Colorcube: This game teaches clean sheet visualization

Posted: September 7, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave a comment

Set-up your focus to think in blank spaces and color.

When we are hustling throughout the day, we may lose the focus we need in order to tackle the next task or breakthrough the next problem. On your next break, consider this iOS puzzler, Colorcube. It is a simply elegant,  colorful, and relaxing game. This games takes the concept of the “clean sheet” and gives us a small purpose: use the shapes and colors to make the desired design.

Often, that is exactly what are jobs are asking us to do. The Clean Sheet task asks: “How would we do this starting from a blank pages, knowing what we have and what we can do?”

The rules of this Game make sense to your eyes

In Colorcube, two primary colors will combine for a secondary color, three primary colors create white space. It does not make scientific sense, but it makes a great visual style. Sometimes the trick is NOT to put something there, and sometimes the trick is, put a LOT of something there.

Work is much like that. We are in a constant battle to decide where and how much of our effort is needed.

  • Do we need to avoid work in this area?

OR

  • Do we need to actively keep work out of this area?

Avoiding extra work seems easy to do, and it requires a focus on the correct task.

Sometimes avoiding work is very difficult, and the real thing we must do is to put a lot of effort into an area (create a process or system) to keep ourselves from being distracted (see a previous post about the whirlwind).

Win by activating your unconscious visualization

The game is challenging and rather relaxing. Many times I don’t do anything. I look at the blank screen and I consider the design.

  • img_4369What IS there?
  • What IS NOT there?
  • Where are my PRIMARY colors, where are my SECONDARY colors.

I use this game with the Breathe app on Apple Watch. Once, I solved 3 puzzles in 3 minutes with under 70 beats per minute heart rate.

Rule book

Colorcube, Developer Site

Free Mindfulness Apps Worthy of Your Attention, mindful

The Clean Sheet, Drucker Institute

TETRIS teaches Daily Accountability

Posted: September 5, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Play Tetris to Set-up your mind for Daily Check-in Meetings

We cannot say which is more dreaded, anxiety caused by the relentless nature of the block-stacker Tetris or the anxiety felt when peppered with unanticipated questions at the daily huddle meeting. Consider using Tetris as a training ground “to think on your feet” and “to deal with what you can do.”

When Tetris debuted, rules were not yet written for this game.

Tetris presents a piece and you have to fit it into your tableau that is already succumbing to the forces of entropy. When you have a “left hand z” and you really need “right hand L”, those are the times that you decide: “find a spot for it and use the next piece to deal with it.”

This is a situation not unlike project management. For every evening when you go home with a clear desk and the hope that the project is finally “on track”, there is a morning where the project presents a new problem “we have never seen before.” Having a mind that quickly explores options can help.

  • Put the Piece to the side: What can we do right away to contain this problem?
  • Find a less problematic placement: What can we do to make things better?
  • Identify a future piece: What can we do in the future?

When you don’t Win at Tetris, Tetris gets you into Winning shape.

Tetris is like the Terminator:

  • It never gives up.
  • It never gets tired.
  • It will always win.

The relentless nature of the game purifies the mind as it is stressed to its limits.

I had always thought that the game was some sort of subversive reminder of the defeatist attitude from the old USSR. Three decades later, I understand the game to represent Hope.

Every time the game defeated me, I had hope that I could win the next round because:

  • “I know more now.”
  • “I will be smarter next time.”
  • “I won’t let that happen again.”

Tetris by Box BrownRule book

Read the Graphic Novel cum biography by Box Brown, Tetris.

Official Tetris web site