Idea Surplus Disorder

Welcome to another edition of Idea Surplus Disorder.

This week: what "dementia" really means, the experiences that shape our beliefs, the five roles every project needs, why worthwhile work should have weight, and how AI can help you move beyond the billable hour,

Plus, a mix of fun finds, inspiring quotes, and a question about all the things you measure that maybe you shouldn't.

As always, I'm Matt Homann, and I'm glad you're here!

My Favorite Find

I read hundreds of blogs and dozens of newsletters every week, and I always find more ideas than I can share. My highlight this week isn't a "favorite" per se; rather, it's something I wish I'd understood better about dementia before it struck my mother and father-in-law. Please read.

The first thing to understand is that “dementia” is not a disease. It is a syndrome—a description of a problem rather than its cause. The word means only that someone’s thinking has declined enough to interfere with daily life. Saying a person “has dementia” is like saying they “have a fever”: it tells you something is wrong, not what. 

Beneath this umbrella sit several distinct diseases that the media tends to merge into one. “Alzheimer’s” has become a generic label for memory loss, the way “Kleenex” stands in for tissue. The clumping obscures real differences, because these illnesses behave differently, are diagnosed differently, respond to treatment differently, and—as we will see—are exploited differently.

This Week's Question

This week's question is a profound one from Morgan Housel's book Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes:

What have you experienced that I haven't that makes you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?

A Few More Things Worth Your Time

This was written about work in an age of AI, but these roles feel applicable across any project:

• Prototyper: comes up with brand-new ideas; churns out many ideas, most of which don't ship
• Builder: quickly turns a prototype/idea into production-grade product/infra
• Sweeper: cleans up the UI, simplifies the code and system, unships, optimizes performance
• Grower: takes a product that has been built and iterates on it to improve product-market fit
• Maintainer: owns a mature system to make it secure, reliable, fast, and efficient as it scales

Do Heavy Work:

The modern makers’ machine does not want you to create heavy things. It runs on the internet—powered by social media and fueled by mass appeal, addicted to its own speed. It thrives on endless scrolls and screenshots. It resists weight and avoids friction. It does not care for intention, patience, or anything but production.

It doesn’t care what you create, only that you keep creating. Make more. Make faster. Make lighter. (Make slop if you have to.) Make something that can be consumed in a breath and discarded just as quickly. Heavy things take time. And here and now, time has become a tax. And so, we oblige—everyone does.

We create more than ever, but it weighs nothing.

Want to use AI to help you ditch the billable hour? This skill helps you rewrite hourly work as a fixed-scope offer.

Kevin Kelly on Hill-Making vs. Hill-Climbing:

Every now and then an upper-case, disruptive jump occurs, creating a whole new genre, a new territory, or a new way to improve. Instead of incrementally climbing up the gradient, this change is creating a whole new hill to climb. This process is known as hill-making rather than hill- climbing.

Hill-making is much harder to do, but far more productive. The difficulty stems from the challenge of finding a territory that is different, yet plausible, inhabitable, coherent, rather than just different and chaotic, untenable, or random nonsense. It is very easy to make drastic change, but most drastic changes do not work. Hill-making entails occupying (or finding) an area where your work increases the possibilities for more work.

Want to learn to pay better attention? Start by focusing on one thing you see every day:

Choose one thing you touch (or hear, or smell) repeatedly every day. It might be a door handle, a cup of coffee, a steering wheel, a shampoo, a refrigerator door—or whatever. Allow the repetition of your encounter with the thing to suggest that it has something to offer you.

Even two or three encounters is enough. Think of it as a friend offering you a gift, and accept that offering: The coolness and smoothness of the brass doorknob, or the pinkness and viscosity of the shampoo, or the earthy smell of the coffee, or the cushiony give of the refrigerator-door gasket.

And the next time you encounter that object, accept the gift again—or see if it offers you something new.

Random Things for Smart People

• Discover something wonderful on the web when you go Down the Rabbit Hole.
• Worse on Purpose tracks 215 brands across tools, bags, apparel, eyewear, and footwear. Who owns them, what they used to be, whether they're still worth buying.
• A 1990s video shop repurposed for today's "content."
• Liminal Bingo is a participatory photo hunt.
• In the Weights lets you type in your name and see whether today’s major AI models “know” who you are.

Words of Wisdom

Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does. – Richard Rumelt

The purpose of life is not to be happy at all. It is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you lived. – Leo Rosten

Risk is what's left over after you think you've thought of everything. – Carl Richards

When you forgive others they may not notice but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves. – Kevin Kelly

Whimsy is actually a form of resistance against a world that wants us to be miserable. – Unknown

This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to them again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today. – Herman Hesse