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Comment by gandalfgeek | Hacker News Reader

The problem with "productivity gurus" is that not one of them actually has any accomplishments in an actual specialized domain (other than marketing their stuff).

Conversely, as I look at all the accomplished people around me, they've quietly built a mountain of expertise and achievement with cobbled systems held together by spit and glue that a productivity hustler would scoff at.

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A great book about this topic is "Daily Rituals: How Artists Work" -- which covers the routines of actual artists and thinkers, with their wild, idiosyncratic inconsistency: from waking up hungover most days and only writing when they feel "inspired" to working 3 hours a day and spending most of the day walking and "lounging" to the strict, regimented routines in the style of productivity gurus

I can't say that I agree with this. There are the productivity "influencers" who say a lot of things but don't actually live it. There is a high correlation between being a productivity based person and being successful. Most of the leaders you admire are highly productive people and employ practices to increase their productivity, they're just too busy to soapbox about it.

I suspect the "influencers" and the "productivity gurus" you two are talking about are the same people. A guru is a type of teacher -- the really productive people don't have time to teach anyone other than, at best, their successors.

Or perhaps they leveraged their success to reduce the amount of “busy” they have so as to make time to amplify the mindset or practices that helped them, because they think that can be their biggest gift to the world.

> Most of the leaders you admire

Perhaps you admire them. I don't, and I suspect a lot of the anti-productivity people don't as well.

Yes. Much better to look at people who have achieved excellence in their specialty and see how they do things.

Cal Newport is a tenured theoretical computer science professor. Seems like an accomplishment in an actual specialized domain to me!

> The problem with "productivity gurus" is that not one of them actually has any accomplishments in an actual specialized domain (other than marketing their stuff).

Any source for this or is this just assumption? There are many people in that business.

> (other than marketing their stuff)

How is that not work that involves productivity?

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