April 1, 2025
What is impatience? It's frequently treated as a vice that opposes the virtue of "patience." That feels backwards to me: Impatience might just be the thing telling us we're on the wrong path.
I discovered this while trying to sort out my troubles paying attention, mostly around avoiding small and obvious mistakes. Even in high school, my arithmetic skills were lacking, and my math grades weren't always top-of-the-line, both due to things like sign errors.
For decades, I bought into the "careless and sloppy" self-criticism. Not sure exactly how I made it this far, but I did, in spite of my "vices." But then I realized this might be entirely the wrong perspective.
What if impatience is our brain's way of telling us that something is wrong with this situation? We may not be able to pinpoint the problem, but we know it's there. Do we continue to soldier on in our sloppy, error-prone ways, or do we stop and evaluate what's really wrong?
Maybe I haven't mentioned it, but I use Emacs on all my systems, including my Android phone. My home directories on all these systems is a clone of a git repository, and Emacs is programmed to pull on starting and commit on closing. I used to have a 10-minute push timer, but that's never really saved me that much work.
On my Android phone, termux is my shell. A co-worker questioned me about not using native smartphone apps to speed things up and make things easier. I didn't have a great answer, except to say that slowing me down just a little bit makes me more deliberate. Very good things have come from that bit of friction.
But the function-loaded Android keyboards I want to use don't do swiping or predictive text, per sei, so accuracy was a problem for a long time. Retyping and worse -- sending typos -- was a common thing for me. When I realized I was getting impatient, I didn't immediately think about why, until it occurred to me that my impatience might be a positive message.
There are no other well-maintained keyboards like the "Unexpected keyboard" that I use. All the Emacs control keys are there, along with just about every special character and function key you'd ever need, and using one set of keys to easily access three or four keyboards' worth of characters with sideswipes is relatively easy for me. But I still blundered about at times.
Finally I decided to stop looking for something else, and put aside my vague groaning to build my own keyboard (possibly swatting a fly with a bazooka). Instead, I took a close look at how I was making mistakes. Long story short, there was a simple solution: move both hands when typing. Type with the right, but tilt the phone (with my left hand) to put different areas of the keyboard within reach as I type. It looks weird, but it works with much higher accuracy.
I think so. I'm no longer impatient that much when trying to type, and much more satisfied with the result. And a bigger issue was pushed toward resolution, as well. No side-quest to find or build the perfect keyboard, just a small tweak to my routine to make a very good keyboard work great.
Sometimes, we forget to look for the simplest possible solution, which may involve learning and practicing a new technique. You can hunt for better tools or you can find a way to work effectively with what you have.
Some people say the secret to success is stacking small wins, but then they propose a list of trivial actions to get you started. While baby steps do get you moving, they may not take you in a happier or more productive direction. In other words, stacking small wins isn't at issue, but picking the right battle -- the meaningful pivot point -- can be huge.
When you're feeling impatient or frustrated with a task, micro-focus your attention. What's really bothering you about this problem? Is it the task, or is it something simple about your technique that's creating friction? As I started to study this experience, I found that for me, it's very frequently that I'm either not using the right technique or just doing entirely the wrong thing to begin with.
Emphasis on the for me. You know the drill. Different tools, different sports, different favorite foods. Regardless, impatience will tell you when you're off your game. Use it to figure out what's wrong and find the pivotal change, and you're stacking real wins.
There's a side benefit: listening to your impatience causes you to pay attention to yourself and the task, which makes you find better practice. This whole experience has led me to create my own mantra for attention: "It's all in the wrist."
Would love to hear about your experiences with impatience.