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Fuck being productive

dostoynikov.bearblog.dev

21–30 of 382 posts

Re: Fuck being productive

#21

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go t…

If you care about the products, the emotional investment in your work might propel your income, which is the reason why you're working in the first place, so ostensibly a follow-on goal of that might be to raise your income.

Re: Fuck being productive

#22

Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.

[deleted]

Re: Fuck being productive

#23
I'm a hyper-productive person, but productivity for productivity sake is literally pointless.

All productivity is a means to an end. You are producing something, by definition. What is that and why?

While I do have an "emotional itch" to work on "something" most of the time, I don't leave work to go do more work just for the sake of it. There are specific things that I want to produce because it makes me happy. If I don't work on those things, then it's not that I feel guilty, it's that I feel a void in my life.

In the past I have had so many hobbies and not enough time to dedicate to them all. I would get bored of one and move to another. Some might view that as recreation, but they were always making and producing something. For the last couple of years my wife and I have been performing magic as semi-professionals and as I find myself feeling less and less enthusiastic about modern technology after 25 years in the industry, I'm starting to see a scenario where I retire from tech and we take a major risk and go all in professionally. That can't happen if we don't put the work into it today. Not that you or anyone else should, but there's purpose and motivation behind the decision to produce that.

I don't live for the sake of my employer and I'm not motivated by money (at least not at this stage in my career, I have enough). There are things I want in my life that I will never get if I don't work towards them. Sometimes I am too tired, and that's a good signal that I'm not resting enough. But every single "productive" thing that I do, be it for my employer or myself, has a motivation behind it. No one should feel pressured to produce something just for the sake of producing (unless they are living parasitically off of the efforts of others but that is a whole different conversation).

Re: Fuck being productive

#25

Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.

or you waited until you were 40 to have kids.

Re: Fuck being productive

#26

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go t…

If you care about the products, the emotional investment in your work might propel your income, which is the reason why you're working in the first place, so ostensibly a follow-on goal of that might be to raise your income.

Eh, there's quick diminishing returns in making more income, especially in software engineering. Being interested in the products you're building is a better path to work contentment in my opinion.

Re: Fuck being productive

#27
Next step: reading Charles Bukowski and just absolutely not giving a f*ck. I always seen him as the ultimate slacker and hoped some of that energy will trickle down to me when I was being workaholic.

On another note I really liked "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle In case you get some guilt feelings.

Re: Fuck being productive

#28
post #6

If doing cool stuff at home is what drives you, there is only so much time you’ll spend aimlessly binge watching Netflix or playing games, before this drive wakes up and brings you back to do interesting things again.

This is not how it works for me. When I was unemployed, I was absolutely not bored, having time to finish projects I've shelved left and right, however useless they were. Doing things in the off-hours with a 9-to-5 job is much, much harder. With the energy of the day already gone, and the also very human need to just sit down and relax, there's just not much one can do.

I really hope to eventually do something that allows me to earn money, and have enough time to both tinker and relax, without running the risk of being exhausted come next morning.

Re: Fuck being productive

#29

Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.

or you waited until you were 40 to have kids.

Robert De Niro just had his 7th and he is 79. So not everything is lost if you didn't have a chance in you 40's...
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