The Technology of Cockpit

Let me start with an analogy. Thomas Hughes writes in Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture (science * culture)

Landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn’s definition of landscape in The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (1984) suggests a way of thinking about technology. For her, landscape connects people and a place, and it involves the shaping of the land by people and people by the land. The land is not simply scenery; it is both the natural, or the given, and the human-built. It includes buildings as well as trees, rocks, mountains, lakes, and seas. I see technology as a means to shape the landscape.

Cockpit is a technology to shape the landscape of mind to lead us to a good work-day. Yes, wire-bound sheets of paper printed in a certain format containing just 11-phrases/words (which we call prompts). And we all think it's bloody difficult, is it?

A Perfect Mess

Franklin Planner, the scheduler which sells in millions across the world (but which doesn't necessarily benefits its users), finds its nemesis in A PERFECT MESS. Or maybe not, because the two products are different. One's a planning diary (more a scheduler, I'd say), while the other's a book on the benefits of disorder. In spirit of course they seem inimical but in material, there's been no option to the Franklin Planner.

As seen on the cover above, the book's premise is 'a little disorder helps more than perfect order'. In the context of planning, in general, perfect scheduling might not be a great way to stay effective at work. Franklin Planner, the way it is structured, tends to impose strict perfect scheduling.

Moreover, Franklin Planner, though calls itself a planner, surely doesn't help in planning all the necessary tasks because, like we've said earlier, it doesn't go beyond offering scheduling slots. It certainly doesn't aid in recalling stuff that needs to be done.

Converting the criticism into material form, here's an alternative to Franklin Planner. Something that introduces flexibility and that little 'disorder' without foregoing or forgetting the essential tasks needed to be accomplished during a typical workday.

This is not the end of the book;

On the backside of the jacket of This is Not the End of the Book, is a quote from Umberto Eco:

The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered.

It struck me like lightening and I just picked it up.

Am halfway through the book and, needless to say, it mesmerizes me by the way it surprises me every second page.

A notable thing is the book is in the shape of a deep deep conversation between Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere curated by Jean Philippe de Tonnac. And the most notable thing is, a thought by Eco is followed by/responded to by a thought from Jean-Claude and then followed by another thought from Eco and so on. It feels like once Eco speaks, Jean-Claude naturally responds. Once Jean-Claude speaks, Eco naturally responds. The conversation unfolds like the feet of a walker. After one foot lands, another foot naturally takes a step accordingly.

Isn't it how you would love to respond? Isn't it how you would like others to respond to you? Wouldn't you want to remember to respond, so that you respond in the way you would love to respond?