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The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

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Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#61

Post by donkeyd »

philipodonnell wrote: post #15
harryf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to me it made some sense. Putting it in my own terms, he argues knowledge workers are _by default_ overloaded and they use distractions as a necessary form of relief from the pressure - the distractions aren't the problem, they're a symptom. Right now we're too focused on tools and strategies to make us "more efficient", block distractions and promote collaboration. Instead we should focus on reducing the mental d…

Can chrome or Firefox do an "exit but save all my tabs"? I find myself force closing Chrome because I can use the recover tabs when I come back.

I personally use this, which also does what you want:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-outliner/eggk...

Also, on the subject, it helps me by being able to store a window, or a group of windows for later. And when I've opened a bunch of tabs for a specific task, I can easily pop them out into a separate window to focus on them, or to have less distraction when showing stuff to a colleague.

I've used this plugin for years and it's been great.

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#62

Post by denniskane »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56
C1sc0cat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Browsers aren't real tools." oh yes they are you probably haven't worked pre browser based systems. eg just before I switched to the web in 1995 I worked on an oracle forms system. To deploy a pilot system to 5 seats the Other developer and I went to Liverpool and spent 2 day setting up those 5 people - this required feeding 15 or 16 floppy disks in the right order to install the oracle forms product. As I said to m…

That has nothing to do with knowledge work; the core solution in your example isn't even the browser, or the WWW - it's the Internet in general, which allows a company to avoid the logistics of shipping software on an actual (air)ship . You could achieve the same with an FTP client. Using a browser as a runtime for your application has its own benefits and drawbacks, but that's another topic. GP's point is that brows…

This and this, to the last two sentences. "Linux on the Web" (my baby) will be taking over in short order to rectify the situation (see my recent post history for more info). Been joyously hacking away on it almost nonstop since 2012. I've never felt a need or desire to work for anybody. That's all I do (when I'm not doing that thing I do when I'm out on the town).

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#63

Post by hajderr »

pm90 wrote: post #48
hajderr wrote: post #44

I'm so connected yet so disconnected with my inner self. Knowledge workers are under appreciated in the regular day job. If you also happen to be creative then you'll be challenged by some other ego trying to take credit for your work. In the struggle and dilemma: "should I care about this guy?" you forget about it and start to build resent. Then burnout is then a fact. Your challenges in college were way more benefi…

I guess it also depends on where you work. You can do some pretty amazing and creative work if you find the right niche to work in.

true that! yet to find...maybe I move into hardware, something tangible is inspiring

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#64

Post by ehnto »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #58
noir_lord wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be, but the features he lists are also all available in Intellij (I know because I use all of them and Intellij in the same way as he describes).

Must be. Emacs is way too large for OP to "use every last feature" of it.

Yep it's IntelliJ. Although I don't even use every last feature of the IntelliJ platform, I just try very hard to find and use features in the IDE rather than a mix of external tools. With a terminal inside the IDE, there's not really anything I would need outside the IDE window.

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#66

Post by commandlinefan »

svat wrote: post #19
ColinWright wrote: post #2

Could someone more familiar with the subject and vernacular provide some sort of summary of what this is trying to say? I've read it two or three times and I still can't work out the point being made. If any.

When people discuss “knowledge work”, they often slip into imagining an “idealized” knowledge worker: one who is very engaged, and doing “big” meaningful things one at a time. In reality, (1) we are all distracted, (2) our work usually consists of a large number of small chunks that are spread over time (3) we all have a large pile of undone work (both “job” and “personal”) that we're always feeling guilty about. Wha…

> who is very engaged, and doing “big” meaningful things one at a time.

And one who knows exactly what steps are going to be involved and how long each one is going to take, weeks or even months in advance. The fact that I approach every new programming problem with: "ok, how the hell do I figure this one out?" made me feel really nervous early on in my career, since there seemed to be this default expectation that not just good, not even just adequate, but even mediocre programmers could blurt out a list of the tasks involved in solving a problem, "estimate" (meaning predict with +/- 5% accuracy) the hours associated with each and then robotically plow through each of them. This was back in the 90's, before somebody named this "agile" and built a set of Orwellian tools and "coaching strategies" around it, but after a few years I couldn't help but notice that, in spite of being an abject failure at accurately predicting how long each bug fix was going to take before I even really knew what it entailed, I was also one of the most sought after developers in every organization I worked at.

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#67

Post by stevenwliao »

colllectorof wrote: post #35

>This is the reality of knowledge work that none of these conceptualizations address: it’s hard (in very specific ways), some of it we don’t want to do, and the work we don’t want to do piles up and becomes dominant simply because it remains undone. Let me rephrase this for you. A lot of so-called "knowledge work" is just tedious, mind-numbing bullshit. Not only that, but you have to plow through it while fighting in…

What would (1) look like?

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#68

Post by sjustin »

ehnto wrote: post #21
harryf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to me it made some sense. Putting it in my own terms, he argues knowledge workers are _by default_ overloaded and they use distractions as a necessary form of relief from the pressure - the distractions aren't the problem, they're a symptom. Right now we're too focused on tools and strategies to make us "more efficient", block distractions and promote collaboration. Instead we should focus on reducing the mental d…

Minimizing context switches has been my angle after I burnt out. I automate things that take me out of context and use every last feature of my IDE to make sure I don't have to alt tab all over the place. Terminal, database, docs and code is all in my IDE. It feels more like sitting down at a specialized workstation than a general computer and it keeps me focussed and in flow. Not only is that a less stressful state…

I too am trying to sort through the fallout from endless context-switching. I wrote something (ranted) about it here. Shameless plug since it seems relevant:

https://medium.com/@justinseymour/my-head-a-clusterfuck-a8a2...

Re: The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

#69

Post by linkregister »

The problem statement is eloquently stated. Yet the blame is nonsensical. The developers of Solitaire are to blame? Solitaire was a non-trivial application written for the express purpose of selling an operating system.

The reality is that the problem statement, that knowledge workers are constantly engaged with unproductive, nonsensical asks, is true. Knowledge workers must overcome this by being exactly the worker they've been advised not to be: ignoring emails and chats, not being present at their open-plan desks, declining any meeting that won't immediately please their manager.

No sinister force is the cause of these problems; simple entropy of organizations is to blame: failing to allocate resources to document and streamline processes is to blame.

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