James Clear

To understand Why Modes Are Wrong™, consider Bret Victor's Inventing on Principle:

https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/inventing-on-principle-by-bret-victor

An app is the Ultimate Mode, of course, and there is a contextual sweet spot where you can draw the line between universality and contextual exclusivity.

This line depends on "nearness" (or familiarity) and your short & long-term working memory, but in general humans seem to enjoy universal modalities like Select/Cut/Copy/Paste that do not require you to switch into "Cut Mode" or "Copy Mode" while you are working with text, i.e. heritable context should provide heritable modes.

And yet, religious Vim users champion granular modes above all, including Selection and Edit modes. My conclusion is that they are either very wrong, or serious users have different neural architectures.

I'd highly recommend reading Atomic Habits. One of the key concepts in the book regarding changing habits is developing or changing how you identify yourself. From your post, it appears you like starting things. More details from authors blog here:

https://jamesclear.com/identity-based-habits

For me, I started diligently tracking what new interests I develop. Before I picked up a new topic of research or area of interest, I would put it in a note and evaluate if this would take me closer or further from my overall goal. I stopped spending too much time on a new interest if it did not align with my overall goal. "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." It is really important to be self-aware of this trend, and you have shown that you want to improve.

Good luck!

Tell that to Richard Hamming: "Instead of attacking isolated problems, I made the resolution that I would never again solve an isolated problem except as characteristic of a class." [1]

I have seen this "premature abstraction" warning creep through our discourse lately, but I don't clearly understand it. I feel like I'm making calls all the time about when to introduce functions or classes that will save you time or effort in the future without forcing yourself to see the repetition before you do. Not only that but Hamming's advice has rung true in my career. Solving the general problem is often easier than solving a specific case and can be re-used for later instances, too.

[1] https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/you-and-your-research-by-richard-hamming

For all the people who don't like this change, here's an analogy. Try thinking of it like you're making your bed. Admiral William H. McRaven has a terrific speech (link: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/make-your-bed-by-admiral-william-h-mcraven ) about making your bed, with some excellent quotes:

"Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right."

"If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed."

No one really thinks that renaming "master" branches is going to save the world, or really, do much of anything. I'm going to do it because it's a little thing that takes less than a day. After that I'll move on to something else.

Charlie used a quote from George Bernard Shaw's play “In the last analysis, every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.”

I personally wonder how many therapists say “you’re fixed, I don’t need any more of your money”.

The quote on management consultants was just one example of how many professionals act this way towards businesses, and how it wasn't only about money but also a subconscious, psychological tendency.

“The guy tells you what is good for him, and he doesn’t recognize that he’s doing anything wrong any more than that doctor did when he was pulling out all those normal gallbladders.”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv7sLrON7QY

Transcript: https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/psychology-of-human-misjudgment-by-charlie-munger

This is your regular reminder that Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and usage did not go up but the health effects and negative societal effects of drug use all but vanished [1]. They went from worst in the EU to among the best in the EU in the decade that followed on pretty much every metric.

Addiction has a huge situational component. 20% of US GIs in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. When they returned home 90% of them stopped using heroin overnight, indefinitely [2].

We're doing this all wrong.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it

[2] https://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits