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This is magnificent. Zen Habits has managed to squeeze an message against the facile, uncreative, stultified, by-the-numbers webcock formula directly into a fac

by crux 17y ago

This is magnificent. Zen Habits has managed to squeeze an message against the facile, uncreative, stultified, by-the-numbers webcock formula directly into a facile, uncreative, stultified, by-the-numbers blog post. There is still much waiting to be said to fight back against the lifehacking, GTD, how to work for only 4 hours a week by being a giant dick and how to convert all of your farts into actionable GasHacks and become more productive by making sure you never have an original thought again movement. It is not said by productivity bloggers with a shitty book to hawk.

unalone 17y ago
I hate how lifehacking as a term degenerated. I remember first hearing it in 2005 and seeing instances of really clever "hacks" that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Using salt water as a mouthwash and baking soda to whiten your teeth, or learning about effective weightless exercises for staying in shape, or making cool and attractive piles to store your stuff. When computers did get involved, it was always something neat and small and pleasing - the FuzzyClock app on the Mac still stands out to me as one of the smallest and most pleasant programs on my computer, and I'm pretty sure I came across it via Lifehacker. Teeny tricks to make life better. Somewhere along the road, lifehacking became focused more on productivity and less on pleasure. That's when I stopped reading Lifehacker. I know Merlin Mann had a semi-meltdown of a similar sort two years ago. Zen Habits once really irritated me - it was list-based and monotonous - but for the last year it's really been a great source of occasional reading and relaxation. This article in particular was terrific.
- pvg 17y ago
  It might have 'degenerated' the moment someone got it into their head that the sort of mathematical cleverness one sees in HAKMEM is somehow transferable and applicable to wild and woolly fields such as 'life' or 'the economy' or 'human relations'. It's a tremendously tempting and alluring notion - its lustre is such that otherwise rational thinkers are eager to leave their critical faculties in their other pants and toot its every minor or anecdotal random success as deeply significant.
hassing 17y ago
Indeed. How dare they advertise a book by giving advice that relate to it. The important things to remember when reading books like Getting Things Done and 4 Hour Work Week is that they are not written specifically for you. If you read them, take the advice that fit /your/ life from them - then they're pretty good books. I read this article as basically: If you feel unproductive at times then don't panic. Which seems like good advice. Reading it and getting mad because it wasn't exactly what you hoped is not very zen. :)

by crux 17y ago

unalone 17y ago

I hate how lifehacking as a term degenerated. I remember first hearing it in 2005 and seeing instances of really clever "hacks" that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Using salt water as a mouthwash and baking soda to whiten your teeth, or learning about effective weightless exercises for staying in shape, or making cool and attractive piles to store your stuff. When computers did get involved, it was always something neat and small and pleasing - the FuzzyClock app on the Mac still stands out to me as one of the smallest and most pleasant programs on my computer, and I'm pretty sure I came across it via Lifehacker. Teeny tricks to make life better. Somewhere along the road, lifehacking became focused more on productivity and less on pleasure. That's when I stopped reading Lifehacker. I know Merlin Mann had a semi-meltdown of a similar sort two years ago. Zen Habits once really irritated me - it was list-based and monotonous - but for the last year it's really been a great source of occasional reading and relaxation. This article in particular was terrific.

pvg 17y ago
It might have 'degenerated' the moment someone got it into their head that the sort of mathematical cleverness one sees in HAKMEM is somehow transferable and applicable to wild and woolly fields such as 'life' or 'the economy' or 'human relations'. It's a tremendously tempting and alluring notion - its lustre is such that otherwise rational thinkers are eager to leave their critical faculties in their other pants and toot its every minor or anecdotal random success as deeply significant.

hassing 17y ago

Indeed. How dare they advertise a book by giving advice that relate to it. The important things to remember when reading books like Getting Things Done and 4 Hour Work Week is that they are not written specifically for you. If you read them, take the advice that fit /your/ life from them - then they're pretty good books. I read this article as basically: If you feel unproductive at times then don't panic. Which seems like good advice. Reading it and getting mad because it wasn't exactly what you hoped is not very zen. :)