One big issue I faced since the time I quit trying to go pro in Counter Strike, around March 2025, is having a system that consists of at least the following features: a to-do list, tracking projects and what I'm working on as well as have systems and procedures written down. ## Getting Better at a Video Game Looking back at it, I had a system like this before when I was playing video games 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. To put in simple terms, there was a limited amount of components one could focus at getting better at: - Mechanical skills - Cognitive skills - Mental skills *The difference between cognitive and mental skills is the difference between decision making and keeping your head in the game when losing (mental)* > To get better at these components of the game I had unintentionally created a system, which is also the same system I am using now in my professional life. I will take the simplest examples to understand. Improving cognitive skills. Irrespective of the domain, watching back someone else or yourself performing a task is one of the best ways to improve at anything. In my situation, that was watching back my own and professional games of the video game I was trying to get better at. Over time I built this habit of writing down notes of what to improve on and what my team or I could implement. For this example I will use the team element of this system. After I have these notes, I share them with everyone else at the next team practice session. Those notes are then discussed, to see if we can improve or build onto the idea, and if the idea is to be implemented within our gameplay then we all agree on how and when it will be used. The implementation of the finalised idea is written down in our "strat book" (a document that contains all our strategies and plays). Most of the time, the next step is to try this idea out in "scrims" (practice games against other teams). To have an effective game of practice, we would include the new ideas as one of the key things to focus on which ensured that as a team we would at least see the idea in play to essentially stress test the idea. It was also good to have it as an explicit key focus of our practice games so people could read the strat book and remind themselves of the idea so it is executed properly, minimising human error. The point of this is to expose the idea to oppositions and let weaknesses be shown. > Visit [[WIP, Effective improvement requires an intention]] to explore my experience and understanding for how to have an effective practice session, improve learning and see results. Normally, an idea would be tested within several scrims as different opponents have different play styles and naturally different humans have different reactions to the same variables. Following this experimentation, adjustments are made to the idea according to the data we have gathered from the scrims. Within the scrims I would also write down notes of things I see need to be adjusted or that I want to get better at myself. At the end of each practice session we would also do a short review session, which consisted of the team agreeing on what we should work on and any other feedback being distributed. > Note scrims usually did not show the impacts of conditioning well as teams usually have key focus points for the scrims they play so they minimally if so adjust to their opponents: [[WIP, Doing to practice vs Doing to succeed]]. This idea is now used in our official matches (tournament or league matches). The strat book can yet again be visited to remind oneself of all strategies and plays, allowing for minimal time wastage when a strategy is called to be carried out. ## The System In the example above I had a very simple system. It was very simple because it easily consisted of these 3 elements: 1) Temporary Notes 2) Permanent Notes 3) A to-focus-on storage **Temporary notes** are made anywhere: a notepad file, WhatsApp, steam overlay notes, messages. The point is that it does **NOT** matter where these notes end up, if they end up being lost in 2 weeks time or deleted. The objective of temporary notes is to contain information and for that information to exist until it has been reviewed (sometimes it's good to keep these notes until they get reviewed 1 or 2 more times after the initial review, depending on your context). Some examples of temporary notes that one could use are: - Sticky notes - Reminders - Notes made in school - WhatsApp messages (*can be to yourself*) - Calendar **Permanent notes** hold value. From my experience, permanent notes consist of: systems, procedures, ways of thinking, protocols, improvements, opinions, and much more. Essentially they hold a repeatable value to them, one that you could come back to. In fact, I am using this website as a method of storing permanent notes which in my case are essays. The main differentiator is the use case of the notes: sometimes you could think of an idea that you want to be implemented in your life randomly but you have to make it permanent. To do so, you have to put it in a format and place that **work for you**. Think of this type of note as honey. As a bee, you could produce honey and collect pollen but without a place to put it that is easily accessible it is useless. **A To-Focus-On storage** is essential to the progress one makes. There has to be a direction and an intention behind that direction. Without these two, where does your journey of making any type of notes come from? How do you know what you are looking for? For bees, this to-focus-on storage is built in by default however humans deal with different types of memory and it is mostly a waste of temporary memory (working memory) to hold what we need to be doing. In my initial writing of this essay, I wrote "to-focus-on list". This is wrong as the point of this storage is to have something that works **for you**. Some methods are probably better than others, but ultimately it is whatever actually gets you moving. I have made the mistake of looking for an ideal system that on paper is most productive and efficient, but in reality it was the least because I took little to no action and blamed it on me. Sure I could have somehow adjusted to it, but I argue that the system that intrinsically works for me is the best (*for me*). This storage can contain as grand or granular parts as you want it to. > One example I love to make is for some this to-focus-on storage can be a written down list of goals or actions as "grand" as "go to the gym and do an hour workout 2 times a week". However, others may benefit from or be at the stage of specifying how to work out, what regime are they going to stick to, tracking calories. The lesson is that whatever actually gets you to do the action works, you are your own individual. ## Beyond Notes I have found that this concept of temporary vs permanent goes way beyond notes. Here are some examples. 1) Temporary vs Permanent Videos: On social media I have found the better performing videos to have some permanent nature to them. In terms of educational creators, some examples could be having a key lesson explained well, or some information being explained using an analogy or metaphor. Positive interaction with content is typically the result of permanent content. A video being saved on TikTok is the result of something permanent within the video, and that factor is of course all dependent on the viewer. 2) Temporary vs Permanent Actions: One aspect I missed out from my main example is that actions are a critical part of existence, and when one is on a mission to excel at their chosen path their actions must become permanent. You might do some trial and error (*temporary actions*) and only stick to performing actions that yield results (*permanent actions*). The to-focus-on storage is probably going to be something intrinsic through values (*such as "I value health, therefore I strive for good form and least chance of injury"*) 3) Temporary vs Permanent Thoughts: Most thoughts I have are useless, I hope you can agree this is the same for yourself. It seems to me that it takes a trained mind to produce thoughts that align with your direction and intention. I have found that it takes consistent action and true understanding to have your thoughts build on the momentum you are generating. Only once your thoughts generated become effortless to reach you and spark the output you are looking for have you reached permanent thoughts. This same system also can be used to describe learning. When you first learn something, you do not have the neural pathways associated to it, therefore the knowledge is temporary for now. When you study more, sleep well and put that knowledge into action, those neural pathways are made and strengthened which results in, you guessed it, *permanent knowledge*. > I find this concept can apply in a lot of domains but the key idea to take away from all of this is to find something that works for you. It may even be possible this whole concept does not work for you. That is alright, [[WIP, Everyone is different]]