Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 202 posts

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#71

Post by emerongi »

slily wrote: post #38
mym1990 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, 250k a year to go to work 8-5 is “modern slavery”. On a bit of a high horse there.

Seriously. I'll take that job any day. I am in the same boat for <$150k and consider myself blessed when I'm not reading HN commenters bragging about their salary. At least you have a shot at retiring early in exchange for a set of responsibilities that plenty of people share for much less money.

You don't think $250k comes with high expectations as well? Salary doesn't always correlate with stress - min. wage workers are probably just as stressed, if not more -, but from my experience, my stress level has increased the more I earn. I also used to think that I'd do anything for that kind of money, but I now realize that I wouldn't.

This discussion probably reeks of "first world problems" to people who have different stress tolerance levels or preferences in life. However, be mindful of the people around you who are functionally capable of earning $250k, but mentally more fragile to the stressors that come with that level of responsibility. There's many of us who would turn that money down, happily.

I'm in my 20s and I've realized that there is little point in killing myself to retire early at 40. By that time, the best years of my life have passed. For what? All to earn a high salary and be proud, while hating my life.

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#72

Post by sixstringtheory »

sph wrote: post #36
JohnFen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, we agree more than we disagree. The only part I really take issue with is the notion that working for someone is modern slavery. I don't think it's anything even close that. Slaves can't quit and do something else. They can't even change who their "owners" are. > I'd rather eat ramen, than get $250k a year and expected to be at my employer's beck and call 8am-5pm. I know a lot of people who make that exact choice…

> Slaves can't quit and do something else. I discussed the slavery point below, but here let me defend its usage: it is slavery if you consider the society as a whole, not just your job. Chances are, if you don't want to work for a year, you probably can't afford housing because you are renting. Statistically, you do not even have money to support yourself for a year. Culturally, we do not share food with strangers a…

I get you, because I’ve been down this line of thought as well. But I’ve concluded the whip hand is not even that of society, but nature itself. Everyone is driven by the biological need to eat, at the end of the day.

So how did your great grandfather eat? Where did this readily available food come from?

Would other people provide him with endless food while he did this philosophizing? I imagine that any society, whether advanced megalopolis or tribal village, has a limit to their generosity towards complete nonproducers and would eventually demand something out of them, even if it’s just the output of that philosophizing. Someone had to work to produce that readily available food, I would think.

If he grew/harvested his own food, then he’d be lucky if he never experienced a stressful or even deadly event of pestilence, drought, or even injury to himself rendering him incapable of doing the quite hard work of growing and harvesting it.

Producing food is hard work and modern technological capitalism can be seen as a process of creating more and more layers of abstraction between food producers and the mouths that need to be fed, and doing it more efficiently at that to generate more spare time for other activities like leisure or philosophizing.

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#73

Post by mym1990 »

sph wrote: post #42
slily wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I'll take that job any day. I am in the same boat for <$150k and consider myself blessed when I'm not reading HN commenters bragging about their salary. At least you have a shot at retiring early in exchange for a set of responsibilities that plenty of people share for much less money.

It was a figure pulled out of my ass. I've never earned half that, and these days I'm eating ramen because I am not accepting the status of modern society and trying to spend all my time and mental energy to find a third way. Hence this rant. I am not prescribing anything to anybody. It is just sad that criticising the status quo is seen as proof of privilege. It is ungrateful of me to entertain the idea that life ca…

It’s totally reasonable to criticize the status quo, and to me at least it is totally okay if that is coming from a place of privilege. But there are also so many out there(most even) who can’t afford to think about anything but the next paycheck to put food on the table for their family or for themselves. I think replacing “modern slavery” with “modern society” is a great improvement! They don’t call it the rat race for nothin!

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#74

Post by asdfman123 »

nostrademons wrote: post #63
deet wrote: post #40

Comments here so far seem to be missing Newport's key point (in the second half of the article)... For many modern (knowledge work) jobs, it's volume of tasks, not duration, that seems to induce burnout. For instance, if you have 1 central task for the week--say, write a report--but there are ten subtasks (hold 5 meetings to prepare, read 3 background papers, ...), and then each of those have a bunch of subtasks (Sla…

It's both. Burnout is when you invest too much emotionally in something or someone and don't get anything back from it. That can be because you have a steady stream of work items and none seem particularly important but you feel obligated to do each one. Or it can be because you labor on the same project for years and never complete it. Or it can be because you work hard and deliver but events outside your control ma…

I’m an engineer at FAANG and it seems absurd, though, that we have so many resources but can’t apply some craftsmanship every so often.

Instead, we churn out features, and everyone cheers when someone adds a new button to the UI.

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#75

Post by re-thc »

golergka wrote: post #31
gffrd wrote: post #3

This glosses over the fact that jobs are a central piece—if not _the_ central piece—of many people's identities in the States. We've lost religion and communities as things that define and provide structure and purpose, leaving us clinging to jobs. Is this good? No! It's terrible! We should fix this! However, I'm not convinced that workplace stress is a matter of hours … it may be a symptom of lack of life beyond wor…

Work is where you provide value to the society, create something for other people and make world better, while simultaneously applying and improving your main set of skills. Why wouldn't you want tie your identity to something like that? Just to be clear: I have a few hobbies aside from work — I make music, DJ, paint, cook, hike sometimes. I have friends, and I'm also not a productivity maniac (I actually work in a 4…

You imply that all companies add value to society and all jobs are meaningful. That’s simply not true. Most people also don’t and won’t have the power to fix these issues even if they wanted to.

Even if the company as a whole adds value there are lots of pockets of politically charged actions e.g. for promotions. Like are we doing anything meaningful to society by building 1 of those Google projects that gets killed in a few months?

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#76

Post by re-thc »

engagthe wrote: post #41
goostavos wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think more meeting are the solution here. Most meetings are a complete and utter waste of time. They meander, they lack focus, and beget more meetings as a result. I am obsessive about correctness, I want to build the right thing, but meeting culture is fundamentally broken. It's faux productivity. Humans getting together on a call -- often many of whom have no real stake in the game -- is just about the slow…

I agree! I do think if you cut ALL meetings, you may miss out on some important relationship building stuff that is helpful when necessary conflict arises. Formalizing business requirement gathering may help reduce conflict, which is great, but you inevitably will have some. That said, I don’t think meetings are a good way to build relationships or trust, and there are more efficient and enjoyable ways to do that! If…

No 1 says you have to have the meeting in the meeting room. You could do it in a cafe or elsewhere. Not everything has to be so strict. Depends on your team and environment.

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#77

Post by Chris_Newton »

Mizoguchi wrote: post #60
Chris_Newton wrote: post #46

I like the saying “slow is smooth and smooth is fast” as applied to software development. For all the talk of Agile processes and breaking creative work down into bite-sized chunks and prioritising collaboration and team productivity over individual contributions, ultimately our work is about thinking and fundamentally it requires that each individual doing the work understands what needs to be done. Not investing en…

Isn't changing requirements one of the key principles of the Agile manifesto? If so, why do we want to dive so much into requirements that are likely to change anyways? Not saying we should jump into design without understanding the requirements, but sometimes requirements are incomplete or not clearly defined and we cannot sit and wait until a new revision is out or someone becomes available to answer our questions.…

Isn't changing requirements one of the key principles of the Agile manifesto? If so, why do we want to dive so much into requirements that are likely to change anyways?

Who says all the requirements are likely to change anyway? That’s a whopping great hypothetical on which the entire premise rests, but YAGNI applies to development processes as much as to code!

Yes, requirements often evolve and we often start with some gaps or ambiguities in the spec. However, that’s a very different situation to having no detailed requirements at all. In one case, you know where you’re trying to go right now and can set a course that will take you there. Even if the destination is changed a bit during the voyage, you can adjust your course to compensate and still be heading in roughly the right direction. In the other case, you literally don’t know which way to start.

Moreover, jokes about skyscrapers turning into spaceships aside, the central requirements for a software project usually evolve relatively slowly. Business priorities or some of the details might change faster, but in most fields the underlying domain concepts and actors that the software models are going to be relatively stable.

Big pivots where you’re effectively trying to build a completely different product afterwards do happen. However, a team that pivots so often that it never really understands where it’s trying to get to before changing direction again won’t last long because it can never get far enough in any direction to deliver real value.

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#78

Post by emerongi »

sph wrote: post #42
slily wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I'll take that job any day. I am in the same boat for <$150k and consider myself blessed when I'm not reading HN commenters bragging about their salary. At least you have a shot at retiring early in exchange for a set of responsibilities that plenty of people share for much less money.

It was a figure pulled out of my ass. I've never earned half that, and these days I'm eating ramen because I am not accepting the status of modern society and trying to spend all my time and mental energy to find a third way. Hence this rant. I am not prescribing anything to anybody. It is just sad that criticising the status quo is seen as proof of privilege. It is ungrateful of me to entertain the idea that life ca…

For what it's worth, there's many people who agree with you, myself included. Modern society has created unnecessary work, stressors and pressures that are quite artificial. Everybody goes along without questioning it, at least not aloud.

I will admit that I am by nature someone who takes the alternative path. It's entirely possible that the world is working just fine and I am unable to adjust to it. However, I can't change my nature and have to find a different way to live, because there is no other option for me.

Re: It’s time to embrace slow productivity (2022)

#79

Post by georgemcbay »

charlie0 wrote: post #18
atleastoptimal wrote: post #2

More importantly, I think, with AI automation coming in full force, we need to decouple one's working hours with their right to live a comfortable life, especially for the lower and middle class.

I don't think this is going to happen. Increases in productivity eventually lead to race to the bottom in terms of prices. Which means whoever owns the means of production are not incentivized at all to just let their workers work less. The demands of workers will stay the same, if not increase because of lowering barriers to entry on the supply side of job seekers. I wish we as a society would just accept less work…

There are a few ways in which the system is self-correcting, though not in a clean or happy-path way.

First there's just the fact that when a significant percentage of a population is unable to participate in an economy in a meaningful way the economy falls apart from within. What's the point in controlling the "means of production" when almost nobody can afford what you produce because they are not generating value within that economy? This is something that the industrial era capitalists (who were generally terrible people, don't read this as me trying to make heroes of them) understood enough to deal with in some proactive ways but which for whatever reason we seem to be mostly blind to currently as we rush toward another inflection point for modern capitalism.

Secondly, there's the reality that when a significant percentage of the population is becoming unhoused and starving there will be revolt and those owning the means of production will be violently eliminated by any means necessary (absent some sort of collective agreement to keep the majority comfortable). Large masses of people wanting for basic necessities for themselves and their families don't just disappear through the cracks like they do on a smaller scale when a relatively small number of have-nots (relative to the whole of the economy) are easy for society to marginalize and ignore.

So it is really in everyone's interest (even the interest of the increasingly consolidated group with the 'means of production') that we figure this stuff out moving forward and sooner rather than later. I'm not confident we will do so before widescale bad outcomes for everyone begin to occur, but when the system begins to become unbalanced enough to start shearing itself apart nobody will be unscathed, so it's rather silly that we aren't already working on real solutions.

Post reply on HN