RALP-H

RALP-H is the acronym for Recursive Algorithm for soLving Problems - with a certain amount of Heuristics..

Do you have a problem that you cannot solve? Using RALP-H you will track backwards down the decision pathways and unveil those points at which decisions that have a direct bearing on your problem were either incorrectly taken or executed.
Experience has shown that this is always the result of either lacking or incorrect information.
Once you supply the lacking or correct information your tree of decision pathways will correct itself and your problem will lose its label of being one.

Another way of saying it is: Check for iterational integrity. Then complications will disappear and complexity will return.
This simply means that even though here I describe its use in a personal environment it can be applied in any and every system!

And as much as it can effectively be employed as a planning tool here I focus on its engagement as a problem solver.

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RALP-H is an integral building block of OP_n^x - the Ordering-Principle and Ordering-Potential employed in denkern.

Premises of RALP-H:

My experience and sensitivty have shown me that achieving a goal is not fulfilling. Achieving a goal has become a god on a pedestal, it is a hype that completely obscures what the task of a goal is:
A goal is a guide that I set in place to aid me in accomplishing a task I set myself. It is there to guide my steps.
So - as easily as I can set a goal I can reset it to bring its guidance into alignment with the accomplishment of my  task.

It is accomplishing a task which brings fulfillment. That is what at the end of the day lets me sit down, breathe deeply and be at peace.

Steps are executables - it is what I can actively, repeatedly do.

Any system, and that includes you, and me where we stand today, has a developmental pathway of decisions. Decisions are made based on information available. Any decision made (= growth) with lacking or incorrect information will bring forth a compromised branch of decision pathways that will have a knock-on effect: Iterational integrity is compromised.
This compromising of the decision pathways complicates the system, destroying its complexity, its iterational integrity, up to a point where the system cannot fulfill the task for which it was built. And you have an unsolvable problem.

Where you are able to drill down to the decision-point where the information was lacking or incorrect and can supply to that decision the lacking or correct information, the decision pathway from there on will right itself automatically through all pathways and decision points because iterational integrity is restored. The complication is eradicated, complexity is restored and the effect will knock on up to todays visible level. As a result the seemingly unsolvable problem collapses into itself and becomes non-existent.

Definitions:

A task: is something that I want to accomplish, something that I want to get done. It may be undefined, not really clear, it may not even have a name yet. Of the problems that float around my head like a flock of clouds it is that one that I pull out of that flock onto my table.
It is what I set myself to get done.
I want a cake. I want to study. I want to save the world. I want a home. Of all the problems I face this is the one I want to solve.
It is the step that has not yet become a step.

Steps: are executables. It is something I have mastered and can repeatedly do reliably. In the context of RALP-H it is a (sub-)task that I have accomplished and whose execution I can guarantee without second thought.
I have built 10 businesses . This to me is a step, not a task anymore. I can tie my shoes. I can bake a cake. I can drive a car.
It is a task I have accomplished and can accomplish again and again and again, repeatedly, at the drop of a hat. It takes no special effort anymore.

A goal: is like a flagpole that I set to guide my steps in the accomplishment of the task I have set myself.
For a goal to do that and to spur me into action, to do, it must be firmly anchored. Anchored in time. Anchored in space:
The cake is in front of grandma, on the table in her home at 16:00 on Tuesday afternoon next week.

Employing RALP-H - The Recursive Algorithm for soLving Problems, with a certain amount of Heuristic

1. Do not judge. Judging comes from definition. That will come in its own good, predetermined time:
   Take a pen and a piece of paper, or whatever tool you use to get stuff out from floating around inside your brain, but do it now! Write down the problems you have or the things that you want to do that are pre-occupying you.
   
   Your brain determines that which takes your attention to be important Not what anybody else says what is. But that on which you place your attention.
   
   Therefore: From these pick the one you will tackle. Pull that fluffy ball of undefined cloud out of the sky and fix it in front of you. Place it under your attention.
   
   This now becomes your task to accomplish.
   
   It has to be a personal decision - yours. And only yours. Only in this way will you have the staying power to tackle it successfully.
   
   
2. Write down all the sub-tasks, i.e. that is all the littler tasks, that you can think of that your task is made up of.
   They do not have to be rational, it will show you your thinking.
   Do not judge - write them all down.
   You can also get help from outside on this step. But do as much as possible yourself - remember is is not anothers, it is your decision pathways that are to be looked at.
   
   
3. This is the only time to judge: Take every sub-task and judge:
   Into a basket labeled Steps - I can do this. Unequivocably. Yes. Without thinking twice. Repeatedly. Successfully.
   Into a basket labeled Cloud of Sub-Tasks: I cannot do this. No. I hesitate. I am unsure. Maybe...?!?
   
   
4. first take the basket of Steps. Again, do not judge: For each step define a goal: This is done at TIME and PLACE. Fix it in space and time.
   The acuity of the goal and its service to the accomplishment of your task is an ongoing evaluation during said accomplishment.
   Write down each goal next to its step.
   
   
5. Now take the basket Cloud of Sub-Tasks. With its content you start again at Step 1: Pick the one you will tackle. And repeat steps 2 to 5.
   Repeat this procedure until all tasks, sub-tasks, sub-sub-tasks sub-sub-sub-tasks lie in front of you as steps.

Two important points to adhere to:

• Take no action. You will encounter points in this process where you want to get active and do something. Do not do it. Finish. This is how you will achieve the most accomplishment and the most satisfaction. It also has proven itself to be the easiest, fastest and most effective in solving a problem.
  Complete this process.
• There is only one point of judgement, ever: Step 3.

As you run through this procedure and reiterate it two things will emerge:

1. Steps, you have not taken. Steps are always easy to take, but are not always taken, because... of something, most often a lack of information.
   Steps not taken cannot procure information that is of importance for the next step, compromising the decision of that step and the branch of decision pathways that step begets. As a consequence lifes complexity is compromised and complications settle in.
2. Step capabilities you have not acquired. This is in essence a (sub-sub-sub...) task where that (sub-sub-sub...) task has revealed itself to be acquirable. I.e. you realize: "This I can do. This I can make my own!"

Again: Take no action until you have completed the process.
Once you have completed it you will have a list of what you can and need to do. As you you do these your problem will collapse into itself and disappear.
You will accomplish your task and once again peace will settle in your life.

Guidance

RALP-H is a tool. Any tool can be handled with great skill. Skill comes with practice. Practice is best gained at entry level.
 suggest: Practice first with a small problem, something you consider surmountable but have not done yet. Because...
This builds skill level and trust in the process outlined above.
The meticulousness and practice you put into applying this RALP-H determines the depth to which you can take this.

The Heuristic

I clearly differentiate between complicated (compromised iterational integrity in the growth of a complex system) and complex (iterational integrity in the growth of a system).

We are complex systems within a complex environment (a collection of complicated and complex systems).

The pure application of the above procedure will readily throw up a unmanageable number of sub(-sub-sub...)-tasks and this is where heuristics - life experience - can aid in choosing which sub-task or which steps comprise a sub-task and thus speed up this process.

Heuristics can only aid. Where they replace personal choice they will complicate the result, iterational integrity will be compromised.

Applicability of RALP-H

RALP-H is a formalisation of something we do automatically everyday, anyway. Sometimes and in some areas with more acumen, sometimes with less.
It is this formalisation that makes RALP-H applicable to every! system, big, small, complicated, simple, complex. Human, business, computer program, city development, shipping routes - any! conceivable system.

It can help eliminate complications in current systems.
It can aid in maintaining complexity in the development of a system.
It can drill down, even if the kernel of the system is not known to you.

I have made it into a widely applicable protocol.
And its simplicity and robustness make it easy to corroborate its results, even in highly complex systems.

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Pictorially this is what the process would look like: