21 ms·
Evidence-based advice we've found on how to be successful in a job
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoHey, I'm the author of the post. Happy to take questions, and keen to hear ideas about what else we might add.
- dibujante 9y agoWill I ever be as ecstatic as that dog?
- Neliquat 9y agoDepends on the brand, and application, of vacuum cleaner.
- janwillemb 9y agoI like the article and bookmarked it for future reference, there's a lot of advice worth considering. One thing I'd like to point out, is that I don't like the way the "becoming a better person" is embedded in "how to be successful in any job". I do think strongly that it's the other way round: the job is only a part of me as a person, and doesn't define me. There are other values and people around me who are way more important than any job will ever be.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoThanks. We intended it as a reminder of that at the end. The rest of our guide covers some of these questions in earlier articles.
- jbreckmckye 9y agoIs it more satisfying to be good at a job one doesn't believe in, or mediocre in a job one cares about deeply?
- theparanoid 9y agoConsidering how unhappy most PhD students are, mediocrity doesn't lead to happiness.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoWe think both personal fit and meaningfulness matter a lot for job satisfaction, so it would just come down to exactly how bad you are at the work, or how little you care about it :) https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/ https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/ If I had to choose though I'd go for being good at the job you don't believe in. At least that way you have a better chance to build career capital and go into something better later. https://80000hours.org/career-guide/personal-fit/ https://80000hours.org/career-guide/personal-fit/
- hannob 9y agoGiven that the title contains "evidence-based" I was surprised how little evidence you offer. In many chapters only self-help books and alike are quoted and no scientific studies. Also... given the current state of psychology research even the points where you refer to research are probably quite weak. E.g. the whole field of positive psychology is... not exactly a prime example of robust evidence-based practice.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoHi hannob, we agree lots of the evidence is weak, and try to point that out during the post. We're trying to give an all-considered view of what makes sense to try, taking into account (i) strength of evidence (ii) upside (iii) cost of trying (iv) whether it makes sense to us, and so on. Note that most of the self-help books we recommend are written by academic experts in that area. We think it's usually more reasonable to go with their overall judgment calls rather than delving into individual studies ourselves, which are usually flawed (replication crisis etc.)
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoI added a paragraph to the introduction to clarify.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zerkten 9y agoI haven't been able to get through all of the content, but do you touch on any of the following: * Changing field to apply skills in a different way. * Going back to school later in your career. * Moving from roles that have a stigma attached (a relatively pervasive one for tech is moving from "support" into a development or a product development role.) * Being successful and hitting a heck of a lot of the points on learning, saving money etc., but ultimately not being satisfied.
- jonmb 9y agoYou're getting a lot of sarcastic replies here, but I found your article is full of good life advice that applies to more than just being successful in a job. I've already read a lot of the books your article linked to, and after applying the lessons to my own life, I know they are sound. The criticisms you are receiving about the article not being "evidence-based" is probably the most true in the sense that it may lead people to expect more scientific links and notes (which you do provide a decent amount in the Notes & References). So perhaps the title could have been better worded. However, I think you were going for something more practical that people can apply to their lives and you linked to additional resources (books and web sites) for people to dive deeper if they want. That's a good approach IMO.
- literallycancer 9y agoYou only spend one sentence on telling people to exercise. That doesn't really help someone who has no idea how to start. There is a lot of evidence of the benefits of running and other activities too.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoI'd like to find a better resource to link to. For now I've clarified that we cover advice on how to exercise more here: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-be-successful/#9-try-out-this-list-of-ways-to-become-more-productive https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-be-successful/#9-...
- jonathankoren 9y agoHow many people do you know, including yourself, vacuum themselves on a regular basis?
- mattnewport 9y agoThe problem with much of this advice is that all the difficulty is in the implementation. Like telling somebody the way to be healthy is to eat well, get enough sleep and exercise: knowing that is not sufficient to implement it successfully in general. Knowing good habits to develop is much less than half the battle. I already have a pretty good idea what I should be doing, all the difficulty is in effective implementation. Progress is often two steps forward and one step back and dedicating time and other limited resources (money, willpower) to one area (e.g. health and fitness) can often conflict with progress in another area (e.g. time to work or socialize). Knowing good habits is a good place to start but I'm much more interested in actionable advice to effectively develop and sustain good habits.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoWe cover a ton of advice on that in this section: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-be-successful/#9-try-out-this-list-of-ways-to-become-more-productive https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-be-successful/#9-...
- mattnewport 9y agoThat was actually the section I looked at most closely and suffers from the problem I'm describing. I've read getting things done, Zen to done, tried the pomodoro technique, read books on habit formation, tried apps like beeminder, habitRPG, etc. All of these have their merits but implementing them consistently is the whole problem, merely being aware of their existence is not sufficient.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoThere is a chicken and egg problem - if you don't have the motivation to apply motivation techniques, then it's hard to get started. One of former staff members got out of this rut by using commitment techniques. https://80000hours.org/2013/04/increase-your-productivity-to-boost-your-impact/ https://80000hours.org/2013/04/increase-your-productivity-to... (And click through to the next post) You might also find The Motivation Hacker by Nick Winter a good, quick summary.
- tim333 9y agoHi Benjamin. I'm curious about how you found the move from Oxford to SV. Was it good? I'm a Brit considering moving.
- lucb1e 9y agoDo you truly think a nuclear physicist with five patents on his name and a thousand citations is N times more productive than the farmer that provides this physicist with food? I too am someone who does work that helps us improve in the long run, I don't put the literal bread on anyone's table. (I hope that saying translates from Dutch.) So I don't identify as someone doing the hard work while scientists do "the important work", but I do think everyone's work is important. In terms of wages, I have trouble with the idea of farmers that earn less than me while working more hours and taking more risks in terms of job security and physical safety, but there's little I can do at the moment. To make sure you get what I'm referring to, this is what I'm talking about: > The world’s ten largest urban economic regions hold only 6.5% of the world’s population, but account for 57% of patented innovations, 53% of the most cited scientists and 43% of economic output. That means the people in these regions are about eight times more productive than the average person. More productive on some narrow measure. What a snobby statement.
- losvedir 9y agoHe's referring to this concept from economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity.
- lucb1e 9y agoFirst line of the article: > Productivity describes various measures of the efficiency of production. I don't see how that is specific to patents and citations per capita.
- jonathanstrange 9y agoIt's true that in many areas of modern work life higher and higher productivity is demanded in order to save costs and that in many regions of the world people determine social status and even self-esteem to a large extent on the basis of how high the salary is, but one might question whether these trends are really commendable. So I have no trouble with your advice, except that it seems to reinforce some already wrong priorities. Many if not most people work too much anyway, not by their own choice, but because they are underpaid and the capital tends to move to places where it already has been accumulated (and wealth is mostly inherited). Giving those people tips to become more productive and increase their chances of 'professional success' is a bit pervert.
- SteveParker60 9y agoStopped reading after seven seconds - giant animated pop-up. Dear websites: please please stop doing this.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoWe use optinmonster, which we wanted to turn off, but their service just went down. Really need to migrate off these guys...
- drdrey 9y agoYou can't turn it off because their service just went down? Sounds like you're dealing with a situation here.
- robertwiblin 9y agoYeah turns out they're upgrading their web interface so we can't change any of our settings. Keep saying it will be fixed any moment...
- wohlergehen 9y agoAlso: If you're asking me to subscribe in the middle of me reading the article, I still happily will enter my e-mail address and click subscribe, but please, please, please do not send me to a new page then to enter more details. I'll instantly navigate back since I actually want to read the text.
- jtraffic 9y agoThis article is ostensibly about "how to be successful in a job". One of the pieces of advice is "Figure out how to perform better in your job." Nice. I have some advice about how to succeed in life: "Figure out how to perform better in your life."
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoYeah that title doesn't really convey what we mean. I'll change it.
- brianmcc 9y agoI think it's OK, I mean the heading's maybe a little similar but being "good" and being "successful" aren't really the same. Good article, I think if one approaches it openly and without cynicism it's bringing together actually quite a lot of good suggestions. Have just ordered one of the recommended books - I must be in a receptive frame of mind :-)
- parennoob 9y agoI agree, I think that a lot of the points seem to serve only to pad the article length and are not actionable for most people. - Surround yourself with great people - Consider changing where you live - Save money - Look for ways to become more productive - Figure out how to perform better in your job - Think better The authors could consider cutting out points that sound like platitudes that can be found in a standard self-help guide or magazine.
- logfromblammo 9y agoAnd maybe also avoid putting down the endemic "think positive" advice before proceeding to point 4, "apply positive psychology". That tripped my hypocrisy alarm, hard.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoYeah, the difference is that "positive psychology" is scientific field, and they haven't discovered that "thinking positive" helps with being more successful. I changed the title of the sub-section.
- logfromblammo 9y ago6. Build your social network. 7. Abandon your current social network and move to a city where you can make better friends. Both of those things may help generate career success individually, but probably not both of them together, in that order.
- coldtea 9y agoObviously items are not ordered in the way you perform them. And there's not much conflicting about these two pieces of advices (whether they're good or bad). To build the right social network for your career you might have to abandon your current social network and go to a city where you'll meet more like minded people, VCs, etc. This is about going where the action is, and meeting and expanding your network of players there. Not about whether you'll keep contact with your high school pals.
- suneilp 9y agoI like this article, yet, there is this obsession with evidence that I can't quite pinpoint and it bugs me.
- thinbeige 9y agoWell written post and a smart idea to generate affiliate revs. With that amount of Amazon links you in that article you should have a click-through of more than 70% and a conversion on Amazon around 10%.
- robertwiblin 9y agoI don't think we actually have affiliate links! :) Maybe we should...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- atemerev 9y agoRight. Take care of yourself, deal with your mental issues, start every morning with cheap motivational yadda-yadda, improve your social skills -- and you can live long and stay healthy, while generating more profit for your employers and being less of a nuisance to your insurance company. What a time to be alive!
- cust0m 9y agowhat a lucid comment
- tra3 9y agoWhat do you recommend? Lets remember that the opposite of crazy is still crazy.
- zzzcpan 9y agoNot completely opposite. Trying to stay healthy is probably a good thing. But tricking yourself psychologically into a hard working employee is as crazy as it gets. You are not supposed to feel happy for being an employee and making money for someone else, because you are not in control of your own life.
- jonmb 9y ago> But tricking yourself psychologically into a hard working employee is as crazy as it gets. You are not supposed to feel happy for being an employee and making money for someone else, because you are not in control of your own life. Fortunately there are no rules for what you are supposed to feel happy about. If you are convinced that being an employee means you should not be happy, then that's a (painful) psychological trick as well. Even if you run your own business, you still have customers to satisfy, so are they in control of your life? Regardless if you work for yourself or not, you are always working to provide value to someone else. You are always selling yourself; your abilities & time.
- Stryder 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lorenzosnap 9y agoGood article. I am unsure about point 7 "Consider changing where you live" I accept that for some careers this might be inevitable but in a truly connected world it's also nice to follow the opposite advise and spot opportunities where you are
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoUnfortunately, it seems like industry hubs are more dominant than ever, despite the rise of remote work and the internet. So if you're trying to get the top of an industry, the arguments for moving still exist. But it certainly doesn't make sense for everyone.
- ghaff 9y agoThe article actually seems pretty balanced in that respect. It acknowledges that there are centers of gravity for some industries but, in some cases, you can work from almost anywhere. What I think people here sometimes don't recognize is that there are costs and tradeoffs to location choices. Those tradeoffs aren't constant for people over time. And there isn't a single right answer however much one needs to justify their own decision.
- adamredwoods 9y ago"Much other advice is just one person’s opinion, or useless clichés." This article is similar to just that: useless clichés. I clicked to read more about the evidence backing up each item, but it's only in the footnotes? In other words, the footnotes are MUCH more interesting than the article.
- iandanforth 9y agoAgreed, mostly worthless fluff. I'd challenge the authors to remove any reference to a study that has insufficient power or that has not been replicated.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoWe mainly rely on review papers, meta-analysis and expert consensus, rather than single unpowered studies. However, you don't need to have strong evidence behind a technique for it to be worth trying – if the upside is high enough or the costs are low enough, it could still be worth it.
- roel_v 9y ago"However, you don't need to have strong evidence behind a technique for it to be worth trying – if the upside is high enough or the costs are low enough, it could still be worth it." Well yeah but there's literally 1000's of books like that on Amazon - if yours isn't different, then why bother?
- steve_b 9y agoIf you're talking about self-help books, the ones I've seen are usually one or two page ideas which are crammed with filler. This webpage seems to be much more dense with information.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoIf the evidence is in the footnotes (and further reading) then doesn't that mean it's not useless cliches?
- icantdrive55 9y agoI probally shouldn't do this, but my "Psychopaths guide to how to be successful in a job." 1. Kiss the right ass--covertly, you don't want to be obvious. It's an art. 2. Make money for the owner. If you do this, you can do anything at the chit hole. Well almost? 3. Always be gathering evidence for that day. Every company I worked for was doing something sketchy. 4. Realize the happiest person on the job site (usually a manager) might be doing something illegial. Find out what that is, and file it away. Don't use it, unless you know it will benefit you. Most of the time, you should just take the info to the grave. 5. Don't do this next one--times have changed. In the past, disgruntled workers could bend rules and make a little gravy. Oh, it felt so good. Those days are sadly gone. They (tech., cams, etc., ver adept security) have put end to making a little on the side. 6. Date the owner's daughter/son. (This one can backfire.) 7. Marry into a business. (This one can bring lifelong missery too, but you will never be homeless.) 8. Drop your homeboys, and hang out with the rich kids. The rich kids have rich dads. The rich dads usually fund their kids. (I couldn't stomach this one either.) 9. And lastly just do what you were hired for. Why is this last? It should be first?
- theprop 9y agoOne of the most important determiners of whether you're happy and satisfied in your job is your commute time. Happiness, job satisfaction and longevity at your job decrease significantly as your commute time extends more than 20 minutes.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoWe mention that on our full article on job satisfaction: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/ https://80000hours.org/career-guide/job-satisfaction/
- atemerev 9y agoWe software engineers do not need to operate heavy machinery, perform surgery, or do anything physical at all, and we even have this fine invention called "Skype". Why anybody in the profession has commute time greater than zero -- I can't understand.
- milkytron 9y agoNot all software engineering positions, or software engineers for that matter, would achieve their highest productivity working from home. Some might, but certainly not all. I think of it as more of a spectrum where the more you know what you need to get done and how to do it on your own, the better you are spending the day at home. And this can vary from day to day. There are many benefits to working from home, as well as working in an office environment, but my point is that commutes will still exist for many software engineers for a long time.
- jschwartzi 9y agoFor example, I routinely need the use of laboratory equipment to measure pneumatic and electrical properties of the systems under control of my software. This equipment is both expensive and in some cases dangerous.
- atemerev 9y ago
- deft 9y agoUpvotes on an anti-capitalist comment on HN?!? Why I never.... To all the 'gracious employers': we are sick of working for pennies while you peddle psychobabble to get us to work harder. The problem is our exploitation. The end.
- atemerev 9y agoI am not an anti-capitalist. In fact, I work in a prop trading firm, and Atlas Shrugged is always in my library for a yearly reminder on the direction this world is going. And I _still_ think this article is a terrible advice. In capitalism, capital is the prime resource, to be gathered and kept. Being an employee is a good start, but I doubt it is a good lifelong strategy.
- socmag 9y agoYou rock! Absolutely, you need Atlas Shrugged on the bookshelf to understand the mess we find ourselves in. The most amazing thing is the hypnotic scam that has been pulled, on us that makes us believe this is all our "lot in life". Thumbs up!
- socmag 9y agoThe downvotes on this really make me chuckle. I guess there are people out there who really believe the individualism in Atlas Shrugged is a model for society? My interpretation is that's darkly satirical humor. Okay Ayn was a genius, but I think she had a sense of humor too. At least that is the way I would like to think of it.
- smokeyj 9y agoCapitalist is such a useless term. People who can define it don't use it, and those who can't abuse it.
- huragok 9y agoYour statement is devoid of all meaning as is this one screaming into the void.
- tryitnow 9y agoThis is a pretty disappointing list. First, the items do not tend to be mutually exclusive - there's a lot of overlap with each other. I interpret that as a sign of poor organization. It makes the whole thing hard to follow. Second, most of this stuff isn't remotely evidence based! Plus, there's no way to understand the effect size even when some technique does have evidence supporting it. Overall, this is too much of a data dump to be helpful. The author should have ranked ordered these items based on the cumulative evidence supporting each one - that would have been extremely useful.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoHey, I clarified the situation in the intro: > In many cases, the evidence isn’t as strong as we’d like. Rather, it’s the best we’re aware of. We’ve tried to come to an all-considered view of what makes sense to try, given (i) the strength of the empirical evidence, (ii) whether it seems reasonable to us, (iii) the size of the potential upside, (iv) how widely applicable the advice is, and (v) the costs of trying. The details are given in the further reading we link to and the footnotes. > We’ve put the advice roughly in order. The first items are easier and more widely applicable, so start with them, then move on to the more difficult areas later. The order is also partly based on an upcoming analysis of which skills are most valuable. I agree some of the advice overlaps, but it's a little hard to avoid. Most of the areas are inter-related. I'd be interested in ideas on how to reorg.
- Asdfbla 9y agoWhile probably not wrong, such lists about how to optimize my lifestyle make me anxious if anything. It kinda suggests if I don't start my fitness diary, self-improvement plan and life goal milestone list right now, I'm wasting my time.
- mvpu 9y agoBah. Another listicle... although, #5 (social skills) and #6 (great people) are good enough for me. If you surround yourself with great people, your motivation to do great work is high. If you develop good social skills, you're more effective working in teams. Great people + great collaboration = great career in the long run.
- jonathankoren 9y ago"To avoid colds and flus it’s important to vacuum yourself daily. We recommend Dyson." This is a joke right?
- Gustomaximus 9y agoHow is this voted to second place on front page? Feels like Reddit where people obviously vote on the headline before reading the article. A side point form this, it would be interesting if HN/Reddit or other platforms brought in a quality score to peoples upvotes to negate people who do tend to upvote catchy headlines. That or 287 people other than me found this article interesting and useful...
- gitpusher 9y ago> 287 people other than me found this article interesting and useful... That's how voting systems generally function, yes
- jtraffic 9y agoIt does seem a little weird how many negative comments there are. It's as if most who read the article didn't like it, but somehow it has been upvoted like crazy. Is a voting ring of this magnitude possible though? Maybe I just need to believe that tons of people really like it and nothing fishy is going on. If you loved this article and upvoted it, please tell us why.
- BenjaminTodd 9y agoThat's what always happens. People who like upvote and move on (or do nothing). People who are critical comment. It's really hard to do a voting ring on HN. The algorithm is very sensitive. We've triggered it accidentally before, just because friends of ours, who we didn't ask, upvoted it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- johnfn 9y agoThat would be me. I liked it because it gave easy to understand and evidence-backed steps to improve your life. I see a bunch of posts and comments on HN where the poster postulates (without any research or backing) some hypothesis about how to improve your life. These inevitably get hundreds of upvotes and never get questioned, even though n=1 is practically meaningless. This is the complete opposite. Every step on here is discrete, concrete and backed by study. What more do you want, exactly? And how come no one ever calls out the n=1 case, but everyone is calling out this? What exactly is the difference?
- yuwotm8 9y agoPiece of crap article. There's a difference between "thinking positively" and fantasising about how good your future life is going to be.
- graycat 9y agoFor the objective of the OP, my single most important piece of advice is: And may I have the envelope please? And the nominees are, work harder, improve your knowledge and skills relevant to the job, get noticed by the C-level people, come in early and leave late, and play politics. And the winner is [drum roll, please] by a wide margin Play politics. For more, usually assume that your direct supervisor does not want you to do more or better because that might get you promoted over him. Instead, he wants you to do not very well. Then he can have an excuse to fire you. Then he can argue that he has to pay your better replacement more, and then, since the supervisor gets paid at least 15% more than his highest paid subordinate, the supervisor gets paid more. And he is sure to hire someone, really, less good than the one he fired. Really, what the supervisor wants as subordinates is a lot of people who can't challenge him and, from their large number and relatively high salaries, get him paid more. For more, there may be some cliques; join them and appear to be loyal to them. A lot of the advice in the OP will scare your supervisor and cause him to try to get rid of you. Net, play politics. For one step more, the politics you are playing is well known in the literature of public administration, organizational behavior, and sociology and is called goal subordination where the workers subordinate the goals of the organization to their own goals. Goal subordination is common in middle management in an organization big enough to have several levels of management. There commonly a middle manager wants to arrange that his position is relatively well paid and stable. To this end he wants to build an empire of subordinates who will not challenge him. The middle manager gets paid more because of his relatively large number of subordinates. In a lot of medium to large organizations, an employee who is a star gets attacked. E.g., an employee A who sells more makes the other employees look bad, and they can retaliate by sabotaging employee A. E.g., in a research university, never tell the others how your research is going. Instead, say nothing until the corresponding papers are PUBLISHED -- then it is too late for the others to sabotage the research, e.g., cause you to waste time by constantly dropping by your office to talk, putting you on silly committees, assigning you new courses to teach where you have to do new preparations, etc. Net, instead of working to make the organization more successful, it is super common to replace reality with easier to do/defend processes and to fight with others in the company, especially just down the hall.
- scryder 9y ago
- shmerl 9y ago> Go to Silicon Valley for technology, LA for entertainment, New York for advertising / fashion / finance, Boston or Cambridge (UK) for science, London for finance, and so on. That kind of remains a cliché, but it's less relevant today.
- taurath 9y agoYou know what blows in the US? If you are unemployed, its damn expensive to get treatment for any mental health issues. If you can even get medicare, you can get covered for basically a community counselor - the time that most people could most benefit from the help of a psychologist or licensed therapist is the time they can least afford it.
- sAbakumoff 9y agoThe article does not answer the ultimate question : Why should one ever care to be successful in a job?
- profalseidol 9y agoSo mega capitalists can maximize their profits.
- sAbakumoff 9y agoYeah, sounds like one of those user-stories : As a gig economy individual I want to be successful in my job so that "mega capitalists can maximize their profits."
- johnfn 9y agoIf you broaden your definition of job to "anything you work on for a long period of time", I think the answer becomes obvious: a job is a large part of your life. Not wanting to do well at it would be nihilistic.
- sAbakumoff 9y agoNot wanting to do well does not equal to not trying to be successful, right?
- hueving 9y agoTo invest in your own future? Being successful leads to promotions in meritocracies, which can bring to to retirement faster, offer more interesting challenges, etc. If you don't care, look for a union or government job where seniority reigns king and do the minimum every day for 45 years.
- sAbakumoff 9y agoThis type of answer leads to subsequent questions, f.e. - why would anyone want to retire faster? The final answer, I believe, is that the ultimate goal is "the feeling of relief that comes when the drive is satisfied. Relief, relaxation, and an end to the tension. Peace, happiness — no more yearning." There are many ways to achieve that feeling without being successful in a job.
- profalseidol 9y agoI believe understanding how the world really works is a must.
- cypher303 9y agoHonestly, if psychology studies were presented as opinion pieces I would take them much more seriously.
- landmark3 9y agomy rule number one to be successful in a job is not to be obsessed about it
- raleighm 9y agoI dislike the popular phrase "evidence-based" to describe practices/advice. All reasoning should be evidence-based. Experience can be a source of evidence. The results of double-blind studies require interpretation, about which reasonable people will disagree. Many "evidence-based" findings could correctly be viewed as "one person's opinion".
- lucb1e 9y ago> The world’s ten largest urban economic regions hold only 6.5% of the world’s population, but account for 57% of patented innovations, 53% of the most cited scientists and 43% of economic output. That means the people in these regions are about eight times more productive than the average person. Wow, they probably have no idea where their bananas come from. More productive than the average person if you look at scientific output only, but science is what improves our lives in the long run. The rest of the population does the work that needs doing to stay alive.
- lazyasciiart 9y agoSome of it, maybe. There was some talk about lack of work in rural America over the last election cycle.
- RamshackleJ 9y agoNot lack of work in general, lack of work that can support niceties like, adequate housing, healthcare and college education for your children.
- apexalpha 9y agoAgree, and I'd like to add that I know at least two companies in the Netherlands where the 'actual work' in innovation is done at big chemical plants in the south-east of the country, but patenting and other administrative stuff however is done at the company HQ in Amsterdam, the capital. This will probably be counted in their "Amsterdam-Brussels-Antwerp" statistic, but no real-life innovation has taken place there. The other side to this story is that non-Europeans would probably still consider this place part of the "Amsterdam-Brussels-Antwerp" axis since it is only 100km outside of it, while for Dutch people this is 'the other side of the country' and thus, considered far away.
- baksobulat 9y agoThe "patent capital" area in NL is centered around the area where ASML and NXP is located too. These two giants bring around the whole semiconductor market up and make them famous for the innovation/patents
- rawland 9y agoBenjaminTood, thank you for this guide. It definitively paints a picture where society is heading. Naturally comes the question: Where does the guide guide you to? To what person does it guide you? Everything about this reminded me of the movie The Ticket, where the previously truly blind main character becomes blinded by the superficial in his pursuit of "The Successful Life". What world is this, in which every human interaction happens in background of some kind of utility function? In the end we all want to be happy, right? Numerous studies find, that 'the most salient characteristics shared by students who were very happy and showed the fewest signs of depression were "their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them." ("The New Science of Happiness," Claudia Wallis, Time Magazine, Jan. 09, 2005).' [1] I'm very sorry to say this: sadly enough, it's not how good you perform, but where you are born, what has the biggest impact on your career. [2] From the About page of 80000hours: Our aim is to help as many people as possible lead high-impact careers. We do this by providing career advice for talented young people who want to have a social impact. Over a third of young graduates want to make a difference with their careers,1 but they have little idea what to do Maybe that's the main problem here? "[Having] little idea what to do". Being raised as sheep doesn't really teach you, how to stand for your own ideals. And that's why I'm proud of HN. Because we are! Sources: [1]: http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/communicating/ http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/com... [2]: In Germany 85% of all chairmen are emerging from the upper 3.5% (income-wise) families [3]. This is especially remarkable as it's only a very thin slice, which makes up basically everybody in these positions. These upper 3.5% want you to become as high-performing as possible. Guess, why? [3]: https://www.amazon.de/Gestatten-Elite-Spuren-M%C3%A4chtigen-morgen/dp/345550051X https://www.amazon.de/Gestatten-Elite-Spuren-M%C3%A4chtigen-...
- jonathanstrange 9y agoYou nailed it. The article contains a lot of good advice but unfortunately seems to be based on the incorrect assumption that you are either successful in your job or unsuccessful in your job (a false dichotomy), or that you always need to strife to be more and more successful. Maybe they should read Heinrich Böll's Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral - Anecdote Concerning the Lowering of Productivity.
- henryaj 9y agoI like this a lot - a nice balance of strongly evidence-based ways of being happier and more productive, and a summary of more anecdotal (but likely still useful) self-help techniques. To those kvetching about the latter, I think they're still valuable - particularly as it saves me wading through hundreds of self-help books for the occasional gem.
- hedgew 9y agoThe amount of low-quality, negative comments here is surprising. I read the whole article carefully and it seems quite reasonable.
- basisword 9y agoAgreed. I'm quite glad your comment is near the top. I normally read the comments before the article. Fortunately, after seeing your post, I went to the article first. If I just looked at the comments here I would have skipped it, to my detriment. It was well written, with lots of actionable advice. Most of the comments here are either nitpicking slightly clickbaity headings (and ignoring the useful content beneath them) or complaining about 'science/evidence', again probably without reading more than the headings.
- thenomad 9y agoI agree. It's remarkable - and rather depressing - that a well-meaning article aiming to help people improve their lives, and mostly offering decent advice, is attracting such intense dislike.
- ckastner 9y agoI believe that any work that describes itself as being "evidence-based" has to open itself, and the evidence it bases on, up to rigorous criticism.
- thenomad 9y agoOh, absolutely - I'm not talking about the comments debating the level of evidence in the article. Those seem like absolutely fair comments, and the author of the article is responding to them well.
- HiroshiSan 9y agoI'd like to know how many actually read the article versus how many skimmed it just to shit on it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cJ0th 9y agoBerthold Brecht once said:"The opposite of good is not evil, it's good intention". Unfortunately, this article is filled to the brim with good intentions. If I could talk to my 20 year old self I would recommend this: Stay away from the Internet as much as possible and don't look for general advice. Most information is of little use no matter whether it's right, wrong, deep, entertaining, scientific, religious, whatever... Many may realize that but they continue to consume. The common trap is that most of us think there is no downside to consuming information and this, in my humble opinion is a huge mistake! It seems to me that the more stuff we shovel into our heads, the less able we are to get active. There is constantly such a long queue of inputs our brain wants to process that we have little energy left to actually develop intentions. When intention crystallize, motivation follows and so does action. I'd argue that people of average intelligence are not lacking success because they miss precious advice. It's because they don't actually have intentions! They can't allow themselves (mainly for financial oder societal reason, I assume) to relax and wait for curiosity to kick in. Instead they have it backwards: They hear about people who are having a career, they hear about others forming families, they hear the news telling them how the IOT is the future, they read up on cool stuff on wikipedia, read the biographies of celebreties, random stuff on reddit, they read career advice .... And then, from all that garbage, they try to deduce what to do. In most cases, that doesn't truly work because the result is not in line with their natural appetites and abilities.
- taneq 9y agoMy 16-year-old self had to catch a bus and a train to get to a reference library in order to answer any but the most trivial questions. My 20-year-old self got 90%+ of the information I needed to succeed from the internet. I taught myself coding, 3D graphics, game development, rendering, and a whole bunch of other stuff. My present-day self still relies on the internet for a huge percentage of my information, and you know what? Having done it both ways, it's far more efficient and far more effective than catching a bus to the library. Maybe you meant 'stay off Facebook'?
- terminalcommand 9y agoIMHO it is not the Internet that's the problem. The constant connectivity is killing productivity. Every morning I used to start my day with reading HN, on the bus to school I surfed the web. At uni, on every break I used to take out my phone and browse some more. After school I binge-watched TV shows and surfed more. My attention span got so divided that I couldn't concentrate watching a single episode, I constantly switched to a browser to surf more. I learned a lot about programming, but my personal life suffered. I couldn't meet deadlines, couldn't study for uni (studying law). In the end I concluded that I had developed something like an internet addiction. Furthermore, it wasn't just limited to internet. I stopped changing clothes, stopped keeping my already cluttered room in a somewhat liveable standard, stopped caring for my health, ate a lot of junk food, got hooked to TV-Shows. Now, instead of constant short bursts of divided internet surfing, I am trying to set out a time for surfing. And outside those hours, I go offline. It has been a though switch, but I slowly feel that I'm getting my impulse control back. I recently started reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, I can recommend it to anyone trying to get off the vicious cycle.
- kelukelugames 9y agoI don't think the Charisma Myth is worth reading, but the first 3 tips she gives are great. 1) Don't end your sentences on a rising inflection. Makes you sound unsure. 2) Don't nod you heard more than once during a sentence when someone else is speaking. Makes you look to eager. 3) Take a breath before you speak. Doing so makes you come across as confident, prepared, thoughtful, and composed.
- orasis 9y ago"Your location is important in many other ways. One survey of 20,000 people in the US found that satisfaction with location was a major component of life satisfaction.10 This is because where you live determines many important aspects of your life. It determines the types of people you’ll spend time with. It determines your day-to-day environment and commute." So much this. I moved to a town with much higher quality people and my happiness has taken a big positive bump.
- sqeaky 9y ago> To avoid colds and flus it’s important to vacuum yourself daily. We recommend Dyson. That dog looks so happy. If only human happiness were so easy.