“Business destroys creativity, self-knowledge, emotional well-being, your ability to be social,” - does not seem to reconcile the partition of mental activity presented in "The Role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance" (summary: http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3881908748/tldr-summary-the...) - notably, "The importance of rest" has its own section.
Productivity tools are not destructive, they are just useful in context and inefficient when mis-applied - just like any other tool.
What I say in the book is "chronic busyness destroys creativity, self-knowledge, emotional well-being, your ability to be social" and that I would argue is true. Deliberate practice to me means intense focus on one specific activity for a long period, not trying to juggle long to do lists or multitasking. Crucially, deliberate practice also I would argue an internally imposed task - in that the practitioner chooses to focus on it - rather than switching among hundreds of tasks a day on an externally imposed schedule. What I argue against in the book is trying to master "busyness" - because quite simply our brains are not designed to be busy and when they are busy the amazing things our brains can do are suppressed. That's my hypothesis - I think it's testable.
I copied this sentence as well - it doesn't seem self defeating at all to maintenance one's infrastructure, just part of life.
it's interesting that we both copied that sentence because I just looked at your SN and I'm amused by the fact that I was about to paste the same quote from here at the Causata office :]
I agree, but I also think this argument goes both ways.
The 5K runners think the couch potatoes should run more, the marathon trainers think the 5K runners should run more, etc. In a similar fashion, the "inefficient" are bombarded with lifehacking advice from the likes of Tim Ferriss and David Allen.
I think if there's one good takeaway from this article, it's that the lifehackers should "live and let live" as well. Not everyone needs or wants to optimize their life.
I'm not sure. I'll agree that it can be irritating, but I think sometimes people actually do need to evangelize their latest $WHATEVER in order to help motivate themselves and stay focused. Whether or not this is a sign of un/healthy activity could also be an interesting debate.
Yes, many things do become ends unto themselves. This is why I read only the occasional life hack, or life pro tip. It's become a fetish. It's less about optimizing your life than being able to say that you're a lifehacker. The same thing largely applies to the so-called "maker" culture.
Take running as an example - the couch potato thinks the weekend 5K duffers are "running to excess"
A classic straw man example. I hadn't herd of this 'running to excess' term, but I defy you to find someone who thinks running 5k once a week is excessive. I'm not into running myself, but I walk a round trip of that length a couple of times a week (to a specific destination, I don't mean that's my only exercise) and the idea of jogging it instead doesn't seem particularly radical.
Hmmm... I just push the button, then go get some coffee. Thereby saving myself the time it took you to do the F2 thingy. Which I then lost writing this post to tell you about it :-(
No, it's so you can take the Google ad profits from your blog with that article to work less hours at work which you devote to creating an AI robot to write more lifehacking articles until the circle of life is complete and you have time to catch up on all that missed sleep.
Lifehacking is when someone thinks of the idea to use a paper binder to keep your cords tidy.
I hereby propose a vote on calling what TFA is talking about as either:
A) Todo Voodoo
B) Efficiency Masturbation
Feel free to use either free of charge. I just open sourced them and now intend to have Tim Ferriss write a book about how you can do all this in only four hours a week!
I have read his book aside of his many essays, so I can agree his style is lengthy - that's actually the only issue I may have. That doesn't change the fact that his arguments are well-thought and usually supported by references. You don't have to agree with him or like his style, but bringing it down to a 'TLDR' is silly, his writing has more substance than the usual blogosphere content posted around and it's worth taking those few minutes of overhead (instead of scrolling some blabbering on twitter f.ex.).
Just because I eat does not mean I am bulimic, in the same way, having an ECG doe snot mean I "quantify my life". I meant quantifying a lot of things which are not usually done (tracking your time, measuring and weighing yourself everyday, calory counts, keeping track of productive output, etc).
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 57.2 ms ] threadProductivity tools are not destructive, they are just useful in context and inefficient when mis-applied - just like any other tool.
it's interesting that we both copied that sentence because I just looked at your SN and I'm amused by the fact that I was about to paste the same quote from here at the Causata office :]
The 5K runners think the couch potatoes should run more, the marathon trainers think the 5K runners should run more, etc. In a similar fashion, the "inefficient" are bombarded with lifehacking advice from the likes of Tim Ferriss and David Allen.
I think if there's one good takeaway from this article, it's that the lifehackers should "live and let live" as well. Not everyone needs or wants to optimize their life.
Vim is the best editor ever and you should use it! Your editor is bad and you should feel bad!
A classic straw man example. I hadn't herd of this 'running to excess' term, but I defy you to find someone who thinks running 5k once a week is excessive. I'm not into running myself, but I walk a round trip of that length a couple of times a week (to a specific destination, I don't mean that's my only exercise) and the idea of jogging it instead doesn't seem particularly radical.
I hereby propose a vote on calling what TFA is talking about as either:
A) Todo Voodoo B) Efficiency Masturbation
Feel free to use either free of charge. I just open sourced them and now intend to have Tim Ferriss write a book about how you can do all this in only four hours a week!