Bice just summarized a conversation that he and I had about the shape of our distractions. Between that conversation and now, I talked about completely different mental state malfunctions with Karl.
It makes me wish there were some rigorous way that we could talk about
these states, the problems they cause and the means we have of dealing
with them. Some kind of [pattern
language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language), or indeed a
calculus of action and organization.
Once you pare away the tickler files, electric labellers and Californian
style, [GTD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTD) gets close to this. [Havi
Brooks](http://twitter.com/havi) of [The Fluent
Self](http://www.fluentself.com) is also doing some great thinking in
this area, understanding it as an aspect of Yoga. She came up with the
term "Distractor Mouse Mode" that Bice wrongly credits me for.
I guess you've also got [Edward de
Bono](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono), the [life
hackers](http://lifehacker.com/). Also the authors of
[SICP](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/), who claim that computer science
is the first tentative steps of a primitive civilization toward a
calculus of process.
There's got to be something above the level of source code and staplers,
but below the level of spirituality, something that we can reason
rigorously about. Theologians reach amazing levels of precision
discussing the inner nature of God, why can we not do the same when
thinking about dealing with email?
As it is, De Bono has got his hats, the life hackers fold up index
cards, no one can agree on what a pattern language is, Brooks uses kooky
language deliberately and maybe one out of ten people I speak to about
GTD agrees with me.
Still, I get the feeling that something is happening.