I am attracted to the concept of kaizen, also known as CANI: the philosophy and science of Constant And Never ending Improvement (CANI). It overlaps with the concept of “The Infinite Game”—an innovation mindset, as developed by Simon Sinek, which approaches work without a defined endpoint, but rather the development of a sustained excellence.
But perhaps both of these two terms are too serious?
For example, as shown above, I am currently comparing an audible, ticking-timer versus a quiet, visual-timer to help monitor my writing blocks. (The ticking of the ticking-timer is quite pleasant, but determining time left is a little hard to see and requires me to estimate a number, whereas the visual timer is completely silent and gives me nearly instantaneous feedback of my time left by showing me the “volume” of time left). I am trying to improve the quality of my writing time, which I discussed in my blog post The Pomodoro Technique.
Is this a personal application of kaizen or infinite game management? Maybe, but in my mind I am just “playing around a little”, looking to nudge my productivity a bit.
I don’t think every effort to improve my craft needs to have a fancy philosophical business term describing it to be worth trying.