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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

I see these kinds of articles come along from time to time, and it always makes me wonder: Why this pressing need to maximize productivity? Why not just do things you enjoy, at a pace that you enjoy? Is it for more money/prestige? What's the use if you've been stressing and pressuring yourself for it all your life?

I feel like the odd person out because I work on something while I enjoy it, stop working on it when I don't, and pick it up again when I want to. Work is obviously a bit different, but I don't need to pressure myself to improve, I don't need a raise. I work as much as necessary and do other things the rest of the time. Some people are naturally more productive than me, and that's fine, I'm exactly as productive as I'm happy being.

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The Church of Productivity strikes me as a very American kind of religion. I personally value being productive on things I care about, but I've worked hard to unlearn this general protestant-work-ethic, no-moment-wasted, anxiety-driven desire to be a Very Productive Person.

One of the interesting things to me is how long this has been a part of American history. In the excellent history podcast Backstory, one episode covers time and sleep. [1] I had known that before the electric light, most people spent time awake in the middle of the night, sleeping in two sessions ("first sleep" and "second sleep") of a few hours each.

But what I hadn't known is that part of what drove the change to one-shot sleep was moralizing busybodies in the 1800s, known as the "Early Rising" movement, who thought it was slothful to get that second tranche of sleep. They were sort of like the temperance movement.

[1] https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/ and in particular the "'Til Morning is Nigh" segment with historian Roger Ekirch.

Thanks for the link! There's also a transcript:

https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/#transcr...

> The Church of Productivity strikes me as a very American kind of religion.

It's our protestant roots and the very Calvinist view of success, really. There's a reason they call it the Protestant Work Ethic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

It’s the imperative of capitalist production, really. The “Protestant Work Ethic” was coined long after the imperative of productivity had been noticed and written at length about (e.g., see Marx, Proudhon, Smith, et al.).

Also strikes me as related to the core difference in views on mental health (Western analytical psychology a la Jung vs Eastern demonological/mystical)

For some reason, those of us in the US measure productivity in terms of "value created for our employer" or "value created for the business". That doesn't make any sense. You need to measure productivity in terms of what matters to you, which includes time with your kids, spirituality, and such. The amount of value you create for your employer probably shouldn't get much weight.

It makes perfect sense when one realizes increasing productivity is the single key to extracting maximum surplus value from labor under capitalism. Measuring (and increasing) productivity wasn’t invented for workers.

We're learning that in the debates over public education funding. For some reason, at least in the US, public education is justified if and only if it creates a more productive workforce. Why the government should subsidize the cost of training employees is rarely stated (probably for a good reason).

Maybe educated emploers pay more taxes?

Well, of course. People aren’t educated for happiness, or even to be better humans. They are educated to standards that meet the expectations of the work place, since nearly all members of society will live to sell themselves for wages (unless they join the ranks of capitalists).

Capital requires an always-ready labor pool whose numbers exceed available employment. It helps keep constant downward pressure on wages. It also ensures people who aren’t hired—or are fired—are available the next time capital needs to put them to work to create more capital.

Mass education can’t be effectively sold to the People as the thing that enables them to become a wage slave. However, capital has long convinced the state to take an interest in economic growth at nearly all costs, so the state doesn’t even question the ways in which it is employed by capital to secure new markets, more labor, and more capital.

That said, it obviously isn’t education that creates a more productive workforce alone—but it makes for an effective bludgeon with which certain interests can beat back efforts to teach things that aren’t considered to be job-relevant. Education merely produces the raw human material capital can put to work to create more capital, without having to shoulder the cost/time burden itself. The extent to which capital successfully externalizes costs onto society at large is quite impressive.

Really makes you wonder why people don't value themselves. Does society systematically strip the underclass of their self-esteem? Every single job I've had I knew that the purpose was either 1) to make me money 2) to help me develop skills or career experience. Idgaf about my employer making money (except as it relates to my goals); that's his problem to care about. I'm contracted to provide labor, not make his business profitable for him

I think as a professional your job description should include using your skills to improve a critical metric or a process of the business, and this should include using your abilities to contribute in a meaningful way. IMHO, this attitude may be harmful to one's career. In the end, you can always find another job, but would not it be nice to actually care about the business? If you are in a place where you feel like they do not care about you, maybe you should look for something else, but maybe with a more caring approach, because it is a two way street.

Just my 2 cents, though.

The fact of the matter is, they may not actually care about you. Especially if the money is tight, employers are rare yo actually reward investment into the company.

> Idgaf about my employer making money

Whilst I applaud the sentiment, it's worth remembering that's pretty much the only reason you have a job and can make money. You have a job because you provide the employer with more value than you take - if that equation shifts against you, then you're bang out of luck.

If you have easily transferable skills, then maybe you can get away with not caring and jump from place to place, but I'd at least be a little bit mindful of how your role fits into the organisation requirements, unless you want a nasty shock one day.

That's very true!

European theorists were grappling with the demands of productivity for a long while before (and while) it became an American cultural demand. The imperative of productivity was very much imported to the US by the Europeans who came to the US. It’s certainly taken on a life of its own here, and I don’t discount its nearly religious nature to US work culture—it underpins so much of American thought. Productivity is a demand imposed upon all who work under capitalism—there is no other way to extract increasing surplus value from labor without it.

It's an extremely American tradition that was practiced and pushed by one of its founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. Himself being called "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become". A nontrivial amount of his autobiography is him espousing productivity and the ways he accomplished so much in his life.

I think it's fine to kind of just chill in life, but I think it's also great that some people feel a real fire under themselves to get as much done in their lifetime before they die. It's why we have people like Benjamin Franklin who helped usher in the next several eras of progress for humanity.

It’s important to point out that many people also helped usher in the next several eras of progress for humanity without following that path.

Eg Charles Darwin, who seemed to work in 3 slots of 1h30 every day:

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2008/12/char...

That's pretty awesome. Though I'm sure we could quibble over the relative effects of each upon the course of human history, or the fact that Benjamin Franklin started with almost no means whereas Charles Darwin was born into a wealthy family-- I agree that the takeaway is that we may all have meaningful impacts on society without having to make sacrifices in the name of productivity. But, that being said, I'd personally say those sacrifices are not in vain as I think Benjamin Franklin's contributions to the course of American History outweigh Darwin's contributions to science.

Darwin contributed on a more global scale.

How can we compare those contributions?

To be fair, much of America spent the 19th century heroically drunk.

How would you put into words the opposing, "non-productivity focused" viewpoint? I'm an American and I don't know that I can currently comprehend what the opposite would be.

Thinking about it in the current context, I might say that there is something like a prodictivity counter-culture? For example Deep Work seems to value high-poductivity focus on one hand, but being lazy and completely switching off workis lauded as well.

Ritch Hickie talk Hammock-driven development seems to be about simmilar concept as well https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...

Last thing it reminds me of, is the Mythical Man Month, with its warnings about how adding more people to a project makes it makes it even more behind the schedule.

But even here, I still live with the undrlying assumption that you as a person want to keep producing interesting/important/useful/profitable things. Just that slowing down can get you further.

I have experienced this with myself when working on my masters thesis. I remember that for three months I was just thinking about it. Not really working on anything. And after the idea slowly over the months crystalized as the "right thing to do" I solved a problem in a way that replaced 3Kloc C++ code with 50 lines of Python over a weekend. Then I spent rest of the time running experiments and writing the text :-)

And sometimes I miss this, especially in current agile environment, where sprint retrospective is always around the corner, I don´t feel like I have time to just think about stuff anymore.

Bertrand Russels 'In Praise of Idleness' describes it perfectly: it is sufficient to work just so much that you have enough money to spend the rest of the day with whatever you enjoy, without considering its usefulness and even less your productivity.

Unfortunately I don't have the references to back this up but it's my understanding that the latest understanding of sleep, and sleep in humans, is that we're naturally biphasic, one long period at night and one short period in the afternoon, and this is what you find with communities today that live as hunter-gatherers. Slightly less "natural" is the monophasic pattern most people follow, which is sleeping at night.

I'm not sure what words to describe that waking in the middle of night pattern as other than fad or historical myth—there's no evidence that it's healthier or beneficial given our understanding of the various systems that drive sleep and waking, and evidence for its occurrence is very limited. Indeed it's odd to think that given everything we know about human physiology, that we're all tuned to wake up in the middle of the night, y'know, to do important stuff just without our eyes.

We need someone to advocate for sloth, as Gordon Gekko did for greed.

Slothful folk take shortcuts, and shortcuts lead to serendipitous productivity improvements (if they aren't persistently reducing quality).

> sleeping in two sessions ("first sleep" and "second sleep") of a few hours each.

I still do this sometimes. Eat and shower directly after work. Then sleep until like 9pm and stay wake until 2am. Then sleep again until i have to get up to go to work.

Not sure if you read the post, but the author addresses a couple of your points and seems to agree with you:

I’ve learned that I can’t be very productive working on things I don’t care about or don’t like. So I just try not to put myself in a position where I have to do them (by delegating, avoiding, or something else). Stuff that you don’t like is a painful drag on morale and momentum.

And:

Also, don’t fall into the trap of productivity porn—chasing productivity for its own sake isn’t helpful. Many people spend too much time thinking about how to perfectly optimize their system, and not nearly enough asking if they’re working on the right problems. It doesn’t matter what system you use or if you squeeze out every second if you’re working on the wrong thing.

To be honest, I didn't read it. Reading articles about productivity makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, when I'm perfectly happy otherwise. They're the Instagram of work life for me.

EDIT: I went back and read it, I agree with most of what he says (and my original comment wasn't very relevant to this particular article), I would just add "don't stress about productivity, most of the time it's fine to just do what you like".

I'd like to agree wholeheartedly about reading articles makes you feel like you're doing something wrong. I feel this way about almost all non-technical work books and articles and tend to avoid them.

So, what you're saying is that you find it hurts your productivity to read productivity articles, so you try not to put yourself into the position where you have to read them?

On a more serious note, I feel like "maximizing" "productivity" on things you are passionate about is largely wasted effort (unless the thing you are passionate about is "maximizing" "productivity")...

> So, what you're saying is that you find it hurts your productivity to read productivity articles, so you try not to put yourself into the position where you have to read them?

No, it hurts my happiness to read productivity articles, so I skip them.

Yeah, but what is happiness other than a way to increase your productivity?

Happiness is an end unto itself. An end that productivity can, but doesn't always, serve. At least that's how I go about my life.

It's a joke.

The fact that so many see it as something else is interesting on multiple levels.

Neurologically, it might actually be justified—there's a recent hypothesis that we're wired to "decrease uncertainty" more than any other terminal preference, i.e. that "being productive" (in the sense of doing things to ensure that a situation will resolve a particular way) is an end unto itself, that we pursue regardless of whether it makes us happy. (I like this hypothesis because it neatly explains why the experiences of happiness, of contentment, and of motivation, are all effectively orthogonal, and many people can have one of the three while never having the other two. It also explains why people tend to feel relief when a negative event they've been attempting to prevent finally happens anyway.)

As well, there is a reason that Buddhism's viewpoints on dukkha and nirvana needed to be invented/discovered and taught (and that people struggle to learn them.) The idea that there is a happiness that exists as a state of *being8, that does not involve "doing", is not, seemingly, an instinctual belief among human beings—or even one that's very easy to convince people of.

go read it. you will be happier.

i could tell you didn't read it, because if you did you'd realized you are more similar than you think.

No that's not what he was saying.

So what’s the person he delegates the work he doesn’t like supposed to do when it’s work they don’t like? Get fired for being unproductive? This is something you can only do when you have enough minions or money to avoid that stuff.

Even as a not-particularly-experienced-as-a-lead, I try to ensure I don't ask someone in my team to do something I wouldn't be willing to do myself.

If the task is something they enjoy and I don't, double win. If it's something no-one enjoys then I'd try to take the first batch, or at least share the pain around, if we can't automate it away.

If I'm not willing to do it myself then it gets pushed back to whoever pushed it onto me in the first place.

he said he prefers to delegate to people who might like the task.

Why this pressing need for productivity? Ambition. If you have ambitious things you want to achieve, they're probably going to take more than just ambling along.

An athlete who wants to win races is going to run at a faster pace than he'd find comfortable if he were just going for a run.

This pattern holds true when your only opponent is the difficulty of the problem.

Okay, but what happens when you take a look at the bigger picture?

What is ambition really? It's almost always some arbitrary personal or social goal (have $x in bank account, make startup with $y, get title z) that rarely has any bearing on personal happiness nor making the world better for others.

My happiest memories are waking up next to someone I love, or a barbecue with friends, or an outstanding meditation, or a really honest conversation with a family member. The cult of productivity seems like, ironically, a waste of my time on earth.

I like being productive because I believe it helps me make a small, beneficial impact on the future. This is meaningful to me.

However, I do understand your perspective. I think it's important to strike a balance, and that this balance won't look the same for everyone.

I was bullied at school. I have oppressive father. Then I have struggled with mental health.

After all that I could aim for the exact thing my former bullies get without trying. Job, wife and kids. But it doesn't feel like it's extraordinary enough to justify all that bullshit I've gone through.

So I live by the maxim "find something you love and let it kill you". For me that something seems to be making tools for other people. Money would be just validation that other people find my tools useful. And I want my own company to have design freedom. When you actually love your thing, doing it your way is big deal.

For me, there's a conflict between long-term and short-term enjoyment. I have a 'goal' of independence from my 9-5, but after I get home from work and play with my kids a bit, it sounds more immediately _enjoyable_ to watch a TV show with my wife rather than spend a couple hours on my side project.

So it does sound ideal to > do things you enjoy, at a pace that you enjoy but I think there's a part of life where you're consciously sacrificing immediate enjoyment for a future goal. And hopefully the future goal is to do just that (enjoy life at an enjoyable pace).

If I can be more productive, that's minimizing the time I spend sacrificing enjoyment before attaining my goals :).

> If I can be more productive, that's minimizing the time I spend sacrificing enjoyment before attaining my goals :).

What would you do if you didn't have to work? Spend more time with your wife and kids? Isn't it a bit odd to say "if only I spent less time with my wife and kids, then I could have a chance to spend more time with them in the future!"?

I think the point is that the parent is weighing:

Spend X hours working per week to get Y hours of family time

vs.

Spend X+n hours working per week (or just X if you can find ways to be more productive) to some much larger value of Y hours of family time over some estimated larger timeframe.

It's all a gamble and about risk, but if you think you might be able to retire early in say, 10 years, and get to spend a much larger amount of time with your family (and be presumably less stressed and in a better position to support them financially) that might be worth a bit of extra hustle or focus on productivity than spending 20 years working for some similar result.

I'm being really hand-wavey with numbers, but when people think of early retirement for these reasons, that's often the thinking behind it.

There's a fair question to be raised on the quality of that time spent, particularly when you look at your health when you are younger, and the impact of spending time with children when they are young, but there's a lot of factors that people consider when weighing these questions, and I don't think it is entirely fair to judge someone because they may weigh those questions differently than you did.

> What would you do if you didn't have to work?

For me the question isn't what would I do if I didn't have to work. The question is: What if I could have absolute control over what I do and wasn't beholden to anyone else because of rent and food and such?

That would be neat. I happen to find getting there (working more) more enjoyable than watching Netflix and other time wastey things so it works out. I enjoy my work so I want to do more of it. And I want to do less of the work I don't enjoy.

So it's about freedom, not what you would do with that freedom?

In a nutshell, yes.

I'm not really wanting to not work, as such, but to transition from working for someone else to working on my own projects.

So the equation for me is more: Spend a little less time with wife/kids today to improve my future enjoyment of the work part of life.

It's a tough balance, because I highly value wife/kids time -- so when I give up some of that (valuable and well-spent) time for a potential future good, I want to make sure I'm using that time optimally, so that sacrifice is as "worth it" as possible.

There's definitely a balance here; I could make much faster progress by working every night and weekend, but that would be too much of a sacrifice of the good present for the potential better future.

Anyway, I very much agree with/appreciate the point of your questions :).

Talking about living a good life makes you sound like a deluded hippie, a hardcore Christian, or an ancient Greek. When people want to sneak advice on living virtuously past modern cynicism, they have to hide it under layers of similarly cynical ideas.

Because of this, suggestions on how to live well, make yourself into a better person, and enjoy your life are made in the name of increasing productivity. Spend time with your family, exercise, sleep properly, tackle interesting problems, work in a comfy quiet space with natural light, constantly learn new things, surround yourself with good positive people, take breaks when you're feeling the onset of burnout, experience nature, and value your time - it's okay to be happy, because you're doing it in the name of productivity!

What if you could be more productive and happy at the same time?

I do think it's not good to have a culture where productivity is the end goal of everything. Yet I also think it's not good to have a culture where the first time the word "productivity" is mentioned, the reaction is repulsion (I appreciate at least your honesty in admitting you didn't read the article).

Just like the drive to work-death represents the worst part of the American stereotype, the repulsion against anything that produces work or economic value to me, represents the worse of the European stereotype (or perhaps in Thiel's terms, indefinite pessimism stereotype).

Can we admit that work isn't the end goal of society, while at the same time admitting that getting more work done in less time is a good thing?

Also, on a meta-front, shouldn't we discuss which of Sam's tips work, which don't, and which one produces a lot of unhappiness as a side effect? To me that would be more interesting.

I don't understand this obsession with productivity. Everywhere around me I see people working hard.

It's unimaginable how hard some people work. If this was not the case our entire edifice of civilization would fall apart in a day. From public services to businesses who continue to run efficiently and make profits because of the hard work of their employees.

Yet there is a whole mythology which sees a special need to glorify productivity and individual genius.

This not only creates a culture of self pressure but worse manufactures an alternative reality of 'slackers', the lazy and unproductive who 'need' to exist simply to justify this glorification. In many ways perpetuating false stereotypes and exaggerating fringe behavior.

Let me try to address your points in general since I assume the question is whether productivity is worth 'pedestalizing'?

Even if you forget about the impact to company / society / civilization and focus simply on yourself, you can see that you get X hours in total and one shot at life. If you pare it down by necessary but not directly productive hours like downtime / time spent towards learning / physical-mental well being etc. You get Y which is very much lesser than X.

Some folks want to maximize the heck out of this Y just because they have so many things they want to get done OR they have chosen to listen to someone / company that tells them that they should get all of those done.

Usually maximization like that in comparison to a lifestyle that maximizes consumption is always 'pedestalized' because of a few reasons:

- historically they have moved the bottom line on many real world scenarios.

- someone else values it enough that they pay actual money for it (I am yet to find a viable lifestyle option that will pay me money :). I personally value money because it buys me time (via ability to delegate) and experiences with the limited time I have.

- When you have a ton of things you want to get done (irrespective of socio-economic impact) and little time, there is no other choice.

I agree it might be 'marginal behavior' which is what makes it so sought after. There are folks who can't get there, folks who don't want to get there, folks who will try but won't get there and a ton of mortals who will get somewhere close. In general, humans want to make a difference in some way, we see the Elon's of the world somehow making a difference and folks chase after it (hence pedestalizing). IOW your question will make more sense if we are immortal :)

Perhaps you are missing the point. People are working very hard for civilization to work from the sewage workers, to grid technicians to utility workers to the rest of society. Every society in history has recognized and rewarded its achievers and geniuses and will continue to. Ergo things are working as expected. No psychological intervention or incentives are required.

However this gratuitous need to create a mythology of the 'productive' ignores that this is infact standard behavior by the vast majority, and society at large and by its very need to exist fabricates the existence of a population of slackers, the lazy and unproductive which exaggerates fringe slacker behavior and is not consistent with reality. This is what makes it toxic.

- are you asserting working hard is the same as being highly productive?

- are you asserting that people not contributing continuously/coasting by is not a thing or is only marginal or fringe?

- what is in your opinion the difference between making a living vs making a difference to the society you are in? Are they the same?

There's LOADS of things I want to do. I have a lot of interests. I have a lot of ambitions. The faster I am at meeting my goals the more I get to do, the further I get to go.

If I'm more productive in the kitchen I finish making my meals sooner. If I'm more productive at coding I finish making my personal projects sooner and I get more projects out there. I learn more. I can make more money to spend on things I care about. etc. etc.

If there were only a few things I cared about or was interested in then maybe I wouldn't be pushing so hard but there's so much to life I want to experience, see, and accomplish. I know I can't do it all but I am legit excited to do what I am capable of.

There is no end to this. Even if you had 48 hours per day and boundless energy, you'd feel similarly. I'll freely admit I'm no wise sage but if I know that there's no end to it, then I'd feel inclined to figure out where I want to stop.

I do get where you're coming from, and I think it's just a balance game. I really want to enjoy life and change certain things for the better, but I also have to be patient, some things take effort but also time. Can't lose 10 lbs of fat in a healthy way in the next 10 minutes no matter how much I may work for it or want it.

And no one can do everything in the world. So I also prioritize. But even within those priorities there's still plenty I can do. And plenty I can do to work smarter and push myself to go further.

It's like in the gym, there's a huge difference in overtraining to the point of getting injury vs just pushing yourself a good amount so that you get better results vs just grumbling your way through a slow walk. The results will reflect that.

People can set realistic goals that they have to push themselves a to get without going overboard. Personally I enjoy that because it gets me things I want. A fitter body, a better relationship with my loved ones, a lucrative career where I get to do something creative, challenging, and that can make a difference. The free time to enjoy my hobbies.

Do I need to be a billionaire? No. Do I need to be an Olympian? No. But that doesn't mean I can't be -better- than I am now.

Everyone has things they need to get done in their life that they don't enjoy. I don't think learning to be more effective at getting them done quickly so you can spend more time doing what you enjoy is a bad thing.

Personally, I also have a lot of things I want to do, but not necessarily time to do them all. The more progress I make doing things I enjoy, the more I enjoy them. So productivity is important there, too.

>Why this pressing need to maximize productivity?

Cynical answer: Because the person paying for your time would like the maximum return from that investment, and the need for human agency requires that we rationalize that pressure as something that originates within ourselves.

And the person selling their time (me) would like maximum compensation for that investment, so the employer should commensurately strive to always increase my pay.

That logic doesn't quite work that way.

True, because the balance of power doesn't favour it.

In a situation where employees have the balance of power, it does produce great pressure to raise pay, and you do also then see the same rationalization from the employer that it's because their employees are so great and that they're so generous. But reality is the market pressure drove it, not those things.

Probably because people think that their current level is 'unnaturally low' and if only they 'did this one secret thing' it would get some kind of immediate boost. I've observed that tech people especially, are naturally interested in learning new things, but find it harder to go into a heads-down productive mode where they completely dedicate their time to one thing. A lot of programmers seem to use deadlines or other external pressures to get themselves into a productive mode. It would be good (for them) if they could be in charge of their own productivity.

The new meme/trend I see now is: don't manage your time (or tasks), manage your energy.

I very deeply agree with you and have not been able to find this kind of thinking/feeling synthesized into a life-philosophy I can say I subscribe to. I'd love to discuss more with you if you're interested.

Certainly, contact info is in my profile, I'm also on Keybase.

Although not an opus on the subject, you may enjoy this article: https://aeon.co/essays/take-your-time-the-seven-pillars-of-a...

Thank you! This was a fantastic read.

How about Epicurianism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism

OP started with:

"I think I am at least somewhat more productive than average, and people sometimes ask me for productivity tips. So I decided to just write them all down in one place."

If you're not interested in productivity tips, maybe don't read and comment on posts that are titled "Productivity" and start with a paragraph like this? I kind of sense that you want to have a meta-level discussion on whether we should worry about optimizing productivity in the first place, but sometimes the article just isn't for you, you know?

Startups allow each early contributor to literally (this is not an exaggeration) do the work of an army of 100,000. And often do it better than any one of the 100,000 because that army is also out there in the industry you're entering, well-equipped, well-regimented and well-managed, working 8 hours a day 5 days a week with all the economies of scale of specializations into their various duties (when you look at a trademark status as the founding CEO, the opposing army has a lawyer with a degree in intellectual property and 10 years specializing in just that one thing; same for every other task in the business), and all of the material support, recognition, and connections to do whatever they want.

You, by contrast, have exactly two things: 1) your idea. 2) your productivity.

That's it. Of course founders will be interested in productivity. It's all we have.

(By the way in 1 month of 40 hour weeks there are 576 000 000 milliseconds. So as long as you can do in 2000 to 20 000 milliseconds, the work of a dedicated specialist working for a month, you have plenty of extra room to personally defeat the army of 100,000 - with room to spare. And of course unlike them, you're not limited to 40 hours a week when it comes down to it ;).)

Why this pressing need to maximize productivity?

Because if you don't do it, someone will. And unless you got something else to offer, you'll lose to your competition.

There is a definitely a fear of being outcompeted. I think it's completely unfounded.

"We're not the first, I hope we're not the last

Cause I know we're all heading for that adult crash

The time is so little, the time belongs to us

Why is everybody in such a fucking rush?"

You are lucky and sound really content. That's awesome! For a lot of folks though (anecdotally speaking) that is not the case, they have different priorities and goals, not just for themselves, but also for their near and dear ones. Sometimes it gets overwhelming when you think about all the different roles we play in life and all the various commitments (direct and indirect) we've made professionally, personally (to self and family/friends). To me being productive, is being able to say confidently that 'This is the best use of my time and energy right now at this very moment'. It could be working out, playing with my kids, working on a project.. whatever. Sort of non-intuitively (for me atleast), staying organized (with lists , reminders, etc whatever is cheapest/easiest way to do so), just helps me actually shut off my mind and enjoy the moment. Whatever that might be (including writing this comment :) )

The article is really just describing how he goes about making the best use of the time he has, and a big part of that is describing what he does to feel and perform at his best. It mostly seems like things that anyone could benefit from, regardless of what your goals/priorities are.

Ah, thanks, I'm going to go back and give it a chance. As I said below, I usually don't read these sorts of articles because they're stressful in a "You can do better! Look how well all these people are doing! Why aren't you like them!" social-media way.

You are very honest with your feelings! I am like that too - feeling envious when reading "you can do it too" articles instead of focusing just on the message they wanna teach us :)

Personally, I just want to realize more of my own potential. I believe I'm capable of a lot, including becoming more capable. Such things do have an impact on mental well-being (please find your own citations) so I'm fine with this being an end in itself.

There may be something you want to make that cannot be made that way. This is because understanding (and knowledge) decay over time, so if what you want to achieve requires a large amount of understanding, you have to work quickly. Additionally, if you want to do something very creative, then you have to fight against distraction and mistake (which I believe is absolutely necessary for real creativity).

Also, I've found that sometimes pushing yourself to a point of (mental) pain can actually be quite enlightening. It's admittedly rare (say, 1 in 10) but quite valuable for reasons of empathy but also understanding pain, which is a prerequisite for making a large class of really useful things.

As long as I am fairly happy, I optimize for impacting the world in a positive way. This is because I think this a good proxy for long term deep-rooted happiness. I have found in myself and in others that optimizing for happiness is hard to do without focusing excessively on short-term happiness which leads to hedonic treadmill effects or even in some cases addiction.

Given that you are fairly happy already, optimizing productiveness will allow you have a greater positive impact on the world. I think this is why other commenters have mentioned that optimizing productivity can be a proxy for optimizing long term happiness.

Oh, I'm not saying "don't optimize your productivity". Just don't stress too much about it.

Got it. I was responding specifically to "Why not just do things you enjoy, at a pace that you enjoy?"

I think a really good answer to that is in order to help other people as much as possible. Working on things that are hard or unpleasant or even don't necessarily line up with a specific long term goal in a way you can anticipate will often lead to happiness if it impacts other people positively.

Perfect reflection of my views. I may not be high throughput, but I produce good/excellent work and have a really good work/life balance.

I'm also not the guy who solves the most tasks in absolute numbers, but apparently everyone appreciates the work I do and the quality of said work, and trust my judgement and input on other subjects. I feel that's a lot better than solving tasks super quick.

Interesting view. IMHO your approach also maximizes 'productivity' as the output of your approach is a 'product' which has high utility to you but may not have same utility to others. If the utility it generates for you gives you more fulfilment than the utility which 'productivity' in traditional sense does so be it.

(Replying because I can't edit the comment)

I feel strongly about this topic and found the discussion here illuminating, so I wrote a short article about it and posted here, I'd welcome feedback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16804062

Well, many people in startup circles have to optimize for time. They are taking risks without seeing any money, taking a salary for long periods of time. In most cases, they are also answerable to their employees. By being productive, you increase your chances of success and be happy that you are doing the best you can.

Overall I agree with you, but there are many people who want to do something (profesionally or personally), but lack either 1) the motivation or 2) self-awareness of time/energy management, in the context of the rest of their life.

Productivity porn taps into fixing one or both of these. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes not.

The pressing need to optimize productivity typically come as one feels age (IMO). The luxury of having enough time to do or not do things decreases at a rapid rate. Now, if you can be happy at your level of productivity and be content with how things are, I would say you are a lucky person. Its not easy to achieve.

Given there is only so much time in the say I've always looked at productivity as a way to minimize wasting said time. Some people opt to fill in the time gained with more work and some people choose to use the time gained for leisure. Both are correct as long as you are still maintaining a healthy balance.

Is it because you want to the things you love. Not the other way around. People believe in YOLO (You only lice once), so they want to do as many things they love as possible. One way to do that is to be more productive. Another way would be to live longer, the research of which is still in its infancy.

It depends how you look at it. Wasting time gets on my nerves so to take Sam's example: what do you prefer: a 20 minute meeting or a 2h meeting where there's a lot of wasted time?

i think you and sam are more alike than you think. If you think hard enough about what to work on, you won't have to pressure yourself once you decide to work on it.

Also, he says you should take a break or switch context when you get tired.

And you should definitely be happy doing the thing first. If you're not happy, maybe you don't really want to be doing it. Delegate, or get rid of that task quick and dirty.

From a selfish perspective, it might be better not to focus on maximizing your productivity. From a species-perspective, I'm glad for folks like Elon Musk, Richard Stallman, Einstein and basically almost everyone else to strive for maximum output. This will help us more quickly fight disease, aging, poverty, etc.

> Why this pressing need to maximize productivity?

Because this maximizes your happiness. We're happiest when we produce, not when we consume or when we're idle. Think of productivity as a rate of positive change you inflict on your surroundings, or as a unit of feedback you receive from the world acknowledging your existence.

Re-arranging the world towards your views is hugely satisfying and it could be as simple as cleaning up your bedroom, working on your garden or as complex as migrating a country off fossil fuels.

If you accept this definition of productivity the rest of the blog post makes perfect sense. Why are we here? To be productive! :)

I think you need a lot more evidence than a couple sentences to prove that happiness is a monotonically increasing function of productivity. A priori, it sounds much more likely to me that it's a unimodal function which peaks and then drops off.

Personally, I'm happiest when I'm cuddling my girlfriend, or when I'm at a concert, or when I'm reading a great book, or when I'm enjoying good food or drink, or some combination of the above. I guess I'm a hedonist, the only things I enjoy producing are those that directly contribute to my happiness.

How does that fit into a definition of productivity?

I guess I am technically producing happiness, but that seems like a bit of stretch :-)

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