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Comment by bgentry | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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