9 ms·

The Over-Engaged Knowledge Worker

153 points by joeyespo 8y ago

ColinWright 8y ago
Could someone more familiar with the subject and vernacular provide some sort of summary of what this is trying to say? I've read it two or three times and I still can't work out the point being made. If any.
- npo_ 8y ago
  Maybe I'm just ignorant, but this article reads like one of those corporate jargon text generators to me.
- drngdds 8y ago
  I'm pretty lost too. It reads like the second half of an article with no context.
- coupdejarnac 8y ago
  Sometimes I worry that I present my thoughts as incoherently as the author. This article needs to be streamlined and stripped of the confusing snark halfway though.
- theoh 8y ago
  "Tasks which require thought are exhausting and qualitatively different from routine tasks. Is there a better way to coordinate the work environment of "knowledge workers" to make their lives easier?"
- acemarke 8y ago
  What I'm getting out of it is that idealized notions of "knowledge sharing" and "task management" are unrealistic compared to how people actually work on things in the real world, and that software meant to help people work on long-running tasks should take that into consideration. As a concrete example: I frequently find myself needing to figure out how to implement some software task I've never done before myself, involving concepts that I barely know anything about. This usually results in dozens of opened tabs in multiple subtrees - Google searches, Github repos, and so on. This might overflow my main "browsing" Firefox window, so I end up opening a second FF window just to hold those tabs. Per the article, maybe there's a better way to capture the notion of "I'm trying to research this topic over the course of a week - how do I better organize what I'm working on, and perhaps share that info with others?".
  - regrub 8y ago
    Your concrete example is the main reason I've switched from Firefox to Vivaldi. You can create either "tab stacks", which group multiple tabs into a single top-level tab, and which can even be unloaded all at once. If you want a more persistent (and I think even shareable) version, you can then save the group as a session.
- harryf 8y ago
  So to me it made some sense. Putting it in my own terms, he argues knowledge workers are _by default_ overloaded and they use distractions as a necessary form of relief from the pressure - the distractions aren't the problem, they're a symptom. Right now we're too focused on tools and strategies to make us "more efficient", block distractions and promote collaboration. Instead we should focus on reducing the mental drain of knowledge work (e.g. the need for endless multi-tasking and alt-tabbing), find ways for positive mental relaxation (here I guess implied is NOT drugs or alcohol) and support getting "back on track" e.g. if you finish the day half way through fixing a bug, when you start next day, it's not just your IDE but also say your browser with all the Stack Overflow tabs and such you had open, related to the bug, all together in a "session" that makes it as easy as possible to pick up where you left off. So in summary I guess he's saying in the search for solutions to burnt out knowledge workers we're focused too much on symptoms like distractions.
  - philipodonnell 8y ago
    Can chrome or Firefox do an "exit but save all my tabs"? I find myself force closing Chrome because I can use the recover tabs when I come back.
    - cortesoft 8y ago
      You can do "restore previous session" from the hamburger menu the next time you start up, even if you don't force close.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      If you close Chrome normally and on reopening attempt to undo closing a tab (Ctrl-Shift-t on Windows) it will reopen all the closed, and even separate windows with their own tabs (maybe that takes a second Ctrl-Alt-t, I can't recall). Firefox just opens with all the same tabs by default (at least it does for me. I don't recall if it's a setting I selected).
      - goodcanadian 8y ago
        Firefox just opens with all the same tabs by default (at least it does for me. I don't recall if it's a setting I selected). It's a setting. In your preferences, under start-up, check restore previous session. IIRC, you can also restore the previous session from the history menu even if you don't have that option checked.
- modarts 8y ago
  Same reaction, there’s a point buried extremely deep in all of the stream of consciousness
- whatshisface 8y ago
  The article is a stream-of-consciousness about distractions and multitasking. The author does not reach a conclusion, instead hoping only to inspire further thought.
- svat 8y ago
  When people discuss “knowledge work”, they often slip into imagining an “idealized” knowledge worker: one who is very engaged, and doing “big” meaningful things one at a time. In reality, (1) we are all distracted, (2) our work usually consists of a large number of small chunks that are spread over time (3) we all have a large pile of undone work (both “job” and “personal”) that we're always feeling guilty about. What do we do about this difference between the ideal and reality? We could just give up on the ideal and resign to the reality — or even make it worse. Or we could try to fight it superficially, and fail (there's a reason things are the way they are). Or we could start from accepting the reality (instead of ignoring it), but try to move towards the ideal, e.g: (1) reduce whatever it is that makes us seek distractions (very different from blocking distractions), (2) make it easier to get back on track (e.g. keep track of the task being done). In coming up with this problem statement, the author believes he's diverged from the usual problems being imagined: things like trying to block distractions, trying to maximize efficiency, “collaboration”. [That just restated the post, so I don't know if it helps :)]
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    A brilliant précis that is actually better than the original article (sorry Mr Bicking)
  - TuringTest 8y ago
    I have an idea for your (2), which is a tool for interrupting you when you are procrastinating, and showing something interesting to do from your TO DO list, adequate to the current moment and place. This could use all the addictiveness techniques of current "engagement+advertising" platforms and turn it to good use.
  - commandlinefan 8y ago
    > who is very engaged, and doing “big” meaningful things one at a time. And one who knows exactly what steps are going to be involved and how long each one is going to take, weeks or even months in advance. The fact that I approach every new programming problem with: "ok, how the hell do I figure this one out?" made me feel really nervous early on in my career, since there seemed to be this default expectation that not just good, not even just adequate, but even mediocre programmers could blurt out a list of the tasks involved in solving a problem, "estimate" (meaning predict with +/- 5% accuracy) the hours associated with each and then robotically plow through each of them. This was back in the 90's, before somebody named this "agile" and built a set of Orwellian tools and "coaching strategies" around it, but after a few years I couldn't help but notice that, in spite of being an abject failure at accurately predicting how long each bug fix was going to take before I even really knew what it entailed, I was also one of the most sought after developers in every organization I worked at.
whatshisface 8y ago
>So how might we approach idea generation around knowledge work without idealizing the knowledge worker? Editing tip: you can delete sentences like this without loosing much. The following text should do a good enough job of making a point without an introduction helping it along. The trick to editing is to backspace as many words as you can.
- rco8786 8y ago
  What’s wrong with an introductory question? Also, losing not loosing.
  - falsedan 8y ago
    It’s conversational, and adds nothing: the reader who was following along already asked themselves that question, and the reader who’s hasn’t latched onto the thesis doesn’t understand why this is a good question to ask.
MisterOctober 8y ago
Claudius : Can you advise me? Laertes : I am lost in it, my lord.
ingenieroariel 8y ago
Most people who uovoted would know but others may not. Ian Bicking is creator of virtualenv (and others) and one of the people doing meta thinking of tools and envs in the python world. Interesting to see something from him after some years.
justwalt 8y ago
This website is beautiful.
colllectorof 8y ago
>This is the reality of knowledge work that none of these conceptualizations address: it’s hard (in very specific ways), some of it we don’t want to do, and the work we don’t want to do piles up and becomes dominant simply because it remains undone. Let me rephrase this for you. A lot of so-called "knowledge work" is just tedious, mind-numbing bullshit. Not only that, but you have to plow through it while fighting information overflow and your own overly complex tools, while acting completely alone. There are no librarians on the Internet. No wonder everyone craves distractions. >In the context of the browser, how do we contextualize pages and interactions inside some abstract task? This train has sailed off its tracks long time ago. Browsers aren't real tools. They are designed to make for smooth information consumption so that Google and co can harvest your money and attention as efficiently as possible. I can list several hundred things a web browser should do if it aims at being "knowledge worker's tool". Let me just give some categories: 1. Features for pausing and restarting work in different mental contexts. 2. Local personalization. Shit like Timelines should be local and user-controller. "This is too complicated, so let's let Facebook/Twitter/Microsoft do it" is a lame excuse. 3. Did you notice that browsers still don't have any good authoring tools? Every websites reinvents their own WYSIWYG. "Developer tools" have everything for debugging, but almost nothing for creations of stuff. 4. User-driven integration between pages. (For example, something as simple as "when I open this page, go to that other page, find all the entries with word X and paste it here".) Bah, that's enough. I can continue, but I think the point was made, unless the reader doesn't want to see it on purpose.
- steve1977 8y ago
  Browsers aren't real tools. They are designed to make for smooth information consumption Well yeah. They're browsers, that's what they are. "To browse: an act of casual looking or reading."
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    They're not really browsers - they're web page viewers. The views are organised by the needs of the source technology - "pages" generated by a web server - not by the needs of the user. A lot of useful features - cross-referencing, comparisons, task-based content searches, dynamic content update notifications - are either impossible or poorly implemented on the server side. There's never been an active browser that tries to integrate information instead of being a dumb page viewer with tabs and some form filling options.
hajderr 8y ago
I'm so connected yet so disconnected with my inner self. Knowledge workers are under appreciated in the regular day job. If you also happen to be creative then you'll be challenged by some other ego trying to take credit for your work. In the struggle and dilemma: "should I care about this guy?" you forget about it and start to build resent. Then burnout is then a fact. Your challenges in college were way more benefitting and purpose-driven instead of your boss's wallet. That's why I say CS degree was awesome, working as dev is draining. What's this comment about? Just need a rant...
- pm90 8y ago
  I guess it also depends on where you work. You can do some pretty amazing and creative work if you find the right niche to work in.
  - hajderr 8y ago
    true that! yet to find...maybe I move into hardware, something tangible is inspiring
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
a friend sending you a mortgage refinance proposal isn't work though, unless that friend is giving you money for looking at it. And I guess the only people getting sent mortgage refinance proposals are people who might have some expertise in that subject.
montenegrohugo 8y ago
In order to minimize context-switching and mantain browser "sessions" I recommend OneTab[0], really simple idea but is really useful. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...
linkregister 8y ago
The problem statement is eloquently stated. Yet the blame is nonsensical. The developers of Solitaire are to blame? Solitaire was a non-trivial application written for the express purpose of selling an operating system. The reality is that the problem statement, that knowledge workers are constantly engaged with unproductive, nonsensical asks, is true. Knowledge workers must overcome this by being exactly the worker they've been advised not to be: ignoring emails and chats, not being present at their open-plan desks, declining any meeting that won't immediately please their manager. No sinister force is the cause of these problems; simple entropy of organizations is to blame: failing to allocate resources to document and streamline processes is to blame.

153 points by joeyespo 8y ago

Could someone more familiar with the subject and vernacular provide some sort of summary of what this is trying to say? I've read it two or three times and I still can't work out the point being made. If any.

npo_ 8y ago
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but this article reads like one of those corporate jargon text generators to me.
drngdds 8y ago
I'm pretty lost too. It reads like the second half of an article with no context.
coupdejarnac 8y ago
Sometimes I worry that I present my thoughts as incoherently as the author. This article needs to be streamlined and stripped of the confusing snark halfway though.
theoh 8y ago
"Tasks which require thought are exhausting and qualitatively different from routine tasks. Is there a better way to coordinate the work environment of "knowledge workers" to make their lives easier?"
acemarke 8y ago
What I'm getting out of it is that idealized notions of "knowledge sharing" and "task management" are unrealistic compared to how people actually work on things in the real world, and that software meant to help people work on long-running tasks should take that into consideration. As a concrete example: I frequently find myself needing to figure out how to implement some software task I've never done before myself, involving concepts that I barely know anything about. This usually results in dozens of opened tabs in multiple subtrees - Google searches, Github repos, and so on. This might overflow my main "browsing" Firefox window, so I end up opening a second FF window just to hold those tabs. Per the article, maybe there's a better way to capture the notion of "I'm trying to research this topic over the course of a week - how do I better organize what I'm working on, and perhaps share that info with others?".
- regrub 8y ago
  Your concrete example is the main reason I've switched from Firefox to Vivaldi. You can create either "tab stacks", which group multiple tabs into a single top-level tab, and which can even be unloaded all at once. If you want a more persistent (and I think even shareable) version, you can then save the group as a session.
harryf 8y ago
So to me it made some sense. Putting it in my own terms, he argues knowledge workers are _by default_ overloaded and they use distractions as a necessary form of relief from the pressure - the distractions aren't the problem, they're a symptom. Right now we're too focused on tools and strategies to make us "more efficient", block distractions and promote collaboration. Instead we should focus on reducing the mental drain of knowledge work (e.g. the need for endless multi-tasking and alt-tabbing), find ways for positive mental relaxation (here I guess implied is NOT drugs or alcohol) and support getting "back on track" e.g. if you finish the day half way through fixing a bug, when you start next day, it's not just your IDE but also say your browser with all the Stack Overflow tabs and such you had open, related to the bug, all together in a "session" that makes it as easy as possible to pick up where you left off. So in summary I guess he's saying in the search for solutions to burnt out knowledge workers we're focused too much on symptoms like distractions.
- philipodonnell 8y ago
  Can chrome or Firefox do an "exit but save all my tabs"? I find myself force closing Chrome because I can use the recover tabs when I come back.
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    You can do "restore previous session" from the hamburger menu the next time you start up, even if you don't force close.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    If you close Chrome normally and on reopening attempt to undo closing a tab (Ctrl-Shift-t on Windows) it will reopen all the closed, and even separate windows with their own tabs (maybe that takes a second Ctrl-Alt-t, I can't recall). Firefox just opens with all the same tabs by default (at least it does for me. I don't recall if it's a setting I selected).
    - goodcanadian 8y ago
      Firefox just opens with all the same tabs by default (at least it does for me. I don't recall if it's a setting I selected). It's a setting. In your preferences, under start-up, check restore previous session. IIRC, you can also restore the previous session from the history menu even if you don't have that option checked.
modarts 8y ago
Same reaction, there’s a point buried extremely deep in all of the stream of consciousness
whatshisface 8y ago
The article is a stream-of-consciousness about distractions and multitasking. The author does not reach a conclusion, instead hoping only to inspire further thought.
svat 8y ago
When people discuss “knowledge work”, they often slip into imagining an “idealized” knowledge worker: one who is very engaged, and doing “big” meaningful things one at a time. In reality, (1) we are all distracted, (2) our work usually consists of a large number of small chunks that are spread over time (3) we all have a large pile of undone work (both “job” and “personal”) that we're always feeling guilty about. What do we do about this difference between the ideal and reality? We could just give up on the ideal and resign to the reality — or even make it worse. Or we could try to fight it superficially, and fail (there's a reason things are the way they are). Or we could start from accepting the reality (instead of ignoring it), but try to move towards the ideal, e.g: (1) reduce whatever it is that makes us seek distractions (very different from blocking distractions), (2) make it easier to get back on track (e.g. keep track of the task being done). In coming up with this problem statement, the author believes he's diverged from the usual problems being imagined: things like trying to block distractions, trying to maximize efficiency, “collaboration”. [That just restated the post, so I don't know if it helps :)]
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  A brilliant précis that is actually better than the original article (sorry Mr Bicking)
- TuringTest 8y ago
  I have an idea for your (2), which is a tool for interrupting you when you are procrastinating, and showing something interesting to do from your TO DO list, adequate to the current moment and place. This could use all the addictiveness techniques of current "engagement+advertising" platforms and turn it to good use.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  > who is very engaged, and doing “big” meaningful things one at a time. And one who knows exactly what steps are going to be involved and how long each one is going to take, weeks or even months in advance. The fact that I approach every new programming problem with: "ok, how the hell do I figure this one out?" made me feel really nervous early on in my career, since there seemed to be this default expectation that not just good, not even just adequate, but even mediocre programmers could blurt out a list of the tasks involved in solving a problem, "estimate" (meaning predict with +/- 5% accuracy) the hours associated with each and then robotically plow through each of them. This was back in the 90's, before somebody named this "agile" and built a set of Orwellian tools and "coaching strategies" around it, but after a few years I couldn't help but notice that, in spite of being an abject failure at accurately predicting how long each bug fix was going to take before I even really knew what it entailed, I was also one of the most sought after developers in every organization I worked at.

whatshisface 8y ago

>So how might we approach idea generation around knowledge work without idealizing the knowledge worker? Editing tip: you can delete sentences like this without loosing much. The following text should do a good enough job of making a point without an introduction helping it along. The trick to editing is to backspace as many words as you can.

rco8786 8y ago
What’s wrong with an introductory question? Also, losing not loosing.
- falsedan 8y ago
  It’s conversational, and adds nothing: the reader who was following along already asked themselves that question, and the reader who’s hasn’t latched onto the thesis doesn’t understand why this is a good question to ask.

MisterOctober 8y ago

Claudius : Can you advise me? Laertes : I am lost in it, my lord.

ingenieroariel 8y ago

Most people who uovoted would know but others may not. Ian Bicking is creator of virtualenv (and others) and one of the people doing meta thinking of tools and envs in the python world. Interesting to see something from him after some years.

justwalt 8y ago

This website is beautiful.

colllectorof 8y ago

>This is the reality of knowledge work that none of these conceptualizations address: it’s hard (in very specific ways), some of it we don’t want to do, and the work we don’t want to do piles up and becomes dominant simply because it remains undone. Let me rephrase this for you. A lot of so-called "knowledge work" is just tedious, mind-numbing bullshit. Not only that, but you have to plow through it while fighting information overflow and your own overly complex tools, while acting completely alone. There are no librarians on the Internet. No wonder everyone craves distractions. >In the context of the browser, how do we contextualize pages and interactions inside some abstract task? This train has sailed off its tracks long time ago. Browsers aren't real tools. They are designed to make for smooth information consumption so that Google and co can harvest your money and attention as efficiently as possible. I can list several hundred things a web browser should do if it aims at being "knowledge worker's tool". Let me just give some categories: 1. Features for pausing and restarting work in different mental contexts. 2. Local personalization. Shit like Timelines should be local and user-controller. "This is too complicated, so let's let Facebook/Twitter/Microsoft do it" is a lame excuse. 3. Did you notice that browsers still don't have any good authoring tools? Every websites reinvents their own WYSIWYG. "Developer tools" have everything for debugging, but almost nothing for creations of stuff. 4. User-driven integration between pages. (For example, something as simple as "when I open this page, go to that other page, find all the entries with word X and paste it here".) Bah, that's enough. I can continue, but I think the point was made, unless the reader doesn't want to see it on purpose.

steve1977 8y ago
Browsers aren't real tools. They are designed to make for smooth information consumption Well yeah. They're browsers, that's what they are. "To browse: an act of casual looking or reading."
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  They're not really browsers - they're web page viewers. The views are organised by the needs of the source technology - "pages" generated by a web server - not by the needs of the user. A lot of useful features - cross-referencing, comparisons, task-based content searches, dynamic content update notifications - are either impossible or poorly implemented on the server side. There's never been an active browser that tries to integrate information instead of being a dumb page viewer with tabs and some form filling options.

hajderr 8y ago

I'm so connected yet so disconnected with my inner self. Knowledge workers are under appreciated in the regular day job. If you also happen to be creative then you'll be challenged by some other ego trying to take credit for your work. In the struggle and dilemma: "should I care about this guy?" you forget about it and start to build resent. Then burnout is then a fact. Your challenges in college were way more benefitting and purpose-driven instead of your boss's wallet. That's why I say CS degree was awesome, working as dev is draining. What's this comment about? Just need a rant...

pm90 8y ago
I guess it also depends on where you work. You can do some pretty amazing and creative work if you find the right niche to work in.
- hajderr 8y ago
  true that! yet to find...maybe I move into hardware, something tangible is inspiring

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

a friend sending you a mortgage refinance proposal isn't work though, unless that friend is giving you money for looking at it. And I guess the only people getting sent mortgage refinance proposals are people who might have some expertise in that subject.

montenegrohugo 8y ago

In order to minimize context-switching and mantain browser "sessions" I recommend OneTab[0], really simple idea but is really useful. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...

linkregister 8y ago

The problem statement is eloquently stated. Yet the blame is nonsensical. The developers of Solitaire are to blame? Solitaire was a non-trivial application written for the express purpose of selling an operating system. The reality is that the problem statement, that knowledge workers are constantly engaged with unproductive, nonsensical asks, is true. Knowledge workers must overcome this by being exactly the worker they've been advised not to be: ignoring emails and chats, not being present at their open-plan desks, declining any meeting that won't immediately please their manager. No sinister force is the cause of these problems; simple entropy of organizations is to blame: failing to allocate resources to document and streamline processes is to blame.