Mastering The Work Process

Mastering The Work Process of any discipline, art, skill, or project is among our first priorities when beginning any new endeavour. Since the work process is literally the thing itself.

On the one hand, it is precisely how to learn, practice, train, and develop in that field, as well as the specifics of what you have to do to become skilled. But on the other hand, it is the thing itself. If you are learning a new language, it is on the one hand all the parts of the language that you need to learn, but on the other, it is actually using the language. Constructing and using sentences from day one.

I did not always think this way, but over years of experience cultivate knowledge and skills to a high degree, I have found that we put so many things between ourselves and our goals. We think we have to do x, y, and z in order to do b. But the truth is, that you only learn how to do b by doing b.

A clean, effective work process and practice session is the key to rapid, stable, and thorough development. But also doing the thing from day one, is how to reach your goal.

The Work Process

The Work Process itself is exactly what we need to do each day in order to gradually build, grow, develop and work towards whatever we are trying to do. It is how to go from a to b.

If you want to start a business, the essence of that goal — and therefore the work process of that thing — is building and running the business. Yes, in its complete form it involves learning about business that you are tying to create. How to start the business, what you actually have to do, the things you need to know. But from a higher perspective, that is the pre-work. The work process is actually doing it.

Changing your diet, is literally buying groceries, cooking, and eating differently each day. Yes you need to change your knowledge to understand the science behind diet, nutrition, and fasting in order to create a new practice of eating. But don’t confuse knowing about the thing, with actually doing the thing.

(This is the difference between the Practice of Learning and the Practice of Doing.)

If you are building a device, you need to understand the Planning, Design, Software, and Hardware phases of the process. Each one requires its own skills, knowledge, and experience that we build over time.

However the Work Process is all of that together, and you are only going to figure all that out through experience. So just do that, by picking a project from day one, and learning how to do it all by, well, doing it all. Learn along the way. This is how you master the work process, and master the thing itself.

The System of the Work Process

When you are building any system, ideally you want to plan as rapidly as possible (without rushing) and install an initial system that you essentially update and tune. People spend so much time in the thinking and planning stages, without ever actually doing the work and getting the thing done.

You can learn all of music theory, and still not actually know how to write a great song. They are two different things, really. Theory vs Practice. Knowledge vs Wisdom.

I believe that mastering the work process is like mastering anything else. The work process or the work flow — the specifically designed methodology that you flow through when completing your projects in whatever field you are in — is the embodiment of the thing itself. It is not the knowledge or the skills of the thing individually, but what they look like in practice, combined together. It is the skill. A skill that can be honed, sharpened, until it is precise and technical.

Focus On What Is Most Important, And Get Everything Else Out Of The Way

I would say that the most fundamental lesson of mastering the work process is to get all of the nonessentials out of the way. Stop wasting time doing all of these things because you think you have to do them to get to what you really want to do, and just do what you really want to do.

It really is this simple.

It is only fear that is holding you back.

Literally, if you want to learn how to build electric motors (maybe you want to build your own electric scooter, skateboard, motorbike, hang-glider) just start building one. You don’t need to know any science, mathematics or engineering. Just find a tutorial online, buy the materials, and get building.

Then, after your first (inevitably garbage) attempt, build another one. Start from scratch, and do it again. A different tutorial, a different approach. New techniques. New ideas. Then after that one is done, do it again. And again.

That is the work process of an inventor. And by actually engaging in the exact work process, you are mastering the work process. While you do actually need to know some math, physics, engineering and electrical skills, you do not need to spend 6 months studying a textbook first. If you are one of the few who actually finish the textbook, you still won’t know how to build what you want to build.

I am not trying to downplay the learning aspect of something (because I studied the textbooks for years). What I am trying to explain is something that took me years to learn:

Stop putting things between you and your dreams.

In everything that I did, I spent years building knowledge and skill, trying to perfect these things because I was under the impression that if I perfect the skill, I would achieve what I desired. But I was wrong. You achieve what you are trying to achieve, by simply doing the work, rather than preparing yourself to eventually do the work.

My greatest regret is that I didn’t start trying to make music, as soon as I started learning music. I wish that I had started trying to write songs two weeks after I first picked up a guitar. I wish I had started writing a program from the first day I started to learn JavaScript or Python. I wish that I bought my physics, engineering, and mathematics textbooks and literally from the first day, used them not as the holy grail, but as a reference text, because now I realize the holy grail is just doing the work.

You can go from zero knowledge to building your first e-bike from scratch in 2 months. In that time, you will learn infinitely more about electronics, electricity, both the physics and engineering, and the practical mathematics of it all than by any other method. What is more important is that in this case, the desire probably wasn’t to “know all physics and engineering” but to be able to build something cool with your own hands. To take that first step as an inventor.

This is the real work process. I didn’t realize it at first, in nearly anything that I did, because I was so focused on learning. That is why now the first thing I do is begin thinking about mastering the work process, just so I can figure out what the work is that I want to do.

The Details of Mastering The Work Process

Over the years, there have been two things that have caused me more frustration, obstacles, limitation, and wasted time than anything else:

1. Ineffective Work That Doesn’t Get Results — Spinning your tires, going nowhere fast. Learning with no end in sight, never doing. Working at something, but never seeing it all come to fruition. This is the result of an impotent work process. You are probably doing too many things, doing the wrong things, and putting too many things between you and what you actually need (and want) to be doing.
2. Having To Restart, Relearn, Return To Square One … Again — This is the result of an ineffectual work and learning process. It is what happens when you don’t do the thing in a real, meaningful way. Like memorizing a bunch of words or phrases in a new language, which are easy to forget. Versus learning how to build sentences, and then building thousands of them, and practicing them relentlessly. That is what is means to learn a language — being able to use it, even if you sound like a toddler, not knowing a bunch of words.

Both of these are completely solved by Mastering the Work Process, which is just a fancy way of saying, just do the thing! Don’t think about doing the thing, or create a list of things you need to learn before doing the thing, just start working on it.

You will learn along the way. You will have to look things up endlessly, scour your textbooks for answers, seek the darkest corners of the internet. You will hit roadblock again and again, but you will learn problem solving. And most importantly, you will be on the road, which is what is truly exciting.