Productivity Porn | Hacker News Reader

Productivity Porn

blog.vivekhaldar.com

142 pointsgandalfgeek54 comments

The danger of the idea posted here is that (i) it sounds very logical and authentic and (ii) it's sort of true. The idea that "If you really deeply care about something, you will do it" is such a simplification that it borders on misleading.

A typical example is literature. Check out Bukowski's "air and light and time and space" (http://hellopoetry.com/poem/air-and-light-and-time-and-space...): I've always loved this poem for explaining succinctly (and artfully) the problem with general procrastination and excuse making:

  ...

  you're going to create with part of your mind and your
  body blown
  away,
  you're going to create blind
  crippled
  demented,
  you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
  back while
  the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
  flood and fire.
  baby, air and light and time and space
  have nothing to do with it
  and don't create anything
  except maybe a longer life to find
  new excuses
  for.

This definitely has the ring of truth. But in reality neither novelists and ports work this way. Many writers concede that an important part of the trade is teaching yourself the discipline to write N pages a day (google "writer discipline", you'll be amazed, these guys work harder than coders!)

So let me rephrase: Choosing what to do, e.g. coding instead of being a marine biologist is an act of love; consistently doing good work requires discipline, whether you love your profession or not.

thanks for sharing that poem

thank you for this

I will upvote but I disagree. There exists a nontrivial subset of things which I think are incredibly fun when I am doing them, which I am not normally inclined to do. These range from practice with the Delft ultimate frisbee club Force-Elektro to my novel to my religious writings and the code-in-progress for my web site.

I think we are facing a severe crisis of authenticity, occasioned by the structure of our brains as associative-memory anecdote-followers. Productivity-porn is not bad because it's useless, it's bad because it's porn -- it is like a Cracked.com or Wikipedia article, leading to all sorts of other topics which suck up our limited daily attention as an occasion for a quick release.

We need, in other words, interrupters which say "stop focusing on the unimportant and return to that which is fruitful. Stop seeking the sugar of "now now now" and start seeking the deeper fruits.

In these regards, my most important tool is actually just the alarm on my cell phone, which tells me at 11:30 pm that it's time to get the hell off the internet and spend my last hour of the day either meditating or practising my religious writing. All of the distractions should be quit at that time.

EDIT: the word "attention" above somehow didn't exist where it should have existed.

>> I am an atheist, but I'm writing a religion.

Sorry to go off topic like this, but I saw this on your profile and it's interesting to me. You're writing a religion for atheists? Why?

Not the OP, but a guess: religion is basically just a value system. In that sense, it's no different than any other value system, other than the fact that it includes existence of X deity.

This would be an interesting chat in a thread of it's own, or even offline, feel free to be in touch.

I have long noticed that religion is but a dominant world viewpoint. Whether its sports, belief in a higher anything, or belief in nothing. This kind of stuff requires us to be able to be able to openly look at ourselves as easily as we look at others.

If we live our lives according to any dominant world viewpoint, pretty well for most intents and purposes it plays the role of belief (even a belief in non-belief).

> In that sense, it's no different than any other value system, other than the fact that it includes existence of X deity.

While a recurring feature in practice, I don't think believe in a deity should be a defining feature of religion. (It is probably a sufficient feature, though.)

Agreed.

The word "religion" comes from two Latin words: "res" + "ligare". "res" is loosely "thing" or can be used to refer to a concept (ie, "republic" - "res" + "pubblica" ['thing/item/abstract concept' of the people] and "ligare" is a 1st declension (if I recall correctly) verb meaning "to bind".

To be religious - fundamentally speaking - is simply to follow a set of rules or an ideology; to be bound to something.

In the absence of deities, why call it a religious system instead of an ethical one?

Depends. Religion can include ethics, but that's not all there is to it. E.g. you can have creation myths without deities, and they don't necessarily make for ethics.

Yes, but the context was value systems. Cosmology is a separate domain.

I don't write for atheists per se, I write for everyone. However, as an atheist, I won't inject supernaturalism into the religion: therefore, the religion mixes effortlessly with whatever supernatural predispositions you already have or lack. In that sense I suppose it can be called "meta-religious". When I speak to myself I sometimes classify it as "a material dharma" -- but "dharma" is religious jargon from India and won't make so much sense if I don't explain its etymology and its meanings in those religions. (A passable definition is "essence", used idiomatically. So you have to ask, "the essence of what?")

When we talk about authentic, virtuous living, the commitments we make, how we work together, how we conceptualize the world, and how we find meaning therein, then the supernatural might teach or inspire these things, but we should not mistake the supernatural as identical with these things.

So, you might say for example, "the Light shines from God." I am not going to speak about God, but about the Light, which is its own thing; and I remain non-committal about its origins. (Too much blood has been shed historically because "They don't believe in Our Gods.") Or you might say for example "the True Reward from the Light is reaped in the afterlife." Again, that's fine by me, as long as you acknowledge that, in this life, the Light is its own reward -- authentic living is worth it for its own sake.

Thus we head into a future where theism and atheism are as one and enlightenment depends upon the character one cultivates, not the doctrines one professes.

(Edit: I want to add that the real paradox in that sentence is self-contained in the subsentence, "I'm writing a religion.")

As we all know, every situation in life can be exhaustively and accurately resumed by an XKCD comic.

Here's this thread's: http://xkcd.com/874/

The rubbish like "If you really deeply care about something, you will do it" is quite representative of this armchair psychology type of thinking. I file this right next to "if you didn't want to be fat you would eat less, so you just want pig out and harm yourself", "if you did not want to be an alcoholic you would stop drinking alcohol, so you just want to live the life of an outcast", and "if you didn't want to be poor you would just be rich".

For a more rigorous exploration of the matter I suggest reading someone who spent decades studying the subject or procrastination, and not on his own person, but on the persons of thousands of people so afflicted - "The Now Habit" book by Neil Fiore. As it turns out telling someone "oh, you just don't want to do it, that's why you procrastinate" is more likely to hinder progress than result in change of behavior. However, there are plenty of other things that do change behavior for the better.

Liking what you do and wanting to do it doesn't make you organised and effective. Or to put it another way my interest definitely doesn't gravitate to the best order of tasks or let me know how far I am from doing what I want to achieve.

I've spent the majority of my life having a certain low grade contempt for people who are organised, because doing stuff without being organised seemed more authentic. Well its stupid and organisation is a way of using the focus you have better.

I can not upvote this enough. I've met so many artists who are passionate about their work. But lack of organization, and lack of awareness of their daily inefficiencies stop them from succeeding.

"If you really deeply care about something, you will do it."

Next time you're unmotivated to complete a task, think about why you're avoiding it. The answer is usually fear or boredom/disinterest. If it's fear, great, you're in a good place. If it's boredom, you should probably be doing something else.

Sometimes I wonder if so many programmers need Productivity Hacks because they don't really love programming, they just ended up programming because of social awkwardness.

Lot's of things I don't like doing at work. Still I love my work. So should I be doing something else?

If you're getting it done and you still love your work, then there's no problem. Caring about something as a hack to get it done does not imply that getting something done means you care about it.

Right, exactly. A to-do list is certainly a positive, helpful tool; requiring one to function can be a bad sign, and obsessively seeking out Productivity Hacks is even worse.

>If it's boredom, you should probably be doing something else.

If only this were the case. So much of any work, even work you love, is boring, menial stuff you'd like someone else to do. You've got to find a way to power through those tasks in order to do what you love. Sometimes task lists are a good way of doing that, at least you get a sense of accomplishment for doing that one stupid thing you have to get out the way.

You're absolutely right, and perhaps I'm veering away from the original post a bit. Task lists are useful; obsessively seeking out productivity tips is a sign of an underlying problem. I guess I'm more concerned with the general obsession with capital-P-H Productivity Hacks as panacea for a bunch of other issues.

The line between a helpful to-do list and being unable to function without one can get fuzzy. Given how popular these sites are, I'm just wondering how many folks have crossed that line, and why.

> So much of any work, even work you love, is boring, menial stuff you'd like someone else to do.

The boring, menials parts of work are chores. If you are finding side projects and hobbies to be boring and menial, then said hobby is a chore for you and you should probably reevaluate whey you are doing it in the first place.

Side projects have chores. If you skip them and move on to the next interesting thing, you tend to end up with a lot of half-done side projects.

I don't get your point, or maybe I do and I disagree.

I hate doing my taxes. I hate mopping my floors. I truly hate weeding. These things are the cost of life.

Adulthood means doing things because they have to get done, not because they are fun. They call it work or chores or taxes because it isn't play.

We all come to grips with that if we are to survive. No sense denying it.

I viewed mopping the floors as a few things:

1) Maintaining the house value

2) Discipline

3) Exercise

4) Stress reliever

which all are positive.

I viewed doing taxes as one of the ways to know my financial situation.

If you sprinkle the positive dusts around these chores, they won't be chores.

You missed my point, indeed. There will always be specific aspects of any job that are less than pleasant, but if the entirety (or, at least, most) of your job is so discombobulating that you need a rigid system to be able to function, you might not be in the right line of work.

As a side note, I don't buy that "adulthood = being miserable" racket. You can do honest, income-generating work that's fulfilling and fun. In fact, you probably should be. None of this "coming to grips" nonsense. That's an excuse people tell themselves when they feel stuck in a miserable place.

Not everyone has those awesome powers of introspection (which is why a whole rang of jobs starting with "psycho-" exist in the first place). Quite often we're not really that aware of our own motivations - and even if we are, they're not always that easy to overcome.

Never mind that the task itself isn't always that simple. Some of them are outright impossible, some are just hard to do. Let's not even get into the "I wanna be at the next olympics in gymnastics, but I'm overweight and 47" bunch, let's consider something relatively simple like building something, like a website or a house.

"You will do it" doesn't really get you there. You will try it, and you will most likely fail, nevermind what Vivek or Yoda are saying. Sure, some "productivity porn" is just along the motivational speaker line, getting off your butt etc., but there's a lot of stuff out there at managing your productivity, planning, etc.

Granted, most of that is crap, too, but then again, most of anything is crap.

No one ever has gymnast's block. They spend time reading about the Top 5 Ways To Lose That Belly Fat instead of putting on running shoes because running is hard work and they don't really want to be doing it. If they wanted it bad enough, they'd be doing it. Likewise, there aren't dozens of Architect Hacks sites to help architects find the right paper for their blueprints.

Indeed, do, or do not. There is no try. (14 New Ways To Try after the jump...)

[Edit] On the other hand, we might just all be dopamine addicts. We spend 8+ hours a day using a tool that also contains everything ever in the history of the world, and wonder why we're distracted so often.

Productivity isn't just about programmers/writers block, it's also about ways to approach things. And there just wanting it bad enough isn't enough. Gymnasts do need to train the right way, i.e. train productively. Only part of it is about the gymnastics itself. It's not intuitively obvious to every practitioner.

You might know every algorithm, API and tool you need for a job, but there's still some value in knowing good ways to utilize all that. Just running along with the will to power? If you failed, you didn't want it enough?

For me, I'm usually avoiding it if I feel burnout, or am really really sexually frustrated. If I take care of the 2nd, I find I am motivated to do almost anything :)

At the risk of adding MI to your TMI, I completely agree on both counts.

> I wonder if so many programmers need Productivity Hacks because they don't really love programming I doubt that is the real issue.

Programming != programming. Those same programmers will happily hack and code a whole night on their pet projects. However, in their day jobs they have to implement some enterprisey enterprise solution which they don't care about in the least.

If it's boredom, you should probably be doing something else.

I am in the process of teaching a 4-year-old to do what needs doing regardless of interest level. The above advice is not helpful to that end. There is much which we must do, be it chores or goals, which inspire boredom - but must be done nonetheless else at best no progress is made, or at worst grave consequences follow.

Bertrand Russell has treated this subject in his inimitable fashion in his essay titled "Boredom and Excitement", Chapter 4 of his book "The Conquest of Happiness". The chapter starts off with "Boredom as a factor in human behaviour has received, in my opinion, far less attention than it deserves." and is well worth reading (at least) a few times.

"So what do you need a system for? You need it for chores."

Agreed. My system is simple: Have my wife do half of the chores while I do the rest half. If she forgets, I remind her and vice versa. We motivate each other to do the thing we don't want to but have to. This is one area where tools/software has not worked for me well. I got plenty of to do lists and action item tools but i usually end up snoozing them anyway :)

"Blind activity" -- I like that term. I'll have to remember it. That is used quite often in working environments to give the appearance of work so that managers and peers can see it, with the expectation that come review time they'll all say "so and so is making so much progress". In the case of a single individual this "manager" is the perception of oneself -- so in a way it is cheating yourself (and that's not necessarily a bad thing). However there should be a higher level supervisor, in a way, that can detect and say "hey, yeah, there is plenty of churn, but in the end there are no results, something has gone wrong".

Agreed - expressed another way by Montapert: "Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress." Whenever looking at performance it's critical to ask what concrete things were accomplished as a result of the work. (Blanket statement coming!) If you see the words "Facilitated" and "Coordinated" more than "Built", "Developed", and "Wrote" then that's a warning signal.

Unfortunately, for me, this article itself falls in the so called 'Productivity Porn'(PP) category, although I am not sure if I agree with the PP term as described here in the first place.

I'm quite interested in productivity hacks and I've adopted / created a few systems of my own. The key insight in the OP, that you'll eventually do what you truly care about, is one that took me a few years to realize, yet unfortunately it's also a vast simplification.

For me, there are many tasks that I know I enjoy, whose results I know I care about, yet, if left to my own devices, I don't go and do them because the activation energy is too high. I offer two examples: running (I always feel great afterward and I know it's good for me, yet it's a hassle to actually get out there and run) and working on side projects (I love learning and building, yet I don't do it as often because I get mentally blocked by how overhelming a project is before I begin).

Previously, I would make up excuses (I don't have enough time... too busy... much school work... overcommitted) and my personal projects languished as I got caught up in external commitments. The biggest tip in my productivity system is this: Every month/week/day, write down the one thing I most want to accomplish for that time period, that I would likely not accomplish otherwise. If I can accomplish that one thing, I can call that day/week/month a successful one. I track my progress and results as well.

With this one objective system, I found myself delegating time for these projects and implementing all sorts of hacks to reduce the energy barrier of starting these projects.

Another way to think of this is how you structure your priorities. Instead of saying 'I don't have time', try saying 'it's not a priority' [1]. This lets you tell exactly what you do care about, and frequently, that set of things you care about is still larger than the set of things you get done.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020335870457723...

I think the problem is most people need some sort of positive feedback immediately when engaging in a new activity (programming, startups) that if they do not receive it, their confidence never rises, and they see no reason to enjoy the new activity. Once you can build past the initial stages of grinding it out and gain some momentum and start to see the bigger picture, I believe that is when most become fully engaged and passionate about whatever "work" they are pursuing. At least this is how I feel. I'd like to know if others feel the same way.

I prefer the term: Productivity Trap... and I have seen friends fall in to it. They will read and talk about new "exciting" GTD systems, and better ways to organize themselves.

I've seen them switch from: 'Things' to 'Evernote' to 'Omnifocus' to 'Trello' in the span of two or three months.

I'm all for being a more productive and organized person, but with all the time they spent migrating their tasks/projects to different task management systems, they could have just completed everything on their lists and more.

Every once in a while, I read post like this that reminds me of what's important but how will I find them, if I am not addicted to productivity porn, is out of comprehension.

In academic research, it's often even more difficult to draw the line between simple "activity" as Vivek puts it and actual progress. The unfortunate fact about research is that there really is no certainty, so it's hard to measure concrete progress. Most research is done in retrospect, so a lot of grind work that may initially seem not worthwhile is an important step in the research process.

"If you really deeply care about something, you will do it" - this is simply not true. If it was just 'one thing' that you cared about, then this philosophy works but let's face reality. On any given day, we all have more than 'one thing' that we really care about and sometimes, if you don't make a list of these important 'todos', you are bound to forget one of those important things.

Comparing productivity porn (PP) to fast food is not very helpful.

It would be more accurate to compare PP to reading about nutrition...then not following the advice one reads, despite being well informed.

Of course it's easier to do things when you are motivated for a specific, deadline-based project. But there are grey areas in life, and "dips". PP is helpful for those. Techniques learned can lead to positive action.

Imagine what we might not have if everyone followed this misguided advice. The flip side: if you're breezing through your work, maybe you're not challenging yourself enough? You don't think searching for the Higgs boson can grow weary? Or training for an Olympic medal? Great things require great effort.

Very nice article. I especially like the quote (paraphrased): "Activity is not necessarily progress". It's this common misconception that keeps a lot of us tied to the chairs for 8-12 hours every day, when we could often accomplish the same in half the time.

funny thing is, I just embraced Trello and it helped me instantly, proving the author's point quite wrong in my case. I'm writing a compiler, and while doing this I come up with new ideas, extra features to implement and so on, every 5 minutes or so. Instead of trying hard at the end of the day to remember all of them, now I just write them down immediately. Those lists do not contain chores, but things I am very happy to work on, or as the author says, care deeply about. And now they are not just spread around in my mind but nicely organized. Hello productivity boost.

I feel like a large percentage of hacker news is posts exactly like this.

"Want to be productive? Stop reading about how to be productive!"

I personally feel like Hacker News would be better if these posts stopped being bubbled up to the top.

"It’s like a finger pointing at the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all of the heavenly glory! — Bruce Lee."

I'm fairly sure that wasn't originally Bruce Lee who came up with that :)

Would love to read this, but:

Web Site Blocked by NETGEAR Firewall

Here's a productivity tip. If you're not feeling motivated, then motivate yourself with a reward: after you're finished what you're trying to do now, you get to search for productivity tips online and make your life even more productive. Hurry, they're really good.

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