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Nicely written piece. I like the progression from the author's observation about his backpacking trip; the contrast with his regained 9 to 5 day, and the realis
by keithpeter 14y ago
Nicely written piece. I like the progression from the author's observation about his backpacking trip; the contrast with his regained 9 to 5 day, and the realisation that consumption is driving the whole whirlygig. Reminded me of Tom Hodgkinson's The Idler http://idler.co.uk/magazine/ http://idler.co.uk/magazine/
"It's amazing how much you can get done in twenty minutes if twenty minutes is all you have. But if you have all afternoon, it would probably take way longer."
I've just relearned that lesson; we have come through a very busy time at work and things just had to get done in minutes, right now. It worked and the sky did not fall.
- hrabago 14y agoIt isn't always sustainable, though. You do this long enough and a lot of people would start burning out. Certainly there are people who would thrive in an ongoing high-stress environment, but not everyone is built like that, or would want to stay in such a situation for long. The occasional case of high stress, high productivity periods can be good for that feeling of accomplishment once the deadline is met. It's like the climactic ending of an action movie - a lot of activity leading up to a desired goal. However once the next chapter begins, you want to go back to a sense of normalcy, when people can recover and just relish the recent accomplishment.
- keithpeter 14y agoOh, yes, I agree completely, there is a need for peaks and troughs. What I learned last week however is that certain fairly mundane documentation and planning tasks can actually be completed in much less time than I have usually allocated to them (the domain is not IT or computing by the way).