I’m productive, and I’ve been paid > $100/hr for my work (at Google, before moving to the non-profit sector), and could have multiple offers to do that again in multiple fields anytime I wanted.
I loved parts of my work, sure, but there were also large parts of it that I had to forcibly direct my attention to. The best tasks to be the most productive are rarely the most fun. And in a world of compelling entertainment, reading the latest blogs, books, watching TV, surfing the web, are always fighting for people’s attention. Mine at least. To direct my attention to productive activities, to my consciously chosen goals and the best tasks to achieve them, is hard Work.
Yes, there are moments of flow, moments we love, moments that draw our attention. And the more of those, the better we’ve chosen our work. But I think you have a huge selection bias—it may be that the most productive people are the ones who enjoy a coincidence between what they do and what draws their attention, but I doubt that very many jobs offer that overlap or that we can employ very many people that way. Hence, for most people, the way to be more productive is to get better at directing their attention.
As another angle, I completely love my current employment role—running an organization trying to build startup countries on the ocean. I love the mission I work on, I love the people I work with, I am one of those incredibly fortunate people who is doing what they love. But the tasks I need to accomplish each day to work towards my audacious and inspiring goal? Yawn. Bleh. I think that’s just because inspiring goals often require boring subgoals and tasks, not because I haven’t picked the right job.
But the tasks I need to accomplish each day to work towards my audacious and inspiring goal? Yawn. Bleh. I think that’s just because inspiring goals often require boring subgoals and tasks, not because I haven’t picked the right job.
You are indeed lucky to have such inspiring goals. For many people in modern workplaces, the trouble is that they not only have no such exalted motivating goals, but they don’t even have any clear sense of what exactly their work is supposed to achieve—or worse, they often clearly see that the tedious tasks they must perform are completely pointless and useless in the overall scheme of things. I mean the sort of thing which is the basic running theme of Dilbert.
This can have such soul-crushing effects that it’s hard to find motivation even for living, let alone productivity. The real challenge is how to force yourself to be productive (or “productive”?) in ways necessary to prosper in such an environment if you’re condemned to it, as increasing numbers of people are.
The real challenge is how to force yourself to be productive (or “productive”?) in ways necessary to prosper in such an environment if you’re condemned to it, as increasing numbers of people are.
Since I can’t double-upvote this I’ll just add my agreement. Figuring out a way out of this trap has been one of my dominant top-level goals for at least a year and something I’ve been thinking a lot about for longer than that but it is a difficult problem. I know quite a few intelligent and ‘successful’ (by most conventional measures) individuals who are deeply unsatisfied with their careers but have great difficulty breaking out of the cycle.
I’m productive, and I’ve been paid > $100/hr for my work (at Google, before moving to the non-profit sector), and could have multiple offers to do that again in multiple fields anytime I wanted.
I loved parts of my work, sure, but there were also large parts of it that I had to forcibly direct my attention to. The best tasks to be the most productive are rarely the most fun. And in a world of compelling entertainment, reading the latest blogs, books, watching TV, surfing the web, are always fighting for people’s attention. Mine at least. To direct my attention to productive activities, to my consciously chosen goals and the best tasks to achieve them, is hard Work.
Yes, there are moments of flow, moments we love, moments that draw our attention. And the more of those, the better we’ve chosen our work. But I think you have a huge selection bias—it may be that the most productive people are the ones who enjoy a coincidence between what they do and what draws their attention, but I doubt that very many jobs offer that overlap or that we can employ very many people that way. Hence, for most people, the way to be more productive is to get better at directing their attention.
As another angle, I completely love my current employment role—running an organization trying to build startup countries on the ocean. I love the mission I work on, I love the people I work with, I am one of those incredibly fortunate people who is doing what they love. But the tasks I need to accomplish each day to work towards my audacious and inspiring goal? Yawn. Bleh. I think that’s just because inspiring goals often require boring subgoals and tasks, not because I haven’t picked the right job.
patrissimo:
You are indeed lucky to have such inspiring goals. For many people in modern workplaces, the trouble is that they not only have no such exalted motivating goals, but they don’t even have any clear sense of what exactly their work is supposed to achieve—or worse, they often clearly see that the tedious tasks they must perform are completely pointless and useless in the overall scheme of things. I mean the sort of thing which is the basic running theme of Dilbert.
This can have such soul-crushing effects that it’s hard to find motivation even for living, let alone productivity. The real challenge is how to force yourself to be productive (or “productive”?) in ways necessary to prosper in such an environment if you’re condemned to it, as increasing numbers of people are.
Since I can’t double-upvote this I’ll just add my agreement. Figuring out a way out of this trap has been one of my dominant top-level goals for at least a year and something I’ve been thinking a lot about for longer than that but it is a difficult problem. I know quite a few intelligent and ‘successful’ (by most conventional measures) individuals who are deeply unsatisfied with their careers but have great difficulty breaking out of the cycle.