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Productivity Is About Attention Management

nytimes.com

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Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#141

Post by BeetleB »

normalhuman wrote: post #85

My favorite anti-productivity introspections: - Remember that you are going to die. Time flies, have you noticed? Is that status symbol that you are pursuing really that important? Is it ever going to make you happy? - There is more wisdom in one of your cells than in all self-help and management books combined. Maybe you can't focus for a good reason? What could that reason be? - Remember the last time you felt glad…

>Remember the last time you felt glad to be alive? Was it related to being productive?

Actually, studies show that in the long run, being in flow makes you happier than being free from work. At work, it's usually the "non-work" things that kill it (tedious boring work, people problems, rigid hours, etc).

These days going on a hike in a scenic area makes me glad to be alive. But I enjoy it mostly because my "free" time is heavily constrained due to work. If I did it 3-5 hours a day, I would not use it as an example of being glad to be alive. But for many, working on something of their choice for 3-5 hours a day would make them happy. If you enjoy certain areas of SW, I can guarantee you'll enjoy doing that much more than the hike that made you happy. (You'll still enjoy the hike, but not that much more than you do now). Ditto artist, etc.

Last Friday at work I solved some annoying headaches I had in Emacs using Elisp. It took under an hour, and would impress no one (I'm new to Elisp). That made not just my day but my whole weekend.

Of course, if your work is such that there's no hope of flow (e.g. you neither enjoy nor are challenged by any aspect of the whole industry), then you're screwed.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#142

Post by rayiner »

tylerhou wrote: post #38
netwanderer3 wrote: post #28

There's a general misconception between being productive and being effective. One can fill their days by completing many mindless tasks and consider themselves as productive, but in the end hardly any of those tasks really matters. On the other hand, another person may only complete one or two tasks in a very short time during their day but these were critical tasks that could generate much higher values. This subseq…

> This is quite similar to the cognitive and decision fatigue principle which indicates that each of us only has a limited pool of cognitive resources and so we must be very selective in choosing what activities we engage in. Watch out — many of the studies which displayed “cognitive fatigue” (I assume you actually mean ego depletion) have not been replicated successfully. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_sci…

Really? Dammit. Everything really is a lie.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#143

Post by TelmoMenezes »

appleflaxen wrote: post #127
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also get a lot of joy from all of the things you describe. The fact that the pleasure you get from sex or exercise feels artificial in comparison to writing a piece of code might be something worth thinking about. Is this really how you feel, or is it how you were programmed to feel?

when you say programmed, do you mean biologically, or culturally?

culturally

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#144

Post by TelmoMenezes »

wccrawford wrote: post #128
skrebbel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Remember the last time you felt glad to be alive? Was it related to being productive? Actually, yes. Is that weird? I can't be the only one here who loves their job.

You're not alone. I love creating things. Software, metal models, lego models, house improvements... I just love creating things, big and small. Sure, there are parts of all of those things that suck and I work to get through them and on to the good parts, but there's nothing else in life that gives me a high like creating something.

Everyone loves creating things. It's part of or human nature. It's one of the things that makes life magic again. Not "being productive". "Being productive" is code for doing shit you would rather not do. If you wanted to do that stuff, you would just do it.

Sure, even the stuff we are the most passionate about entails tasks that we would rather not do. We all get that.

For example, right now I want to work on a research project, but I have to fill some forms first so that I can keep having medical insurance. I would rather not fill the forms, but I will just do it so I can go back to the magical stuff.

If most of what I do requires a Pomodoro-hell-clock, 3 lists and a process that takes 10 chapters to explain, just to discipline myself into doing it, then maybe I made some bad choices along the way. But hey, maybe it's just me. I am just inviting people to take a pause and reflect. :)

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#145

Post by JangoSteve »

apatters wrote: post #78
mjburgess wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general idea even in a loose, more metaphorical sense, holds however. 'Mental fatigue' is well established, and your volition along with mental faculties generally become harder to exercise the longer they are used without break. The specifics are disputed, but we needn't be so specific for the advise to hold.

I don't have a citation for this, but I read something recently about a study where people who had been introduced to the concept of decision-making fatigue experienced it, while people who weren't aware of it didn't. The mind is a wacky thing, I think we know a lot less about it than we believe. One idea I like which seems to have some real world support is that your mental models make all the difference -- if you b…

I had recently read that too, but it was more specifically about the idea of willpower rather than decision-making fatigue per se. Here is the article where I had seen this, though going back to it, I don't see citations to the studies it's mentioning:

> If ego depletion does turn out to be wrong, it’s striking how seemingly well-established it became before more rigorous investigations dispelled the assumptions it rests on. The story of its rise and fall also shows how faulty assumptions about willpower are not just misleading, but can be harmful. Related studies have shown that beliefs about willpower strongly influence self-control: Research subjects who believe in ego depletion (that willpower is a limited resource) show diminishing self-control over the course of an experiment, while people who don’t believe in ego depletion are steady throughout. What’s more, when subjects are manipulated into believing in ego depletion through subtly biased questionnaires at the outset of a study, their performance suffers as well.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/against-willpower

EDIT: It appears the studies are cited at the bottom of the article.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#146

Post by normalhuman »

stared wrote: post #120
normalhuman wrote: post #85

My favorite anti-productivity introspections: - Remember that you are going to die. Time flies, have you noticed? Is that status symbol that you are pursuing really that important? Is it ever going to make you happy? - There is more wisdom in one of your cells than in all self-help and management books combined. Maybe you can't focus for a good reason? What could that reason be? - Remember the last time you felt glad…

I think it is a lot about values, see: https://markmanson.net/personal-values "For the last few years, I’ve had an idea for a satirical self-help article called, “The Productivity Secrets of Adolf Hitler.” The article would feature all the popular self-help tropes—goals, visualizations, morning routines—except expressed through the exploits of Hitler." Being productive for the sake of productivity is a fetish here, b…

Thanks for your answer, I had a laugh with the Hitler thing.

I clicked your link. I don't mean to be argumentative for the sake of it, but let me point out something that goes to the core of where we might disagree (or more, where I might disagree with a majority of people here). The article includes the following statement, in big all caps:

"You are what you value"

No I am not. I am also not my profession, not what I know, not my memories, not the clothes I wear or the music I listen to. I am a human being. If I close my eyes, and calm down, and manage to quiet my mind, all of the former stuff drifts away. "I" remain. I encourage you to try, but FFS don't take this as some "meditation technique to increase productivity" :)

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#147

Post by dkural »

wisty wrote: post #91
mjburgess wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general idea even in a loose, more metaphorical sense, holds however. 'Mental fatigue' is well established, and your volition along with mental faculties generally become harder to exercise the longer they are used without break. The specifics are disputed, but we needn't be so specific for the advise to hold.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story... > But that story is about to change. A paper now in press, and due to publish next month in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, describes a massive effort to reproduce the main effect that underlies this work. Comprising more than 2,000 subjects tested at two-dozen different labs on several continents, the study found exactly nothing. A ze…

How about we simply agree that people do in fact get "tired" and have limited energy and thus must prioritize what to do.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#148

Post by ravenstine »

derrida wrote: post #129

Busyness is not a virtue. The consequences of your actions being good... that has always been the classic definition of virtue. Do good things. 1 small action can have massive consequences. Creating something good and useful to others, it does not matter if it took 20 minutes, for sufficiently good actions, if you did 1 a decade, nobody cares how busy you are or if you were "productive". This is called being construc…

> Busyness is not a virtue.

Funny, I've never heart anyone state it so succinctly. I ought to print that phrase out and paste it on the wall at my desk. (I work remote so it'd just be for me and not for management to judge)

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#149

Post by reddit_clone »

gerbilly wrote: post #116
kieckerjan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can feel intensely alive and happy after having produced something, be it a nice piece of code, a short story that people might want to read or a meal that my friends enjoy. There are other surefire ways I can trigger happiness in myself (sex, drugs, exercise, to name some) but the resulting "high" feels more artificial to me.

I often feel very happy after catching a perfect surfing wave, or after flowing an effortless line down a mountain biking trail. In either case, nothing was produced, and often no one witnessed it.¹ 1: https://memegenerator.net/instance/63056532/courage-wolf-cli...

Shibumi.

Re: Productivity Is About Attention Management

#150

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

JangoSteve wrote: post #145
apatters wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a citation for this, but I read something recently about a study where people who had been introduced to the concept of decision-making fatigue experienced it, while people who weren't aware of it didn't. The mind is a wacky thing, I think we know a lot less about it than we believe. One idea I like which seems to have some real world support is that your mental models make all the difference -- if you b…

I had recently read that too, but it was more specifically about the idea of willpower rather than decision-making fatigue per se. Here is the article where I had seen this, though going back to it, I don't see citations to the studies it's mentioning: > If ego depletion does turn out to be wrong, it’s striking how seemingly well-established it became before more rigorous investigations dispelled the assumptions it r…

That's very interesting. I'd love to see an experiment where people were taught THE OPPOSITE of ego depletion.

If a group of teenagers were taught that every time they exercise their willpower it becomes stronger, in a very immediate sense, would we see their self control actual improve over the course of day.

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