Comment by agumonkey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by agumonkey | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Instead of lying I'd use the make it fun. Find any reason to make that task enjoyable, flip it around, organize it differently.

At work (temporary gig):

- manual labour == free workout. Whenever I have to crouch for a file.. I do it in a slow and perfect squat. I grab the file and stay down to strecth, then I go up swift .. I'm happy to have that file because I gained something. Other task like archive defragmenting I tried various ways to find the most agreeable one, then I go full speed.

- mundane tasks (print copy, input):

I make a chase waste game out of it (what programmers do). I organize the thing to be as lean and fast as possible and turn a 100+ repetitions into a smooth flow .. like a choreography.

I time most things to make it a game. Coworkers are shocked (whatever their reasons) but I produce twice in half the time and zero rants coming from my cubicle.

For tasks that I really don't like to do.. I gained a mental compartment to remember not to ever trigger that task again. I do it as a debt to my mistake and get done with it.

You can't rationalize or intellectualize everything. Trying just makes it harder later on when the things you cannot bargain with start piling up, despite all of your engineering attempts to prevent them. Essentially the author is asserting that thinking harder isn't going to fix some classes of problem, no matter how hard you think.

Fundamentally, there's a trap. It's a short trip from "I can avoid this if I'm good enough" to "I didn't avoid this, so I'm not good enough (bad)." That's toxic dialog. If this is the way you think about anyone, including yourself, you're not being a good friend, and there will be consequences.

And I realize the irony in this statement, but if you like to out-clever problems, you should think about whether you are failing to maintain a diversity of rich, long-term relationships with people. If so, this is probably not a coincidence.

That's what I tried to say in my last sentence. For way too absurd things, if you're obliged that time, do it, and the next time simply refuse and go elsewhere.

Some miserable things you have to do and can't get around it in the future. e.g. taxes.

Your comment reminded Principal Skinner in The Simpsons telling Bart to make a game of sharpening a stack of pencils: "Count the number of pencils you sharpened in one hour and try to beat your record"

Like all great advice, he was willing to follow it himself:

“I made a game of it. Seeing how many times I could bounce the ball in a day, then trying to break that record.”

I can't tell you how much better I feel doing this rather than behaving like other people in the workplace. Every hour is a drag to them, they're apathetic, ranting all day, talking to colleagues they don't even like. Tell me which one is better if you made an obligation of sharpening pencils. Also anything you do fast and clean becomes a skill. Most of life is a chore quick, cleaning, maintaining.. the faster you can do something perfectly the more time for good stuff.

> For tasks that I really don't like to do.. I gained a mental compartment to remember not to ever trigger that task again. I do it as a debt to my mistake and get done with it.

I like it. Here's to not ever making the mistake of doing my taxes again! raises glass

Yes I do this too! It's amazing what mindset can do.

We could talk about the social version of this. In my job nobody really works, it's an adversarial environment where everybody is hurting so wants to help nobody. A colleague and I did a thing together, the flow of shared tasks when done in friendly spirit helps immensely. Passing stuff between each others. Things happening while you're doing something else. Joining back together.. This should be mandatory in work and what leaders should be doing, ensuring people work in synergy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com