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Productivity porn

calebschoepp.com

261–270 of 430 posts

Re: Productivity porn

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would anybody want to be unhealthy and unproductive? what is to be gained from those two characteristics?

Fun. The answer is fun. But obviously, it's not that you have fun eating because you're unhealthy, it's that you're unhealthy because you eat stuff for enjoyment. Similarly, being unproductive isn't fun in itself, but having fun means almost by definition not being productive. If a hobby is productive, it's not really a hobby.

What is fun these days? Maybe fun is being productive, working out, and making money.

How many hobbies really beat the dopamine hit of ADHD-tweaked TikTok?

Re: Productivity porn

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this awesome video - The Hustle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U

The videos on that channel are so good that they're painful to watch, when you realize how closely it matches the life you're living. This one is my favorite (or "least favorite" depending on how hard it hits on any given day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYvhC_RdIwQ I feel like the people doing that channel could write a very effective modern Office Space.

Oh my god

Re: Productivity porn

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being more productive rarely leads to a happy and fulfilled life. It’s often precisely those moments in life when I’m on my least productive, that I look back on as if I really lived. Of course, be mindful of your time, but learn how to use it wisely, rather than optimizing for “productivity” as observed by others.

I think we might just have different definitions of productive. To me, writing code or reading a paper can be productive, but so can a conversation with my dad or a nice meal out. Basically I see "Productivity" and replace it with "Productivity towards producing more personal utility" where that utility can be anything - happiness, relaxation, actual goods and services, etc. Furthermore, I think putting on the hat of…

And sometimes the most productive thing of all with regards to long term utility is to stick your pantsless ass on the couch with a few beers and play video games.

Re: Productivity porn

#264

Hustle and grind. Create 7 streams of income. Work 18 hour days - anything less and you're a loser destined for mediocrity. Read 5 books a week. Start trading stocks and crypto. Take cold showers, hit the gym. Optimize your schedule, log every minute spent. Ditch your loser friends and only hang out with likeminded - success breeds success. Sigma grindset. Moon or bust. If you're not worth $1 million liquid before 30…

I get that this is satire but could you expand on why people who want to be healthy + productive "have it wrong" (which I feel your satirical comment alludes to?) You're "taking the piss" at people who value working hard/long hours, reading, trying to be successful financially, taking care of their health/fitness, cutting ties with loser friends (drug addicts? bums?)

I'm fine with these things insofar as they are factually in service to a substantial undertaking. The routine cannot be the undertaking, nor am I impressed by such a routine in search of an undertaking. The camera should only be on the routine, the 'secrets of success', rarely as a glimpse behind the scenes. As a rule, the camera should be on the worthy venture.

Re: Productivity porn

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not qualified to comment on the health factor. In general striving to be healthy is good, no contest there. But regarding working those long and hard hours (which then cannot be spent on other things) maybe we should heed the advice of the dying: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-fiv... > 2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. > > "This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed th…

For anybody who is just scrolling by and not clicking any links: Top five regrets of the dying 1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. 3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Opposite list:

1. I wish I’d have cared more about others than my own “truths.”

2. I wish I had applied myself more and realized my potential.

3. I wish I’d had the discipline to hide my feelings instead of burdening my friends and family so much with drama.

4. I wish I hadn’t let my “friends” dominate my life.

5. I wish I hadn't been so obsessed with happiness, and had appreciated contentment instead.

Re: Productivity porn

#266
I don’t get it, Caleb. By your reckoning, the fact the I read your blog post means I’m wasting my time. Instead of doing I did reading.

I deny the existence of “productivity porn.” It’s a made up idea. I read for clues to improve my work and life. This is not empty stimulation, this is living an examined life.

Re: Productivity porn

#267
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not knowledge acquisition. It's a false sense of accomplishment. You feel like you've learnt something that will help you be more productive. So your mind justifies the time you've spent learning it by thinking you've paid it back. So mentally, you don't feel like your wasting time. Thus you consume more and more. Which for some, can create an addictive feedback loop similar but exaggerated as porn. Which ironic…

As I said in my original post, I couldn't disagree more. It is knowledge acquisition. I've solved problems because of things I learned on HN/reddit/Twitter. I've come up with novel solutions to things by combining ideas that I read on each platform. Not everything you learn will have immediate value. Sometimes it takes a while for it to become useful.

The article is identifying a tendency for some people to over-explore (aquire knowledge) and under-exploit (apply knowledge). Specifically it's calling out when "exploration" is not being done in a structured way, and the result of that is slower / less effective skill acquisition.

If you want to learn to draw, you have a carve out time to practice and you need to learn a tree of sub-skills that may have interdependencies. Watching occasional youtube videos about drawing, or reading meta discussion about drawing is nice, but moves the needle very slowly. If your goal is a certain level of proficiency, you may not reach that level without a change in strategy.

I guess the author doesn't get all the way here, but by saying

    "Stop thinking (reading, listening, watching etc.) about how to do something and just go do it."
...I think what they are getting at is this logical progression to pursue more exploitation (do stuff / apply knowledge), and to allow {the act of doing} to structure your priorities for exploration. I think a lot of folks talk about this (e.g. the whole idea of deep work).

It's a useful strategy because by _trying_ stuff, you discover what you don't know / what you need to learn, and as you conquer those things, you discover more things you don't know & this dynamic perpetuates itself.

This doesn't mean random exploration can't be helpful (as you point out, it can be very helpful) -- however by itself it has limited utility, and many fall into the trap of doing _only_ that. The idea of "productivity porn" is just "I'm stuck going wide when I know I should go deep," and the author attributes this to the firehose of feeds, tweets, blog posts, videos, etc.

There are clearly people who have the opposite tendency and go deep (exploit) instead of wide (explore), and can benefit from more explorative behaviors, but this blog post is not speaking to them. Maybe you're one of those people :)

Re: Productivity porn

#268
post #191

Hustle and grind. Create 7 streams of income. Work 18 hour days - anything less and you're a loser destined for mediocrity. Read 5 books a week. Start trading stocks and crypto. Take cold showers, hit the gym. Optimize your schedule, log every minute spent. Ditch your loser friends and only hang out with likeminded - success breeds success. Sigma grindset. Moon or bust. If you're not worth $1 million liquid before 30…

My secret for success, you ask? I get up at 2AM, with a smile. Then do 7 hours of running after which I have my usual 3 racks of eggs for breakfast, whilst I speed read 3 books. I'm fluent in one language: the language of success, which I generously share to willing students on LinkedIn. A thread (1/74)...

lol, check out this loser, doing only 7 hours of running? Get real.

Re: Productivity porn

#269
post #240

This is 100% me if you substitute social media browsing with distro hopping and text editor tinkering. Now I understand why redditors decided to call that subreddit "unixporn". My solution: Stick with Fedora and Visual Studio Code, because I've spent at least 100 hours in the past month checking out Neovim, getting my first init.lua to work, messing around with configurations, making telescope work, make telescope lo…

I had a serious problem with colorscheme tinkering so I decided to use no syntax highlighting and I've never been happier.

To me that’s like coding with one hand.

Re: Productivity porn

#270

I disagree with the premise. I think the things you learn reading that tweet or that medium post can be useful. There were definitely times when I ran into a problem and thought to myself, "Hey I remember reading about this on Hacker News, how did they solve it?" and then going back and finding the post and finding a solution to my problem. There is also the notion of being able to make better decisions with more "co…

> There is also the notion of being able to make better decisions with more "connection material" in your mind. The more you know, the more likely you are to make a novel connection.

I completely agree with this, but I don't believe all blog posts and technical articles are written equal :)

You have:

1. Your garden variety tech blog post about somebody's experience using X or Y framework or just a general techy blog. (I'm thinking a joel spolsky or coding horror post here)

2. A technical dive into a specific problem/framework.

3. A raymond chen style blog post explaining the reasons behind some weird api.

And then you have the deeper material:

4. The Pragmatic Programmer. Not too dense and can still be enjoyed at a leisurely pace, but contains enough deep thinking type of material to motivate you.

5. A comprehensive reference book about a specific framework or concept (Game Engine Architecture and OpenGL SuperBible come to mind).

6. The Art of Computer Programming.

I only consider the last 3 productivity material. The first 3 can be helpful in rare instances, but they're more akin to watching a 3blue1brown video where I say "That was interesting" and proceed to forget all about that topic.

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