Sparks 1 Hour

[Dona Vansoest]

Iam very cautious about adding meetings to my calendar. For any recurring meetings, can they be one-off with additional instances being as-needed? For one-offs, do we need a meeting or can we connect async? If it is a meeting where most folks are going to be listening, can the presentation be pre-recorded and posted so everyone can watch async, and then answer questions or discuss in comments? If it is clear that the meeting will be valuable, I am more than happy to do it (including recurring ones). I just carefully assess that for each meeting.

On Sunday evenings, if I am not hanging out with friends, I like to look ahead in the week to see if I can spot things I can get done now. Getting them done ahead of time opens the possibility for me to work on art (say) during the week -- and just that possibility sparks joy! It also provides a buffer for any unexpected things that might come up on short notice, which helps keep stress down.

When a lot of pings are coming my way -- I pause to think whether they all need to be addressed right away. Can some wait till tomorrow? Can some things planned for tomorrow be done later in the week? I have found this to be highly effective in not feeling overwhelmed.

I often experiment with different systems and structures. For instance, I have experimented with spreading out meetings across days of the week and packing a couple of days in the week with meetings to see what works well for me.

I approach life holistically. Everything I described above applies to all of life. I optimize for thriving in life (not just work). I optimize for being happy in life (not just at work). The proportion of time I spend on work has varied (non-monotonically) over the years. At each point though, it was what it was because it made me happy.

I work on things I am intrinsically excited about -- things I can\u2019t not work on! These can be questions I am curious about (what would happen if we had humans go through the same processing pipeline we put machines through?), activities I can\u2019t wait to go back to (macrame, origami, generative art), outcomes I want to be a reality (a machine that you can ask questions to about images and it answers, a model that can generate fantastical depictions of creatures), projects I think would be fun to work on (e.g., semantic understanding of clipart scenes), etc.

External validation certainly feels (really) good! But I am not happy when I am optimizing for that. So I don\u2019t. A good number of things I find intrinsically motivating have gotten external validation, so things have worked out (in terms of career trajectory). A lot of things I have worked on haven\u2019t gotten external validation (in research, in generative art, in side-projects), and that\u2019s fine. Partly because I was happy while I was working on them and that\u2019s what I am optimizing for. Partly because those things gave me some new skills, built some muscles, and gave me updated world models -- which is all valuable. And partly because many of those projects created connections with communities I wouldn\u2019t have connected with otherwise (e.g., generative art), or created long-term relationships and collaborations with individuals that I value. So overall, while I am very grateful for the external validation when I got it, I don\u2019t regret doing the things that didn\u2019t get external validation. I did them because I couldn\u2019t not do them!

I minimize things that don\u2019t bring me joy -- where I am not bringing any value and it is not bringing any value to me. I ruthlessly optimize for this. If I find myself in a meeting where I zone out and think \u201Cwhat am I doing here?\u201D, that\u2019s a trigger for me to take a very careful look at my involvement. Depending on what role I am playing in the effort, it could mean reconsidering the format or cadence of meetings or reconsidering my involvement altogether.

For me, minimizing drag often involves saying no to things that I think would be good for external validation, but I know I am not going to enjoy doing. A recent example: I was invited to be on a panel at a high-visibility event, but I knew I wouldn\u2019t particularly enjoy it, so I said \u201Cno\u201D.

On the flip side, I\u2019ll often say yes to things that are somewhat \u201Crandom\u201D and won\u2019t bring external validation, but I think would be fun to do (e.g., I agreed to do a brief interview with an effort organized by a small Indian publication for Engineer\u2019s Day (I didn\u2019t know that was a thing :)) or where I think I bring value (e.g., I often agree to chat with folks I don\u2019t know who reach out to me looking for advice or perspectives on something). A lot of community-building activities pass this \u201Cminimize drag\u201D threshold (with flying colors!) -- because I get joy from bringing value.

I\u2019ve also written about how I manage email. I apply the same zero-inbox strategy to all communication -- Chat messages and notifications at work, WhatsApp messages, Messenger messages, etc. It annoys me that Twitter and Instagram DMs don\u2019t have an \u201Carchive\u201D option :). This plays a big role in keeping communication channels \u201Cclean\u201D and uncluttered.

I am a huge fan of bots that let me send delayed messages on chat or email at work. To be honest, I wish there wasn\u2019t this need for folks who like working \u201Codd hours\u201D to find ways to be \u201Cquiet\u201D and tiptoe around via these bots. It would be ideal if everyone changed their settings so they don\u2019t get pings in certain hours of their choice. That way everyone can work (or not) freely whenever they like. Both as a matter of principle, but also practically, given that many of the organizations we work at are global. It is not uncommon to have people on the team who have 0 overlap in work hours (e.g., west coast in the US with some countries in Europe). Does that mean all communication on the team needs to be via these bots? (I understand that power dynamics complicate these things, and so \\\"just set your settings as you like\\\" is easier said than done. There is also a good chance I am missing other perspectives here. So I plan to continue tiptoeing when I am working outside of \u201Cnormal\u201D hours :)).

I keep an eye out for when I feel stressed or am generally not as happy as I\u2019d like to be. I think about it analytically (to the extent that I can) to identify what the source of discomfort is. And I try to think of what I can do to make it better.

If something worrisome comes up (e.g., interpersonal conflicts, or a critical approval running into roadblocks), I pause to notice the discomfort. I explicitly assess whether there is something I can do about it in the moment, or if I need to think about it before doing anything. If I can do something about it, I do it and try not to dwell on it till there is an update in the situation. If I need to think about it, I mark my calendar for later in the day or the next day with \u201Cthink about X\u201D and move on with the rest of my day. \u201CMoving on\u201D doesn\u2019t come naturally to me and is something I have to explicitly remind myself to do. But I\u2019ve been able to build this muscle faster than I expected -- once I did it a couple of times and found that it helped quite a bit, it made it easier to do it in future instances.

A \u201Cfailure\u201D story: I moved to a different part of FAIR in July this year. Over the summer, I still had all my earlier responsibilities and also had a lot going on in terms of setting up a new team and project. Dhruv and I had moved from Menlo Park to San Francisco for a few months. We have several friends who live in SF, and we met quite a few new people. So our social lives were unusually active too. All in all, it was the first time in my life I remember feeling like I was approaching my capacity (for transparency: it hurts my ego a bit to acknowledge that :)). I approached it as \u201CThis doesn\u2019t feel right. I don\u2019t like this stress. Let me pause and take a step back. What is going on? Why am I overwhelmed? Why does it feel like I am running out of time before I\u2019ve had a chance to do everything I want in the day? Is it really just too many things? Or am I making things more urgent than they need to be? Am I really running out of time, or does it just feel like it? Am I reacting to situations with stress in ways that are not helpful? Etc.\u201D. I found it very useful to reflect on this every time I felt overwhelmed, and then make tweaks to make it better.

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