On Lego, Productivity and finding slack in the system

Lessons from an ongoing 7,588 piece build

The idea was sound - fulfil a childhood dream, invest some time into a hobby that didn’t require tracking, training and posting it on Strava. It was meant to be calming, personal, an overall positive for my wellbeing. Instead I learnt something somewhat unsettling about myself, found a strange bonding outlet for our kids and salvaged an idea for this post out of the whole ordeal (thus far).

So here’s the set up.

As a kid I loved Star Wars (yes the original ones, which are paradoxically the middle ones, but you know what I mean, just not the ‘modern’ ones)

And I used to spend hours drawing star destroyers and epic space battles. I was also a Lego kid - put those two together and I had always dreamed of being in the position where I could afford one of those monster star wars lego kits that take days and days to build.

Now as a fully fledged, full size human I revisited the dream of owning one of those monster kits. But the execution of that dream alone meant either accepting or rejecting a long held belief - that serious adults who owned big lego kits were basement dwelling knitted cardigan wearers. I am more of the bearded, ultra running mountain climbing type. But I still have serious glasses, multiple degrees and love sci-fi and fantasy. So if I bought the kit was I a card carrying member of the cardigan brigade or was my stereotype all wrong?

I went with the later - that ‘I alone’ could straddle the bridge between Bear Grylls and Brickman (and hope in the process that my wife would feel the same way) So after considerable time surfing chat rooms and researching a suitable challenge I paid what seemed like an inappropriately small amount of money for 1000 pages of instructions and then sourced and bought a custom 7588 piece build of a Executor Dreadnought Star Destroyer (yeah ok even as I type that out I can feel the trail running mountaineer in me groan as our collective Grylls/Goggins score plummets into the depths of Hogwarts.)

I finally received the epic kit, two huge boxes, not one but two huge instruction manuals and I was ready to disappear into my own lego building retreat. A blissful space of quiet zen and a very well earned completion of that childhood wish.

Then the productivity gurus absolutely ruined it.

Like just destroyed it.

I discovered that I can’t do / don’t do relaxed flow state.

I have to make marked and serious progress.

I have to win.

This is a serious character flaw when it comes to trying to find some low stakes flow.

I couldn’t sit and simply build a bit and enjoy it for what it was.

I had to know how many pages this particular section was, I got frustrated when I couldn’t find the single tiny piece I needed to move on, because it was slowing me down, costing me time, impeding my progress. As if anyone cared if it took an extra minute, or hour or day or week to get this done.

This was meant to be a relaxing escape but I had immediately defaulted into the need for productivity, for progress, to fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run, to quote Kipling.

So what’s wrong with me?

Productivity gurus have robbed us of our low stakes flow state.

No matter the task, the stakes, the importance (or lack thereof) we find ourselves in a productivity purgatory of our own making. It has to have a purpose, must have a goal, must be measurable, purposeful. Otherwise how the hell can I justify it? What possible reason could I have to do a thing if it doesn’t move the needle in the direction I need it to go. If we can’t justify the time or the progress we end up in this self induced guilt spiral - yes I did that but think about what else I could have/should have been doing.

I think there’s two problems at play here.

Firstly we’ve lost sight of the value of having some slack in the system. Apps for this, charts for that, the ceaseless comparison with our peers as we all post a filtered and carefully curated picture of our supposedly uber-efficient and purposeful lives on the socials.

For the vast majority of human existence we had an unconscionable amount of time to do almost nothing. trudging across the savannah, hunting and gathering, hanging out with the tribe. We even have a modern day live-streamed experiment to back this up. It’s called “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’ - for those of you who haven’t heard of this (I envy you) it’s a reality TV show that my wife loves and I detest. B grade celbs are dropped into the jungle and given tasks to complete whilst couch ensconced pundits back home vote them off. The point here is that all the contestants have reported the same thing - the hardest part wasn’t the insane challenges or being calorically deprived or sleeping on cots in the jungle - it was the boredom. Not hunger, not sleep deprivation, not being made to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. It was dealing with the existential crisis that is having nothing important to do.

The second problem is a little deeper and tad more concerning - I point the fickle finger of blame at the productivity gurus but in truth our obsession with productivity and dread of boredom is often born out of a fear that without something to do we are left alone with ourselves. And our thoughts. As Naval Ravikant calls it, the crazy roommate that lives in our head. As George Mack put’s it - ‘we will do literally anything to avoid thinking about our shitty lives”

Now I don’t think your life is shitty, neither is mine, the point is that introspection, reflection, honesty, self assessment is terrifying for most of us. The fear of what we might discover, or uncover, or have to admit or deal with. Wars have been started for less.

Bottom line, I realised part way through this epic build that I have a problem with enjoying low stakes flow state and letting it re-establish some slack in the system. Some much needed slack I might add.

The other conundrum I hit was my initial desire for this to be a solo pursuit. Something I had bought for me, to do in my ‘quiet time’ and to not have to search the house for the tiniest yet incomprehensibly crucial piece of lego that had been either incorporated into one our kids creations or simply flat out stolen by the dog.

But within minutes of its arrival the kids wanted to be involved (they’re 9 and 6 btw and love lego too…apple and trees and gravity and all that stuff). And you realise that my need for this to be ‘my thing’ was about to close a door on a joint activity that didn’t involve a screen, or an app. That fostered creativity and exploration and ideation. They wanted to sit down, literally for hours and build things that until a few minutes ago, had never existed. And I was about to go full Gollum mode and claim it was all ‘my precious’ and not to be touched.

So I’m about 60% of the way through the build and here’s where I’m at.

I’m trying to enjoy the process and not trying to beat the clock or set a record. To be present in the process, appreciate the sheer magnitude of work that went into the design (this is a custom build from the community not a retail lego build - more on that in the PS). I’m a work in progress, what can I tell you.

And the boys are welcome to come in and build whenever they want - with some rules. Nothing leaves my office, so no pieces beyond the threshold (we’ve been about 70% successful with that rule but hey…parenting) and all creations are eventually forfeit if I need the piece for ‘the big spaceship’. (before you think, well that’s a little harsh, remember there’s almost 8000 pieces so they’ve got some room to maneuver with that rule)

It’s led to Sunday mornings filled with the quiet snap of component on component by three humans of varying ages in a room where the morning sun streams in and the dog lies on a bed, recovering after a full night of doing absolutely nothing.

Come to think of it, the dog might be living the best life out of all of us.

P.S. So for the lego afficionados, the build instructions came from here - an online community where ridiculously talented people dream up insane creations and then somehow get that into a CAD drawing and eventually detailed instructions for noobs like me. You can order the pieces online from across a variety of providers or there are large scale manufacturers who sell the kits commercially (side note - some of those companies have been criticised for taking instructions from these types of communities without reimbursement and commercializing them. In full transparency I bought the kit from a company but paid the individual who I believe created the original design for the instructions, even though the kit came with them, felt like the right thing to do)

PPS State of the build for those who care :)