6 ms·

The 7 Habits Of Highly Ineffective People

74 points by Janteh 16y ago

bena 16y ago
On 5. I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Even if I had the choice of taking a job where I'd make half what the lowest paid person makes in a company where employees are paid $120k on up or where I'd make the average in a company where they make from $40k - $60k. I'd take the $60k knowing I'd be the lowest paid in the company. I don't tie my self worth to how well I do in comparison to other people. I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow.
- awa 16y ago
  Think this way: Most things in the world are priced by how much somebody is willing to pay for them. So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average income is $50K.
  - simon_ 16y ago
    That's definitely true (I live in NYC...) but misses the point of the observation. The point is that the same material stuff will make you happier in a context where other people have less.
    - dcnstrct 16y ago
      People want to get ahead so what matters is the % relative to your surroundings. The amount doesn't matter as much as purchasing power. Money is illusory anyway -- just a social contract we agree to as a mechanism of exchange. People want expansion in various ways whether it is more money, more status, more goods, more sex, or even more religiousness. You can't stop that. As to effectiveness -- that is dependent on your personal goals. Some people are very effective at chilling out and not doing much. Others are very effective at building business, or playing a sport, or programming, or whatever. Dependent on what you want emulate the ones succeeding in that and you will be "effective"
    - awa 16y ago
      a) I was replying to the parent comment and not the story with comment b) Some people get more enjoyment being more rich than their immediate community than just being rich. This is true for everything else apart from money. Some people want to have more knowledge than others etc...
  - anamax 16y ago
    > So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average income is $50K. On the other hand, you might have more in the place with higher average income. Remember that buying isn't the only way that you can get things. Compare NYC with North Dakota. Things cost more in NYC than in ND, which is bad if you're buying, but there is a lot more free stuff in NYC than ND. Plus, there's more opportunity to move up in NYC than in ND. In some cases, that opportunity is worth something.
    - starkfist 16y ago
      I'm actually from ND and live in NYC. I just wanted to point out that ND and NYC are such opposite extremes that this particular thought experiment doesn't work very well. Other qualitative factors are more important than financial considerations.
    - gaius 16y ago
      There are some things that you will nearly always pay the "world price" for, e.g. plane tickets. So tho' in a major metropolitan area food and rent may be proportionally more, those things are proportionally less. It all depends on what kind of thing you're into.
      - anamax 16y ago
        > It all depends on what kind of thing you're into. Yup. Great museums are cheaper in NYC than ND but owning a horse is much cheaper in ND. Plane tickets between two specific locations are world price, but you also have to take where you live into account. For example, going to Singapore from Reno costs more than going from SF or San Jose.
  - timwiseman 16y ago
    Excellent point. To make it slightly more concrete, I make vastly more now in Las Vegas than I did in North Carolina. Yet, in some ways I am worse off in a material way. I make more, but I pay much more for a smaller house, much more for electricity, and slightly more for food than I did in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Overall, I have less discretionary budget than before. Of course, this is counterbalanced by having more opportunities in terms of career, education, culture, and entertainment.
- rjett 16y ago
  "I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow." This is an interesting point. Everyone has their preference point. Some people (like startup founders) can live on ramen income of < $20k/year if there's hope that they'll one day strike it rich. Other more conservative people prefer their steady salary of $80-100k at Corporation XYZ since it offers them a sense of stability. In addition to the class risk/reward paradigm illustrated here, I think this also illustrates how some people place higher value on change (read positive growth) and in turn, discount the value of stability.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  > I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Yes. I'll go a step further - I try to be the least educated, least skilled, most poorly compensated person in a room as often as possible. Holding to this habit means you keep looking for better and better rooms full of people as you improve. Serve in Heaven instead of Rule in Hell...
paylesworth 16y ago
I'm hoping he's trying to be facetious in this article because the only "ineffective habit" that I see in this article is #1. And, I could argue that is not always a bad thing because of the quality-of-life benefits you get from seeing the 'big game' or spending time with your friends. #2 and #6 are pretty much saying the same thing. Both speak to how people tend to be over-optimistic with work they're planning to take-on and are unable to take into account of the possible delays to doing that work. Also with #2, It's not clear if he's saying that planning itself is a ineffective habit or if its just the inability to take into account future events. I'd lump #3 and #4 together as both of these are symptoms of the same problem as well, seeking constant distraction. #5 is poorly described as it does not describe a habit. He should call this the "keeping up with the Jones's." Either way, I don't really agree that this make people ineffective. Misguided? Maybe. Edit: fixed some spelling errors.
avner 16y ago
If I may chip in, 0. Lack Of Respect For Time- A person who does not respect time will be limited in what he can accomplish in this world, regardless of talent. Besides your own, if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by the second until there is none left. Almost everything else is a byproduct of this, positive or negative.
- elblanco 16y ago
  > if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by the second until there is none left. It's interesting that you hi-lighted this. I just had an extremely annoying experience the other day with a VP in my company. Long story short, he decided to question what I was spending my time on and why client engagements took more than a 45 minute meeting like he experiences when doing a sales pitch(I perform most of the execution end of business relationships in my company -- things that take dozens of hours). I decided after a couple meetings of having my time questioned like that that I had lost quite a bit of respect for him and will probably not suffer that kind of thing again without there being serious repercussions inside the company -- like a reorg so that we're no longer in the same management chain. He absolutely didn't respect the 80 hour weeks I put in to keep the company afloat. Since that's time out of my personal time, and I could be doing something at another company for the 40 I'm supposed to be doing, it's a lack of respect for me.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    If you're putting in 80 hours and getting paid for 40 then it sounds like you don't respect yourself. Why would he?
    - elblanco 16y ago
      Welcome to working in a startup.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        Well, if you have a part of the company that's one thing but if you're an employee, startup or not, putting in these kind of ours is a waste.
RevRal 16y ago
I've been trying something new for the past couple of weeks that seems to be working pretty well: throughout the day, I disable my internet connection by hitting the wifi button on my laptop.
kadavy 16y ago
#3 should just be shortened to "driving"
rationalbeaver 16y ago
Good, article, but let's be honest here. We all know this is the real list: 1. Reddit/HN/Digg/etc. 2. Facebook (move to #1 if you play Farmville or are female) 3. Steam/xbox/playstation/WOW/Dwarf Fortress 4. Checking Email 5. Watching videos/movies/tv 6. Doing something pointless on your phone 7. Etc. Choose your own time-waster
- maukdaddy 16y ago
  Civ IV. =(
  - trafficlight 16y ago
    Don't worry. Civ 5 will be coming out in a few months.
  - MaMa 16y ago
    http://www.civanon.org/ http://www.civanon.org/
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- jrp 16y ago
  Having my ipod beep when I get an email has been a life-changer. Now I can work without ever having to "check" my email. Of course I only get around 5-10 a day...
- teaspoon 16y ago
  Women don't read HN?
mkramlich 16y ago
Anything that causes you to use time, energy or money less efficiently generally contributes to one being less effective, successful or productive. I've built this element into a few of my game designs, where, for example, the player can acquire assets or skills which reduce the future time/energy/money cost of doing something worthwhile or necessary. So it's like an investment where the payoff is an accelerating factor on everything else the player wants to do.
mannicken 16y ago
Sounds more like "7 habits of highly bored people" :) But in addition to word-playing with the title, why don't I also say something useful for a change. Why is everyone so concerned with efficiency? One might say "that machine is efficient" or "this machine is not efficient". Why is that? Well, machines are created and owned by humans for a specific purpose -- a coffee-maker makes coffee; a CPU processes logical operations; a carriage horse drags around a cart full of spoiled rich humans :) We can talk about efficiency of things we own but we can no longer own humans. In a civil society, humans are owners of services that they exchange under conditions of a free and fair market. There, I said it. Now stop talking about efficiency of humans. Start creating efficient things that efficiently do all the things we hate so we can all be a bunch of lazy fucks :)
sev 16y ago
#1 should not be procrastination. It should be "Bad Prioritization" instead. This is because, procrastination in itself is not a bad thing; not only that, it's necessary and impossible to get around. We all procrastinate, because at any given moment we have a ton of tasks that we want/need to do and that we could do, but since we can't do them all at once, we have to prioritize. If we are bad at that, then we could become ineffective.

74 points by Janteh 16y ago

bena 16y ago

On 5. I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Even if I had the choice of taking a job where I'd make half what the lowest paid person makes in a company where employees are paid $120k on up or where I'd make the average in a company where they make from $40k - $60k. I'd take the $60k knowing I'd be the lowest paid in the company. I don't tie my self worth to how well I do in comparison to other people. I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow.

awa 16y ago
Think this way: Most things in the world are priced by how much somebody is willing to pay for them. So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average income is $50K.
- simon_ 16y ago
  That's definitely true (I live in NYC...) but misses the point of the observation. The point is that the same material stuff will make you happier in a context where other people have less.
  - dcnstrct 16y ago
    People want to get ahead so what matters is the % relative to your surroundings. The amount doesn't matter as much as purchasing power. Money is illusory anyway -- just a social contract we agree to as a mechanism of exchange. People want expansion in various ways whether it is more money, more status, more goods, more sex, or even more religiousness. You can't stop that. As to effectiveness -- that is dependent on your personal goals. Some people are very effective at chilling out and not doing much. Others are very effective at building business, or playing a sport, or programming, or whatever. Dependent on what you want emulate the ones succeeding in that and you will be "effective"
  - awa 16y ago
    a) I was replying to the parent comment and not the story with comment b) Some people get more enjoyment being more rich than their immediate community than just being rich. This is true for everything else apart from money. Some people want to have more knowledge than others etc...
- anamax 16y ago
  > So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average income is $50K. On the other hand, you might have more in the place with higher average income. Remember that buying isn't the only way that you can get things. Compare NYC with North Dakota. Things cost more in NYC than in ND, which is bad if you're buying, but there is a lot more free stuff in NYC than ND. Plus, there's more opportunity to move up in NYC than in ND. In some cases, that opportunity is worth something.
  - starkfist 16y ago
    I'm actually from ND and live in NYC. I just wanted to point out that ND and NYC are such opposite extremes that this particular thought experiment doesn't work very well. Other qualitative factors are more important than financial considerations.
  - gaius 16y ago
    There are some things that you will nearly always pay the "world price" for, e.g. plane tickets. So tho' in a major metropolitan area food and rent may be proportionally more, those things are proportionally less. It all depends on what kind of thing you're into.
    - anamax 16y ago
      > It all depends on what kind of thing you're into. Yup. Great museums are cheaper in NYC than ND but owning a horse is much cheaper in ND. Plane tickets between two specific locations are world price, but you also have to take where you live into account. For example, going to Singapore from Reno costs more than going from SF or San Jose.
- timwiseman 16y ago
  Excellent point. To make it slightly more concrete, I make vastly more now in Las Vegas than I did in North Carolina. Yet, in some ways I am worse off in a material way. I make more, but I pay much more for a smaller house, much more for electricity, and slightly more for food than I did in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Overall, I have less discretionary budget than before. Of course, this is counterbalanced by having more opportunities in terms of career, education, culture, and entertainment.
rjett 16y ago
"I compare what I have now to what I can get tomorrow." This is an interesting point. Everyone has their preference point. Some people (like startup founders) can live on ramen income of < $20k/year if there's hope that they'll one day strike it rich. Other more conservative people prefer their steady salary of $80-100k at Corporation XYZ since it offers them a sense of stability. In addition to the class risk/reward paradigm illustrated here, I think this also illustrates how some people place higher value on change (read positive growth) and in turn, discount the value of stability.
lionhearted 16y ago
> I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Yes. I'll go a step further - I try to be the least educated, least skilled, most poorly compensated person in a room as often as possible. Holding to this habit means you keep looking for better and better rooms full of people as you improve. Serve in Heaven instead of Rule in Hell...

paylesworth 16y ago

I'm hoping he's trying to be facetious in this article because the only "ineffective habit" that I see in this article is #1. And, I could argue that is not always a bad thing because of the quality-of-life benefits you get from seeing the 'big game' or spending time with your friends. #2 and #6 are pretty much saying the same thing. Both speak to how people tend to be over-optimistic with work they're planning to take-on and are unable to take into account of the possible delays to doing that work. Also with #2, It's not clear if he's saying that planning itself is a ineffective habit or if its just the inability to take into account future events. I'd lump #3 and #4 together as both of these are symptoms of the same problem as well, seeking constant distraction. #5 is poorly described as it does not describe a habit. He should call this the "keeping up with the Jones's." Either way, I don't really agree that this make people ineffective. Misguided? Maybe. Edit: fixed some spelling errors.

avner 16y ago

If I may chip in, 0. Lack Of Respect For Time- A person who does not respect time will be limited in what he can accomplish in this world, regardless of talent. Besides your own, if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by the second until there is none left. Almost everything else is a byproduct of this, positive or negative.

elblanco 16y ago
> if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by the second until there is none left. It's interesting that you hi-lighted this. I just had an extremely annoying experience the other day with a VP in my company. Long story short, he decided to question what I was spending my time on and why client engagements took more than a 45 minute meeting like he experiences when doing a sales pitch(I perform most of the execution end of business relationships in my company -- things that take dozens of hours). I decided after a couple meetings of having my time questioned like that that I had lost quite a bit of respect for him and will probably not suffer that kind of thing again without there being serious repercussions inside the company -- like a reorg so that we're no longer in the same management chain. He absolutely didn't respect the 80 hour weeks I put in to keep the company afloat. Since that's time out of my personal time, and I could be doing something at another company for the 40 I'm supposed to be doing, it's a lack of respect for me.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  If you're putting in 80 hours and getting paid for 40 then it sounds like you don't respect yourself. Why would he?
  - elblanco 16y ago
    Welcome to working in a startup.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Well, if you have a part of the company that's one thing but if you're an employee, startup or not, putting in these kind of ours is a waste.

RevRal 16y ago

I've been trying something new for the past couple of weeks that seems to be working pretty well: throughout the day, I disable my internet connection by hitting the wifi button on my laptop.

kadavy 16y ago

#3 should just be shortened to "driving"

rationalbeaver 16y ago

Good, article, but let's be honest here. We all know this is the real list: 1. Reddit/HN/Digg/etc. 2. Facebook (move to #1 if you play Farmville or are female) 3. Steam/xbox/playstation/WOW/Dwarf Fortress 4. Checking Email 5. Watching videos/movies/tv 6. Doing something pointless on your phone 7. Etc. Choose your own time-waster

maukdaddy 16y ago
Civ IV. =(
- trafficlight 16y ago
  Don't worry. Civ 5 will be coming out in a few months.
- MaMa 16y ago
  http://www.civanon.org/ http://www.civanon.org/
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
jrp 16y ago
Having my ipod beep when I get an email has been a life-changer. Now I can work without ever having to "check" my email. Of course I only get around 5-10 a day...
teaspoon 16y ago
Women don't read HN?

mkramlich 16y ago

Anything that causes you to use time, energy or money less efficiently generally contributes to one being less effective, successful or productive. I've built this element into a few of my game designs, where, for example, the player can acquire assets or skills which reduce the future time/energy/money cost of doing something worthwhile or necessary. So it's like an investment where the payoff is an accelerating factor on everything else the player wants to do.

mannicken 16y ago

Sounds more like "7 habits of highly bored people" :) But in addition to word-playing with the title, why don't I also say something useful for a change. Why is everyone so concerned with efficiency? One might say "that machine is efficient" or "this machine is not efficient". Why is that? Well, machines are created and owned by humans for a specific purpose -- a coffee-maker makes coffee; a CPU processes logical operations; a carriage horse drags around a cart full of spoiled rich humans :) We can talk about efficiency of things we own but we can no longer own humans. In a civil society, humans are owners of services that they exchange under conditions of a free and fair market. There, I said it. Now stop talking about efficiency of humans. Start creating efficient things that efficiently do all the things we hate so we can all be a bunch of lazy fucks :)

sev 16y ago

#1 should not be procrastination. It should be "Bad Prioritization" instead. This is because, procrastination in itself is not a bad thing; not only that, it's necessary and impossible to get around. We all procrastinate, because at any given moment we have a ton of tasks that we want/need to do and that we could do, but since we can't do them all at once, we have to prioritize. If we are bad at that, then we could become ineffective.