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The Frustration with Productivity Culture

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Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#81

Post by Viliam1234 »

fergie wrote: post #60

Was alarmed to see an otherwise good article descend into a defense of Agile. "Agile project-management methodologies didn’t alleviate the need for programmers to strive to be better coders, but they did prevent the developers from having to excessively worry about what they should be coding and whether they had done enough" I think there are many coders here who would strongly disagree, and maybe even identify Agile…

At the risk of being the No-True-Agileman...

The original idea of sprint planning was to choose only as many tasks as you feel comfortable doing in given time frame. The customer specifies priority, the developers estimate effort. Also, measuring individual productivity is strictly forbidden; the team is supposed to operate as a "black box" from the management perspective. In theory, that is.

In real life, in most companies there is pressure on the team to take more tasks than they feel comfortable doing. Sometimes there are external deadlines, like "all these tasks must be completed in the next two sprints, but hey guys, enjoy your AgileTM freedom to decide which ones get done in the first sprint, and which ones get done in the second sprint". Or you measure individual productivity by number of story points completed, and say "hey guys, feel free to set your own sustainable pace an enjoy your work-life ballance, but the 20% of you with least story points completed will get fired at the end of the year".

Agile was meant to be a replacement for management. Instead it became management's another weapon. Because management makes the ultimate decisions about how exactly agile gets implemented at your company.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#82

Post by slightwinder »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #19

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.

> 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).

Any source for this or is this just assumption? There are many people in that business.

> (other than marketing their stuff)

How is that not work that involves productivity?

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#83

Post by arvinsim »

axelroze wrote: post #63
danjac wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of extended family and friends, the ones with the most personal wealth by retirement got there not by being more creative, or inventive, or productive, or by studying and acquiring skills and knowledge, or starting and growing a business, but by inheriting, buying, renting and flipping properties at the right time. I don't know much about macroeconomics or economics in general, but it seems that's how you climb in th…

It's the problem of diminishing returns. If one is at rock bottom then working hard and being productive can get them to middle class lifestyle. It works. Helped billions of people in the past few decades. But starting from middle class and working hard won't make riches. Think of it physically. A hardworking person can build a house compared to a drunkard who will be homeless. Yet the same hard working person can't…

"Behind Every Great Fortune There Is a Crime"

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#84

Post by MathYouF »

robertlagrant wrote: post #65
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…

> 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. This worked because he was independently wealthy, and lots of people at the time couldn't do that and made all the goods and services he paid for so he could spend his time doing what he did. That still is the case today.

Newton was poor enough that he worked through college and could only attend on scholarship. At the time of writing the Principia he was a fellow, still just a working scholar same as any professor.

He only became wealthy after joining the Royal Mint.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#85

Post by playpause »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #77

Reading a great book-- 4000 weeks by Oliver Burkeman. He makes the great point that no matter how productive we get, we will never feel satisfied, as there will always be more to do. Instead, we need to start focusing on things that actually matter. The title 4000 weeks is the average lifespan of a human-- and Oliver make the point we get stuck in the race to be more productive, and forget to enjoy life, which is usu…

That seems like a fatuous point to me. The productive mindset is not about satisfaction, it’s about striving. Who suggested you’ll feel more satisfied by spending more time striving? And why is ‘feeling satisfied’ assumed to be a general goal anyway? For me satisfaction is just one emotional state, one that I want to experience sometimes but not as often as a feeling of striving and achievement. For someone else it might be the other way round, and that’s fine too. There is no need to declare what “actually matters” as if you speak for everyone.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#86

Post by mrpopo »

robertlagrant wrote: post #66
spaetzleesser wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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” I generally agree with your comment but this sentence doesn’t do justice to Newton. During his time alchemy, predicting things from the Bible were generally accepted. If Newton had published papers about his successe…

Exactly! In 200 years it'll be "why did they try all that cold fusion creation when you can just go to the dollar store and buy a self-contained gateway to an exploding sun to charge your Tesla for the next 1000 years?"

I think the first paradigm change will be "why did they let humans drive cars??"

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#87

Post by mikro2nd »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #39
weq wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kings and queeens have turned into the captailists and relgious zealots who espouse ideals of productivity and growth in order to secure your obedience and trap you in debt and gives you no choice but to continue on or give up everything. By chasing the money you commit yourself playing within the confines of this system. I instead chase my passion and ive found an employeer who is happy to make those same tradeo…

> Ive switched markets/verticals from gov to private to startups in search of this balance. Am I understanding correctly that you switched to startups to find better work/life balance? I have to say I'm surprised by that. Usually startups have the highest demands and the fewest people to get things done. Can you expand on your experience?

There are more ways of doing startups than dreamed of in Silicon Valley, my friend.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#88

Post by loughnane »

I feel like our desire for “more” is a contributor. One could just as easily use personal productivity improvements to work less.

But many of us want more money, a bigger house in the right neighborhood, travel across the globe, acclaim from others, etc.

If there’s no end to your wants there’s no end to the work.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#89

Post by foxfluff »

tcoff91 wrote: post #18
uselesscynicism wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well I think my skills suffer more because of work: after a day of "being productive" at work, I no longer have the time and energy to explore and learn new stuff, which is how I gained and expanded my skills in the first place.

Re: The Frustration with Productivity Culture

#90

Post by korax_nyx »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #77

Reading a great book-- 4000 weeks by Oliver Burkeman. He makes the great point that no matter how productive we get, we will never feel satisfied, as there will always be more to do. Instead, we need to start focusing on things that actually matter. The title 4000 weeks is the average lifespan of a human-- and Oliver make the point we get stuck in the race to be more productive, and forget to enjoy life, which is usu…

+1. I'm reading it too, great book, very recommended and necessary. His old writing on The Guardian: This column will change your life, never failed to made me think.
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