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I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

simonberens.me

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Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#61

Post by phphphphp »

sberens wrote: post #11
ruborcalor wrote: post #4

How do you think this compares to coworking?

I feel it's hard to achieve consistency with coworking; I never had enough overlap with a friend's schedule to make a meaningful impact on my productivity. I actually made a tool (before the experiment) to try to coordinate coworking between a group of people, but it never took off.

Pick any WeWork in a populated city and you'll find people there 24/7 and at least a few of them as will be kooky enough to engage in this performative nonsense (I say that mostly without judgement). Or pick any office building, really, because they'll have 24/7 security who do nothing but sit and watch movies or listen to podcasts. There's an entire world of people bored out of their damn minds in boring office buildings all night, and you wouldn't need to do things like schedule.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#62

Post by chrisandchris »

sberens wrote: post #34
12345hn6789 wrote: post #29

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

Therapy would take away productive time :) I did actually use my own custom built productivity tools to block websites[0], and I used ActivityWatch[1] to track my time. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webblock/jeahkphmd... [1] https://activitywatch.net/

I think, it's quite obvious where the "productivity" goes:

> In the morning session, I did yoga, went to the gym, started two blog posts, and did some work for my job.

If it's the 5th you mention, it's just not that important?

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#63

Post by jonathanyc »

12345hn6789 wrote: post #29

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

I clicked on the "About" page and learned that the author is 21. For a minute that made the experiment make more sense. Then it stopped making sense again.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#67

Post by drivers99 »

trh0awayman wrote: post #40

This and things like FocusMate seem symptomatic of much larger, more serious latent problems. It reminds of the younger generations having to put YouTube on to eat a meal. I can't quite put my finger on the connection, but paying a person sit behind you and ask how you're doing, and make you a smoothie... it feels like you're hiring someone to be your mother. This entire experiment left me feeling unclean.

> ADHD body doubling is a productivity strategy used by individuals with ADHD to finish possibly annoying jobs while having another person beside them. This person is the body double. The body double's duty is to keep the individual with ADHD focused on the task at hand to reduce potential distractions.

— add.org google extract

Sounds like a legitimate strategy.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#68

Post by steele »

Before I clicked I had expected a satirical humor piece about helicopter management and interruption work culture. What a sad realization as I read through it... that it was both serious, and somehow worse than what I expected this to lampoon at the same time.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#70

Post by Sakos »

jonathanyc wrote: post #63
12345hn6789 wrote: post #29

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners. This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact? He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods? This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

I clicked on the "About" page and learned that the author is 21. For a minute that made the experiment make more sense. Then it stopped making sense again.

I'm more confused by these comments. Like, he's 21. This is an interesting experience and a great story to tell. Sounds like money well-spent and I'm glad he's experimenting in unusual ways. That's what makes life interesting and worth living. Some of my most memorable and valuable memories stem from bad decisions or experimenting with different ideas that might be dumb.

Some of you need to touch grass.

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