Compartmentalization

Originally published on Tumblr.

I once read that President Clinton is a brilliant compartmentalizer, i.e., that he can divide his mental life into non-overlapping compartments. I wished I shared that talent. I assumed that, like all talents, this one was innate. But I’m changing my mind. I’m starting to realize that it’s not a talent, but a skill. This is exciting, because skills can be developed.

I used to be a terrible compartmentalizer. Any part of my life that demanded a high degree of attention had a tendency to affect everything else. Back when I did a lot of coding, a single algorithm could completely consume me. I’d sometimes get up in the middle of dinner because I’d had an insight I needed to test right away. I’d wake up from a deep sleep and go to my home office because I thought I’d found a solution in a dream. A single problem could affect every part of my life.

Now that I do very little coding I’m mercifully free from that kind of obsession, and I wonder if, given the opportunity, I’d react the same way now. I don’t think I would.

I don’t think I would, because I’m slowly learning to put things in their own boxes. I used to become consumed by legal issues. They affected me the way programming used to. Now I size them up, decide on the most effective next step, and move on to something else, at least until that next step is complete. It’s a welcome change.

Oddly, I didn’t make that change consciously. It happened for two reasons: (1) because I became too busy to allow the obsession to win, and (2) because I finally allowed myself to trust our lawyers enough to do their job well.

This leads me to several conclusions.

First, if I can continue to develop this skill across other areas of my life, I’ll get more done with less effort. Allowing thoughts and emotions to bleed across areas of concern is a big waste of time.

Second, I need to surround myself with people I trust. I trust our lawyers because they always do what they tell me they’ll do, and because they keep track of what they need to get done over time. This seems almost miraculous. My starting expectation is that people will forget to do things they’ve agreed, and will forget the ultimate goals. For the longest time I used to keep other people’s tasks in my todo list with their initials and the date I assigned the task. I did that because I didn’t trust them to do it themselves. This doesn’t scale well. I still don’t trust most people, but it’s now clear to me that this problem can be solved.

I need to be explicit with people I work with. I have to tell them what will allow me to trust them. If they fail, I have to replace them.

I used to think that compartmentalization was just a mental game to wall off one part of your life from another. It is, but that’s not all there is to it. If it were I wouldn’t consider “trusting other people” part of the process. I’ve come to realize — and I’m sure a lot of people will wonder why it’s taken me so long — that most of my compartments involve other people, so it’s natural that those people are a necessary part of the solution.

Since I started thinking about this I’ve read about the danger of over-compartmentalization. I’m still a long way from having to worry about that personally. I still have trouble not keeping other people’s todo lists, and I still let work-related problems bleed into my personal life. But at least I have a starting point, a framework, and desire to make progress.