TBX TIP: Add descriptions to your user generated attributes

Slow Is Smooth and Smooth Is Fast
U.S. Navy Seals

I know it feels like an extra step, a waste of time, but when you create a user generated attribute be sure to take an extra few seconds and add a few words to the attribute’s description field. An attribute description defines your attribute. It is helpful for incrementally formalizing your thoughts and files and to use them, especially as you look to use your attributes, add new attributes in action code and export code, refine and update them, merge them, or delete them.

Just write a few words that will remind you why you created the attribute and how you are or intend, to use it. Once you’ve written the words, be sure to press enter to have Tinderbox save your description.

As the U.S… Navy Seals adage goes, “Slow Is Smooth and Smooth Is Fast” (Gleeson, 2018). Taking a few seconds to document your thinking when it is fresh will save you, and others you work with, minutes or hours later. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted trying to rack my brain to remember why I created an attribute or how I intended to use it a few hours, weeks, or months later.

Ver. 9: In Tinderbox V9 a new operator was introduced that you can use to operationalize your attribute descriptions with action code. For example, you can pull out these descriptions and use them in your files, e.g. to for your research and project background documentation.*

Acknowledgment: I learned this one from @mwra.

Reference

Gleeson, B. (2018, July 23). 9 Navy SEAL Sayings That Will Improve Your Organization’s Ability To Lead Change. Forbes. 9 Navy SEAL Sayings That Will Improve Your Organization's Ability To Lead Change