Imagine the present moment as a wavefront (like that of a huge explosion) an expansion of time itself, but, if time is e

Indeed, we know a lot in physics about what time is but almost nothing about the present moment, how it comes to be, why it appears to change, are we changing or just moving through time?,I say dynamic histories as I have presented it because I have not dealt with the problem of the flow of time. Indeed, the problem of the present moment looms large over all of physics, an unanswered question, and to not address it in any theory of history is surely falling short.,A recent study found that intrusive thought, including thinking about what we “should” be doing, can kill the enjoyment of life’s most important pleasures. The tyranny of the to-do list comes not only from its power to waste our time while we’re working but also its ability to take over our minds while we’re trying to actually have a life.,Before I staged a coup d’etat against my to-do list, I used to let my unfinished tasks invade my thoughts and leisure time. I’d sit down for a pleasant dinner with my family, only to start thinking about all the things left undone on my to-do list. Later, when I’d play with my daughter, the unchecked boxes would start to torment me.,Another perspective appears if you turn the sheet on its side and look at a particle or life evolving in histories rather than time. You then get a dynamic histories interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this interpretation, histories are like long strands of events (called world lines) and they evolve and change in the 5th dimension so that the past is ever changing. Thus, history changes. For example, the world where the woman has a red haired baby suddenly evolves into a world where she has a brown haired one and she is never the wiser because history, the past, has literally changed.,To-do lists allow us to get distracted by the easy or urgent tasks at the expense of the important work. We get pulled off track by the most pernicious form of distraction — the kind we succumb to without realizing it’s happening. We run faster and faster in the name of getting things done, without realizing we’re headed in the wrong direction. Then when we finally realize we didn’t allocate the necessary time to work on the most important tasks, we tell ourselves, it’s okay. I crossed five things off my list. I’m good.,In a 4D universe governed by Einstein’s and Schroedinger’s equations for gravity and quantum mechanics both ideas cannot be correct. Yet seemingly they are. Time is a road and a flow.,Einstein would have time as a railroad, with the engine of the universe driving us to some unknown destination, completely outside our own control. Yet, experience seems to suggest time is a flow of the universe in which we participate.,When I used a to-do list to run my day, I’d start the morning ticking off tasks, thinking I was on point. I didn’t realize I was letting my to-do list lead me towards distractions that were preventing me from reaching my goals. For instance, even when I knew I had a big project looming and needed to spend the morning working on it to meet my deadline, glancing at my to-do list gave me permission to escape into doing something — anything — else. Hey, look! My to-do list says it’s time to rearrange my desktop icons into color-coded, alphabetized folders!? Okay! I guess I’ll do that real quick before I start writing that report I’ve been putting off.,Understanding the distinction between traction and distraction is critical. By this definition, we cannot call something a distraction unless we know what it is distracting us from. Therefore, we can’t say we got distracted unless we have defined, in advance, what traction means for us at that moment in time. Playing video games or watching television can be an act of traction if that’s what you planned to do with your time. Conversely, working on a task most people would laud as “productive” can be a horrible distraction if it is not what you committed to doing with your time.,But it wasn’t me that was “broken.” People are awful at predicting how long tasks will take them to complete — hence our habitual failure to finish what’s on our to-do lists. It’s the methodology that’s screwed up.,A distraction is any action that pulls us away from what we intend to do. The opposite of distraction is not “focus.” It’s “traction.” Both words come from the same Latin root trahere, which means “to pull.” Both words also end with the same six-letter word, “action,” reminding us that both “traction” and “distraction” are actions we decide to take, not things that randomly happen to us.,This happened to me: I allowed myself to believe I was the kind of person who was “easily distracted,” and I, therefore, became increasingly distractible. I started telling myself I was “bad at managing my time” and began acting accordingly.,The dynamic histories model, as I have so far presented it, is, in reality, equivalent to the MWI interpretation because in a 5D, Einsteinean universe, everything depends on your point of view. If you move forward in time, you get MWI. If you move in the 5th dimension, you get dynamic histories. It is all part of a single, crystal reality. For general relativity, time is just another dimension. It has no intrinsic nature inherently different from space.,Nowadays, it is not unreasonable to ask for both software engineering and machine learning skills from one person. Since both are very big fields, it is unreasonable to expect deep knowledge in every domain, but the person should have a functional set of skills where they can handle end-to-end workflows in their strongest area reasonably well.