Purpose Creep

How your impulsive commitments drag you down

Image by author, via MidJourney

I spent the better part of today trying to write a different article than this one. That article is great—it's a meditation on Jorge Luis Borges' beautiful short story, The Library of Babel. That article is useful—it reflects on how AI relates to randomness and meaning, and what that tells us about how to interact with it, and what we should do about it now that we are receiving tentative signals that the AI bubble is about to burst.

That article is also the seventh in a line of articles that I started this month, that I carried to the 50% mark or the 75% mark, and that I failed to finish before moving on to the next article.

This happens to me periodically. I work my way into a head space where articles do not get finished before the next article starts. When that happens I get carried away on a wave of... well, not interest, exactly. Something more like relevance, perhaps—I have a new thought which seems to be urgently related to things that I need to be talking about with my readers RIGHT NOW and it pulls me away from some other thought I was hoping to finish and publish.

This isn't exactly a bad thing; it ensures that I always have a folder full of good material that can be completed with modest effort, and every now and again I'll hit a wave of inspiration where I decide to engage with old material, and ten articles will come out of it and get published in short order.

But also, goddamn, is it frustrating. One of the biggest frustrations of my life is this cycle of starting and then abandoning and then starting again. It is demoralizing. It makes me feel like a deeply broken person even though I am aware that I am probably not alone, that many people do it, and that in the grand scheme of things I'm just another ADHD schlub trying to do things and it's not always gonna turn out how I want.

But anyhow all of that is a moot point. Because I swore to myself that I would start releasing one article per week, on Sundays, and possibly more. And since I made that promise to myself, I have to deliver.

So, now that the Library of Babel piece has fallen through, I've committed to speed-writing this reflection.

No, really. Speed writing. I turn in at 4pm today (I'm correcting a badly misaligned sleep schedule, due to my non-24 sleep/wake disorder) and I have committed to doing this whole thing in an hour and a half before I turn in.

I want to talk a little bit about the cycle that led to the meltdown of the Babel paper. I worry that I won't be able to talk about it with much authority, aside of course from the simple and elemental authority that comes with living through a frustrating experience and developing strong opinions about it. But I think it's worth talking about anyway because I haven't heard many other people articulate the problem. I don't think I'm alone, so I can only conclude that it's one of those things that, for many people, is too elemental to describe. So let's talk about purpose creep.

Purpose Creep

Purpose creep is a process of psychological aggregation that takes projects that are modest in scope and inflates them into the type of impossible, burdensome task that makes us balk and then retreat.

Let me give you an example. Back when I first started writing I used my journal as an opportunity for introspection regarding my work process. One day, I wanted to get a better understanding of the process I went through to write an essay, so I decided to play a game; I would look around my room, pick an object that caught my eye, and write a short essay about it.

The goal was to write in a simple and uncomplicated way about an arbitrary topic, to see if I could write about something because I chose to, rather than because I felt inspired. So I pulled out a good fountain pen and looked around for an object—there was a half-solved Rubik's cube sitting on my desk, so I decided to write about that.

I hopped online and did a little bit of research on the history of Rubik's cubes. After about five minutes of that I had something modest to say about the relationship between Rubik, the cube's inventor, and his father.

As I started writing I hit a snag. At one point in my story, it seemed like it would be advantageous to describe a little bit about the popularity of Rubiks' cubes and so I thought it would be useful to mention a bit about cubing competitions.

That led to a rabbit hole and the article grew. Suddenly it was no longer just about Rubik and his relationship with his father. There was a new angle and I was reasonably certain that I could work it into the piece in a compelling way. It would take a bit more work, sure, but it would be worth it. So I started working on that as well.

Once I started in on that I noticed quickly that the world record for solving a Rubik's cube hadn't been beaten for a while. A bit of searching and I was able to bring up a graph of cubing records and I noticed that it formed a nice, hyperbolic curve. Each time there was a new record, the next record took longer to reach. There were some exceptions, of course, but generally speaking setting a new record took longer.

I wound up coming up with a theory, which was that in high-competition games, when people really start pushing the limits of what people are capable of, the timeline of their new records form hyperbolic curves because the closer you get to the human maximum, the more difficult it is for someone to hit the next level of improvement.

That seemed promising, and I started thinking about how I could work that into the piece, at which point I caught myself and then said "what the fuck am I doing?"

I had taken a relatively simple project—the kind of thing that I could finish in maybe four pages of writing, that had the simple purpose of proving to myself that I could write in a bounded way without requiring emotion to motivate myself—and I let my emotions carry me away. By the time I caught myself it had turned into a four-day project requiring statistical analyses and detailed planning.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love having a brain like this. Why? Well, I never run out of cool ideas.

But also, I hate having a brain like this. Why? Well, often, I don't finish my cool ideas.

That is purpose creep. It's what happens when you start a project with one purpose, but as you go, you append new purposes to the original project until you wind up with something that is much larger than what you originally intended.

Some people are more prone to this than others. I am convinced that I am one of the more hopeless cases—I have a nasty case of ADHD and I suspect that those who have impulse control problems are more susceptible to purpose creep in general. After all, the way to deal with “creep” is to catch yourself and recommit to your original purpose—if you have some major problems with executive function, you probably aren't going to be good at catching yourself, and you probably aren't going to be good at course-correcting.

But I am convinced that most of us do this in some form or another. Here's a good example; you want to go to the gym to hit the bench press. You commit to it, and then you remember that the gym is right next to the grocery store and you have a couple things you wanted to pick up there. And then you realize that you also had a piece of mail that has been waiting on your counter for two weeks to get sent, but you need to buy stamps. And, slowly, your initial trip picks up five or six extra stops, to the point where you start despairing about going to the gym.

Dude. Just go bench.

On De-Purposing

I'm convinced that a lot of our endeavors slowly get undermined because of purpose creep, in one form or another.

So, here's the thing. I don't want to stop you from multitasking. Or... well... multi-purposing. I'm convinced that this system of adding and consolidating tasks is useful. And it's clear to me, as well, that if you are an artist (or a writer) this kind of next-exciting-connection-based thinking is key to some of the most incredible art.

I have articles that started off with a relatively benign, stupid idea (like a Rubik's cube) that rapidly chained to something that was very interesting (such as the mathematical structure of peak performance and the question of whether it is possible to predict when the next world record for a specific form of competition will be achieved). If you're a creative, that kind of "chaining" is the core of the creative process.

It's also incredibly fun. Every time you find some new thing to link to your original plan there's a brief burst of inspiration. It feels a little bit like joy. It feels a little bit like excitement. It is the raw emotional impetus that makes a person take on new projects, and it's one of those feelings that makes life worth living. There's joy in realizing you can do even more cool things by taking a few minutes to adjust a plan.

But I'm also convinced that a lot of people who do not take conscious control over this process slowly accrete mental baggage. This mental baggage has a couple effects; first, the added weight of all those purposes imparts a certain momentum that makes a person less versatile. If you’ve stacked your weight routine with three or four extra purposes—say, detailed tracking of your fitness metrics, testing a new creatine supplement that someone told you about, experimenting with cardio, etc.. etc…—and you’ve allowed those to accrete, it becomes more difficult to carry your habit through a rough patch, or to pivot when something requires you to make a modest life change.

Additionally, however, the simple act of stacking extra purposes on an activity increases the friction of the activity and also makes it more likely that you’re going to crash and burn. And a crash can take a month out of your progress. Six if you let it.

So, how do we deal with purpose creep? Honestly, I dunno. I do this to myself all the time. If I had a way of fixing it, I probably would do it less. But I can at least offer list of some reasonable starting points for dealing with it. Here are a few thoughts that you might find useful.

1) You can go back to your original purpose

It is entirely possible for you to de-purpose in order to get back to the original task that you planned. It's not easy, exactly, but it's do-able. I still remember that Rubik's cube essay, in part, because I managed to catch myself in the middle of inflating it into something too large for myself to handle. I closed the book and got away from my writing for a while, and after I had about an hour to recover, I realized that if I wanted to I could just go back and write the original, small essay that I had planned.

So I did.

That took a bit of effort. I had to let the enthusiasm I had for the bigger project evaporate. I had to make a conscious decision to de-purpose, discarding some of the plans that I had allowed to accrete onto my original. I had to accept that even though the original plan had grown less shiny, there was still a good, practical reason for going back to it. And when I did those things I found that I was able to go back to my original plan.

So, one thing I would suggest is, you have an impressive capacity for control. If you are the type of person who routinely gets carried away by waves of enthusiasm, you should know that it's perfectly acceptable for you to abandon a goal if it isn't suiting you. A lot of the goals we pick up weren't useful ones to begin with; they were just flashy and exciting.

2) Embrace the crash

I'd like to suggest that if you are pursuing a resolution like going to the gym regularly and you find yourself crashing after a few months, one of the reasons you might have crashed is that you accidentally added too many purposes to the habit you were trying to build.

The truth is that if you're seeking to build a long-term habit the first three to six months should probably be a super-simple, pared-down version of the thing that you are trying to do. If you are an artist trying to create things, the most important thing you can do is show up. If you are out of shape and you are trying to transform your body, the most important thing you can do is show up. If your extra purposes wind up keeping you from showing up, you aren't helping yourself. It is entirely possible for your ambition to kill your discipline. Don’t let it.

That's not to say, by the way, that you can't keep the plans. But sometimes trying to carry all of the extra plans right here, right now, all at once, gets in the way of doing the things that need to be done in order to thrive. Sometimes you have to distribute the load across time.

What I would like to suggest, then, is that crashes are not a failure so much as they are an invitation to reappraise what you were doing. There’s this moment after a crash (I’ve been there so many times) where you try to get back into the activity that you could do easily just a week ago and it feels like trying to lift a crushing weight.

If that’s happening to you, it may be your brain’s way of telling you that you need to spend some time de-purposing. How much extra were you trying to carry, on top of your original plan? How do you get rid of it? You should try answering those questions; often, they’ll help you chart a way back into the habit, instead of letting it wither and die.

3) Purpose creep as a self-improvement heuristic

One final thing I would encourage you to consider is that this idea of purpose creep is a good lens through which to evaluate a life that feels chaotic and blocked. It might be normal, for example, to think of purpose creep as something that applies to the projects that you struggle to finish. But really, how many other areas of your life are turned into something complicated and frustrating because you layer too many purposes on top of them?

One of my favorite researchers, Eli Finkel, once wrote a paper arguing that modern relationships are suffering because people have turned them into all-or-nothing affairs by layering too many purposes on top of them.

If you expect your relationship partner to be your best friend, your ideal sexual partner, your personal chauffeur and a flawless co-parent, you are probably going to wind up being disappointed. I’m not suggesting that you should lower your standards in the areas that are most important to you. But I am suggesting that you should do some soul searching, and ask yourself if you have added a bunch of smaller, extra purposes to your relationship that are increasing your frustration.

Same with your job. How many extra layers of purpose have you added to your work role? Are all of them strictly necessary for your happiness and well-being? Which ones are the ones that are most important to you? Which ones make your soul whine if you contemplate removing them? Okay—keep those. Now think about all of the other, smaller purposes you append to your job. Can any of those be removed? How much can you de-freight your job, so that it can carry the things that are most important to you?

If you think through the frustrating aspects of your life I suspect you will find quite a few areas that have been made more contentious than they need to be, because of purpose creep. Sift through them. Examine them. Ask yourself what you can afford to let go of; it might bring you more relief than you think.

4) Some Techniques

A few techniques that might work, drawn from my own life experience (though I didn’t connect them to this topic until today).

1. Try a speed-run: One of the best ways to circumvent purpose creep is to force yourself to do something so fast that your brain doesn’t have the chance to accrete new ideas to it. In the case of this article, I wrote an enormous amount of it using The Most Dangerous Writing App—a program which forces you to keep typing until the timer runs out. Pause too long, and everything you typed is deleted! That was a great way for me to force the word count to grow without letting myself get too caught up on things.

2. Avoid planning: I’m not saying that you should never plan. I’m saying that you should be aware that plans are one of the main ways that purpose creep works its way into your life, and sometimes it is much better to simply do things in an impromptu fashion. If you like outlining your articles but find that when you do you wind up making them too large, and adding too many ideas to them? Try instead to outline one section at a time, immediately before you write it, and only outline the next section after the first is done.

3. Don’t trust inspiration: To clarify again, I’m not saying that you should never trust inspiration. I’m saying that you shouldn’t blindly trust it, especially if you are the type of person who has a demonstrated track history of starting projects in a burst of enthusiasm and then turning them into desk-clutter through procrastination after a month is through. If you are the kind of person who regularly has inspiring ideas, take the time to log and track them; how many of them turn out to be effective in accomplishing something? Whatever the answer is, learn from it.

4. Set small targets. As a final thought, remember that sometimes the most useful thing you can do is set the kind of modest, persistent goals that resist grandiosity. If you have a goal of producing an article once per week, no matter what, then that goal can serve as a filter that prompts you to simplify and reduce purpose creep. As always, the key to moving forward is to walk humbly.

Final thoughts

This will be the first article that I have posted in a month. It may not be the best possible version of this article that I could write, but at least I have the thought out there, and at least I can build on it. Why? Well, because I was willing to discard all of my extra plans and purposes and just write an article for its own sake.

In short order I’ll pivot back to unfinished projects and try to get them out. Each will be done at its own pace, as a function of the purposes I’ve attached to it. There are the articles that I decided to write with a pen—which I love to do, even if it turns my work into a 10+ hour ordeal due to the expansion such articles go through when I transcribe them, and the subsequent cutting/editing required to make them work.

There are the articles I’ve decided need statistical analyses, and each of those will have to wait until I can collect the necessary data, run the charts, produce the graphics.

There are articles that have languished for years because I was trying to say too much and the resulting tangle of ideas was something too complex for me to sift through in a few hours, so I simply let them sit.

All of those projects are great. They’re a part of who I am as a writer. But also, sometimes? Sometimes they get in the way. Sometimes the extra purposes I attach to an article (“I’m going to write this one with a pen! That way I can leverage it to work through the old notebook I want to complete!”) add fun and meaning to the work. Other times they subtract. I’m sure that it happens to you too.

If that’s the case and you find yourself dealing with things that have too many extra purposes attached to them, just remind yourself—you can always prune back your ambitions and go back to the original plan if needed.

Look carefully. Walk humbly. Move forward.

Image by Author, via MidJourney