I think this post is a good illustration that productivity, like nootropics, can be highly individual, but the payoff for experimenting on yourself is very high. Everyone should take the time and effort to become an expert on what makes them tick and how to motivate themselves.
I think a lot of what makes productivity hard is that the things you want yourself to do are significantly less rewarding than other things you have in your environment. There are a few reasons for this: first, your environment has superstimuli like computer games. I stopped playing computer games a few years ago and I can attest that “work”-ish things I want myself to do are substantially more appealing & interesting. Second, you make the things you want to do aversive by telling yourself to do them and then not doing them. So the solution is to learn to only tell yourself to do things when you’re actually going to do them. (Possibly useful: have a chair that you sit in for work only and only tell yourself to work when you’re sitting in that chair, and only sit in the chair when you’ve got reasonably high energy, focus, and morale.)
I’ve suffered from this phenomenon you describe: Trouble was, I was caught in a catch 22: when I squirreled away in my room being “productive” I felt like I was missing out, and when I went outside to have “adventures” I only wanted to be elsewhere. It’s great to hear that I’m not the only one who suffers thus, and it’s useful to know your solution. Though for me, it’s more like when I spend too much time alone I get lonely, but oftentimes hanging out with people feels like a waste of time. Doing social stuff 1 weekend-day and 1 weeknight a week sounds like a good solution… I’ve kinda been wondering if social interaction is something that should be done on a regular basis kind of like taking vitamins. (Separately, I’m curious if social interaction time is more rejuvenating if spread out or chunked. Is it better to spend 20 minutes with friends every day of the week or spend 140 minutes with friends 1 day of the week? I suspect the former is better.)
I’ve kinda been wondering if social interaction is something that should be done on a regular basis kind of like taking vitamins.
At one point, I noticed that I seemed to have a “social timer” of approximately 2-3 days: going any longer than that without pleasant social interaction caused me to become lethargic and unproductive. That still seems to roughly hold, though the exact duration seems to vary somewhat over time.
I’ve kinda been wondering if social interaction is something that should be done on a regular basis kind of like taking vitamins.
It seems to work that way for me, but free time social interaction feels even more like a waste of time now that my work is highly social, and I already get an overdose every day.
Some thoughts:
I think this post is a good illustration that productivity, like nootropics, can be highly individual, but the payoff for experimenting on yourself is very high. Everyone should take the time and effort to become an expert on what makes them tick and how to motivate themselves.
I think a lot of what makes productivity hard is that the things you want yourself to do are significantly less rewarding than other things you have in your environment. There are a few reasons for this: first, your environment has superstimuli like computer games. I stopped playing computer games a few years ago and I can attest that “work”-ish things I want myself to do are substantially more appealing & interesting. Second, you make the things you want to do aversive by telling yourself to do them and then not doing them. So the solution is to learn to only tell yourself to do things when you’re actually going to do them. (Possibly useful: have a chair that you sit in for work only and only tell yourself to work when you’re sitting in that chair, and only sit in the chair when you’ve got reasonably high energy, focus, and morale.)
I’ve suffered from this phenomenon you describe: Trouble was, I was caught in a catch 22: when I squirreled away in my room being “productive” I felt like I was missing out, and when I went outside to have “adventures” I only wanted to be elsewhere. It’s great to hear that I’m not the only one who suffers thus, and it’s useful to know your solution. Though for me, it’s more like when I spend too much time alone I get lonely, but oftentimes hanging out with people feels like a waste of time. Doing social stuff 1 weekend-day and 1 weeknight a week sounds like a good solution… I’ve kinda been wondering if social interaction is something that should be done on a regular basis kind of like taking vitamins. (Separately, I’m curious if social interaction time is more rejuvenating if spread out or chunked. Is it better to spend 20 minutes with friends every day of the week or spend 140 minutes with friends 1 day of the week? I suspect the former is better.)
At one point, I noticed that I seemed to have a “social timer” of approximately 2-3 days: going any longer than that without pleasant social interaction caused me to become lethargic and unproductive. That still seems to roughly hold, though the exact duration seems to vary somewhat over time.
I think this is really important. It also fits into the procrastination equation by decreasing expectancy.
It seems to work that way for me, but free time social interaction feels even more like a waste of time now that my work is highly social, and I already get an overdose every day.