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The Frustration with Productivity Culture

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Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#11

Post by krisoft »

q_andrew wrote: post #2

The line about asking individual knowledge workers to optimize their own work hits me hard. I'm the only programmer in the office I work at. My boss has started telling people that they should take an hour every week to stop and think about how a small process can be done better/faster. The problem is that the longest and most important part of what they do isn't some manual task, but a mental process (they are digit…

I don’t know what your digital artist coworkers produce, but unless it is pure l'art pour l'art they can think about ways how to streamline processes outside of their art. How do they receive their “brief”? How is the work batched? Does it ever happen that they are asked to produce something which then gets thrown away and wasted for reasons the company could better control? Are there any missunderstandings? If the artist see themselves as simple “brief -> bitmap” converters then this is of course beyond their pigeonhole, but if they are smart and creative people, as I belive they are, they might already have ideas how to improve things. And the boss basically encouraged that those with ideas come forward, so he might believe the same!

Also this “the only way to improve is slowly gaining experience and mastery” is not true. (I was paraphrasing your words) I watch many videos of great artist sharing tips. Again I don’t know what medium they work in, but in 3d work one can improve a lot by better organizing their asset library. In digital painting work I have seen people use posable human models to start sketching from. Ian Hubert shares great “lazy tutorials” on how he learned to cheat and animate complex looking things in super simple way. Just spending an hour a week reading up on tricks from others can improve ones “craft”.

And what is the worst? You goof around an hour and can’t think of anything. You tell the boss that when he asks, what is he going to do? Fire you for not trying hard enough? If he does, he wanted to fire you anyway and was just fishing for an excuse.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#14

Post by throwaway_2009 »

"Sick system" effect as far as I've seen is far more prevalent at low-paid, low-status workplaces.

The more you stand up for your time, both within a specific job and via choice of employer, the less stressful your life will be.

In my experience, this extends to, well, everything. Put up with bullshit relationships and they'll consume you. Entertain rogue family members' nonsense and they'll push until you can no longer.

You can respect yourself and be kind at the same time. Charity begins at home and all that.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#15

Post by stemlord »

mcbishop wrote: post #4

Is the article essentially arguing that work should be made easier for knowledge workers — so they aren't as stressed out? I assume it'd fall on these knowledge workers to build the better systems that would simplify their day-to-day work.

Yes and that's exactly what the author is saying is wrong with our current productivity culture.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#16

Post by Barrin92 »

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on.

Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically).

Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and unique. Productivity culture is an attempt to bureaucratize human action, a sort of individual Whig history.

Newton was a genius, yet the man spent most of his life doing alchemy, trying to forecast the future with the help of the bible, and chasing dragons in the Swiss Alps, put simply, he was batshit insane and probably a failure by the standards of modern productivity gurus. Yet he also made contributions larger than anyone will ever do by filling up note-taking apps and tracking how much time they spent on their breakfast with a stopwatch.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#17

Post by levinb »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on. Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically). Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and…

>tracking how much time they spent on their breakfast with a stopwatch

Masterfully stated.

One of the primary problems with this culture, and the general culture of quantified self/everything, is that the data doesn’t inform or change actual actions.

Most quantification is proffered as a solution by the Anxiety Alleviation Industrial Complex.

I’d argue a significant portion of consumer SaaS is just that.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#18

Post by tcoff91 »

uselesscynicism wrote: post #10
jh0486 wrote: post #9

It's easy to have the wrong mindset around productivity. If an individual thinks that doing more always leads to better results, they're going to have a bad time. I use productivity as a tool to have __more__ personal time and reduce stress. I really think about what I'm doing and what impact it has on my day. From what I've seen, working in large corporate environments, is that people make their own productivity pri…

> There are plenty of less stressful work environments in technology that will pay someone a decent salary and will be much less demanding. There are?! Could you list some examples? I would take a pay cut for fewer responsibilities if I could stay in tech and if it didn't pay like thirty grand, which is what you will make in support. How do I transition from a high stress high pay software engineer to a medium pay lo…

Go work for some bigco that is coasting on a great market position of a SaaS project and you can definitely find software jobs where you can work about 30hrs a week, make around 130-180k a year, and chill hard.

Only problem is that after a while you'll get really complacent and your skills may suffer. If there are layoffs and you have to find another job, you might be in trouble.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#19

Post by gandalfgeek »

The problem with "productivity gurus" is that not one of them actually has any accomplishments in an actual specialized domain (other than marketing their stuff).

Conversely, as I look at all the accomplished people around me, they've quietly built a mountain of expertise and achievement with cobbled systems held together by spit and glue that a productivity hustler would scoff at.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#20

Post by lazybreather »

Barrin92 wrote: post #16

The problem with the entire productivity culture is just how industrialized, bureaucratic and formulaic it is. You read the piece by Newport and there is Henry Ford, the assembly line, 'knowledge work', growth, and so on. Words that don't show up once: freedom, exploration, curiosity, creativity (that does show up once in quotes technically). Everything that makes life interesting is discontinuous and surprising and…

> tracking how much time they spent on their breakfast with a stopwatch.

I know this is a serious forum. But the last line had me in splits.

And yeah. He made contributions larger than anyone will ever do. End of the sentence.

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