My experience is the opposite; productivity generally feels awesome, sitting around doing nothing or wandering around the internet is generally depressing. (This is insufficient as a motivator for behavior.)
for these discussions we need to start differentiating meanings of the word “productive”. When I get stuff done for an interesting task, or put together a piece of furniture, that″s being productive and usually feels pretty good. When I fill out paperwork for a lease or something, that usually feels boring and not fun, with some good feeling when it’s over with. I think both of these fall under the lay definition of “productive”. Leisure/fun times trades off against both of these, but my mental image when someone says “it’s better to be productive than to spend time doing nothing” usually has me picturing boring homework.
Exactly. A person’s general productivity and procrastination will probably greatly depend on whether most of their “productivity” is going interesting tasks or filling out paperwork.
So the right long-term strategy is probably to find a way to get paid for doing interesting tasks.
Just reading the book description, this sounds right:
Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.
Maybe the trick is with the “something valuable” part. Some people make money by doing things that are not valuable, or at least some Dilbert-esque process removes a lot of value from their contribution.
So while you shouldn’t keep searching until you find something you feel passionate about (because it is your work that creates the passion), you probably should keep searching until you find something valuable, where the value you add isn’t destroyed by the process. And then keep doing it.
Yeah. The author claims you need to find something where (1) you can improve your skills, (2) you believe your work has positive value, and (3) you don’t actively dislike the people you’re working with. From there, you can increase your skills and prove your value, then barter that value into a position that has the traits which correlate with fulfillment.
How do you prevent this very strong set of conditions from making you throw up your hands and say “alright, I’m screwed”? I feel like it’s what a lot of people would, given their situation, be perfectly justified in doing.
Short answer: The bad news is, you might in fact be screwed, given the situation. The good news is, it’s always possible to change the situation; all it takes is deliberate practice, planning, and a tremendous amount of hard work.
Long answer: Those conditions are rare and valuable things. To get them, you have to offer something rare and valuable in return. Here’s how to do that.
First, make sure you’re in a situation where you can improve your skills. If your job doesn’t use any skills that can be improved, then either take up a hobby, find a new job, or use all your ingenuity to figure out something else. You might have to ignore the other two conditions for now. That sucks, but such is life.
Second, practice. Constantly stretch yourself by working on projects that are just outside your comfort zone. Seek feedback from reality and from experts.
Third, build career capital. This is a combination of demonstrably awesome output plus social proof. It’s the thing that people see and realize “this person is good at that thing.”
Fourth, use your career capital to get a position that has (more of) the traits you want. From the outside, this will probably look like getting a lucky break. Your career capital makes opportunities available, and if you know what you’re looking for, you can do a pretty good job of judging which opportunities are worth following.
Finally, keep doing this. If your skills and career capital keep improving, you can keep improving your position to get more money, more autonomy, more impact on the world, or whatever it is you’re optimizing for.
This takes a long time. The examples in the book usually take years. The shortest example I’ve ever encountered took maybe ten months. With any proposed strategy to reach happiness and fulfillment, you have to ask why everyone else hasn’t done it already, and in this case the answer is because it’s actually pretty hard. I’ve done this, though, and I can confidently say it’s worth it.
My experience is the opposite; productivity generally feels awesome, sitting around doing nothing or wandering around the internet is generally depressing. (This is insufficient as a motivator for behavior.)
for these discussions we need to start differentiating meanings of the word “productive”. When I get stuff done for an interesting task, or put together a piece of furniture, that″s being productive and usually feels pretty good. When I fill out paperwork for a lease or something, that usually feels boring and not fun, with some good feeling when it’s over with. I think both of these fall under the lay definition of “productive”. Leisure/fun times trades off against both of these, but my mental image when someone says “it’s better to be productive than to spend time doing nothing” usually has me picturing boring homework.
Exactly. A person’s general productivity and procrastination will probably greatly depend on whether most of their “productivity” is going interesting tasks or filling out paperwork.
So the right long-term strategy is probably to find a way to get paid for doing interesting tasks.
I’m currently about a quarter of the way through this book, and already it has several actionable insights on how to do that.
Just reading the book description, this sounds right:
Maybe the trick is with the “something valuable” part. Some people make money by doing things that are not valuable, or at least some Dilbert-esque process removes a lot of value from their contribution.
So while you shouldn’t keep searching until you find something you feel passionate about (because it is your work that creates the passion), you probably should keep searching until you find something valuable, where the value you add isn’t destroyed by the process. And then keep doing it.
Yeah. The author claims you need to find something where (1) you can improve your skills, (2) you believe your work has positive value, and (3) you don’t actively dislike the people you’re working with. From there, you can increase your skills and prove your value, then barter that value into a position that has the traits which correlate with fulfillment.
How do you prevent this very strong set of conditions from making you throw up your hands and say “alright, I’m screwed”? I feel like it’s what a lot of people would, given their situation, be perfectly justified in doing.
Short answer: The bad news is, you might in fact be screwed, given the situation. The good news is, it’s always possible to change the situation; all it takes is deliberate practice, planning, and a tremendous amount of hard work.
Long answer: Those conditions are rare and valuable things. To get them, you have to offer something rare and valuable in return. Here’s how to do that.
First, make sure you’re in a situation where you can improve your skills. If your job doesn’t use any skills that can be improved, then either take up a hobby, find a new job, or use all your ingenuity to figure out something else. You might have to ignore the other two conditions for now. That sucks, but such is life.
Second, practice. Constantly stretch yourself by working on projects that are just outside your comfort zone. Seek feedback from reality and from experts.
Third, build career capital. This is a combination of demonstrably awesome output plus social proof. It’s the thing that people see and realize “this person is good at that thing.”
Fourth, use your career capital to get a position that has (more of) the traits you want. From the outside, this will probably look like getting a lucky break. Your career capital makes opportunities available, and if you know what you’re looking for, you can do a pretty good job of judging which opportunities are worth following.
Finally, keep doing this. If your skills and career capital keep improving, you can keep improving your position to get more money, more autonomy, more impact on the world, or whatever it is you’re optimizing for.
This takes a long time. The examples in the book usually take years. The shortest example I’ve ever encountered took maybe ten months. With any proposed strategy to reach happiness and fulfillment, you have to ask why everyone else hasn’t done it already, and in this case the answer is because it’s actually pretty hard. I’ve done this, though, and I can confidently say it’s worth it.
Actually complete version: read the book.
(Disclaimer: I am about halfway through the book so far. There are probably further insights that I haven’t read yet.)