I’m currently creating a programming language and environment from scratch, with the idea to create something so useful it will successfully compete with spreadsheets and existing programming environments. I’m sane enough to know that’s a very hard and ambitious goal. In that context, I was thinking about what would be a good conceptual framework to develop this type of work (very difficult, very ambitious, and something that you are compelled to do anyway). This is what came up:

Clarity: it all starts with a vision of where you are headed, and why. Why is your work not only necessary, but (in retrospect), inevitable? How much better will things be when the work comes to fruition? Without a vision (and I wonder if it really has to be crisp in order to work), there’s no movement.

Push: showing up is the antidote to clarity. Clarity shows the gap between the present and the future. Push brings you back to the present, to actually engage in the work, daily, hourly. To put your nose to the grindstone. No amount of clarity will materialize a change unless there’s push.

Intensity: a difficult vision cannot just be executed by push. It requires intensity. Consistency of push can be deceiving: you might be pulling steadily like a strong oxen. But a vision requires more than ruts. Intensity is not just (or mainly) about hours worked, but in what you expect from that work. Are you going in to your work with your life in your hands, at least some of the time? Are you realizing how to do it differently, and better, than what you already changed last week? Intensity gives you wings.

Balance: behind and below this process there is a human. We can all take some intensity, but we cannot just live off it, or at least not for long. Balance is the antidote: taking care of your body, spending time with family and friends, perhaps even having a little fun outside your life’s work. Without balance, the vessel of creation (you) gets cracked and, on top of the human tragedy, there’s a creative tragedy because the vision is not fulfilled.

The antidote to balance is vision. You’re well-fed, rested, and happy? Go back to the future. The structure is circular.