Change Your Life in 6 Months (My Deep Work Routine)

I am 30yo and must-have dabbled every form such productivity routines in the past decade. Divvying up my life into tasks and further dividing into four priorities, like the author suggests, never worked for me. If it does for you, awesome! More importantly though, it's fine if it doesn't.

There absolutely no reason why time needs to be spent productively. There isn't anyone standing at the finish line, grading you how you spent your life. This isn't to say it isn't good for you. Learning, doing, and growing is one of the better pleasures of life. What's shitty though is the sense of guilt that is being induced every day that somehow wasting time is a grave sin. Once I realized that I don't "need" to do anything, I actually became more productive. I felt more creative energy and when I allowed myself the freedom to pursue what I felt like vs planning it all out ahead. Doing the latter, only gave me anxiety.

This article is of a man trying to carve out his slice in the self-help, productivity-hacking attention economy. If you squint, it looks like sigma grindset satire.

The underlying advice in the blog isn't bad, but the formatting is awkward, and it is riddled with little specious bites that pollute the underlying message. To be more concrete, I appreciate the sentiment of "prioritize clearly and consciously dedicate blocks of time to the things that are most important" but the impact of the blog is weakened by statements like "In the new economy, your ideas are what set you apart" and "Deep work is how you build out your dreams in record time".

Implicit in the article is an assumption that life is lacking, and I'm not sure that is a healthy outlook. I'm not sure the "dream projects" I have would actively make my life better - but rather be the irrational answer to an imagined hole inside myself. Writing a book so I can convince the world I'm eloquent and clever. Doing art to prove to my Mum that her belief I'd make a great artist is correct. Getting a PhD to prove to my dad that he raised me smart. Getting a fancy house to prove to my brother that I am capable of success. I could spend an hour a day grinding out all these things, but I'm not sure any of the holes are fillable, or that the pay-off is meaningful.

I'd rather spend that hour walking a dog.

I like the idea of setting aside time for yourself.

I don't like the idea of _everything_ being centered around career and money. I wonder if we'll see a shift away from this idea that everything needs to be hustle-optimized. That content probably doesn't do as well, though.

Side note, I find this LinkedIn style of one-or-two-sentences-per-paragraph grating.

I think the author could effectively use some of their two hour writing time to remove a few line breaks.

HN hug of death. Cached version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230323160737/https://thedankoe...

I dont like this concept at all. Just focus on today and now and not on those annoying get financially free bs.

creativity is the residue of time wasted.