41–50 of 227 posts
I had a pretty strong negative reaction when reading this and had to sit with it a while to figure out why. I kept coming back to the idea that something about this seems childish to me without initially being able to articulate what, exactly, it was that seemed immature. After I'd had some time to thing on it it occurred to me that the underlying idea is that people are somehow responsible for the author's emotional…
I had a pretty strong negative reaction when reading this and had to sit with it a while to figure out why. I kept coming back to the idea that something about this seems childish to me without initially being able to articulate what, exactly, it was that seemed immature. After I'd had some time to thing on it it occurred to me that the underlying idea is that people are somehow responsible for the author's emotional…
It’s pretty weird to me that this is what the author took from Deep Work. Then again, they admitted that they didn’t read it fully.
The message of the book is not to dump your shallow work onto other people. It is to eliminate the “shallow” work entirely when possible, and to be mindful of the pitfalls of context switching when such work can’t be avoided. Nor is the word “shallow” used to describe anything other than the difference between something that requires deep focus to accomplish vs. something that does not. It’s not used in a dismissive or demeaning way.
The author is looking for things in that book that do not exist, and worse, using it as a reference to prove the point of the post.
I agree that dark patterns exist, and the hellish process of dealing with insurance is evidence of that.
But I think the post suffers from applying the “EFT” label a bit too broadly, and for circumstances that are far more nuanced than “theft”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fallacy here is assuming planning something is draining or bad for you. Executive Function is a term commonly thrown around in the autistic and ADHD spaces. When read in that context, it makes a *lot* more sense. From what I hear, neurotypical people have a much higher tolerance for bullshit work and wasteful process. I wouldn't know what that feels like. Beyond 1 or 2 wasted steps and I get mad that someone ha…
Have you seen Avengers? As the Hulk says, "That's the secret... I'm always angry." Learning to control your anger is a life skill, one that different people have different aptitude for, but one that nobody should give up on.
On a side note, the author's example is exactly why I have chosen to not use FSAs. Sure, it saves me 20% or so since it's pre-tax money, but is my stress, time, executive function, and sanity all worth that? Plus if I screw up and don't spend the money or file something wrong, I lose it or pay penalties.
If yours is usable and if you want to get the benefits and struggle with the mental overhead (like me), the way I solved it might help. I projected the expenses we were almost certain to have (took about a minute.) Then I put a range on the expenses we'd probably have. That's where I set the FSA withdrawals. There was realistically a 0% chance I was going to lose money with the FSA. If gambling stresses you out, just do a conservative amount and be content with the savings from that.
That was 2022. For 2023, FSA planning was easy because I knew I'd be paying for orthodontics, so I just set it at maximum and spent the whole thing up front in January. I'll probably be back to a lower amount next year. It takes a minute to update the withdrawal in our benefits portal during open enrollment.
I had a pretty strong negative reaction when reading this and had to sit with it a while to figure out why. I kept coming back to the idea that something about this seems childish to me without initially being able to articulate what, exactly, it was that seemed immature. After I'd had some time to thing on it it occurred to me that the underlying idea is that people are somehow responsible for the author's emotional…
I, for one, appreciate your deliberate and expository introspection but if you need this explained to you, there's a chance you will never—and I mean never—get it, but here goes: Some people believe that we owe it to one another to be considerate to one another, ie to take responsibility for one another's emotional well-being. Yes, that "underlying idea" is actually quite common in polite society if not outright ubiq…
> I will admit to never having been able to read Cal Newport’s Deep Work all the way through — I got too irritated — but I would point to his dismissive naming of the idea of “shallow work”, which he defines as logistical and often repetitive tasks, such as writing short emails. Newport recommends entirely stopping or poorly performing that work; I read this as encouraging readers to commit EFT against others around…
It's not really theft though, since the 'thief' doesn't gain the thing being 'stolen'. It's only the 'deny use' half of 'theft', ie it's more like DoS.
> the 'thief' doesn't gain the thing being 'stolen'. IIUC, they do—the thief delegates tedious, finicky work to preserve their own executive function for “important stuff”. They don’t have more executive function than before the task existed, but they do have more than before they delegated it, and the delegation is the theft.
The article is just describing a phenomenon where the people with the power to decide who works on what are not the people in the explicit power structure, and thus don't have the same accountability that usually comes with that power?
> I will admit to never having been able to read Cal Newport’s Deep Work all the way through — I got too irritated — but I would point to his dismissive naming of the idea of “shallow work”, which he defines as logistical and often repetitive tasks, such as writing short emails. Newport recommends entirely stopping or poorly performing that work; I read this as encouraging readers to commit EFT against others around…
But getting rid of shallow work is the entire reason why people get executive assistants.
Where it can be a problem is when there are "attentive" people on a team and "inattentive" people who are ostensibly equals.
Team members with higher conscientiousness tend to get lumped with an outsized share of undesirable, low impact busywork because others won't do it.
This dynamic can cause problems in all sorts of groups and also at home.
The author is proposing that these “Workplace EFT” examples need some sort of fix, but I think it’s actual preferable to make the same decision as your coworkers and neglect them until they become a larger problem, since the alternative is taking them on by oneself and growing increasingly resentful that your coworkers don’t prioritize meeting notes or get well cards to the same extent you do. Otherwise, you’re reall…
Tangentially, this is a common problem in relationships. "You never do the dishes", "you never do the laundry"...
My headcanon for these mismatches is that people have different thresholds of activation. In a relationship, it's useful to state these explicitly ("Oh I only do laundry when I'm close to running out of underwear") before resentment sets in.