repetition.

Unsurprisingly, a significant portion of my mental energy does go into the logistics around the practice itself. Deciding what to draw and finding reference images.

The actual drawing takes 30 minutes and the surrounding tasks could easily consume another 10-20 minutes of decision-making and manual work.

Now, this is where automation enters the picture, and why that earlier distinction matters.

I started building systems around the practice to eliminate the friction around it, not to replace the drawing itself, since that's the irreplaceable human work.

Created a simple digital folder system that auto-organizes sketches by date. Look up a randomized prompt generator that gives me a subject each day, removing the "what should I draw" paralysis. Find another too that automatically backs up my work to the cloud.

Ideal Practical Scenario

Back to those two approaches I mentioned on delegation versus elimination.

In my sketching routine, delegation is using a tool to suggest daily prompts which outsources the brainstorming, but I retain creative control.

To be fair, can't wait to achieve sufficient technical skills to look at any image and attempt creating a replica of it with hand sketching.

Elimination is auto-syncing my sketches to cloud storage. I've completely removed the manual step of backing up my work.

Delegation preserves agency. I'm handing off the repetitive thinking (what to draw today?) to a system, but the meaningful decision (which prompt speaks to me right now?) stays mine. Elimination removes steps entirely. I never think about backups anymore, they just happen.

The point of the matter is delegation works best for tasks where judgment matters, elimination works much better for tasks that are purely mechanical.

We could see a widening gap between those who treat automation as a simple replacement (say, setting up a tool and forgetting it, ideal scenario) for their work and those who treat it as a lever to scale their unique human capabilities, more practical scenario.

The maintenance work of the future I presume will be more so on maintaining and improving the automated systems themselves, a linear action that is highly valuable and requires a compounding habit of intellectual rigor, i.e staying curious, learning new tools, and refining processes over time.


Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.

Posted Using