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I have come to think of this as "The Anna Principle" in organizing my own work: > when faced with uncertainty, one must simply focus on doing "The Next Right T

I have come to think of this as "The Anna Principle" in organizing my own work: > when faced with uncertainty, one must simply focus on doing "The Next Right Thing." [0] This is not to trivialize it! Figuring out the next right thing to do is hard, but also the most valuable part of planning, in my view. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Next_Right_Thing#Synopsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Next_Right_Thing#Synopsis

rhapsodic 3y ago
"Do the next right thing" was a phrased used by Alcoholics Anonymous long before that 2019 movie came out, so I don't think calling it "The Anna Principle" is appropriate.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I didn't know this! That just makes me appreciate this more, and thank you for making me aware of it. But thinking of it as "The Anna Principle", named after a character from a children's movie, remains way more fun. It was already a tongue-in-cheek-ism to ascribe what I really do believe is a strong foundational idea (not just in project planning, but in life) to a character in a children's movie. By the way, I tracked this back to at least one earlier use of a similar construction (which maybe is implied to be the basis of its use in AA) by Carl Jung: > But if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate. Excerpted from: https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/12/07/carl-jung-next-right-thing/ https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/12/07/carl-jung-next-rig... But I suspect this is an even older, indeed timeless, idea. But ascribing it to a modern well-known movie character makes it more fun and memorable :)
nate 3y ago
OMG, I love that you put Frozen 2 and princess Anna and a song onto this. Thank you for this coinage. I will absolutely be using this now. Please write a blog post on your coinage of this so that we all here can link to that and give you some credit. I'm serious. I looked up The Anna Principle and I wanted to see your blog on this.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  :) Alas, I do not blog.

rhapsodic 3y ago

"Do the next right thing" was a phrased used by Alcoholics Anonymous long before that 2019 movie came out, so I don't think calling it "The Anna Principle" is appropriate.

sanderjd 3y ago
I didn't know this! That just makes me appreciate this more, and thank you for making me aware of it. But thinking of it as "The Anna Principle", named after a character from a children's movie, remains way more fun. It was already a tongue-in-cheek-ism to ascribe what I really do believe is a strong foundational idea (not just in project planning, but in life) to a character in a children's movie. By the way, I tracked this back to at least one earlier use of a similar construction (which maybe is implied to be the basis of its use in AA) by Carl Jung: > But if you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate. Excerpted from: https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/12/07/carl-jung-next-right-thing/ https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/12/07/carl-jung-next-rig... But I suspect this is an even older, indeed timeless, idea. But ascribing it to a modern well-known movie character makes it more fun and memorable :)

nate 3y ago

OMG, I love that you put Frozen 2 and princess Anna and a song onto this. Thank you for this coinage. I will absolutely be using this now. Please write a blog post on your coinage of this so that we all here can link to that and give you some credit. I'm serious. I looked up The Anna Principle and I wanted to see your blog on this.

sanderjd 3y ago
:) Alas, I do not blog.