Saturday, February 06, 2010

Designing the robot secretary, pt 3

Thus, it's not enough to focus simply on one's ultimate goals and how they are fulfilled--one must also see that for every "ultimate" goal there is an "immediate" correlate. To write that book (someday) I need to educate myself (now). To love my grandchildren (someday) I need to eat healthy (now). To go to heaven (someday) I need to go to Mass (now)*.

*-No, one does not earn Heaven by going to Mass. Mass is not the price of Heaven. Going to Mass is merely the prescribed way of saying "yes" to God's free gift. Mass and Heaven are virtually one and the same.

And so the ultimate concerns need to be counter-balanced with immediate needs. And those immediate needs are governed by balance.

Balance is a tricky concept and it's one that needs to be broken down into concrete concepts if it's going to serve a function in a computer application.

I believe the definition of balance in this case exists somewhere between two concerns: (1) That I make sufficient immediate daily progress towards the milestones on the way to my ultimate goals so that they can be achieved without undue strain, and (2) that I serve the health and capability of my body and mind by enriching daily activity and avoiding excess.

One may add, as an appendix, (3) that I permit as much flexibility as necessary to live life in its unpredictability.

I believe that a computer program can reasonably factor all three of these in to a more or less satisfactory daily agenda. In the case of #1, it would be up to the user to outline "ultimate goals" and "milestones", as well as to estimate how much time certain milestones would take to achieve. For example, how many hours will it take me to become ready to take the Network + certification exam? When should I have taken that exam?


1 comment:

Matt of CG said...

Is not the goal of this, to find more free time, more "quality time?"

I can't remember for the life of me, if it was you who cast aspersions on the notion of, "quality time?" I do think it was from this very blog, years ago, you asserted that all time should be perceived as quality time as it once was in our more subsistent past. And, to consider any portion of time spent as being less than quality was vanity.

(I remember agreeing with you. So much so, that I didn't bother to respond. Or maybe I did? I can't remember.)