Thought: Creating a Healthy Challenge

At work we have a community-neurodivergence slack channel with a weekly workflow that runs asking: What went right this week?

So this is a bit of a copy paste of what I said there

I’m working on multiple somethings outside work but which are definitely usable at work, and I seem to be making great progress on them. There are these moments where I get not quite what I’d call hyper-fixation, but some level of healthy challenge to try and pursue the result.

I think what makes it a healthy challenge is a combination of:

I observed the problem.
I’m feeling empowered to independently chase the problem. Empowerment as in not only was nothing stopping me from chasing it, but I am in an environment where I am encouraged to chase it, either through feedback or results.
Breaking the problem down into small parts that don’t need to run linearly, like in parallel rather than one after another, so I can switch up where my effort goes for a refresh. Which also means that if 2 out of the 6 facets I’m chasing fall off, it’s not the end of the work/result entirely.
While there are time sensitive/commitment bits, it’s a “I can put 5 minutes into this or an hour” scenario. Where 5 minutes of work means I can get what I feel is a passing grade to satisfy completion (and progress on the other parts), but an hour means I get an above and beyond the call of duty tier result, and is a reflection of that commitment.
Getting positive feedback on the progress. This is the biggest one. Positive feedback doesn’t need to come in the form of praise (though it definitely helps), but can be a “I am seeing the results of my work.”

Why not chase it during work time if it’s applicable at work (or during a read-only friday)?

I think you need this kind of fulfilment outside work, and candidly some environments aren’t the greatest for evoking the conditions for a healthy challenge feeling. Same reason scientists say not to do work from bed, it creates overlap and messes with your psych/physiology regarding your future engagement in that environment when something doesn’t go quite right.

So that’s why I think I’m going to take time to redo this blog a bit to be more like a tumblr style site, where I can break things into smaller posts featuring links and thoughts, so I can continue posting rather than taking an 8 month long break like I have here.

But, my formula for creating a healthy challenge feeling is:

You must observe the problem yourself
You should feel empowered to solve it
The problem can be solved with many small parts that can run in parallel (and some can fail)
The option to put either minimal work, or to go above and beyond the call of tuty on respective parts
You should get positive feedback on the progress