I am interested in hearing critiques from people who’ve set, like, at least a 15 minute timer to sit and ask themselves, “Okay, suppose I did want to improve at these sorts of skills, or related ones that feel more relevant to me, in a way I believed in. What concretely is hard about that? Where do I expect it to go wrong?”, and then come back with something more specific than “idk it just seems like this sort of thing won’t work.”
I did just that, I set a fifteen minute timer and tried to think of exercises I could do which I think would both have direct connections back to my day-job, while also improve general cognitive skills. Why? Because I want this to work—this is exciting. However it is not something that 15 minutes, or more, of focused thinking can solve—I think you’ve drastically oversold that.
In my case (* CAUTION * SAMPLE OF ONE ALERT * CAUTION * ), I’m a freelance videographer.
TL;DR—I couldn’t think of any strategies that would improve my metacognition that helped with my deficiencies in my dayjob such as marketing, but vaguely suspect that if I had a specific method for editing found footage into cogent sequences (montages) of about 1 minute, once a week, I might improve metacognitive skills that build on pattern recognition and workflow/operational management.
I think my biggest weaknesses in my dayjob have to do with anything that comes under self-promotion, generating leads, marketing, sales, and helping clients promote themselves using my video materials. I was unable to think of a single exercise which I think would improve my metacognition in any of those topics. Any exercise, I suspect would become a checklist a kind of “do X Y Z and get more likes” rather than honing ways and strategies of thinking.
So what is related to my day-job that would? I suspect that if I set myself a weekly challenge of editing a sequence from found footage that pertained to a pseudo-random topic of theme that this might possibly pay dividends in terms that generalize to metacognition. My best guess is that this should improve metacognition on two ends, firstly there is sourcing the material and thinking about the most efficient workflow, this kind of thinking applies not just to videos, but more generally organization and even has parallels in film pre-production. I can’t give you any more specifics about that. The other end it would improve metacognition strategies is more “soft-skills” in the sense that by creating compressed sequences from divergent sources of material that may not on first blush share a theme, it is inducing cognitive strategies that allow me to see parallels, or even contrasts, and more importantly to produce a whole from divergent parts. A lot of deceptive editing is basically this from less divergent sources.
The difficulties become about not goodharting to select themes and topics for which material is easier to come by, or easier to develop workflow about, themes and topics of sequences for which it is easier to create legible narratives or emotional arcs rather than just smooshing a random bunch of images together that all seem to pertain to a broad theme.
What constitutes a theme? Or to phrase it better—what are the commonalities of themes are going to make it easier to develop metacognitive skills by means of weekly editing exercises? Is it verbs that describe actions—“racing” “beckoning” or more vague verbs like “sharing” “pleasing” “alienating”? Does the ambiguity of vague themes like “integrity” or “wisdom” lend itself to better cognitive strategies?
And finally, how do I measure the success—where does the feedback come from? Do I operate under a time constraint? Should i install a mouse tracked and key logger and see how I can get finished with the least amount of clicks—which measure will directly connect to metacognitive strategies? I don’t know and it is easier to poke holes in it than it is to find convincing reasons it would work.
If there’s anything I’ve missed or something clearly wrong about how I’m approaching this, I’d love to hear it. Like I said, finding fast feedback loops to improving metacognitive strategies so I find questions worth asking rather than being directed by idle curiosity, noticing when my plans are based on shaky assumptions, and developing a calibrated sense of when you’re meandering thought process is going somewhere valuable, vs when you’re off track”. - OMFG YES PLEASE!
The first thing that comes up when I look at this is I’m not that sure what your goals are, and I’m not sure whether the sort of thing I’m getting at in this post is an appropriate tool.
You say:
I suspect that if I set myself a weekly challenge of editing a sequence from found footage that pertained to a pseudo-random topic of theme that this might possibly pay dividends in terms that generalize to metacognition.
This sounds like you’re seeing the metacognition as more like a terminal goal, than an instrumental goal (which I think doesn’t necessarily make sense).
I do think metacognition is generally useful, but in an established domain like video-editing or self-promotion in a fairly understood field, there are probably object-level skills you can learn that pay off faster than metacognition. (Most of the point of metacognition there is to sift out the “good” advice from the bad).
I want to separate out...
purposefully practicing metacognition
purposefully practicing particular object level skills, such as videoediting or self-promotion (which involves figuring out what the subskills are that you can get quicker feedback on)
purposefully practice “purposeful practice”, such that you get better at identifying subskills in various (not-necessarily-metacognition-y) domains.
...as three different things that might (or might not) be the right thing for you.
Right now I can’t really tell what your goal is, so I would first just ask “what is it you are trying to achieve?” 1-3 years from now, how would you know if [whatever kind of practice you did] turned out to work? (I think it’s helpful to imagine “what would an outside observe watching a video recording see happening differently”)
It’s apparent I’ve done a terrible bad job of explaining myself here.
What is my immediate goal? To get good at general problem solving in real life, which means better aligning instrumental activities towards my terminal goals. My personal terminal goal would be to make films and music videos that are pretty and tell good stories. I could list maybe 30 metacognitive deficiencies I think I have, but that would be of no interest to anyone.
What is my 1-3 year goal? Make very high production value music videos that tell interesting stories.
This sounds like you’re seeing the metacognition as more like a terminal goal, than an instrumental goal (which I think doesn’t necessarily make sense).
I do think metacognition is generally useful, but in an established domain like video-editing or self-promotion in a fairly understood field, there are probably object-level skills you can learn that pay off faster than metacognition. (Most of the point of metacognition there is to sift out the “good” advice from the bad).
I apologize I did a terrible job of expressing myself, I’ve apparently said the complete reverse, ass-backwards thing to what I meant[1]. I was looking for exercises that could help improve my metacognition, it’s not even about video editing at all. Most of the exercise would involve thinking about everything logistical to facilitate video editing: transcoding footage, thinking about to choose themes, creating workflows and thinking about “which thing do I need to do first?”. But like you said, I spent half an hour actually trying to think about how to put this into practice. And apparently I got it wrong. It’s not easy.
I just didn’t think the thinking physics text book you suggested would be particularly interesting to me or translate well to my life.
Interesting though that you say the paint point of metacognition is to sift out ‘good advice’ from the bad. I was under the impression metacognition was more generally how we strategize our thinking. Deciding what we give attention to, and even adopting framing for problems and situations rather than just letting heuristics and intuitions come to hand and that these skills apply across domains.
That being said, I’m really bad at sifting advice.
purposefully practice “purposeful practice”, such that you get better at identifying subskills in various (not-necessarily-metacognition-y) domains.
This one! What would that look like in practice? That is certainly the one that interests me.
think it’s helpful to imagine “what would an outside observe watching a video recording see happening differently”)
I’m probably answering this question in the wrong way but this particular question is not helpful to me, because I can only describe the results—the end result is I make videos with higher production values that communicate better stories. What am I doing differently to eventuate that result? I dunno… magic? If I knew what I should be doing differently. I’d be doing it, wouldn’t I?
I’d like to get really good at replacing “and somehow a good thing happens” with a vivid explanation of a causal chain instead of “somehow”.
What is my immediate goal? To get good at general problem solving in real life, which means better aligning instrumental activities towards my terminal goals. My personal terminal goal would be to make films and music videos that are pretty and tell good stories. I could list maybe 30 metacognitive deficiencies I think I have, but that would be of no interest to anyone.
What is my 1-3 year goal? Make very high production value music videos that tell interesting stories.
Cool, that’s helpful.
I’m probably answering this question in the wrong way but this particular question is not helpful to me, because I can only describe the results—the end result is I make videos with higher production values that communicate better stories.
This was a fine answer. “The end result is that I make videos with higher production values that communicate better stories.” (To fit my question frame, I’d say “people would observe me making music videos somehow-or-other, and then, those music videos being higher quality than they otherwise would.”)
So, it might totally be that General Problem Solving is the skill it makes sense for you to get better at, but I wouldn’t assume that from the get-go. You might instead just directly study filmmaking.
I realize this is a bit annoying given that you did make an honest attempt at the exercise I laid out (which I think is super cool and I appreciate, barely anyone does that). Before it makes sense to figure out how to develop general problem solving or metacognition, it’s important to doublecheck whether those are the appropriate tool for your goal.
So, (I mean this as an earnest question, not like a gotcha) why are you currently interested in general problem solving (as opposed to filmmaking?) Is it because general problem solving is intrinsically interesting/rewarding to you (if you could find a path to doing so?). Or because it just seemed pretty likely to be the a good step on your journey as a filmmaker? Or just because I gave a prompt to see if you could figure out a way to apply general problemsolving to your life, and there was at least some appeal to that?
Edit: I just saw your other comment that you studied filmmaking in college, so please excuse the over-explaining in this comment stuff that is no doubt oversimplified to you. Although I will state that there is no easier time to make films than in filmschool where classmates and other members of your cohort provide cast and crew, and the school provides facilities and equipment removing many of the logistical hurdles I enumerate.
So, (I mean this as an earnest question, not like a gotcha) why are you currently interested in general problem solving (as opposed to filmmaking?) Is it because general problem solving is intrinsically interesting/rewarding to you (if you could find a path to doing so?). Or because it just seemed pretty likely to be the a good step on your journey as a filmmaker? Or just because I gave a prompt to see if you could figure out a way to apply general problemsolving to your life, and there was at least some appeal to that?
More so the last one, I’m bad at general problem solving, I’m also very messy and disorganized because I can’t find the right “place” for things which suggests I’m very bad at predicting my own future self in such a way that I can place objects (and notes for that matter) in assigned spaces which will be easy and obvious for me to recall later.
That being said my only interest, my single minded terminal goal is to tell good visual stories but to quote Orson Welles “filmmaking is 2% filmmaking 98% hustling”. I’m not a hustler. The logistical and financial problem solving that facilitate the storytelling/filmmaking are things I am absolutely terrible at. So much of filmmaking is figuring out logistics, time management, practical problem solving that has little or nothing to do with the aesthetic intentions. The other half is the sociological component but that seems less relevant to metacgonition.
A poet friend of mine describes the tremendous difference between when she wants to create—she picks up a pen and paper. And a filmmaker who needs to move heaven and earth.
Music videos in fact simplify a lot of the logistical problems of filmmaking because they are shorter, there’s less of an onus to persuade and pitch an idea, since the band already are invested emotionally (and financially) in having a video made. You just need to help them get their story across, not sell them on your own story. However that still requires getting commisions, marketing, and presents it’s own logistical challenges owing to shorter turnarounds.
The simple fact is I’m not a schmoozer or a networker—whether you want to make films or music videos, you need someone to give you the opportunity (usually that means finances, but not necessarily). That’s the first hurdle. The second hurdle is that you can have a great idea for a music video, can storyboard it, it can all make sense in aesthetic terms but the logistics of making it happen are another thing entirely. You can have something that makes sense as story, but making it requires broad problem solving skills… more so when you don’t have finances.
Now assuming that a musician or band does commission me for a music video, they’ve agreed to a pitch, which happens with more and more frequency as my reputation has grown over 5 years of doing this—now what?
Firstly you need a space to film this music video. Then you need to consider, with musicians you often need to find a time when they can all take time off of work and doesn’t impinge on their music-making. Now you find yourself trying to contort the logistics into a window of time that allows you to bump in and out of several locations, set up camera, lights, change costumes and makeup, maintain continuity (although less so an issue in music videos). I find myself writing gantt charts and estimating “turnarounds” and finding the most expedient order to put things in.
The space to film needs to be appropriate aesthetically, it needs to add to the story, the larger the better. It needs the right lighting, that involves a whole host of considerations beyond the aesthetics of lighting and colour theory like—how many watts can we draw from the wall? If we want a diffuse light, where do we physically put the sheet or diffuser in a confined but aesthetically appropriate space? What if we’re not allowed to move certain furnishings as part of the deal with the owners of the space but it’s really ruining our shot? How do we solve that?
I could go on and on and on. Do you know how many film shoots I’ve been on where police were called? The storytelling, the shot selection, the colour palettes, the communication of gesture and intent to performers, the editing and selection of shots, the rhythm and pacing… that’s not the hard part: money and logistics are.
Many of these problems could be solved (re: outsourced) with more finances, being able to hire other people who specialize in those things. Most people say “you should get a producer” and it’s like… yeah, how do I find this magical person?
When I have a great story in my head, and you ask me “how do you do that?”—i shrug. I don’t know.
I did just that, I set a fifteen minute timer and tried to think of exercises I could do which I think would both have direct connections back to my day-job, while also improve general cognitive skills. Why? Because I want this to work—this is exciting. However it is not something that 15 minutes, or more, of focused thinking can solve—I think you’ve drastically oversold that.
In my case (* CAUTION * SAMPLE OF ONE ALERT * CAUTION * ), I’m a freelance videographer.
TL;DR—I couldn’t think of any strategies that would improve my metacognition that helped with my deficiencies in my dayjob such as marketing, but vaguely suspect that if I had a specific method for editing found footage into cogent sequences (montages) of about 1 minute, once a week, I might improve metacognitive skills that build on pattern recognition and workflow/operational management.
I think my biggest weaknesses in my dayjob have to do with anything that comes under self-promotion, generating leads, marketing, sales, and helping clients promote themselves using my video materials. I was unable to think of a single exercise which I think would improve my metacognition in any of those topics. Any exercise, I suspect would become a checklist a kind of “do X Y Z and get more likes” rather than honing ways and strategies of thinking.
So what is related to my day-job that would? I suspect that if I set myself a weekly challenge of editing a sequence from found footage that pertained to a pseudo-random topic of theme that this might possibly pay dividends in terms that generalize to metacognition. My best guess is that this should improve metacognition on two ends, firstly there is sourcing the material and thinking about the most efficient workflow, this kind of thinking applies not just to videos, but more generally organization and even has parallels in film pre-production. I can’t give you any more specifics about that.
The other end it would improve metacognition strategies is more “soft-skills” in the sense that by creating compressed sequences from divergent sources of material that may not on first blush share a theme, it is inducing cognitive strategies that allow me to see parallels, or even contrasts, and more importantly to produce a whole from divergent parts. A lot of deceptive editing is basically this from less divergent sources.
The difficulties become about not goodharting to select themes and topics for which material is easier to come by, or easier to develop workflow about, themes and topics of sequences for which it is easier to create legible narratives or emotional arcs rather than just smooshing a random bunch of images together that all seem to pertain to a broad theme.
What constitutes a theme? Or to phrase it better—what are the commonalities of themes are going to make it easier to develop metacognitive skills by means of weekly editing exercises? Is it verbs that describe actions—“racing” “beckoning” or more vague verbs like “sharing” “pleasing” “alienating”? Does the ambiguity of vague themes like “integrity” or “wisdom” lend itself to better cognitive strategies?
And finally, how do I measure the success—where does the feedback come from? Do I operate under a time constraint? Should i install a mouse tracked and key logger and see how I can get finished with the least amount of clicks—which measure will directly connect to metacognitive strategies? I don’t know and it is easier to poke holes in it than it is to find convincing reasons it would work.
If there’s anything I’ve missed or something clearly wrong about how I’m approaching this, I’d love to hear it. Like I said, finding fast feedback loops to improving metacognitive strategies so I find questions worth asking rather than being directed by idle curiosity, noticing when my plans are based on shaky assumptions, and developing a calibrated sense of when you’re meandering thought process is going somewhere valuable, vs when you’re off track”. - OMFG YES PLEASE!
The first thing that comes up when I look at this is I’m not that sure what your goals are, and I’m not sure whether the sort of thing I’m getting at in this post is an appropriate tool.
You say:
This sounds like you’re seeing the metacognition as more like a terminal goal, than an instrumental goal (which I think doesn’t necessarily make sense).
I do think metacognition is generally useful, but in an established domain like video-editing or self-promotion in a fairly understood field, there are probably object-level skills you can learn that pay off faster than metacognition. (Most of the point of metacognition there is to sift out the “good” advice from the bad).
I want to separate out...
purposefully practicing metacognition
purposefully practicing particular object level skills, such as videoediting or self-promotion (which involves figuring out what the subskills are that you can get quicker feedback on)
purposefully practice “purposeful practice”, such that you get better at identifying subskills in various (not-necessarily-metacognition-y) domains.
...as three different things that might (or might not) be the right thing for you.
Right now I can’t really tell what your goal is, so I would first just ask “what is it you are trying to achieve?” 1-3 years from now, how would you know if [whatever kind of practice you did] turned out to work? (I think it’s helpful to imagine “what would an outside observe watching a video recording see happening differently”)
It’s apparent I’ve done a terrible bad job of explaining myself here.
What is my immediate goal? To get good at general problem solving in real life, which means better aligning instrumental activities towards my terminal goals. My personal terminal goal would be to make films and music videos that are pretty and tell good stories. I could list maybe 30 metacognitive deficiencies I think I have, but that would be of no interest to anyone.
What is my 1-3 year goal? Make very high production value music videos that tell interesting stories.
I apologize I did a terrible job of expressing myself, I’ve apparently said the complete reverse, ass-backwards thing to what I meant[1]. I was looking for exercises that could help improve my metacognition, it’s not even about video editing at all. Most of the exercise would involve thinking about everything logistical to facilitate video editing: transcoding footage, thinking about to choose themes, creating workflows and thinking about “which thing do I need to do first?”. But like you said, I spent half an hour actually trying to think about how to put this into practice. And apparently I got it wrong. It’s not easy.
I just didn’t think the thinking physics text book you suggested would be particularly interesting to me or translate well to my life.
Interesting though that you say the paint point of metacognition is to sift out ‘good advice’ from the bad. I was under the impression metacognition was more generally how we strategize our thinking. Deciding what we give attention to, and even adopting framing for problems and situations rather than just letting heuristics and intuitions come to hand and that these skills apply across domains.
That being said, I’m really bad at sifting advice.
This one! What would that look like in practice? That is certainly the one that interests me.
I’m probably answering this question in the wrong way but this particular question is not helpful to me, because I can only describe the results—the end result is I make videos with higher production values that communicate better stories. What am I doing differently to eventuate that result? I dunno… magic? If I knew what I should be doing differently. I’d be doing it, wouldn’t I?
I’d like to get really good at replacing “and somehow a good thing happens” with a vivid explanation of a causal chain instead of “somehow”.
Maybe before I focus on metacognition I should get better at being understood in written communication?
Cool, that’s helpful.
This was a fine answer. “The end result is that I make videos with higher production values that communicate better stories.” (To fit my question frame, I’d say “people would observe me making music videos somehow-or-other, and then, those music videos being higher quality than they otherwise would.”)
So, it might totally be that General Problem Solving is the skill it makes sense for you to get better at, but I wouldn’t assume that from the get-go. You might instead just directly study filmmaking.
I realize this is a bit annoying given that you did make an honest attempt at the exercise I laid out (which I think is super cool and I appreciate, barely anyone does that). Before it makes sense to figure out how to develop general problem solving or metacognition, it’s important to doublecheck whether those are the appropriate tool for your goal.
So, (I mean this as an earnest question, not like a gotcha) why are you currently interested in general problem solving (as opposed to filmmaking?) Is it because general problem solving is intrinsically interesting/rewarding to you (if you could find a path to doing so?). Or because it just seemed pretty likely to be the a good step on your journey as a filmmaker? Or just because I gave a prompt to see if you could figure out a way to apply general problemsolving to your life, and there was at least some appeal to that?
Also: My actual background / college degree was in filmmaking so I have at least some context on that.
Absolutely not. I cannot stress this enough.
Edit: I just saw your other comment that you studied filmmaking in college, so please excuse the over-explaining in this comment stuff that is no doubt oversimplified to you. Although I will state that there is no easier time to make films than in filmschool where classmates and other members of your cohort provide cast and crew, and the school provides facilities and equipment removing many of the logistical hurdles I enumerate.
More so the last one, I’m bad at general problem solving, I’m also very messy and disorganized because I can’t find the right “place” for things which suggests I’m very bad at predicting my own future self in such a way that I can place objects (and notes for that matter) in assigned spaces which will be easy and obvious for me to recall later.
That being said my only interest, my single minded terminal goal is to tell good visual stories but to quote Orson Welles “filmmaking is 2% filmmaking 98% hustling”. I’m not a hustler. The logistical and financial problem solving that facilitate the storytelling/filmmaking are things I am absolutely terrible at. So much of filmmaking is figuring out logistics, time management, practical problem solving that has little or nothing to do with the aesthetic intentions. The other half is the sociological component but that seems less relevant to metacgonition.
A poet friend of mine describes the tremendous difference between when she wants to create—she picks up a pen and paper. And a filmmaker who needs to move heaven and earth.
Music videos in fact simplify a lot of the logistical problems of filmmaking because they are shorter, there’s less of an onus to persuade and pitch an idea, since the band already are invested emotionally (and financially) in having a video made. You just need to help them get their story across, not sell them on your own story. However that still requires getting commisions, marketing, and presents it’s own logistical challenges owing to shorter turnarounds.
The simple fact is I’m not a schmoozer or a networker—whether you want to make films or music videos, you need someone to give you the opportunity (usually that means finances, but not necessarily). That’s the first hurdle. The second hurdle is that you can have a great idea for a music video, can storyboard it, it can all make sense in aesthetic terms but the logistics of making it happen are another thing entirely. You can have something that makes sense as story, but making it requires broad problem solving skills… more so when you don’t have finances.
Now assuming that a musician or band does commission me for a music video, they’ve agreed to a pitch, which happens with more and more frequency as my reputation has grown over 5 years of doing this—now what?
Firstly you need a space to film this music video. Then you need to consider, with musicians you often need to find a time when they can all take time off of work and doesn’t impinge on their music-making. Now you find yourself trying to contort the logistics into a window of time that allows you to bump in and out of several locations, set up camera, lights, change costumes and makeup, maintain continuity (although less so an issue in music videos). I find myself writing gantt charts and estimating “turnarounds” and finding the most expedient order to put things in.
The space to film needs to be appropriate aesthetically, it needs to add to the story, the larger the better. It needs the right lighting, that involves a whole host of considerations beyond the aesthetics of lighting and colour theory like—how many watts can we draw from the wall? If we want a diffuse light, where do we physically put the sheet or diffuser in a confined but aesthetically appropriate space? What if we’re not allowed to move certain furnishings as part of the deal with the owners of the space but it’s really ruining our shot? How do we solve that?
I could go on and on and on. Do you know how many film shoots I’ve been on where police were called? The storytelling, the shot selection, the colour palettes, the communication of gesture and intent to performers, the editing and selection of shots, the rhythm and pacing… that’s not the hard part: money and logistics are.
Many of these problems could be solved (re: outsourced) with more finances, being able to hire other people who specialize in those things. Most people say “you should get a producer” and it’s like… yeah, how do I find this magical person?
When I have a great story in my head, and you ask me “how do you do that?”—i shrug. I don’t know.