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I feel most of the time these "Productivity tips and tricks" are like the "lifehacks" for the work like, they're more trouble than their worth some 99% of time

I feel most of the time these "Productivity tips and tricks" are like the "lifehacks" for the work like, they're more trouble than their worth some 99% of time The current fad is Notion and all the minor templates for productivity guided people (the ones that need to follow their morning schedule with minute precision)

eYrKEC2 3y ago
I found GTD to be revolutionary for me at that time, at my age then. His statement, "You can't do projects, you can only do actions related to projects" was very useful to me -- unstuck me many times from analysis paralysis. Incidentally, I enjoyed implementing it via "The Secret Weapon" https://thesecretweapon.org https://thesecretweapon.org
jstarfish 3y ago
New SOPs are forced stimulation...a shared hallucination of sorts. I get the impression they resonate with the ADHD crowd, who need novel ways to motivate themselves to do the same boring shit every 5-10 years. (Or, project managers who need a way to define work output in the face of engineers that have learned how to game the old system.)
- smcin 3y ago
  Your second point is good: > "project managers who need a way to define work output in the face of engineers that have learned how to game the old system" I think there's an enormous difference between a) an individual task tracker maintained by you, only for you, of tasks you'll work on... ...vs b) an agile task board or whatever for a (corporate) group, where there is often ongoing lack of clarity about task definition, prerequisites, acceptance criteria, as you say people may be trying to game it to make their individual productivity metrics look better (or at least to defend their apparent productivity from being damaged by the aforementioned group pitfalls). Really these can be two quite different animals. With a), you should have pretty good clarity about what the implied 'Next Action' is for each task, whereas with b), it may require group discussion, prioritizing, meetings, etc., sometimes even hiring or outsourcing.

eYrKEC2 3y ago

I found GTD to be revolutionary for me at that time, at my age then. His statement, "You can't do projects, you can only do actions related to projects" was very useful to me -- unstuck me many times from analysis paralysis. Incidentally, I enjoyed implementing it via "The Secret Weapon" https://thesecretweapon.org https://thesecretweapon.org

jstarfish 3y ago

New SOPs are forced stimulation...a shared hallucination of sorts. I get the impression they resonate with the ADHD crowd, who need novel ways to motivate themselves to do the same boring shit every 5-10 years. (Or, project managers who need a way to define work output in the face of engineers that have learned how to game the old system.)

smcin 3y ago
Your second point is good: > "project managers who need a way to define work output in the face of engineers that have learned how to game the old system" I think there's an enormous difference between a) an individual task tracker maintained by you, only for you, of tasks you'll work on... ...vs b) an agile task board or whatever for a (corporate) group, where there is often ongoing lack of clarity about task definition, prerequisites, acceptance criteria, as you say people may be trying to game it to make their individual productivity metrics look better (or at least to defend their apparent productivity from being damaged by the aforementioned group pitfalls). Really these can be two quite different animals. With a), you should have pretty good clarity about what the implied 'Next Action' is for each task, whereas with b), it may require group discussion, prioritizing, meetings, etc., sometimes even hiring or outsourcing.