Make Your Own Rules

What self-care rules will help you to do your best? What rules or standards will help this team to be the best? What are you 100 percent unwilling to do when it comes to this experience? What are the items this project must address? What should never be changed about our product/organization?

In wicked domains, the rules of the game are often unclear or incomplete, there may or may not be repetitive patterns and they may not be obvious, and feedback is often delayed, inaccurate, or both.

The imposition of rules is most valuable for an artist who has already made some work. If you’re established in a craft or field, temporary rules may be useful to break a pattern. They can challenge you to become better, to innovate, and to bring out a new side of yourself or your work.

Individuals need to calm down, and level up. Rely less on metrics, more on experience, hypothesis, and deriving truth and meaning from first principles. Rely less on static rules, and seek an understanding of the context in which those rules are appropriate.