I learned about this nice principle from agile software development. Basically, that when thinking about how much you’ll get done next week, what you got done this week is a good proxy. Sure this week was different because you had that external presentation and an offsite, a bug to fix on live and Amy was sick. But the reality is things will interrupt you next week too. Just like the weather, what happened before is a good first guess at what will happen next.

Yesterday’s weather

The standard reference for this is The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman where he discusses stovetops and their controls in some detail(!). In this case it should be clear, unlike for our stove, which burner each control controls. Same goes for light switches. Same goes, as much as possible, for controls in a nuclear power plant.

Mapping

Always good to share with friends and family your knowledge of doric columns, ionic columns or corinthian style classical columns when you spot them in the wild.

Classical columns: doric, ionic, and corinthian