18 ms·

Fuck being productive

454 points by memorable 3y ago

sebastianconcpt 3y ago
If you are having the energy to still be productive after work, why aren't you capitalizing on that with something you completely own? You will not have that levels of energy forever.
Swannie 3y ago
American Hustle Culture. Infected the world.
oifjsidjf 3y ago
This guy has everything backwards: he doesn't realize it's his insane long wageslave work hours that are the problem, not those extra 3 hours.
- tuanm 3y ago
  Same. Working in almost hours of the day can burn us out, especially with the intellectual jobs in IT industry. Mental health should be more concerned and the "work-life balance" term needs to be brought to the discussion. Also, do not let the "overthinking" in. By the way, I'm doing my 9-to-5 job for several years as a software engineer and still learning new stuff everyday. It's not the best but I'm enjoying my life. Just relax. =))
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  Yeah. Anyone who is blessed with this kind of motivation needs to quit their job and work full time on "being productive" toward their own goals. As someone with technical skills they have a high-leverage opportunity as a maker and builder. They shouldn't waste it by selling it to someone else for pennies on the dollar. Granted if you have a family to provide for, and a life outside work, then you might be "working to live," and entrepreneurship is a needless risk that won't bring additional satisfaction. But if you're at the point that you're stressing over your productivity during the three hours of time you have to yourself each day, then that probably means you don't have much of a life outside work anyway. So it would be better to eliminate the work that is draining your energy, and replace it with pursuit of your own goals. Then you'll have those three hours to yourself, and you'll have spent the whole day being productive. It will be a net gain overall. The first step is realizing that the risk of quitting your job is much lower than you think. Once you come to terms with that, it will be much easier to quit and begin building something important to you. There are so many opportunities for builders to produce value, raise money, get customers, and generally make themselves more useful, and therefore more fulfilled, than they ever could be while working for someone else. Take advantage of those opportunities while you can. If you fail, try again, or worst case scenario you can revert to your wage slavery.
  - ChadNauseam 3y ago
    How would I go about finding/identifying those opportunities?
  - acuozzo 3y ago
    > The first step is realizing that the risk of quitting your job is much lower than you think. With a SAHM wife, three kids under ten, a home, an investment property, and several other loans & liabilities, I'd say that the risks are considerable, especially given that neither my wife nor I have any family to fall back on.
- jurassicfoxy 3y ago
  I would be more generous and I think he's very much aware of it, since he wrote about how awful his commute is. It's a nearly insurmountable obstacle for most folks.
scaramanga 3y ago
Dude, you are absolutely not being productive in the 12 hours of indentured servitude. You need to find a new job. The people at your current job aren't your friends. They've let you arrange to give away a full 50% your life (most of what's left must be occupied by sleep, pissing, shitting, eating, and paying bills). Not a single person in your life has said anything or tried to get you out of the office earlier? You should have at least one friend who cares about your wellbeing and doesn't view you as an object to be exploited without limit. Good luck, my dude.
- dougmwne 3y ago
  And then for this person to feel all this emotional pain over using their meager free hours training themselves to be even more profitably exploited. Our prisons really are created in our own minds.
  - birdyrooster 3y ago
    Some people need to go to school, get certifications, do extracurricular activities, work unfulfilling jobs… just to give themselves permission to try for a better position. I have never understood this need for this rigor. It’s upsetting watching my friends fall distantly behind me because they won’t accept the risk of failing interviews or jobs (especially those with no children and have a significant savings). I have been fired multiple times and failed many interviews, and it was all worth it. I can sense their frustration with the “luck” I have had but it was all about taking those risks early on.
- sesteel 3y ago
  This deserves to be upvoted more. Trading your life for financial gain has diminishing returns. You'd think everybody's goal would to be free of servitude.
  - justnotworthit 3y ago
    Most people's goal is security, I wager. But here's a quote you might like: “Self-sufficiency is the greatest wealth of all, and the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom.” – Epicurus
aidenn0 3y ago
I get the impression from others who have worked for Japanese companies that even tbt 12 hours at work aren't super productive; the long hours are a performance to show loyalty to the company.
kvark 3y ago
If doing cool stuff at home is what drives you, there is only so much time you’ll spend aimlessly binge watching Netflix or playing games, before this drive wakes up and brings you back to do interesting things again.
- mid-kid 3y ago
  This is not how it works for me. When I was unemployed, I was absolutely not bored, having time to finish projects I've shelved left and right, however useless they were. Doing things in the off-hours with a 9-to-5 job is much, much harder. With the energy of the day already gone, and the also very human need to just sit down and relax, there's just not much one can do. I really hope to eventually do something that allows me to earn money, and have enough time to both tinker and relax, without running the risk of being exhausted come next morning.
throwaway22032 3y ago
Your week has 112 hours of waking time. If you spend 50% of that at work, you have spent 50% of it at work. Probably the most productive 50%. The entire point of working for someone else is to attain enough money that you don't need to any more and you can treat it as more of an optional thing. If you're not doing that then unless you really enjoy your job burnout is inevitable.
- esafak 3y ago
  Most people get to the optional thing when they reach retirement age.
- Rimintil 3y ago
  > The entire point of working for someone else is to attain enough money that you don't need to any more and you can treat it as more of an optional thing. If that were the singular goal/point, then most people should simply give up working entirely because they'll never reach it. They're working their own version of the sunk cost fallacy.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
lelima 3y ago
Lately I've been booking meetings for quick walk with the dog or having a nap, or even watch 20 min episode of wherever, in the works hours, I feel I'm more productive after having these small breaks and I feel way happier, anyone should try it
- criddell 3y ago
  I keep a guitar at work and when I'm hung up, I'll close my door and noodle for a bit. It's surprising just how often once I'm able to stop thinking about a problem, the answer appears.
dostoynikov 3y ago
I'm the one who posted that post on bearblog and I want to make something clear. My working hours are from 7:30-17:30. But transportation takes an hour in the morning and an hour(at least) in the evening. So I added that two hours too because those two hours are no use to me. I can't do anything in those transportation hours. I might not have made this part clear, sorry for that. But yeah, I know that working time is still too much. But I don't live in a country where I can find a job whenever I want. I have to stick to it because I have not much choice.
- _jdzr 3y ago
  Is it because of visa constraints? Working hellish hours is unhealthy and often highly counterproductive.
  - dostoynikov 3y ago
    No. I work in my home country but there is a high unemployment rate in my country. Opportunities are quite limited.
    - _jdzr 3y ago
      How does entrepreneurship look? Often if there’s high unemployment there’s a window to be the job maker.
      - dostoynikov 3y ago
        That "sounds" hopeful but I don't have any fund and know-how knowledge. I might go for entrepreneurship way but it will also require lots of preparation in terms of ideas, funds and technical know-hows.
        _jdzr 3y ago
        A lot of know-how is learned on the job. What are the jobs? Well, look and see what your day-to-day looks like and if there’s a service you could provide to make it better. If you’re commuting 2+ hours a day buying a bus and helping other commute for $ could be a start :-). All just ideas, though.
lljk_kennedy 3y ago
* Fuck being productive with the aim of making someone else wealthier. Downtime is productive. It recharges you, allows you to background-process your thoughts, fulfills your mind if you're doing something you love, makes you healthier if you're doing something active. Being productive in service to yourself is totally fine.
sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago
Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go to work, I could dedicate more time to reading, writing, learning new skills, working on my own side projects, getting enough sleep, exercising, cooking, etc. Work just sucks the very soul out of me, and at the end of the day, I don't really want to do anything. Only on weekends and holidays do I feel much more energetic and motivated to do the things I listed previously, which evaporates by Monday.
- fswd 3y ago
  It's funny, if you say this duringg an interview "Why do you want the job?" "Money" you won't get hired. So it becomes a performance artist act.
  - escapedmoose 3y ago
    That seems a little disingenuous. Of course they know you’re there primarily for money, so that’s not really the question they’re asking. They’re really asking “why are you looking for money from us and not someone else?” You can be cynical and call that “performance” or be realistic and recognize it as communication shorthand.
    - cstrahan 3y ago
      Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?
      - escapedmoose 3y ago
        Haha maybe that’s the answer for you personally. I wouldn’t take more money for a worse job (generally), so I guess I am assuming money isn’t also the second answer
sremani 3y ago
4HL. Consistency space guy finds out rules are written by Payoff space guys.
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago
  Can you translate to English?
  - lcedp 3y ago
    He/she refers to this https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca6412 https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca641...
zwieback 3y ago
Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sharemywin 3y ago
  or you waited until you were 40 to have kids.
  - myth_drannon 3y ago
    Robert De Niro just had his 7th and he is 79. So not everything is lost if you didn't have a chance in you 40's...
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Ah yes we are all as wealthy and have the same resources as a famous hollywood actor. The physical act of creating a child is so easy many people do it by accident. Raising a child is an enormous task.
      - mattpallissard 3y ago
        > Ah yes we are all as wealthy and have the same resources as a famous hollywood actor. People from all walks of life have been raising children since, well, forever. Rich, poor, smart, dumb; nearly everyone figures it out.
        mrguyorama 3y ago
        Pretending that all those people have had equal success, or that poorer parents don't have a significantly worse time of it than more affluent groups is not helpful. There is A LOT of child neglect here in the states, and plenty of children literally do not make it out alive.
gspencley 3y ago
I'm a hyper-productive person, but productivity for productivity sake is literally pointless. All productivity is a means to an end. You are producing something, by definition. What is that and why? While I do have an "emotional itch" to work on "something" most of the time, I don't leave work to go do more work just for the sake of it. There are specific things that I want to produce because it makes me happy. If I don't work on those things, then it's not that I feel guilty, it's that I feel a void in my life. In the past I have had so many hobbies and not enough time to dedicate to them all. I would get bored of one and move to another. Some might view that as recreation, but they were always making and producing something. For the last couple of years my wife and I have been performing magic as semi-professionals and as I find myself feeling less and less enthusiastic about modern technology after 25 years in the industry, I'm starting to see a scenario where I retire from tech and we take a major risk and go all in professionally. That can't happen if we don't put the work into it today. Not that you or anyone else should, but there's purpose and motivation behind the decision to produce that. I don't live for the sake of my employer and I'm not motivated by money (at least not at this stage in my career, I have enough). There are things I want in my life that I will never get if I don't work towards them. Sometimes I am too tired, and that's a good signal that I'm not resting enough. But every single "productive" thing that I do, be it for my employer or myself, has a motivation behind it. No one should feel pressured to produce something just for the sake of producing (unless they are living parasitically off of the efforts of others but that is a whole different conversation).
version_five 3y ago
Slack off a bit during work if you can get away with it, and either be personally productive then or use it as leisure time.
myth_drannon 3y ago
Next step: reading Charles Bukowski and just absolutely not giving a f*ck. I always seen him as the ultimate slacker and hoped some of that energy will trickle down to me when I was being workaholic. On another note I really liked "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle In case you get some guilt feelings.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  Is he really a slacker? To my limited knowledge, "Don't try" is to say do something that you don't need effort to start doing, something that doesn't feel like a chore to you, something that you are passionate about. He also mentioned going hungry a lot for his passion. I don't think that someone who perseveres through all that is a slacker, but again, my understanding is limited.
  - timeagain 3y ago
    My impression of bukowski is that he was absolutely driven to write, but that he was an incredible slacker at work. That he worked only well enough and hard enough to drink and write (neither being incredibly expensive past times). So he was motivated, but not by work or the concerns of others. The only reason we know about him is because he chose to write and often semi-autobiographically. There are scores of people who make similar arrangements for music, sport, reading, gardening, child rearing… we just don’t hear from them!
- damnitpeter 3y ago
  Any favorites from Bukowski to recommend? Always been interested but not sure where to start.
  - zedpm 3y ago
    Factotum and South of No North are two of my favorites.
  - badpun 3y ago
Daunk 3y ago
I work similar hours, but I WANT to do something productive! But I just don't have the strength or energy. Chores also eats a lot of time...
Dowwie 3y ago
Let's go hiking.
- greenie_beans 3y ago
  where u at?
commandlinefan 3y ago
If that's your thing, I'm totally cool with it - if you need to watch TV or play video games to decompress, that's fine. I personally get really anxious when I'm "wasting" time and would rather learn something (math, computers, music, something) or do something (housework, yardwork, something) with my "spare" time and I can't help but notice that me not spending time doing what other people consider "leisure" activities really irks a lot of people. Like, to each their own, you know?
- golol 3y ago
  You misunderstand. He is like you. He felt anxious when he wasn't being productive so he spent his free time studying or whatever. But at some point maybe that stops working for you. Maybe you just don't have energy left and need a break. That happened to him and the important realization is that then you also have to let go of that anxious feeling, because if you aren't gonna be productive you might as well have fun. It's easy to say "to each their own" if it hasn't happened to you (yet): not actually feeling like being productive while still having that anxious feeling. So what I'm trying to say is: It's good to be productive but being driven by anxiety is maybe not something you should view as a fundamental character trait of yours.
- chronofar 3y ago
  > I personally get really anxious when I'm "wasting" time One could argue that this is the problem. Not that you spend your time doing activities others wouldn't consider leisurely, but that you feel compelled to because otherwise you become "really anxious." Some anxiety can be a propulsion, but too much can be a pathology. I'm certainly not fit to evaluate your own, but by your own words I'd suggest it's possibly worth further reflection. Check out Four Thousand Weeks for some recent musings on why that anxiety may be best ignored rather than heeded: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-weeks https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-w...
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  This might be decoupled from productivity anxiety, but my theory is that there are different types of "fun". There's the "simple carbohydrate" fun of, say, an action game, which is immediate, easy, but low-nutrition and, enjoyed overlong, makes me feel empty inside. Then there's the "complex carbohydrate" fun of learning something new or working on a project, which is more fulfilling and interesting but also work -- mentally taxing -- and, enjoyed overlong, burns me out. My brain seems to demand a balanced diet of both.
alexpotato 3y ago
Whenever I feel like I don't have enough time to do things, I think about the comment from the developer of curl: "On average, I spend about an hour a day on curl. It adds up over time."
pelagicAustral 3y ago
I'm incredibly lucky in that I live 5 minutes away from the office. I work 7.5 hours a day, Monday to Friday. Every day I got a ton of time to dedicate to things I like... and yet, many times I feel drained from crunching code every day... It's been like 8 months since I worked on a personal project... lately all I do is play Breath of the Wild... But I feel pretty good about it, I think I relate to this fuck-being-productive culture more and more every day... or maybe I'm just depressed... don't know.
- foobarian 3y ago
  Could be BotW is the problem. I was so much happier when I switched to Genshin Impact :-D
  - pelagicAustral 3y ago
    Looks pretty good. Wiki page is impressive, especially the Controversies section. I wish they had a Switch version.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago
  If you don't already, try working out 30 mins a day!
  - pelagicAustral 3y ago
    You hit the nail in the head... I haven't don't a single thing in months... I really need to get out there and do something.
    - metaltyphoon 3y ago
      Started walking for 30 minutes everyday. It has done wonders for me.
prmoustache 3y ago
I'd like to get back to part time work.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Glad to see people starting to demand their time to be properly compensated for.
blastonico 3y ago
I have a different understanding of being productive - and it's not about working harder. It's more about being smart at work and life (find the best tools for you, discover how your own brain works and find lifehacks - including food - to exploit the best from it).
ryandvm 3y ago
As Diogenes would have said, live like a dog.
isoprophlex 3y ago
> Working hours are 07:30-17:30 That's not a job my dudeperson, that's a gulag
- deprecative 3y ago
  Work being 10 hours isn't that far off. In the US you work, generally, 9 to 9 1/2 or so a day. I'd call them approximately comparable. Sure, it's a little egregious but not that far beyond "normal" for me as an American.
  - mcv 3y ago
    That doesn't make it healthy. 9 hours is too much. 8 is too much. 100 years ago, lots of people, including in the US, fought hard to limit working hours to a 40 hour work week. Keynes even argued that because of increased productivity, we should now be working only 15 hours per week. It's incredibly sad to see how all these accomplishments of the past have been squandered (especially in the US, but not just there). We desperately need a new labour movement.
    - deprecative 3y ago
      I agree that the work day (10, 9, or even 8 hours) is too long but that's the reality we have. Nobody in the US will fight for labor protections again. Not for many years. What you folks do will have to be on your own. We have no solidarity within the US unless it's against folks with darker skin than Casper. We honestly should be down to a two- or three-day work week at about 5 hours per day. That's all we really need to work to get our jobs done. But instead we do more work for diminishing returns so we can make the wealthy even wealthier.
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago
  > That's not a job my dudeperson, that's a gulag Bad analogy. More like a Walmart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JsgrXyBZO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JsgrXyBZO0
georgeecollins 3y ago
Here's my free advice on the internet (aka worth nothing). Don't be productive, be accumulative. If every day you do one thing that makes thing easier going forward, gives you another option, makes a job easier in the long term, adds a skill, gets you a reference or a connection, pay a dividend or royalty, etc.. in the long run you will be fine.
- atentaten 3y ago
  This one has revealed the secret.
- ragnot 3y ago
  This is fantastic advice. Another way to think of it: "The days are long but the decades are short"
- InstantMessage 3y ago
  Your comment reminded me of a great post from Joel Spolsky: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ "...you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win."
  - cableshaft 3y ago
    Easy quote to make. If a person calls him out on it, he can just say "well it's still not your time yet". Until they're dead. And then after they're dead, he can just say "well they must have missed a few days of moving forward." It's a nice thought, and sounds good, but there's no substance to it.
cmilton 3y ago
We all need a reason to be productive. We have placed these jobs above our own well being. That doesn't sound very healthy at all. I would suggest finding something you are passionate about. It may take a while.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Work at work, enjoy life outside of work. Have real weekends and evenings and use them to reset your brain. Allowing your brain to reset is an essential part of being productive. Your short term memory gets in the way of solving problems sometimes. And your brain actually does useful things while you sleep. I've lost count of how solutions to seemingly tricky issues just pop in my head after a good night sleep or after a long weekend. And you can learn on the job. No need to do that outside work hours. And trying to learn stuff when you are tired after a long day is hard. It makes you more tired, you learn slower, it's frustrating, and you are setting yourself up for being less productive the next day because of it. Make time for learning stuff, demand time for it even and put it in your calendar or just sneak it in. Get your boss to support you. Try working smarter, not harder. If it feels like monkey work automate it. It's more fun and you get more productive by doing less. Frees up some time to do more interesting things. If your work is not interesting to you, you are in the wrong job anyway. But assuming it is, you should make the most of it in terms of making it rewarding (and not just in the money sense).
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Sounds like massive cope. If we don’t like work perhaps we can change it without waiting on favors to be handed down to us. Your boss won’t help unless market conditions force their hand. The work conditions you mentioned (free weekday nights and the weekend) were fought for by organized workers and are very new, why stop there? I don't think we'll even keep those conditions if that's what we're satisfied with. We already see that in tech with Slack, uncompensated on-call, salaried overtime expectations set during hiring or onboarding, the expectation that prospective hires spend their free time on training projects, etc
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    100% this The idea that work is “over there” and life is “over here” is not only unique historically, it’s also the reason workers have no power. By failing to demand that companies and organizations adjust to us and telling them “this is how we are going to live and companies need to fit into that” then we tacitly let them collude to keep labor power down. If you are alienated from your work, and accept and lean into that alienation, then you have no personal drive to make work serve you and your community rather than you serving it. It’s a race to the bottom of alienation and the paved path of capitalism is basically scraping the bottom at this point.
simontheowl 3y ago
I had similar thoughts for a while. What helped me was instead of aiming to make all of the time outside work productive (3-4 hours) just aim for under an hour. For me, 40 min of producitivity per day outside of work makes me feel accomplished. You can actually get a lot done in that span of time like do some exercise, practice an instrument, read an article... (pick one per day and cycle through the week). Not much immediate gratification, but over the years it adds up to a tonn of personal development. Plus with a 40-min window you don't feel guilt about abandoning your other family duties etc.
leesec 3y ago
You're saying we shouldn't spend literally all of our waking hours like productive robots and actually spend some time enjoying life? I'm just hearing this now for the first time.
jmkni 3y ago
When I was younger, I tried to spend as much of my free time as possible learning things that would enhance my career. New programming languages, frameworks, etc, things like that. Eventually I realised that doing what is basically your job in your free time is fucking exhausting. Nowadays I try to spend that time learning things which won’t enhance my career. Gardening, cooking, woodwork, much less stressful and more fulfilling imo
- asdff 3y ago
  Its hard to have a fulfilling job. Too many the managers try and make you feel like you are either fighting off an invasion or reloading between waves, no rest no reward just keep up the pace. All that effort you put in frequently has nothing lasting happen after with it. Reset tomorrow with more piled on your plate like today never happened. Meanwhile, with these other things you do get fulfillment because you see directly the fruits of your labor investment. You garden and get food and a beautiful environment. You cook and get a wonderful meal. You woodwork and get something beautiful or functional or both. You work out or do sports and you see your body develop and improve. In all cases, you are getting better at something or producing things and taking full advantage of it. You get this sense of progression like you are skilling in an RPG except the benefits are tangible.
yboris 3y ago
We need 4DWW - Four Day Work Week. This would give all of us the much-needed day to catch up on administrative stuff, so we can have our weekends back for relaxing. We will have time for side projects again. Fight for 4DWW !!!
- listenallyall 3y ago
  How would you catch up? Administrative stuff like going to the post office, DMV, getting a haircut, would all be closed... due to 4 day work week.
  - mcv 3y ago
    Everybody should have a different 4 day work week, of course. Shops are still open in the weekend.
    - listenallyall 3y ago
      He stated "administrative stuff" -- not "shops". Stuff that's already open on the weekend isn't an issue. And are people willing to take a 20% pay cut? I would doubt many people could afford (or wish) to do so. The entire premise is absurd, which is what I was pointing out.
      - mcv 3y ago
        You already took that 20% pay cut. Our pay hasn't gone up with our productivity in decades. According to Keynes, we should have been working 15 hours per week by now. We're not, because we're not reaping the rewards of our work. It's all gone to the rich. That is the big thing we need to reverse. I'm working 4 days a week, and that's working very well for me. So is my wife. So is my brother, and are several of my friends and coworkers. I strongly recommend it. We should be demanding better, and not discourage each other by saying it's absurd to want a better life.
        listenallyall 3y ago
Rimintil 3y ago
Very few of us in society do work that truly matters. Work is like a colouring book: A complete waste of your time (though work might be less fun, YMMV). It would be lovely to give up the charade of the importance of work.
chankstein38 3y ago
Amen. This also subtly highlights a huge negative to being forced to work in an office, commute times. I was in the same boat, 2.5hrs or so of commuting per day made my 8hr day a 10.5hr day and made my blood boil. Started working from home and my blood pressure went down and I got happier AND had more time to myself.
philip1209 3y ago
"Pathless Path" is a great book about reevaluating values with respect to work. I'm about halfway through and strongly recommend it.
aftbit 3y ago
Working from 7:30 to 17:30 is already plenty productive...
Noe2097 3y ago
Interestingly, lately, I find myself totally unable to do "nothing" -- to be unproductive by the description given in the article. The perspective of spending 1 or 2 hours playing videogames or watching entertainment (movies, series) became terribly boring to me. I can only think of that as a loss of time: I wouldn't be a better person at the end of it. Being able to better smash buttons, faster, at the right timing -- watching a story unfold on screen -- these used to be a great source of joy "before". But today, it seems all so dull; my intellect or my body doesn't get any better by doing that. Instead, reading whatever book on ML or even on an obscure programming language or technique, or spending time at the gym, or listening to a lecture on math or physics, sound so much more appealing to me. I cannot spend time anymore just sitting, it literally upsets me. Anybody feeling the same?
- moffkalast 3y ago
  I've noticed something similar lately as well. Could be the influence of excessive corporativism as the article suggests, where every second we don't spend creating the proverbial 'value for the shareholders' we have no reason to exist. Slowly it leaks into private life until one cannot relax anymore and can only do productive things constantly or feel guilty about it. Or maybe it's about desperately trying to become that better more capable person we once foolishly promised ourselves we'll be, while we visibly age and wonder which day will be our last wondering "is this really all there is to life?". Either one I guess.
similetimes 3y ago
[dead]
von_lohengramm 3y ago
I think this is all a misconception about what "productive" really means. It means making progress towards some goal. If you're some temporarily embarrassed billionaire, then the startup grindset is quite productive towards your goal. If filling your life with momentary happiness is your goal, then playing videogames is quite productive towards your goal. If you're a good little worker bee or someone at the Bureau of Labor Statistics is holding your family hostage, then clocking in 18 hours a day/7 days a week at $BIGTECH is quite productive towards your goal. If you're religious, then going to church, improving your behavior/mindset, etc. are quite productive towards your goal. It just all comes down to: What do you want out of life? What do you see as the purpose of life? The purpose of your life? Looking at this problem any other way is just deferring your personal philosophy, beliefs, and values to someone else—someone who probably doesn't care one bit about you and what you want.
nicbou 3y ago
I am increasingly hostile to the cult of productivity. I understand that a competitive environment calls for these sorts of sacrifices, but we should at least stop fetishizing it. Live a simple life, make enough money, then focus on other things. You've met your weekly quota, your bills are paid. Now go play. When you're on your death bed, you won't be thinking "I wish I spent more time at work, closing tickets".
Jeff_Brown 3y ago
If you feel this way and you have the option, an easy solution is to make less money and/or take a job you like that involves learning and self-improvement. I realize not everyone has the opportunity, but I think a lot of people would be much happier earning less.
PM_me_your_math 3y ago
You have working hours and you have non-working hours. I don't see the upside in punishing yourself for not working during non-working hours. Those hours are for you. The proper way to look at this is 'be productive during the time you've allotted.'
RektBoy 3y ago
home office?
pointy_hat 3y ago
Reminded me of Bartebly the Scrivener and “I would prefer not to”, but also Byul-Chun Han and “Burnout Society”. A very short summary of the latter is that in our day and age we exploit ourselves on behalf of people who would in previous decades exploit us. But of course the author explores both reasons and consequences of this phenomena.
xkcd1963 3y ago
For some people the work gives them energy, or work itself is what motivates them. If you can find a job like that, you won't feel the need to fill gaps with needless productivity.
jerska 3y ago
Sorry but gotta say it the way it comes to my mind : « no shit, Sherlock ». Listen to your body. Always.
the_cat_kittles 3y ago
id go one step further and say "fuck the concept of productivity" its such a simplistic way of categorizing what we do and dont do
dsadsadsawdqdwq 3y ago
I have a hard-pressed belief that long commutes are extremely detrimental. Even if you work long hours, if the commute is no more than 15 minutes, it ain't so bad when you get home and you still have plenty of time for everything else. The commute here is the problem, not the work. No shit you're tired. You're working an entire day and traveling 3 hours. Not saying you should be doing anymore, just saying it's okay to not be productive after traveling that much on top of a full work day. If it makes you feel better I work from home and recently had to travel for a customer. 2 hours each way, and I only worked 7 hours at the customer and it was the most exhausted I had been in months.
- unity1001 3y ago
  > if the commute is no more than 15 minutes If the commute is no more than 15 minutes, you are losing 30 minutes there and back every day, which is 10 hours every month, almost a waking day every month. Its still lost time. This is without counting the time lost in preparing for getting out of the house, settling in at work, and then doing the exact opposite when commuting back. Make each 10 minutes if you are someone who gets up and going very fast. You are now up to 1 hour lost every day, 20 hours every month. Almost and entire day or two waking days...
seventytwo 3y ago
This isn’t a video game you can min/max. You get one life and the clock’s ticking.
LoudFrog 3y ago
I worked on a hay farm for several years before going back to school and majoring in psychology and then abandoning that and becoming a software engineer. Never found my passion. I don't give it a shit about any of the work I do. But anything is better than working on a hay farm.
PeterStuer 3y ago
Another way to look at this is that this person spends 45% of his free time on a commute. That is insane, yet a reality for many. Is 'the office' realy worth that much?
- mcv 3y ago
  I work from home and am really happy with that. My wife got a new job recently (vice-director of something) and spent 6 hours in traffic yesterday. I feel a bit guilty for encouraging her to take this job.
throw93 3y ago
Makes so much sense. What do we even get after working like robot for 30 years? We don't have retirement benefits, we would've barely paid for a house if we could afford one. All this for making the CEOs and capital owners even more rich. Also who decides the metrics of "Productivity"? If we listen to our bosses and CEOs we would ruin our mind, body and personal relationships while they generate intergenerational wealth.
sledgehammers 3y ago
i quit my startup software dev job too recently. the productivity culture is poison. decided to just play guitar for a while.
leonroy 3y ago
Sure - it sucks doing self-learning and working in your own time but when else are you supposed to polish your skills beyond what work projects give you latitude to do? For example I was in a tech company where XMPP was the core of every one of our products. There were almost no REST based APIs in the company and we had our own protocols and APIs which made much of what I did very specific and non transferable. Day in and out I worked with XML, asynchronous messaging and increasingly niche tooling as XMPP became less and less relevant and HTTP based APIs like REST-JSON and WebSockets displaced it. It wasn’t hard to move jobs but it wasn’t easy either. I had to spend a month or so in my own time learning REST, JSON, WebSockets and Spring MVC in order to pass interviews. I think constant productivity culture leads to burnout but there’s got to be a middle ground between doing nothing after hours and hustling non-stop.
icar 3y ago
I can relate.
mcv 3y ago
> Working hours are 07:30-17:30 That's 10 hours a day! That's too much. You can't be productive for such a long time. Well, the occasional day you can, when inspiration hits and you're really in the flow, but on days that you aren't, sometimes you just need to go home early. One of the great things about working from home is that you don't have to pretend to be working 8+ hours per day anymore. It's more about the stuff you get done than about looking the part. When I feel burned out, I can actually play a game during the day. When inspiration hits, I can work in the evening. It does blur the lines between private life and work, and that's certainly a risk, but being able to use my time more effectively makes up for that. My productivity has gone up. Anyway, 10 hours a day is too much. 8 hours per day is too much. 5 days a week is too much. I think 32 hour work weeks or less should become normalised. According to Keynes, we should have been working 15 hour weeks by now. And apparently hunter-gatherers also working only 15 hours a week. The problem is that we don't enjoy the benefits of our increased productivity anymore, and all the profits go to the people at the top. And expecting to also be productive on private projects after such long work hours? Yeah, that's not going to work. I agree with that part of the article. But I wish people did have more time and energy after work to spend on private projects.
pdimitar 3y ago
Absolutely, indeed frak being productive. It's a Ponzi scheme, you have to keep grinding so you can land your next job that might be slightly better (and often is not). And we're talking in your free time, not even during the work hours. How about some new propaganda? "Work maximum 5h a day and the other 3h you will donate to your employer if they are kind and give you good atmosphere and money"? How about that one, eh?
- roguas 3y ago
  I think 5h of work is a ton in SWE. IF you can focus, isolate important work and put hard 5 hours... kid you are going places. If not, you will not be going places while putting 10 hours, I think.
  - pdimitar 3y ago
    Yeah, exactly. I've actually used counters -- privately, I'll never give anyone access to my machine or my activity times -- for a small period of time and I discovered that my true creative time was something in the order of 2.0 to 3.5 hours a day. And we're talking truly good work here, adding features, refactoring, adding and fixing tests, making automation scripts, you name it, it was all there. 5h doing everything right is enough to burn you out for the next 2-3 days.
xialvjun 3y ago
We like create, not produce.
vladmk 3y ago
Being productive doesn’t mean having to do what you hate. It’s doing the things you say you’re gonna do
byteknight 3y ago
The greatest thing workaholic me was told: "Time enjoyed wasting is not wasted time". Helped me a lot.
sheepscreek 3y ago
More so if you have a family and are the primary provider. You need to take time out for yourself. No, that’s not selfish. It’s the oxygen mask rule on all airplanes - before taking care of others, you need to look after yourself. Be responsible to the degree you can maintain a sustainable (read healthy) balance. It took me 20 years and a pandemic to realize that corporations (especially public corporations) are one tracked. They are non-living entities fuelled by the insatiable greed of some. Remember the old adage, I’d rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable? Thanks to the increasing rich/poor divide - now everybody is miserable. It’s the non-stop work culture, and for what? To sell more new phones and laptops to people, when the old ones work just fine? But there is hope - with the increasing popularity of self-repair friendly legislations and the promotion of manufacturing jobs (the one thing I appreciate Trump for), we just might be able to save ourselves. As imperfect as Unions are, this was the reason for their existence - to keep the other side in check. Sorry for going all over the place today. Just some things that have been on my mind lately. YOU mean something. YOUR life and well-being matters. Don’t do it for your loyalty - it means shit in most cases. To your boss it may matter a bit, but to the “company” - a made up non-living entity? Zilch. It is heartless and will show no emotion when making “hard” decisions. /rant PS: This is not the entire story. I did not get into the rabbit hole of influencers and online/social click-bait marketing that is thriving on FOMO.
alexfromapex 3y ago
What everyone is feeling is their wealth is being stolen by inflation. Ideally, the time you trade during working hours, in exchange for money, should make you wealthy but due to the insane inflation it doesn't.
arbitrary_name 3y ago
I got laid off and told myself i would hustle to get something be or start a business. Instead i surf every day and go hiking and cook meals for my gf. Couldn't be happier. The hustle part will have to wait until i get through this phase.
juggli 3y ago
f*k too
Pbhaskal 3y ago
I am working full time , then try to preparing for senior software engineer interviews in evenings for a new job plus side projects. It is really exhausting. There is just so much peer pressure to create something amazing, be at a great job with top pay.
lighttower 3y ago
https://youtu.be/e9dZQelULDk https://youtu.be/e9dZQelULDk are we the rats?
mathgladiator 3y ago
I'm at a cross roads because I'm trying to sort out an intern program. On one end, I don't want to work too hard now that I'm old. However, I don't have to work too hard as I worked crazy hard for a long decade with massive growth and discipline saving. When I reflect on interns, I want to hire people that are willing to suffer for the craft. I feel it is morally wrong to encourage a low key lifestyle in the young as it wastes potential. At core, the question I'm asking is how to find people that desire greatness in life.

454 points by memorable 3y ago

If you are having the energy to still be productive after work, why aren't you capitalizing on that with something you completely own? You will not have that levels of energy forever.

Swannie 3y ago

American Hustle Culture. Infected the world.

oifjsidjf 3y ago

This guy has everything backwards: he doesn't realize it's his insane long wageslave work hours that are the problem, not those extra 3 hours.

tuanm 3y ago
Same. Working in almost hours of the day can burn us out, especially with the intellectual jobs in IT industry. Mental health should be more concerned and the "work-life balance" term needs to be brought to the discussion. Also, do not let the "overthinking" in. By the way, I'm doing my 9-to-5 job for several years as a software engineer and still learning new stuff everyday. It's not the best but I'm enjoying my life. Just relax. =))
TechBro8615 3y ago
Yeah. Anyone who is blessed with this kind of motivation needs to quit their job and work full time on "being productive" toward their own goals. As someone with technical skills they have a high-leverage opportunity as a maker and builder. They shouldn't waste it by selling it to someone else for pennies on the dollar. Granted if you have a family to provide for, and a life outside work, then you might be "working to live," and entrepreneurship is a needless risk that won't bring additional satisfaction. But if you're at the point that you're stressing over your productivity during the three hours of time you have to yourself each day, then that probably means you don't have much of a life outside work anyway. So it would be better to eliminate the work that is draining your energy, and replace it with pursuit of your own goals. Then you'll have those three hours to yourself, and you'll have spent the whole day being productive. It will be a net gain overall. The first step is realizing that the risk of quitting your job is much lower than you think. Once you come to terms with that, it will be much easier to quit and begin building something important to you. There are so many opportunities for builders to produce value, raise money, get customers, and generally make themselves more useful, and therefore more fulfilled, than they ever could be while working for someone else. Take advantage of those opportunities while you can. If you fail, try again, or worst case scenario you can revert to your wage slavery.
- ChadNauseam 3y ago
  How would I go about finding/identifying those opportunities?
- acuozzo 3y ago
  > The first step is realizing that the risk of quitting your job is much lower than you think. With a SAHM wife, three kids under ten, a home, an investment property, and several other loans & liabilities, I'd say that the risks are considerable, especially given that neither my wife nor I have any family to fall back on.
jurassicfoxy 3y ago
I would be more generous and I think he's very much aware of it, since he wrote about how awful his commute is. It's a nearly insurmountable obstacle for most folks.

scaramanga 3y ago

Dude, you are absolutely not being productive in the 12 hours of indentured servitude. You need to find a new job. The people at your current job aren't your friends. They've let you arrange to give away a full 50% your life (most of what's left must be occupied by sleep, pissing, shitting, eating, and paying bills). Not a single person in your life has said anything or tried to get you out of the office earlier? You should have at least one friend who cares about your wellbeing and doesn't view you as an object to be exploited without limit. Good luck, my dude.

dougmwne 3y ago
And then for this person to feel all this emotional pain over using their meager free hours training themselves to be even more profitably exploited. Our prisons really are created in our own minds.
- birdyrooster 3y ago
  Some people need to go to school, get certifications, do extracurricular activities, work unfulfilling jobs… just to give themselves permission to try for a better position. I have never understood this need for this rigor. It’s upsetting watching my friends fall distantly behind me because they won’t accept the risk of failing interviews or jobs (especially those with no children and have a significant savings). I have been fired multiple times and failed many interviews, and it was all worth it. I can sense their frustration with the “luck” I have had but it was all about taking those risks early on.
sesteel 3y ago
This deserves to be upvoted more. Trading your life for financial gain has diminishing returns. You'd think everybody's goal would to be free of servitude.
- justnotworthit 3y ago
  Most people's goal is security, I wager. But here's a quote you might like: “Self-sufficiency is the greatest wealth of all, and the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency is freedom.” – Epicurus

aidenn0 3y ago

I get the impression from others who have worked for Japanese companies that even tbt 12 hours at work aren't super productive; the long hours are a performance to show loyalty to the company.

kvark 3y ago

If doing cool stuff at home is what drives you, there is only so much time you’ll spend aimlessly binge watching Netflix or playing games, before this drive wakes up and brings you back to do interesting things again.

mid-kid 3y ago
This is not how it works for me. When I was unemployed, I was absolutely not bored, having time to finish projects I've shelved left and right, however useless they were. Doing things in the off-hours with a 9-to-5 job is much, much harder. With the energy of the day already gone, and the also very human need to just sit down and relax, there's just not much one can do. I really hope to eventually do something that allows me to earn money, and have enough time to both tinker and relax, without running the risk of being exhausted come next morning.

throwaway22032 3y ago

Your week has 112 hours of waking time. If you spend 50% of that at work, you have spent 50% of it at work. Probably the most productive 50%. The entire point of working for someone else is to attain enough money that you don't need to any more and you can treat it as more of an optional thing. If you're not doing that then unless you really enjoy your job burnout is inevitable.

esafak 3y ago
Most people get to the optional thing when they reach retirement age.
Rimintil 3y ago
> The entire point of working for someone else is to attain enough money that you don't need to any more and you can treat it as more of an optional thing. If that were the singular goal/point, then most people should simply give up working entirely because they'll never reach it. They're working their own version of the sunk cost fallacy.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

lelima 3y ago

Lately I've been booking meetings for quick walk with the dog or having a nap, or even watch 20 min episode of wherever, in the works hours, I feel I'm more productive after having these small breaks and I feel way happier, anyone should try it

criddell 3y ago
I keep a guitar at work and when I'm hung up, I'll close my door and noodle for a bit. It's surprising just how often once I'm able to stop thinking about a problem, the answer appears.

dostoynikov 3y ago

I'm the one who posted that post on bearblog and I want to make something clear. My working hours are from 7:30-17:30. But transportation takes an hour in the morning and an hour(at least) in the evening. So I added that two hours too because those two hours are no use to me. I can't do anything in those transportation hours. I might not have made this part clear, sorry for that. But yeah, I know that working time is still too much. But I don't live in a country where I can find a job whenever I want. I have to stick to it because I have not much choice.

_jdzr 3y ago
Is it because of visa constraints? Working hellish hours is unhealthy and often highly counterproductive.
- dostoynikov 3y ago
  No. I work in my home country but there is a high unemployment rate in my country. Opportunities are quite limited.
  - _jdzr 3y ago
    How does entrepreneurship look? Often if there’s high unemployment there’s a window to be the job maker.
    - dostoynikov 3y ago
      That "sounds" hopeful but I don't have any fund and know-how knowledge. I might go for entrepreneurship way but it will also require lots of preparation in terms of ideas, funds and technical know-hows.
      - _jdzr 3y ago
        A lot of know-how is learned on the job. What are the jobs? Well, look and see what your day-to-day looks like and if there’s a service you could provide to make it better. If you’re commuting 2+ hours a day buying a bus and helping other commute for $ could be a start :-). All just ideas, though.

lljk_kennedy 3y ago

* Fuck being productive with the aim of making someone else wealthier. Downtime is productive. It recharges you, allows you to background-process your thoughts, fulfills your mind if you're doing something you love, makes you healthier if you're doing something active. Being productive in service to yourself is totally fine.

sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago

Honestly, I do feel somewhat similar. I work a normal 8-hour day and I am not obsessed with productivity nor I am some kind of anti-work activist, but it just feels like such a waste of time. The only reason I go to work is for money. I don't care about the products we build for someone else (why should I?), nor the technologies used (each of which brings its own challenges and frustrations). If I didn't need to go to work, I could dedicate more time to reading, writing, learning new skills, working on my own side projects, getting enough sleep, exercising, cooking, etc. Work just sucks the very soul out of me, and at the end of the day, I don't really want to do anything. Only on weekends and holidays do I feel much more energetic and motivated to do the things I listed previously, which evaporates by Monday.

fswd 3y ago
It's funny, if you say this duringg an interview "Why do you want the job?" "Money" you won't get hired. So it becomes a performance artist act.
- escapedmoose 3y ago
  That seems a little disingenuous. Of course they know you’re there primarily for money, so that’s not really the question they’re asking. They’re really asking “why are you looking for money from us and not someone else?” You can be cynical and call that “performance” or be realistic and recognize it as communication shorthand.
  - cstrahan 3y ago
    Are you assuming “money” isn’t also the answer to this implied question?
    - escapedmoose 3y ago
      Haha maybe that’s the answer for you personally. I wouldn’t take more money for a worse job (generally), so I guess I am assuming money isn’t also the second answer

sremani 3y ago

4HL. Consistency space guy finds out rules are written by Payoff space guys.

pastacacioepepe 3y ago
Can you translate to English?
- lcedp 3y ago
  He/she refers to this https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca6412 https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca641...

zwieback 3y ago

Yeah, just wait till you're in your fifties and feel like you're also running out of time to do things! For example: "how many more growing seasons do I have to try this or that tomato" or "should I learn Spanish?". On the plus side kids are out of your hair.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sharemywin 3y ago
or you waited until you were 40 to have kids.
- myth_drannon 3y ago
  Robert De Niro just had his 7th and he is 79. So not everything is lost if you didn't have a chance in you 40's...
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Ah yes we are all as wealthy and have the same resources as a famous hollywood actor. The physical act of creating a child is so easy many people do it by accident. Raising a child is an enormous task.
    - mattpallissard 3y ago
      > Ah yes we are all as wealthy and have the same resources as a famous hollywood actor. People from all walks of life have been raising children since, well, forever. Rich, poor, smart, dumb; nearly everyone figures it out.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        Pretending that all those people have had equal success, or that poorer parents don't have a significantly worse time of it than more affluent groups is not helpful. There is A LOT of child neglect here in the states, and plenty of children literally do not make it out alive.

gspencley 3y ago

I'm a hyper-productive person, but productivity for productivity sake is literally pointless. All productivity is a means to an end. You are producing something, by definition. What is that and why? While I do have an "emotional itch" to work on "something" most of the time, I don't leave work to go do more work just for the sake of it. There are specific things that I want to produce because it makes me happy. If I don't work on those things, then it's not that I feel guilty, it's that I feel a void in my life. In the past I have had so many hobbies and not enough time to dedicate to them all. I would get bored of one and move to another. Some might view that as recreation, but they were always making and producing something. For the last couple of years my wife and I have been performing magic as semi-professionals and as I find myself feeling less and less enthusiastic about modern technology after 25 years in the industry, I'm starting to see a scenario where I retire from tech and we take a major risk and go all in professionally. That can't happen if we don't put the work into it today. Not that you or anyone else should, but there's purpose and motivation behind the decision to produce that. I don't live for the sake of my employer and I'm not motivated by money (at least not at this stage in my career, I have enough). There are things I want in my life that I will never get if I don't work towards them. Sometimes I am too tired, and that's a good signal that I'm not resting enough. But every single "productive" thing that I do, be it for my employer or myself, has a motivation behind it. No one should feel pressured to produce something just for the sake of producing (unless they are living parasitically off of the efforts of others but that is a whole different conversation).

version_five 3y ago

Slack off a bit during work if you can get away with it, and either be personally productive then or use it as leisure time.

myth_drannon 3y ago

Next step: reading Charles Bukowski and just absolutely not giving a f*ck. I always seen him as the ultimate slacker and hoped some of that energy will trickle down to me when I was being workaholic. On another note I really liked "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle In case you get some guilt feelings.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
Is he really a slacker? To my limited knowledge, "Don't try" is to say do something that you don't need effort to start doing, something that doesn't feel like a chore to you, something that you are passionate about. He also mentioned going hungry a lot for his passion. I don't think that someone who perseveres through all that is a slacker, but again, my understanding is limited.
- timeagain 3y ago
  My impression of bukowski is that he was absolutely driven to write, but that he was an incredible slacker at work. That he worked only well enough and hard enough to drink and write (neither being incredibly expensive past times). So he was motivated, but not by work or the concerns of others. The only reason we know about him is because he chose to write and often semi-autobiographically. There are scores of people who make similar arrangements for music, sport, reading, gardening, child rearing… we just don’t hear from them!
damnitpeter 3y ago
Any favorites from Bukowski to recommend? Always been interested but not sure where to start.
- zedpm 3y ago
  Factotum and South of No North are two of my favorites.
- badpun 3y ago

Daunk 3y ago

I work similar hours, but I WANT to do something productive! But I just don't have the strength or energy. Chores also eats a lot of time...

Dowwie 3y ago

Let's go hiking.

greenie_beans 3y ago
where u at?

commandlinefan 3y ago

If that's your thing, I'm totally cool with it - if you need to watch TV or play video games to decompress, that's fine. I personally get really anxious when I'm "wasting" time and would rather learn something (math, computers, music, something) or do something (housework, yardwork, something) with my "spare" time and I can't help but notice that me not spending time doing what other people consider "leisure" activities really irks a lot of people. Like, to each their own, you know?

golol 3y ago
You misunderstand. He is like you. He felt anxious when he wasn't being productive so he spent his free time studying or whatever. But at some point maybe that stops working for you. Maybe you just don't have energy left and need a break. That happened to him and the important realization is that then you also have to let go of that anxious feeling, because if you aren't gonna be productive you might as well have fun. It's easy to say "to each their own" if it hasn't happened to you (yet): not actually feeling like being productive while still having that anxious feeling. So what I'm trying to say is: It's good to be productive but being driven by anxiety is maybe not something you should view as a fundamental character trait of yours.
chronofar 3y ago
> I personally get really anxious when I'm "wasting" time One could argue that this is the problem. Not that you spend your time doing activities others wouldn't consider leisurely, but that you feel compelled to because otherwise you become "really anxious." Some anxiety can be a propulsion, but too much can be a pathology. I'm certainly not fit to evaluate your own, but by your own words I'd suggest it's possibly worth further reflection. Check out Four Thousand Weeks for some recent musings on why that anxiety may be best ignored rather than heeded: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-weeks https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54785515-four-thousand-w...
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
This might be decoupled from productivity anxiety, but my theory is that there are different types of "fun". There's the "simple carbohydrate" fun of, say, an action game, which is immediate, easy, but low-nutrition and, enjoyed overlong, makes me feel empty inside. Then there's the "complex carbohydrate" fun of learning something new or working on a project, which is more fulfilling and interesting but also work -- mentally taxing -- and, enjoyed overlong, burns me out. My brain seems to demand a balanced diet of both.

alexpotato 3y ago

Whenever I feel like I don't have enough time to do things, I think about the comment from the developer of curl: "On average, I spend about an hour a day on curl. It adds up over time."

pelagicAustral 3y ago

I'm incredibly lucky in that I live 5 minutes away from the office. I work 7.5 hours a day, Monday to Friday. Every day I got a ton of time to dedicate to things I like... and yet, many times I feel drained from crunching code every day... It's been like 8 months since I worked on a personal project... lately all I do is play Breath of the Wild... But I feel pretty good about it, I think I relate to this fuck-being-productive culture more and more every day... or maybe I'm just depressed... don't know.

foobarian 3y ago
Could be BotW is the problem. I was so much happier when I switched to Genshin Impact :-D
- pelagicAustral 3y ago
  Looks pretty good. Wiki page is impressive, especially the Controversies section. I wish they had a Switch version.
shrimp_emoji 3y ago
If you don't already, try working out 30 mins a day!
- pelagicAustral 3y ago
  You hit the nail in the head... I haven't don't a single thing in months... I really need to get out there and do something.
  - metaltyphoon 3y ago
    Started walking for 30 minutes everyday. It has done wonders for me.

prmoustache 3y ago

I'd like to get back to part time work.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

Glad to see people starting to demand their time to be properly compensated for.

blastonico 3y ago

I have a different understanding of being productive - and it's not about working harder. It's more about being smart at work and life (find the best tools for you, discover how your own brain works and find lifehacks - including food - to exploit the best from it).

ryandvm 3y ago

As Diogenes would have said, live like a dog.

isoprophlex 3y ago

> Working hours are 07:30-17:30 That's not a job my dudeperson, that's a gulag

deprecative 3y ago
Work being 10 hours isn't that far off. In the US you work, generally, 9 to 9 1/2 or so a day. I'd call them approximately comparable. Sure, it's a little egregious but not that far beyond "normal" for me as an American.
- mcv 3y ago
  That doesn't make it healthy. 9 hours is too much. 8 is too much. 100 years ago, lots of people, including in the US, fought hard to limit working hours to a 40 hour work week. Keynes even argued that because of increased productivity, we should now be working only 15 hours per week. It's incredibly sad to see how all these accomplishments of the past have been squandered (especially in the US, but not just there). We desperately need a new labour movement.
  - deprecative 3y ago
    I agree that the work day (10, 9, or even 8 hours) is too long but that's the reality we have. Nobody in the US will fight for labor protections again. Not for many years. What you folks do will have to be on your own. We have no solidarity within the US unless it's against folks with darker skin than Casper. We honestly should be down to a two- or three-day work week at about 5 hours per day. That's all we really need to work to get our jobs done. But instead we do more work for diminishing returns so we can make the wealthy even wealthier.
pastacacioepepe 3y ago
> That's not a job my dudeperson, that's a gulag Bad analogy. More like a Walmart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JsgrXyBZO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JsgrXyBZO0

georgeecollins 3y ago

Here's my free advice on the internet (aka worth nothing). Don't be productive, be accumulative. If every day you do one thing that makes thing easier going forward, gives you another option, makes a job easier in the long term, adds a skill, gets you a reference or a connection, pay a dividend or royalty, etc.. in the long run you will be fine.

atentaten 3y ago
This one has revealed the secret.
ragnot 3y ago
This is fantastic advice. Another way to think of it: "The days are long but the decades are short"
InstantMessage 3y ago
Your comment reminded me of a great post from Joel Spolsky: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ "...you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win."
- cableshaft 3y ago
  Easy quote to make. If a person calls him out on it, he can just say "well it's still not your time yet". Until they're dead. And then after they're dead, he can just say "well they must have missed a few days of moving forward." It's a nice thought, and sounds good, but there's no substance to it.

cmilton 3y ago

We all need a reason to be productive. We have placed these jobs above our own well being. That doesn't sound very healthy at all. I would suggest finding something you are passionate about. It may take a while.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Work at work, enjoy life outside of work. Have real weekends and evenings and use them to reset your brain. Allowing your brain to reset is an essential part of being productive. Your short term memory gets in the way of solving problems sometimes. And your brain actually does useful things while you sleep. I've lost count of how solutions to seemingly tricky issues just pop in my head after a good night sleep or after a long weekend. And you can learn on the job. No need to do that outside work hours. And trying to learn stuff when you are tired after a long day is hard. It makes you more tired, you learn slower, it's frustrating, and you are setting yourself up for being less productive the next day because of it. Make time for learning stuff, demand time for it even and put it in your calendar or just sneak it in. Get your boss to support you. Try working smarter, not harder. If it feels like monkey work automate it. It's more fun and you get more productive by doing less. Frees up some time to do more interesting things. If your work is not interesting to you, you are in the wrong job anyway. But assuming it is, you should make the most of it in terms of making it rewarding (and not just in the money sense).

wahnfrieden 3y ago
Sounds like massive cope. If we don’t like work perhaps we can change it without waiting on favors to be handed down to us. Your boss won’t help unless market conditions force their hand. The work conditions you mentioned (free weekday nights and the weekend) were fought for by organized workers and are very new, why stop there? I don't think we'll even keep those conditions if that's what we're satisfied with. We already see that in tech with Slack, uncompensated on-call, salaried overtime expectations set during hiring or onboarding, the expectation that prospective hires spend their free time on training projects, etc
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  100% this The idea that work is “over there” and life is “over here” is not only unique historically, it’s also the reason workers have no power. By failing to demand that companies and organizations adjust to us and telling them “this is how we are going to live and companies need to fit into that” then we tacitly let them collude to keep labor power down. If you are alienated from your work, and accept and lean into that alienation, then you have no personal drive to make work serve you and your community rather than you serving it. It’s a race to the bottom of alienation and the paved path of capitalism is basically scraping the bottom at this point.

simontheowl 3y ago

I had similar thoughts for a while. What helped me was instead of aiming to make all of the time outside work productive (3-4 hours) just aim for under an hour. For me, 40 min of producitivity per day outside of work makes me feel accomplished. You can actually get a lot done in that span of time like do some exercise, practice an instrument, read an article... (pick one per day and cycle through the week). Not much immediate gratification, but over the years it adds up to a tonn of personal development. Plus with a 40-min window you don't feel guilt about abandoning your other family duties etc.

leesec 3y ago

You're saying we shouldn't spend literally all of our waking hours like productive robots and actually spend some time enjoying life? I'm just hearing this now for the first time.

jmkni 3y ago

When I was younger, I tried to spend as much of my free time as possible learning things that would enhance my career. New programming languages, frameworks, etc, things like that. Eventually I realised that doing what is basically your job in your free time is fucking exhausting. Nowadays I try to spend that time learning things which won’t enhance my career. Gardening, cooking, woodwork, much less stressful and more fulfilling imo

asdff 3y ago
Its hard to have a fulfilling job. Too many the managers try and make you feel like you are either fighting off an invasion or reloading between waves, no rest no reward just keep up the pace. All that effort you put in frequently has nothing lasting happen after with it. Reset tomorrow with more piled on your plate like today never happened. Meanwhile, with these other things you do get fulfillment because you see directly the fruits of your labor investment. You garden and get food and a beautiful environment. You cook and get a wonderful meal. You woodwork and get something beautiful or functional or both. You work out or do sports and you see your body develop and improve. In all cases, you are getting better at something or producing things and taking full advantage of it. You get this sense of progression like you are skilling in an RPG except the benefits are tangible.

yboris 3y ago

We need 4DWW - Four Day Work Week. This would give all of us the much-needed day to catch up on administrative stuff, so we can have our weekends back for relaxing. We will have time for side projects again. Fight for 4DWW !!!

listenallyall 3y ago
How would you catch up? Administrative stuff like going to the post office, DMV, getting a haircut, would all be closed... due to 4 day work week.
- mcv 3y ago
  Everybody should have a different 4 day work week, of course. Shops are still open in the weekend.
  - listenallyall 3y ago
    He stated "administrative stuff" -- not "shops". Stuff that's already open on the weekend isn't an issue. And are people willing to take a 20% pay cut? I would doubt many people could afford (or wish) to do so. The entire premise is absurd, which is what I was pointing out.
    - mcv 3y ago
      You already took that 20% pay cut. Our pay hasn't gone up with our productivity in decades. According to Keynes, we should have been working 15 hours per week by now. We're not, because we're not reaping the rewards of our work. It's all gone to the rich. That is the big thing we need to reverse. I'm working 4 days a week, and that's working very well for me. So is my wife. So is my brother, and are several of my friends and coworkers. I strongly recommend it. We should be demanding better, and not discourage each other by saying it's absurd to want a better life.
      - listenallyall 3y ago

Rimintil 3y ago

Very few of us in society do work that truly matters. Work is like a colouring book: A complete waste of your time (though work might be less fun, YMMV). It would be lovely to give up the charade of the importance of work.

chankstein38 3y ago

Amen. This also subtly highlights a huge negative to being forced to work in an office, commute times. I was in the same boat, 2.5hrs or so of commuting per day made my 8hr day a 10.5hr day and made my blood boil. Started working from home and my blood pressure went down and I got happier AND had more time to myself.

philip1209 3y ago

"Pathless Path" is a great book about reevaluating values with respect to work. I'm about halfway through and strongly recommend it.

aftbit 3y ago

Working from 7:30 to 17:30 is already plenty productive...

Noe2097 3y ago

Interestingly, lately, I find myself totally unable to do "nothing" -- to be unproductive by the description given in the article. The perspective of spending 1 or 2 hours playing videogames or watching entertainment (movies, series) became terribly boring to me. I can only think of that as a loss of time: I wouldn't be a better person at the end of it. Being able to better smash buttons, faster, at the right timing -- watching a story unfold on screen -- these used to be a great source of joy "before". But today, it seems all so dull; my intellect or my body doesn't get any better by doing that. Instead, reading whatever book on ML or even on an obscure programming language or technique, or spending time at the gym, or listening to a lecture on math or physics, sound so much more appealing to me. I cannot spend time anymore just sitting, it literally upsets me. Anybody feeling the same?

moffkalast 3y ago
I've noticed something similar lately as well. Could be the influence of excessive corporativism as the article suggests, where every second we don't spend creating the proverbial 'value for the shareholders' we have no reason to exist. Slowly it leaks into private life until one cannot relax anymore and can only do productive things constantly or feel guilty about it. Or maybe it's about desperately trying to become that better more capable person we once foolishly promised ourselves we'll be, while we visibly age and wonder which day will be our last wondering "is this really all there is to life?". Either one I guess.

similetimes 3y ago

[dead]

von_lohengramm 3y ago

I think this is all a misconception about what "productive" really means. It means making progress towards some goal. If you're some temporarily embarrassed billionaire, then the startup grindset is quite productive towards your goal. If filling your life with momentary happiness is your goal, then playing videogames is quite productive towards your goal. If you're a good little worker bee or someone at the Bureau of Labor Statistics is holding your family hostage, then clocking in 18 hours a day/7 days a week at $BIGTECH is quite productive towards your goal. If you're religious, then going to church, improving your behavior/mindset, etc. are quite productive towards your goal. It just all comes down to: What do you want out of life? What do you see as the purpose of life? The purpose of your life? Looking at this problem any other way is just deferring your personal philosophy, beliefs, and values to someone else—someone who probably doesn't care one bit about you and what you want.

nicbou 3y ago

I am increasingly hostile to the cult of productivity. I understand that a competitive environment calls for these sorts of sacrifices, but we should at least stop fetishizing it. Live a simple life, make enough money, then focus on other things. You've met your weekly quota, your bills are paid. Now go play. When you're on your death bed, you won't be thinking "I wish I spent more time at work, closing tickets".

Jeff_Brown 3y ago

If you feel this way and you have the option, an easy solution is to make less money and/or take a job you like that involves learning and self-improvement. I realize not everyone has the opportunity, but I think a lot of people would be much happier earning less.

PM_me_your_math 3y ago

You have working hours and you have non-working hours. I don't see the upside in punishing yourself for not working during non-working hours. Those hours are for you. The proper way to look at this is 'be productive during the time you've allotted.'

RektBoy 3y ago

home office?

pointy_hat 3y ago

Reminded me of Bartebly the Scrivener and “I would prefer not to”, but also Byul-Chun Han and “Burnout Society”. A very short summary of the latter is that in our day and age we exploit ourselves on behalf of people who would in previous decades exploit us. But of course the author explores both reasons and consequences of this phenomena.

xkcd1963 3y ago

For some people the work gives them energy, or work itself is what motivates them. If you can find a job like that, you won't feel the need to fill gaps with needless productivity.

jerska 3y ago

Sorry but gotta say it the way it comes to my mind : « no shit, Sherlock ». Listen to your body. Always.

the_cat_kittles 3y ago

id go one step further and say "fuck the concept of productivity" its such a simplistic way of categorizing what we do and dont do

dsadsadsawdqdwq 3y ago

I have a hard-pressed belief that long commutes are extremely detrimental. Even if you work long hours, if the commute is no more than 15 minutes, it ain't so bad when you get home and you still have plenty of time for everything else. The commute here is the problem, not the work. No shit you're tired. You're working an entire day and traveling 3 hours. Not saying you should be doing anymore, just saying it's okay to not be productive after traveling that much on top of a full work day. If it makes you feel better I work from home and recently had to travel for a customer. 2 hours each way, and I only worked 7 hours at the customer and it was the most exhausted I had been in months.

unity1001 3y ago
> if the commute is no more than 15 minutes If the commute is no more than 15 minutes, you are losing 30 minutes there and back every day, which is 10 hours every month, almost a waking day every month. Its still lost time. This is without counting the time lost in preparing for getting out of the house, settling in at work, and then doing the exact opposite when commuting back. Make each 10 minutes if you are someone who gets up and going very fast. You are now up to 1 hour lost every day, 20 hours every month. Almost and entire day or two waking days...

seventytwo 3y ago

This isn’t a video game you can min/max. You get one life and the clock’s ticking.

LoudFrog 3y ago

I worked on a hay farm for several years before going back to school and majoring in psychology and then abandoning that and becoming a software engineer. Never found my passion. I don't give it a shit about any of the work I do. But anything is better than working on a hay farm.

PeterStuer 3y ago

Another way to look at this is that this person spends 45% of his free time on a commute. That is insane, yet a reality for many. Is 'the office' realy worth that much?

mcv 3y ago
I work from home and am really happy with that. My wife got a new job recently (vice-director of something) and spent 6 hours in traffic yesterday. I feel a bit guilty for encouraging her to take this job.

throw93 3y ago

Makes so much sense. What do we even get after working like robot for 30 years? We don't have retirement benefits, we would've barely paid for a house if we could afford one. All this for making the CEOs and capital owners even more rich. Also who decides the metrics of "Productivity"? If we listen to our bosses and CEOs we would ruin our mind, body and personal relationships while they generate intergenerational wealth.

sledgehammers 3y ago

i quit my startup software dev job too recently. the productivity culture is poison. decided to just play guitar for a while.

leonroy 3y ago

Sure - it sucks doing self-learning and working in your own time but when else are you supposed to polish your skills beyond what work projects give you latitude to do? For example I was in a tech company where XMPP was the core of every one of our products. There were almost no REST based APIs in the company and we had our own protocols and APIs which made much of what I did very specific and non transferable. Day in and out I worked with XML, asynchronous messaging and increasingly niche tooling as XMPP became less and less relevant and HTTP based APIs like REST-JSON and WebSockets displaced it. It wasn’t hard to move jobs but it wasn’t easy either. I had to spend a month or so in my own time learning REST, JSON, WebSockets and Spring MVC in order to pass interviews. I think constant productivity culture leads to burnout but there’s got to be a middle ground between doing nothing after hours and hustling non-stop.

icar 3y ago

I can relate.

mcv 3y ago

> Working hours are 07:30-17:30 That's 10 hours a day! That's too much. You can't be productive for such a long time. Well, the occasional day you can, when inspiration hits and you're really in the flow, but on days that you aren't, sometimes you just need to go home early. One of the great things about working from home is that you don't have to pretend to be working 8+ hours per day anymore. It's more about the stuff you get done than about looking the part. When I feel burned out, I can actually play a game during the day. When inspiration hits, I can work in the evening. It does blur the lines between private life and work, and that's certainly a risk, but being able to use my time more effectively makes up for that. My productivity has gone up. Anyway, 10 hours a day is too much. 8 hours per day is too much. 5 days a week is too much. I think 32 hour work weeks or less should become normalised. According to Keynes, we should have been working 15 hour weeks by now. And apparently hunter-gatherers also working only 15 hours a week. The problem is that we don't enjoy the benefits of our increased productivity anymore, and all the profits go to the people at the top. And expecting to also be productive on private projects after such long work hours? Yeah, that's not going to work. I agree with that part of the article. But I wish people did have more time and energy after work to spend on private projects.

pdimitar 3y ago

Absolutely, indeed frak being productive. It's a Ponzi scheme, you have to keep grinding so you can land your next job that might be slightly better (and often is not). And we're talking in your free time, not even during the work hours. How about some new propaganda? "Work maximum 5h a day and the other 3h you will donate to your employer if they are kind and give you good atmosphere and money"? How about that one, eh?

roguas 3y ago
I think 5h of work is a ton in SWE. IF you can focus, isolate important work and put hard 5 hours... kid you are going places. If not, you will not be going places while putting 10 hours, I think.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  Yeah, exactly. I've actually used counters -- privately, I'll never give anyone access to my machine or my activity times -- for a small period of time and I discovered that my true creative time was something in the order of 2.0 to 3.5 hours a day. And we're talking truly good work here, adding features, refactoring, adding and fixing tests, making automation scripts, you name it, it was all there. 5h doing everything right is enough to burn you out for the next 2-3 days.

xialvjun 3y ago

We like create, not produce.

vladmk 3y ago

Being productive doesn’t mean having to do what you hate. It’s doing the things you say you’re gonna do

byteknight 3y ago

The greatest thing workaholic me was told: "Time enjoyed wasting is not wasted time". Helped me a lot.

sheepscreek 3y ago

More so if you have a family and are the primary provider. You need to take time out for yourself. No, that’s not selfish. It’s the oxygen mask rule on all airplanes - before taking care of others, you need to look after yourself. Be responsible to the degree you can maintain a sustainable (read healthy) balance. It took me 20 years and a pandemic to realize that corporations (especially public corporations) are one tracked. They are non-living entities fuelled by the insatiable greed of some. Remember the old adage, I’d rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable? Thanks to the increasing rich/poor divide - now everybody is miserable. It’s the non-stop work culture, and for what? To sell more new phones and laptops to people, when the old ones work just fine? But there is hope - with the increasing popularity of self-repair friendly legislations and the promotion of manufacturing jobs (the one thing I appreciate Trump for), we just might be able to save ourselves. As imperfect as Unions are, this was the reason for their existence - to keep the other side in check. Sorry for going all over the place today. Just some things that have been on my mind lately. YOU mean something. YOUR life and well-being matters. Don’t do it for your loyalty - it means shit in most cases. To your boss it may matter a bit, but to the “company” - a made up non-living entity? Zilch. It is heartless and will show no emotion when making “hard” decisions. /rant PS: This is not the entire story. I did not get into the rabbit hole of influencers and online/social click-bait marketing that is thriving on FOMO.

alexfromapex 3y ago

What everyone is feeling is their wealth is being stolen by inflation. Ideally, the time you trade during working hours, in exchange for money, should make you wealthy but due to the insane inflation it doesn't.

arbitrary_name 3y ago

I got laid off and told myself i would hustle to get something be or start a business. Instead i surf every day and go hiking and cook meals for my gf. Couldn't be happier. The hustle part will have to wait until i get through this phase.

juggli 3y ago

f*k too

Pbhaskal 3y ago

I am working full time , then try to preparing for senior software engineer interviews in evenings for a new job plus side projects. It is really exhausting. There is just so much peer pressure to create something amazing, be at a great job with top pay.

lighttower 3y ago

https://youtu.be/e9dZQelULDk https://youtu.be/e9dZQelULDk are we the rats?

mathgladiator 3y ago

I'm at a cross roads because I'm trying to sort out an intern program. On one end, I don't want to work too hard now that I'm old. However, I don't have to work too hard as I worked crazy hard for a long decade with massive growth and discipline saving. When I reflect on interns, I want to hire people that are willing to suffer for the craft. I feel it is morally wrong to encourage a low key lifestyle in the young as it wastes potential. At core, the question I'm asking is how to find people that desire greatness in life.