All long-term value is built from the follow-through part of short-term habits. Follow-through as in golf swings not as in delivering on commitments. It’s respecting the momentum of every atomic action that produces natural “extra” effects relative to immediate needs.
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Writing up notes after meetings is one of the very few I’ve managed to stick to. Brief cues during, detailed notes after, review before next meeting. Turns a staccato thread of though with lots of rework/redundancy into a smooth stream.
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When it works well, clients don’t actually notice. It just looks like I’m on the ball, keeping up with situation and maintaining state. I send them the notes, which they like, but many don’t appreciate this particular effect. It’s only when thread breaks that it’s noticeable.
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(Which is rare... I’m occassionally late, but almost never skip)
Playing with gears again after a long time, it strikes me that involute gear tooth profiles are all about follow-through and smoothness.
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Unlike primitive gears, involute profiles maintain continuous contact between 2 gear tooth faces and allow next tooth to pick up where previous tooth leaves off. That’s why well-designed gears can be very quiet compared to noisy primitive ones.
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Huygens described them in his description of the pendulum clock but I suspect they were around before. Their artisan description — unwrapping path of the end of a taut string wrapped around a cylinder — sounds like something that would have been discovered before mathematization
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Anyhow, kinda interesting that my new clockmaker activities are leading to new perspectives on consulting habits.
Pay attention to follow-through. Develop involute-profile work habits. And golf swings, so play habits too. Let each action smoothly set up the next.
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Unexpected side benefit of this thread is I have now discovered gear nerd twitter 🤣
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In practice, you do not want the faces to actually make contact, as they are sliding, will wear, and cascade. Oil at operating temperature* keeps them separate, which is why short miles are worse than long miles. Additionally: quiet is from helical cut:
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Fun fact: Involute gears are not the unique solution to this! You're describing the 'fundamental law of gearing' which says the angular velocity of both gears must be constant throughout the mesh.
What's special about involutes is they obey it over a range of center distances.
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