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Comment by VyseofArcadia | Hacker News Reader

I found this to be an incredibly depressing article. It boiled down to, "think about pleasant things that aren't work." For example,

> Pick an activity that you've always wanted to try. Don't have ideas? Try Wikipedia for a good list of hobbies

I already have plenty of hobbies, and I'd rather work on any of them than be at work!

I've always been very self-motivated. I want to work on what I want to work on. Being forced to work on things that I don't care about in order to draw a salary sucks, and no amount of

> Schedule a 30-minute time block to freely jot down questions that spark your curiosity as an engineer. (They don't have to be about work.)

is going to change that. If anything, it makes it worse because now I would rather be investigating those questions than working!

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These were my thoughts as well. The article has nothing to say about being engaged at work. It's all non-work suggestions.

The best interpretation I could infer was that if you are engaged outside work, you'll be able to be more engaged at work?

My feelings about cause-and-effect are the opposite. When I'm disengaged at work, I'm less engaged outside of work. I'll try to do hobbies and stuff outside of work but it makes the contrast more drastic, which makes work less bearable.

Perhaps not depressing but certainly unhelpful. If I'm spend time thinking about other more interesting stuff, I tend to get sucked into those things. Which just means I've got zero focus on stuff I need to get done.

I thought point 2 addressed engagement well. If you can get behind the purpose of the whole company, then understanding why your particular cog is important to the machine will help keep you engaged.

My spouse and I do this occasionally, where we pick a business off the street that we're walking by and think about how they make money.

I think it can work for a small business where you can hold the whole thing in your head. It's _much_ harder when you're thinking about a multi-thousand-person enterprise with a dozen product lines.

In the beginning of a career, I can respect some of the choices mentioned in the article. But to be able to stick around in the biz you must work with something that feels meaningful.

I wish I realized earlier that changing job is no big thing. Even though one should do it for the right reasons. Once you feel like you are dying inside at a workplace it is not like a hobby will fix that.

Unfortunately, many (many!) people are not intrinsically-motivated like you or I and would rather do other things (unpopular opinion: many people are perfectly fine with doing nothing, and I mean not a DAMN thing). This article is for them.

Having intrinsic motivation for your work is a huge privilege. Be thankful for it!

> Having intrinsic motivation for your work is a huge privilege. Be thankful for it!

Just to clarify, I am intrinsically motivated for my work. I am not intrinsically motivated at work. I've actually begun to see the industry I work in as kind of dumb.

i need to purposefully avoid thinking about my hobbies at work or i'll get too distracted daydreaming

Hypnosis worked for Peter Gibbons.

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