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I remember reading this essay years ago; it was interesting to revisit. I guess the two main problems for one who wants to be productive are: 1) Procrastinatin

I remember reading this essay years ago; it was interesting to revisit. I guess the two main problems for one who wants to be productive are: 1) Procrastinating, which usually comes from: a) fear of failure, b) disinterest, or c) not knowing where to start (or some combination) 2) Life getting in the way. Some of this can be helped with time management, sleep/diet/exercise to maximize energy, but some of it there's unfortunately not much you can do about. (Though I do wish they'd stop making robots dance and do parkour and make one that can load my dishwasher.) I've also noticed that feeling "unproductive" can really stem sometimes stem from other sources: 1) Does the need to be "productive" have to do with self-image? Such as, "I wish I had more work out there that other people could see." This feeling disguises itself as feeling "unproductive" but I think it really has more to do with a sort of social status dissatisfaction. 2) Does the feeling of being "productive" come not so much from what was produced but by how what you feel about what you produced? That is, being productive on work you don't much care about feels unproductive. In which case, the issue really isn't about "productivity" in and of itself, it's about interest in one's work (or lack thereof). Sometimes you may be able to change your perspective on some kind of work to make it more interesting and then it feels more productive, but much of the time this is difficult (at least for me).

Bellamy 5y ago
I add my goals to Habinator habit tracker. After a couple weeks I have progressed or I delete the goal because I have realized the unrealistic expectations what I had about my goal.
- shannifin 5y ago
  Oh cool, Habinator looks interesting! "Unrealistic expectations" -- This is another one of those things that can make one feel unproductive. Realizing the expectations are unrealistic can be hard to accept because it can make the pursuit of the goal feel like wasted time. One solution I've heard a lot is to pursue goals for which failure can also be considered productive, basically by learning useful information or a useful skill (or, if you're lucky, repurposing the failure, such as selling a failed synthetic rubber as a novelty toy called "Silly Putty"). Also may be helpful to consider beforehand what exact metrics will constitute "success" or "failure", as it can be easy to constantly think "it just needs a bit more time". Looks like Habinator may help with that.
sireat 5y ago
1) http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ is amazing when done properly. It should not be confused with productive procrastination which is closely related but much less useful. So the idea of structured procrastination is you put at the top some task that is very important but at the same time could possibly be delayed or dealt at the very last minute. Your tasks 2-5 are where the gains lie. This is where you put your writing a book, writing that documentation for your project, writing that game, polishing that UI for your visualization. Recent anecdata: I had to grade 90 algorithms exams, which I had foolishly allowed to submitted in about 10 different languages without an auto-grader. So I was getting PHP, Java,Rust, TS for Deno etc etc. Instead I procrastinated for a few days writing a number of Jupyter Notebooks for munging some data which I had put off for about 4 months. As soon as I received 10 bachelor thesis to review I moved those to the top of my list and I graded the 90 algorithms exams with time to spare. So productive procrastination is the less useful cousin of structured procrastination. In productive procrastination you put in slots 2-5 tasks that seem productive but rapidly reach diminishing returns. So if my slot 2 was going over 40 points on chess Puzzle Rush, it would be better than playing 30 second bullet chess but still not really that productive... So polishing UI could not be that productive at some point, or running 1000 AB tests.

Bellamy 5y ago

I add my goals to Habinator habit tracker. After a couple weeks I have progressed or I delete the goal because I have realized the unrealistic expectations what I had about my goal.

shannifin 5y ago
Oh cool, Habinator looks interesting! "Unrealistic expectations" -- This is another one of those things that can make one feel unproductive. Realizing the expectations are unrealistic can be hard to accept because it can make the pursuit of the goal feel like wasted time. One solution I've heard a lot is to pursue goals for which failure can also be considered productive, basically by learning useful information or a useful skill (or, if you're lucky, repurposing the failure, such as selling a failed synthetic rubber as a novelty toy called "Silly Putty"). Also may be helpful to consider beforehand what exact metrics will constitute "success" or "failure", as it can be easy to constantly think "it just needs a bit more time". Looks like Habinator may help with that.

sireat 5y ago

1) http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/ is amazing when done properly. It should not be confused with productive procrastination which is closely related but much less useful. So the idea of structured procrastination is you put at the top some task that is very important but at the same time could possibly be delayed or dealt at the very last minute. Your tasks 2-5 are where the gains lie. This is where you put your writing a book, writing that documentation for your project, writing that game, polishing that UI for your visualization. Recent anecdata: I had to grade 90 algorithms exams, which I had foolishly allowed to submitted in about 10 different languages without an auto-grader. So I was getting PHP, Java,Rust, TS for Deno etc etc. Instead I procrastinated for a few days writing a number of Jupyter Notebooks for munging some data which I had put off for about 4 months. As soon as I received 10 bachelor thesis to review I moved those to the top of my list and I graded the 90 algorithms exams with time to spare. So productive procrastination is the less useful cousin of structured procrastination. In productive procrastination you put in slots 2-5 tasks that seem productive but rapidly reach diminishing returns. So if my slot 2 was going over 40 points on chess Puzzle Rush, it would be better than playing 30 second bullet chess but still not really that productive... So polishing UI could not be that productive at some point, or running 1000 AB tests.