Productivity porn
calebschoepp.com
calebschoepp.com
Brings to mind one of my favorite aphorisms: furious activity is no substitute for understanding. Very few people seem to subscribe to it, but I've gotten an enormous amount of mileage out of it over the years.
My solution: Stick with Fedora and Visual Studio Code, because I've spent at least 100 hours in the past month checking out Neovim, getting my first init.lua to work, messing around with configurations, making telescope work, make telescope look good. Then switched to Arch, try bspwm, Gnome, KDE, fonts.
Meanwhile, my fellow junior colleague is flexing all over me his Docker knowledge, his experience in unit testing and CI/CD, and generally things people actually pay you for.
I also have to have a particular font and color or it would be difficult to focus. Not sure why. Also if I use dark mode I start getting a headache. Not able to figure why it is so.
Dark mode for some reason is very difficult for me and gives me a headache after sometime or makes my head heavy. It is strange because previously I used to use dark mode without any issues and was preferred. Later I switched to lighter/white background with dark foreground.
If you watch many of the people on social media who are "productivity gurus", you will notice that their philosophy of how to stay productive will shift as the content gets stale and they need something more novel to talk about with their growing audience. Many of them are just like you and me and cover the latest bestseller book or popular tweet that has merit to it, but then gets discarded after we realize it doesn't work in our lives.
In turn, they also become wildly successful by providing you surface level tips on how to be a little more productive each day.
While I used to be obsessed about this topic or what others call "hustle culture", I think you have to go through it before you realize how finite one's life really is. The overworking, the "always on"-ness, the comparison to others who happened to reach success earlier than us.
It all doesn't matter at the end of the day. The simplistic perspective is that you can take common occasions and make them great and you'll find success or at least a better understanding of your definition of "success".
Doing a few things very well is what separates you from someone who does a hundred things not well at all.
Attention is your most previous resource and it's stolen from us everyday by others when we should reclaim it for ourselves and those few things that we're passionate for.
I find this one the most fascinating. It implies a supreme confidence in the correctness of one's beliefs, which I simply have never had. As if to say, the only thing stopping my success is my ability to drive faster, but without any doubt that you're actually on the right road, heading the right direction, etc...
They changed my life. It helped me get out of a fairly unpleasant home situation. I learned that I didn't need to be super smart or athletic or good looking to raise myself up a few steps on the (American) economic ladder. Grit, and putting myself in the way of success, and failing plenty, actually did propel me into a pretty damn good life.
Meta porn
Porn. Just give people meta porn
A startup might be able to do a decent job, but they would get booted off the app store faster than you can say a four-letter word.
Too bad there's no good way for users to write and run arbitrary code on their devices.
This one is my favorite (or "least favorite" depending on how hard it hits on any given day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ
I feel like the people doing that channel could write a very effective modern Office Space.
"...but not before I read my blogs" --> "What Ancient Mayans Can Teach You About Living Your Best Life"
"and journal about creativity" --> "sleep retrospective, epiphanies: 0"
http://www.smashcompany.com/business/what-happens-when-the-b...
> “Check robinhood. All red, just as I expected.”
"build yourself a rocket ship / blast off on an ego trip" – lmao
LOL
I get up at 2AM, with a smile. Then do 7 hours of running after which I have my usual 3 racks of eggs for breakfast, whilst I speed read 3 books. I'm fluent in one language: the language of success, which I generously share to willing students on LinkedIn.
A thread (1/74)...
More productive
Comfortable
Not drinking too much
Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
At ease
Eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
A patient, better driver
...
Still kisses with saliva.
That song was so good at making what generally reads like a healthy lifestyle seem hollow and pointless. I love it, even as I question whether its effect on my teenaged self was a good one, or maybe just fueled my neuroticism. It makes me look at life a little bit more like an opportunity to be creative and make risky, weird choices and less like a continuous process of self improvement, for better or worse.
Ironically, you should also put butter in your coffee.
https://www.bulletproof.com/recipes/bulletproof-diet-recipes...
...and meditate the other 6.
1. Dude, move to Venus where a day is 5,832 hours.
2. Become a 10,000 hour expert in less than a weekend bro!
3. Profit!
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60456465-i-am-enough
https://medium.com/thrive-global/5-things-i-did-to-sober-up-...
https://www.caron.org/blog/when-the-lines-between-work-and-s...
Putting you on PIP for this attitude, not very "big org" mindset.
Wasting time with meals is for unsuccessful losers!
You're "taking the piss" at people who value working hard/long hours, reading, trying to be successful financially, taking care of their health/fitness, cutting ties with loser friends (drug addicts? bums?)
They're at best untrustworthy sources and at worst snakeoil salesmen.
Speaking of the latter there's a special brand of cognitive dissonance being shown here.
If there were some surefire way to be rich and happy, etc. in a very short period of time. A system so simple that anyone could follow it then why doesn't everyone?
If you really believe that these habits would make anyone successful then you have to explain why everyone isn't doing it.
And they convince others and themselves that it's because most people aren't willing to do what it takes. They won't sacrifice their comfort or friends or whatever to the point that it takes to be successful.
If you do all these things are still aren't rich and retired? Well it must mean you haven't sacrificed enough or worked hard enough or whatever!
The real answer is that none of these habits are a guarantee of success. Are they good ideas? Sure! Like for sure eat healthy, get enough sleep, read books, and work out.
Like everything though there are tradeoffs, often on your time, and moderation can be the key for most people. There are other inputs into your success and there's no one size fits all plan that works for everyone.
Devil's advocate but
you can measurably tell if you are financially successful (from working hard/long hours) and our healthy fitness wise (from going to the gym/eating clean/going for a run/etc.)
you can also measurably tell if you are in a good headspace from meditation/yoga/reading
I'm the first person to poop on people who "do it for the Gram" but...
Most people I know who post about being successful are the same people who wouldn't want their image hurt by being caught in a lie.
aka... they aren't really "fronting", they are really "about it" when it comes to living a "let's talk about it" lifestyle
Everyone else isn't doing it, because it's really, really hard to stick to the habits.
Same reason why everyone else isn't walking with a ripped physique and six-pack. It's simple, just work out 3x a week and count your calories. Why isn't everyone shredded?
But these brofluencers (Andrew Tate being the latest one) just regurgitate and compound the same ol' to new levels. They mostly cater to young, impressionable, and desperate kids - promising that if you just follow these easy steps, then luck will come your way. And the whole hustle porn community fetishizes working every single waking hour ("the grind") doing something that everyone else is doing - your edge is to basically worker harder and cheaper than anyone else.
It's always the same "bro, just start a drop-shipping business for passive income, create your own brand of [saturated market item], also do [FX/Crypto/options] day trading. It's all about grinding, I promise bro - but first, buy my super alpha prestige mentoring package for $3k" spiel.
And if you're not driving a lambo, living in a mansion with your super model by the age of 30, you just didn't hustle and grind hard enough.
These communities tend to obsess over things like productivity - everything to save up space for the grind.
Also, what good is a friend who wouldn't come to your aid in the hardest of times?
But regarding working those long and hard hours (which then cannot be spent on other things) maybe we should heed the advice of the dying:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv...
> 2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. > > "This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."
First, because both healthy and productive have long become a rat race.
In that sense, it's not about some e.g. obese person wanting to lose weight anymore, or about some lazy person wanting to get their act together and be more productive, but increasingly about an obsession with dieting and working out, or with working all the time to "make it" and hustling constantly.
Second, because for many those aren't even their own goals, just things instilled in them by influencers, productivity and health peddlers, the media, and co, as a substitute for a meaningful work and a balanced way of life.
Third, because even those dubious goals are often not followed anyway, instead people obsess with productivity and health "porn", todo systems, micro-managing their day (or meals), measurbating, and so on, as opposed to a simple, natural approach to those things.
At some threshold it becomes an obsession, which is not great.
Also notice he has literally no human interaction.
Or more likely: the image being put forward isn't even real, because it's not enough hours in a day to do them all.
Talking about the work !== doing the work. 9 times out of 10 you're better off doing something, anything, than worrying about productivity. Go do stuff.
Doing every productivity hack and good habit in something like Ferris's Tools of Titans is literally a full time job if not more.
I have the same critique for note taking porn.
I think he's parodying the extreme fixation with one's productivity.
That's not what the article is about but it relates to what you said.
Most of them are designed to keep you busy with introspective or pointless busywork so you're too tired to protest or don't notice the things going on around you-- like the leader sleeping with your spouse while robbing you blind.
Or Russ Hanneman.
The problem is finding actual good self-help. Most stuff is garbage or dives too deep into a specific topic.
One of my favorite authors is Orison Swett Marden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orison_Swett_Marden) who writes well-rounded self-help and founded a magazine ironically called "Success". There's also Samuel Smiles who wrote the original title called "Self-Help".
If you go back in time far enough, you will come to the conclusion that most self-help stems back to certain influences at the time. You can go as far back as to the tao te ching, meditations, or even the bible. Not much of this stuff changes, but is repackaged with modern examples of successful people into bestsellers.
The Tao Te Ching with the adjonction of its commentaries is a book on Confucian moral and ethic. The Meditations is a journal and also mostly a book about ethics. I think linking them to modern self-help books is somewhat disingenuous.
I deeply believe that if people actually stopped reading self-help books and read books about ethics instead the world would definitely be a far better place. “How to live a life worth living?” is after all a far more interesting question than “How to do the most of your life?”.
I bought and read Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad Poor Dad followed with Donald Trump - The Art of the Deal.
After reading these I felt worse than at the time I was actually mugged on the street. I think I paid like $20 for both books and muggers got something like $15 I had on me.
2. My cousin has a connection to cheap money and invited me into a social circle where I could use it
3. I was willing to make people angry and unhappy along the way
4. I somehow fit into someone else's plan, and I get some decent scraps of riches for existing and pretending to do something important
These seem to be the main keys to success. I will admit that someone who's completely incompetent is less likely to succeed with access to just one or two of the above (excluding 4, which can stand on its own for a period of time), but if he's got all of the first 3 or 4 alone, success is pretty well guaranteed, regardless of ability or worthiness. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the vast unwashed rabble of successful people I believe have something from the above list.
Take some time, at least once a year, to sit down with yourself and have a vision for your life not based on work or status (ie vacations or the acquisition of things). If that isn't enough to snap you out, go to a small village in Latin America or maybe like Matthew McConaughey discovered and talked about in his book, a quaint monastery in New Mexico. Stay there until it makes sense.
Most people want to be productive because they want to feel valued by others. But if you have to look to your own value from others, you've already lost, and will continue to lose forever.
Be. You. Slowly. and you'll find you're more valuable than you ever thought.
I have seen my cognitive skills decrease because of lack of sleep. Now I am just chilling and catching up with rest and chilling and don't give a crap about work or projects.
Yes, I'm gifted - https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/health/short-sleep-gene-welln...
I think for me its about fear of death.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Status-Anxiety-Alain-Botton/dp/037572...
When someone tells you they sleep 5 hours a night then run two miles and take a 15-minute cold shower then start their work day, 85% of the time they are lying, 10% of the time you will have already noticed the effects of chronic sleep deprivation, and 5% of the time it's drugs.
But this has been a surefire way to put your competitors on the back foot for hundreds, probably thousands of years.
I've noticed my energy dips very significantly after lunch, whereas if I nap for 30 mins, I get a burst of energy and focus.
I also got down to a healthier weight.
IIRC, Jocko Willink believes that his ability to function on little sleep is genetic, he just doesn't need much of it.
He has mentioned that this was a running joke in the Seal teams, which presumably consist of people already selected for their ability to function on little sleep, not your average "7 - 8 hours of sleep" folks.
But then normal people who need an average amount of sleep start "getting after it" by waking up at 4.30 AM because that's what Jocko does.
You can wake up at 4.30 AM as a normal person, but you'd need to go to sleep at 8.30 PM - 9.30 PM for that to be sustainable.
You can't "discipline equals freedom" yourself into optimal performance under perpetual sleep deprivation.
Your are being given a story created by Jocko to build the Jocko mythos. Jocko will not let any truths get in the way of a good story about the mythical Jocko. His artisinal leather boots and cologne don't sell themselves, you know.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-id...
So I should update the above to include some percentage who are lying about having this mutation, and an extremely minuscule likelihood your sales manager actually happens to have it. Second prize is a set of 23andMe test kits.
Not saying they don't exist. But I've yet to meet someone who only sleeps 5 hours a day, doesn't have bags under the eyes, and doesn't fall asleep in every meeting.
So there examples of this?
Stop lying to yourself, more work wont make you happy - It didnt the first time.
There is no easy fix, disabling social media wont fix it. Most gains of that nature are short lived.
For real results its long term work on yourself and changes to your environment (I'm just getting started on my journey of solving this dont take it from me, talk to people > 10 years old than you or read a philosophy book > 500 years old)
The premise is that there's a viewer that watches a bunch of self-improvement videos, but never enacts any of the suggestions. The presenter's argument is that change happens when you understand and digest the suggestions you've been given and it naturally comes to mind. In order to digest the changes, you need to avoid chain consuming content, reflect on what you read or watched, and to be patient.
The analogy that really stuck with me is you don't read the textbook over and over again to learn, you read the textbook and quiz yourself. Similarly, to change yourself, you don't read informational articles one after another, you need to sit down and think about what you read at least once right after you read it and ideally multiple times until it's ingrained in your brain. After the concept is ingrained in your brain, then you can start taking the advice. In some cases you can just start doing things differently, but often it's hard because you're not clear on what you need to do differently, you fail, then you become demotivated.
It's a bit stereotypical by now to hear about influencers preaching 4am wakeup times. But the truth is that some of that stuff works. And more importantly, the general attitude of trying to improve your daily process sure as hell works. It took me well over a decade to move from very struggling freelancer to actually feeling ok with the work I put in, and I've definitely not stopped improving.
the world needs yin and yang
we've had a good few years of self improvement being seen as good and noble. now for the return to mean
it will over swing the other way and productivity will return to the table in a different but similar form
like everything, this too shall pass
There is also the notion of being able to make better decisions with more "connection material" in your mind. The more you know, the more likely you are to make a novel connection.
I consider reading HN and the like part of building up that library.
I completely agree with this, but I don't believe all blog posts and technical articles are written equal :)
You have:
1. Your garden variety tech blog post about somebody's experience using X or Y framework or just a general techy blog. (I'm thinking a joel spolsky or coding horror post here)
2. A technical dive into a specific problem/framework.
3. A raymond chen style blog post explaining the reasons behind some weird api.
And then you have the deeper material:
4. The Pragmatic Programmer. Not too dense and can still be enjoyed at a leisurely pace, but contains enough deep thinking type of material to motivate you.
5. A comprehensive reference book about a specific framework or concept (Game Engine Architecture and OpenGL SuperBible come to mind).
6. The Art of Computer Programming.
I only consider the last 3 productivity material. The first 3 can be helpful in rare instances, but they're more akin to watching a 3blue1brown video where I say "That was interesting" and proceed to forget all about that topic.
But for me, 1.) has also been helpful for discovering frameworks or tools that I'm now using in my everyday work life (e.g. LogSeq, Prefect). I wouldn't count it as „productive” either, but just reading announcements or random tech blog posts sometimes translates into actually adopting the thing.
Those examples from the article make sense but in my experience the biggest illusion of productivity happens right inside our day to day work routines, namely email and chat systems. People respond to endless email threads that in the end trigger no action, endless discussions on Slack channels with no decision making until eventually somebody calls a meeting. We type and type but in the end we waste our own attention and our coworker’s attention just to feel important and productive without doing anything useful most of the time.
What works for a 46 year old married mother of 3 probably won't be what works for a 23 year old tech nerd.
You have this obsession with becoming some type of super human who can do things vastly beyond your peers.
Sure the average 30 year old living in LA will never buy a home.
That doesn't concern you super elite hustle bro. Hustle so hard you have 3 houses, 2 lifted trucks, and a dog who can speak basic French.
Most of us are by definition average. Actual life advice for our above character would be to move somewhere with affordable housing, only buy a lifted truck if you have cash, etc.
No body wants to read.
"Fix your life over 18 to 24 months by making difficult choices"
People want.
"Fix your life in 3 weeks, only takes 30 minutes a day"
Like you say, most of us are average. There's rarely any content for a '46 year old married mother of 3' or any of the average folks. But a normal person's daily life goes for a toss when they hear advice on YT (or watch a Insta reel or a TikTok dance) they know they won't be able to do themselves but they think should be doing.
They're very common, but not cheap.
They're either actual work trucks built to do real work (so, not cheap) or are status symbols (so burning cash is part of the point—also not cheap).
Like with anything, you can save buying used, but I don't see very many older trucks around these days. Dunno if a lot got taken off the roads with Cash for Clunkers, or if rising gas prices made older trucks less appealing so a bunch got scrapped, or what. Seems like most trucks I used to see were older, but since they got more popular for normal drivers, even one visibly 7-8 model years old is pretty unusual. Less so out in the sticks, but near the city, it's almost all fairly-new trucks.
The people who really want to show off can get trucks that approach six figures, retail. Not some custom job, that's in-demand enough that it's a normal trim level they make.
Any extra stuff done to a truck after purchase is sometimes about functionality but most cases you see will be conspicuous consumption instead, including lift kits. Tons of them are on trucks that'll rarely leave pavement—they're the same as fancy, expensive rims or whatever.
[EDIT] Cheap (relatively cheap, anyway) light trucks used to be a thing, like in the 90s and earlier, but are damn near not made at all, anymore.
Compare to a baseline Civic at around 23k.
More like "This ONE Tip Will Change Your Life!"
A writer writes. A painter paints. You are not defined by what you want or prepare for, but by what you do.
On the other hand, you don't have to spend every waking hour being productive. You can go on a bicycle ride without measuring speed and distance. You can work on things that won't develop into income streams. Not everything has to be about the hustle and the grind.
It's kind of wild how people need metrics - myself included - in order to feel like they did something. I have been really trying to address that in my own life after I found it had creeped so far into my daily life that it was influencing what video games I play. I mean...what?
I blame it on the fitbit I got years ago haha
I feel good about a long enough bike ride, even if it’s a few kilometres below average. Maybe I was tired, or maybe I lingered in cafes with a good book that time. Distance isn’t a good measure of happiness.
Those breaks work exactly as you said. They let me zoom out and think things through, instead of grinding towards a local maximum. A bit of time and distance lets me reconsider my priorities and work on what feels right.
Otherwise I’ll just work on things that matter less for a bit and let important tasks simmer until I’m feeling fresh enough to tackle them. For example, CSS fixes to take a break from obscure German tax laws.
He has a podcast where he tries to extract productivity tips from accomplished people, then compiles the tips and sells it as a self help book.
And he's completely genuine. Soooo deep down the productivity rabbit hole.
Every single person I know just wastes their time with that. Usualy they work long hours and still don't get much done.
But hey, they have Zettelkasten with things the never read. A to do list with stuff they never do. And they go out in the morning at 5 for jogging, while gulping down a liter of coffe or energy drinks which results in them being groggy the whole day.
If you ever think you need to adhere to what is preached in any self improvement thing, just don't.
Habe your shit in order, avoid working mor than 7 hours day and take your weekends and vacations seriously.
Especially in IT nothing will get you further than being smartly lazy.
Ultimately, for me (and everyone is different) it took an inversion of how I looked at time. Before I had a fixed set of things I wanted to cram into available time, and never felt like I managed this well. Realizing two things changed that: (a) work is effectively infinite and (b) the things worth doing or seeing exceed the capacity of a human life. This made me allocate my time differently: professionally I started radically prioritizing what I worked on and how I worked on it to dig up the most useful work from the infinite backlog (techniques: inbox zero, ooda loop, deliberate pauses for contemplation, job crafting). For my personal life I gave up on trying to keep up and spend my time doing things I enjoy, even if ultimately pointless (like reading HN), without feeling guilty to myself for the things not done. I also turned off notifications for almost everything, so I can choose what I spend time on instead of having it chosen for me by my masters in the cloud.
Still, life has a way of getting in the way, so I’m trying to have a more mindful approach to life, accepting what happens instead of forcing it to be different. This is a work in progress.
These are some of the main ideas in the book 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. I think it is one of those rare self help books that are actually worth a read.
Boss is stepping outside of brand new BMW - good morning Joe, you see that brand new BMW, if you keep working hard and make more hours I will get new one next year!
One day I'll finish my "self-help" book which is all about doing as little as possible and leaving everything until the last minute in case it resolves itself. Unfortunately, I listen to my own advise and will probably never finish the book.
Can't fault that logic.
Write a blurb for a self-help book that is about doing as little as possible and leaving everything until the last minute in case it resolves itself, it's called "The JIT Productivity Method"
> The JIT Productivity Method is a revolutionary new system for getting things done. It's the antithesis of the traditional "work hard now, play later" approach, and it's based on the simple principle of doing as little as possible and leaving everything until the last minute in case it resolves itself.
Write a book review:
> The JIT Productivity Method is an interesting new take on productivity. The author makes a compelling case for why doing less and leaving everything to the last minute can actually be more effective than the traditional approach of working hard now and playing later. The book is well-written and easy to follow, and the author's methods are definitely worth considering if you're looking for a new way to get things done.
Write the first 5 paragraphs of the book:
> The JIT Productivity Method is a revolutionary new system for getting things done. It's the antithesis of the traditional "work hard now, play later" approach, and it's based on the simple principle of doing as little as possible and leaving everything until the last minute in case it resolves itself.
> The JIT Productivity Method is all about taking advantage of the fact that many things have a way of resolving themselves if you just give them a little time. Rather than working hard on something now and risking it not actually getting done, or worse, getting done poorly, the JIT approach suggests that you do as little as possible now and wait to see if the situation improves.
> Of course, this isn't an approach that will work for everything. But the beauty of the JIT Productivity Method is that it's flexible. There are no hard and fast rules, and you can tailor the approach to fit your own unique situation.
> If you're tired of the traditional productivity methods that always seem to fall short, then The JIT Productivity Method is definitely worth a read. It's a fresh, new take on productivity that just might help you get things done in a better, more effective way.
Of course, be mindful of your time, but learn how to use it wisely, rather than optimizing for “productivity” as observed by others.
Furthermore, I think putting on the hat of "productivity" can sometimes reveal unusual things. Like how a conversation with a friend is just repeating the same old dreary boring stuff, and if you put a little effort in you can have a more "productive" conversation.
Hmm, I've had the opposite experience.
And my hobby project (game) became popular. Unfortunately, I did not use any GTD / todolists, etc. Maybe a tiny todo program like qtodotxt because it's small, and I am too greedy to pay for todoist.
But since the end of 2015 - I have noticed how slowly I was starting to do smaller and smaller amounts of work. I was just sitting and can't push myself to continue with the previous speed of results. Not because things become more complex, but because I can't explain to myself what is going on.
More tasks on the todo, more things to do, more promises freaked off, etc. And after googling for a better todo tools, ads networks got my interest and started to offer through youtube and ads different promoted videos about GTD, matrix Gunzenhauser or how it is called, and other stuff.
Tons of really nice made videos, which work like popcorn for brains. Do X to get the Y result. Extremely easily explained things and procedures. I followed this bullshit and dug in because someone else was thinking for me, not me myself. I did not realize that at that point in time.
I think this is extremely important to bold: I was not ready to even try to think or understand that I want to job done not by me but by someone else. This is an important thing, please try to remember it, I will get back to it later.
In 2016 -> I started to learn different methodologies, follow different literature and books which do the same, and around the end of 2016, I got a strict understanding that this is business. Literally structured business which makes by themselves via tricks and manipulations with information and reasons <-> results relations which force idiots like me follow it, purchase more to get something that never will work. But you are forced to purchase and learn more because you can't make the thing work because it's impossible to make the thing/methodology work. Because the methodology sucks. Because it's made for business more. Like drugs -> while you read all of that bullshit and believe in that -> you feel good, when you trying to do something - you feel pissed off. And you face some kind of addiction.
God bless, I met some girl in 2019, which was suicidal, and was hospitalized and treated by psychiatrists. She told me -> "man, the thing that you have this is typical symptoms of depression, try to visit doctor."
I was denying that thing for damn a long time, maybe two years for sure. The problem with depression - is that the thing you can't beat alone. You will always go deeper and deeper to darker and more problematic things which impossible to cure yourself. That does not work like that.
Anyway, finally, when I worked in 2020 for only two weeks in the whole year, I strongly realized something extremely bad with me. I tried damn everything, just imagine everything that you can or who suggest you something: nothing helped. Literally everything (relax, changing work, changing friends circle, restriction of something X, doing something Y, whatever). Does not matter.
Just save your time and nerves - do not listen to anybody like me. So, in 2021, I slowly got a strong wish, like when you are hungry or want water, but that wish is about to die. This feeling follows you every single day, every single thing. If somehow you got a conflict / emotional problem -> boom, you wanna die. No, this is not a "pissed off" thing. This thing is about 3,2,1 - jump from a window. No jokes here. Crazy shit.
Anyway. Somehow after one of such days when I almost committed suicide -> I visited a doctor. Diagnosed with the latest stage of depression (it's when people kill themselves), and got offered to be hospitalized, and so on. I refused that, and I got pills to drink and talked with psychiatrists for a few months (until the war started).
So. What do I want to say to you? After starting to visit doctors who treat depression with pills + I tried to fix my problems with professional specialists in a clinic -> I started to feel better.
My libido because of pills -> goes down. But my intellectual potential -> go up in 2016-2015 years. I was able again, for almost a month, non-stop work, work great, did tons of a good job, and be productive.
I did not follow any tools, methodology, etc. I just had an inner power to do that. I got it back. Some kind of will.
So why do I write all of that? I hope my post helps many IT specialists like me (who feel burned) to understand those head problems -> it's common problems, and these problems are treated and help damn a lot to return back the previous level of productivity of your nature.
It will not boost you over your limits, but correct treatment will help you cure the source of your wasted will.
Just stop jerking for GTD / kanban / scrum / other bullshit. All of that shit does not work and should not work. Just abstraction, which will make life harder. If you feel extremely overwhelmed, can't do things in time, or lose your focus, or can't force yourself to work as you worked before ->, visit your doctor.
Pills are not costly, and treatment in the early stages too. And results - damn awesome.
It is hard to fix this alone, considering the society is constantly telling us that if you don't get stuff done, it is because you are lazy and did not do XYZ. Just find a counsellor or your doctor and see if they have any clue.
I’m productive but I’m fighting inner demons constantly. Your post is a good warning. Try to fix the small things before they become big things, like the “no broken windows policy”
This blogpost feels very ironic to me... I know I'm not the first to point it out, that the blogpost's obsession with a feeling of productivity is just way too meta given the blogpost itself, but the point where about 5 self-help resources are all quoted is the point where the whole thing started to feel a bit doomed to me.
The only way to boost productivity is to hire people. That's what these gurus usually do: hire stuff and let marketing (again: other people) spin it, like the single guy does all the work alone.
I once had the idea to write a book about it where the first page just says "write this book" and then 500 blank pages
right: money!
problem is: it's so much easier to get rich if you have money already...
They think that is they eat, sleep and think like Musk or Zuckerberg they'll get the same bank account. They spend time mimicking the by products of their lifestyle
I have settled on the idea of "Minimal Viable Day" and "Minimal Viable Week" ... what are things that, if I did those things AND NOTHING ELSE, I would consider the day and week a success.
Friday afternoon, I create a MVW todo item with 2-3 important things in it for the next week. Every morning I create MVD todo item with several things in it (often a bunch of smaller items and one or two largish items).
Everything else goes into the todo list and is ignored until the next MVD/MVW checkpoint.
Now I ignore all other "productivity hacks" and focus on doing this one.
- I have an inbox. Everything I agree to do that I can't do in the next couple of minutes goes in there. "Buy dogfood". "Paint the house". "Do a thing for work". Everything.
- I triage the inbox and put starting dates on everything I can't do right now (like "buy a Christmas ornament") so that they'll show up on my daily to-do list when the time comes.
- I review everything weekly, add stuff I've forgotten, and delete things I've finished or abandoned.
And that's about it. Thing is, without this system, I can't and won't remember to do any of the things I need to. It doesn't matter how important it is to me to make sure I buy an anniversary card for my wife: I'll forget until it's too late. The above is how I walk the line between "letting my life fall apart due to disorganization and forgetfulness" and "wasting time optimizing a fancy process".
I do have a similar approach like you. What I'm f..ing furious about it is, that I had to reach my middle 20s in order to realize I have to have something like this at all(!). Why personal time organization isn't taught at schools is beyond me. For me the system I try to keep in place is: - Daily task list (personal) - this absolutely has to be done today (or it needs to be replaned) - Daily task list (work) - has to be done today or I have to make a more long term plan - Weekly house(hold) tasks - (this one I started recently) - I go through major stuff I have to do around the house (fence, paint ect) - Long term work project list - this holds everything I need to do for work... again less interesting issues gets re-prioritized often based on "current interest" - Calendar reminders (double/triple alerts)- stuff not to forget
What I'm especially bad is tackling things that have a steep effort curve and don't produce a tangible "benefit (dopamine hit)" until further on. This I'm looking into hacking....perhaps the scrum point system is something that makes sense (and also recommended by comment above)
I’ve experienced this firsthand when asking my partner if maybe we can think about picking up… so yeah, the TV remote was picked up so Marie Condo [sp?] videos could light up the TV… and instead of just picking up, it’s a watch party of someone else picking up :(
I hate productivity-tube for this!
/end rant
Stress levels: plummeting.
Output (& happiness) much, much higher, far more than 10x before
Optimized work methods: I now print out a very short to-do list for each business I work in. A literal printout from Notepad or Apple Notes.
"Productivity": trending towards zero
People who built real things generally do so because they have the will to do it, not because they have 500 pages of investment advice collected on Notion.
Watching Ali Abdaal and dissing all productivity techniques is like watching a Crossfitter and dissing all forms of physical exercise. Yes, some people take exercise too far, but most people do nothing and that's a much bigger problem.
I see him as trying to push the envelope and give you a wide range of ideas. I don't try to copy everything he does, but he puts out a lot of ideas and usually some idea will stick.
I do believe there's always a better way of doing something. I especially believe in the productivity techniques to increase self reflection and "leverage" like the "daily highlight" and "five minute journal". It doesn't matter how productive you are if you haven't sorted out your priorities.
"The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one shepherd.
Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."
Ecclesiastes 12:10-12
:)
This is the reward you seek for accomplishing something. It’s the ticking of a to-do item, except the items are kind of useless, they just want to be ticked.
This is the same as smoking a cigarette, getting a quick fix, taking the phone with you to the toilet, watching TV at night instead of sleeping, just to finish an internal to-do because you feel like you didn’t accomplish it yet.
The solution I have to it is to exit the house without a phone, and to have something to do. Without the phone you can’t give yourself the quick to-do fixes and you’re more present. And when you have something to do, you don’t want to give yourself the quick fixes.
There are two counter-points that are often dismissed. The first is that if you haven't encountered the concepts, you aren't likely to stumble upon them without searching. Learning to plan and organize your behavior is no different from learning the fundamentals of any other skill.
The second is precisely your point. Our thoughts and behaviors are driven by context. Given a person reading a blog about time-tracking and a person who-knows-where on an infinite social media scroll, who is more likely to close their browser and do whatever they feel is most important? I know who I would bet on.
> who is more likely to close their browser and do whatever they feel is most important? I know who I would bet on.
Immersing oneself in productivity lifehacks is often a good way to feel productive without actually being so. So I don’t think either person stands to have a greater chance than the other towards getting back to work.
Of the last 500 things you read, how many changes have you implemented and sustained?
If your answers to those questions are similar to mine (the latter, and near zero) then I think one is actually better off letting go and just laughing at cat gifs.
I disagree with the line of thinking that all research which isn't immediately useful is unproductive. It just needs to be limited. Set a time limit of 30 minutes per day for researching and improving your meta process.
Those articles on AI you read on hackernews might be planting the seeds for your next career change. It's impossible to know ahead of time.
I think the ideal breakdown is 20% research, 70% action and 10% reflection.
Women have voting rights because some other women embraced radicalization and this is just one example.
Even serendipitous “I will learn that interesting thing on HN” if done with purpose and diligence is fine.
In my opinion, the fluff gets you through the drier parts of the reads. But what you decide to actually take out of the book and action on - that's up to you.
You turned it into mere entertainment when you read but didn't take action, for example, clean up your desk to enable your habits to begin, as clearly described in the Atomic Habits book.
The good reads you'll probably need to note down and return to a few times to extract all the useful, concrete advice.
But how do I judge the most useful (and therefore "productive") thing to do before I do it, since something may become a dead end? I don't know.
Also, a motivator because I sleep dreaming of having a nice gf one day :)
This most likely isn't intended to be reading a never-ending stream of bad news (on instagram?), but simply an endlessly scrolling site that keeps loading content before reaching the end of the page. The wiktionary definition [0] seems wrong.
> When I look for solutions to this problem I only come up with half-baked ideas and more questions.
It sounds like the author's talking about science.
If you go buy a bunch of tools and learn techniques of all of the professional woodcutters, before you’ve even gotten any wood, then you’re probably doing it wrong.
This post by the OP is his own musing. It has little bearing on the rest of us, and personally I just think his analysis is wrong.
Am I a manufacturer? Do I make oil paintings? Do I direct movies? Am I an elected officiel? No. I’m in tech, doing programming and sysadmin things. I’m a small cog in the whole scheme of things. Still interesting to read about what’s going on in other fields. Nothing wrong with that IMHO.
Like porn could be a tool for people to engage in (re)productive action. Or just porn.
Therefore, people copy attributes and behaviour patterns of productive individuals, but meaning is not possible to copy, so all of it is a sweatfest.
Car detailing youtube channels, lawncare ("cleaned this disaster yard") channels, time lapse before/after renovations... They do very well for a reason.
I deny the existence of “productivity porn.” It’s a made up idea. I read for clues to improve my work and life. This is not empty stimulation, this is living an examined life.
Not dissing the post, it's excellent. Just pointing out.
It is both excellent and not accomplishing anything. I'm sorry I don't see a problem.