Divide and Conquer is the ultimate strategy. It can be seen as a useful algorithm for sorting, or more generally general as a way to maintain own's control over our environment. Domino Theory may justify imperialistic politics, but Divide and Conquer explain how it really works.
Decomposing simplifies most important difficulties. It improves most importantly the allocation of resources for each working projects. When free to choose whatever one can work on, one may easily paralyze.
For instance, I was late to publish this note. I used to publish them on Tuesdays, but now this collide with my newly added burdens. When I had free time to advance my notes here, I found myself indulging in a book project on methodology. This may be in the same ball park, but still nothing came out for this blog.
So I analyzed my rhythm of projected output. This lead me to compare each of these outputs with places I research for them (websites, del.icio.us links, citeulike entries, etc.) and places I work them out (devonthink database, blogger, google documents, scid database, etc.). So I discovered again the DDD principle, but as working spaces.
The problem got solved almost instantly. The time when I needed to work on these RWXA notes were the times I was working on the projects related by working spaces. That solution bypassed two difficulties one can encounter with analysis.
Analysis paralysis. The solution did not imply some search for meaning. It did not entail breaking up the problem into a myriad of tiny elements. The decision emerged directly from the synthesis. One could believe that some intuition just sprung. One could also believe that the solution was a direct outcome of the analysis.
Analysis oversimplification. The solution did not take the life out of the question. The whole mess was never an organic one. It's a mere organizational one. We could have taken it has a dynamical system, with all parts interrelated. But that would really be overkill, which could have led to analysis paralysis anyway.
