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I find the language in this article conflicting. People have a tendency to relay advice on what has worked best for them; with little regard for whether or not

I find the language in this article conflicting. People have a tendency to relay advice on what has worked best for them; with little regard for whether or not it will work best for others. On one hand the auther uses a lot of "my" language to convey what works best for him. That's great and I am happy to read what works best for others, but what makes it a bit short-sighted is the shift in language from: >The more attention I can devote, the more cycles I can complete, and the more productive I am. to: >Make your place of work boring and tidy. >Make your smart phone dumb. >Be an OS minimalist. etc. This shift from "here's what works best for me" to "here's what will work best for you" is quite imposing and presumptuous.

munro 6y ago
Agreed. I don't want to work somewhere that's boring. I've been doing the OS minimalist thing, it's cool being able to become productive on a new Mac in 45 minutes, but lately I've been missing how customized my old Arch+XMonad setup was. Marking this as "not a culture fit". :)
zwbetz 6y ago
Fair critique.
j45 6y ago
It's very true that everyone's ideal formula and variables are different. Narrative and anecdotal writing allows one to take from it what you like, as trying things out works better for some than understanding it all to begin with and it shouldn't be discounted just because it may not work for all. Conversely, it might be worth considering the importance of the reader to learn to extract what's good for them out of any reading and not expect everything to be curated just for them. Getting hung up on how a piece of writing is not perfectly catered for acceptance by the reader is likely going to leave a lot of nuggets, value and insights missed. The comment above could be taken as merely a counteract of pushing another interpretation of it being imposing and presumptuous. Still there's many folks who don't take this writing style as imposing and presumptuous.

munro 6y ago

Agreed. I don't want to work somewhere that's boring. I've been doing the OS minimalist thing, it's cool being able to become productive on a new Mac in 45 minutes, but lately I've been missing how customized my old Arch+XMonad setup was. Marking this as "not a culture fit". :)

zwbetz 6y ago

Fair critique.

j45 6y ago

It's very true that everyone's ideal formula and variables are different. Narrative and anecdotal writing allows one to take from it what you like, as trying things out works better for some than understanding it all to begin with and it shouldn't be discounted just because it may not work for all. Conversely, it might be worth considering the importance of the reader to learn to extract what's good for them out of any reading and not expect everything to be curated just for them. Getting hung up on how a piece of writing is not perfectly catered for acceptance by the reader is likely going to leave a lot of nuggets, value and insights missed. The comment above could be taken as merely a counteract of pushing another interpretation of it being imposing and presumptuous. Still there's many folks who don't take this writing style as imposing and presumptuous.