I tend to alternate between two extremes. One extreme is "get shit done anyway you know how ASAP!" The other is "learn, explore, take your time, and do things right." I let my own ambitions determine which zone I'm in, and they last from a couple weeks to months. What I learn while I'm in the "take it slow" zone always helps me be more productive in the "do it now" zone. And the do it now zone helps keep me motivated to learn more stuff, and the cycle repeats :)
There are a couple of problems with this advice, in my experience.
First, is that when I take that approach I invariably wind up with two dozen half-started projects and do very little to build up long-term skills. There are so many things that I love, if I stopped every time I hit a dip to try something else, I'd never finish anything. Plus, one of the things I love is the sense of satisfaction of completing something and doing it well-- especially if I have made a commitment to someone. If rewards are too far off to affect me emotionally, and only my rational brain knows they will be worth it in the end, then I need other way to help stay focused.
The second issue is that there are good things in life that you can't do 'in the zone.' Meeting new people, for example, doesn't require the meditative attention that hacking does. So finding yourself outside the zone for significant periods of time is rather common and not a bad thing. One needs some way to keep that from derailing productivity, however.
I agree that this is really what a lot of people are probably discussing -- how they feel, whether they are in the zone. The interesting question is whether it really corresponds to getting stuff done. Solving interesting problems in new ways often puts me in that zone, but I'm not clear that such solutions necessarily buys the organization more.
For me, pertinent things seem to 'bubble up' and I will get them done regardless of resistance. Resistance doesn't mean the thing needs to be immediately done. The mind has a clever feature in that it surfaces subconscious goal-setting at the right time, and on an as-needed basis.
In a professional and career context, however, you would be required to get tasks done straight away. But for artists and even dedicated loafers or those who enjoy being idle, the important stuff rises to the top naturally and it gets done.
Sometimes not working towards a goal for a day gets me closer than working badly towards goal. And sometimes, waiting until the moment is right is better than trying to seize the moment.
It's a very fine line though and can become a good excuse not to get things done or let circumstance drive us around. But I for one do not believe in working on a goal every day. Just most days.
I've given a bit of thought to these periods and the theme in them has a few factors that indicate one general one.
First factor was reading a book that changed my perspective. When I was a consultant, simply spending 5hrs reading a book on negotiation returned an additional 200k over the next 36mos.
Second is the time I took all my vacation at once and spent three weeks with a teacher learning a physical skill. It gave me the confidence to level up massively in my career.
Third was after taking a month long motorcycle trip across the US. I developed multiple decks and wireframes for startups I would return to and make the focus of my life today.
The theme in them was interrupting the nagging chatter of my ego and its anxieties and the need for external approval, which came from unstable relationships and social media (same thing).
The result was periods of pure performance where stuff comes out like you are singing it. The way I get into the zone today is to do something that pushes me past a limit of ego/anxiety resistance. Either by getting coaching and instruction, becoming absorbed in the complex ideas of a book or new area of knowledge, or physical accomplishment.
There was a comment here the other day about junior and intermediate programmers completing the fist %80 of a project, then leaving the remaining %20 to the next person - who recommends chucking it and refactoring, only to complete that initial %80 again.That %80 productivity that comes from learning something new is massive, but it's not sufficient to deliver the polished %20 that makes a product.
The zone for me today is bursts of staccato productivity against that last %20, with a view forward against where it will yield diminishing returns.
As a manager, the very best way to wreck flow is to put choices on staff and then criticize them for the results. There is this anti-pattern (I call it a false-Socratic dialogue) where ostensibly intelligent people present their staff with choices, thinking it's educating them to "choose right," when the overall effect is to just punish them randomly for making independent decisions.
The constant theme in 10x developers I have observed is that they don't internalize interruptions from others. Often this is because they miss or ignore the social cues of concern and approval that derail others flow, either because of a spectrum thing, confidence from better options, or the narcissism that helps some people succeed.
The flow I develop through these other factors is related to that state in that the anxiety from uncertainty in how I relate is silenced, and I can create freely. As a result, the last 4 months on my demo have been immensely productive.
This idea seems more like how to stick to doing something you don't like, rather than how to stick to a goal. The seem similar but the latter implies you have a choice in how to accomplish it.
If you assume that a goal is a long term accomplishment and the strategies you use are short term, then something like this will allow you to stick to a strategy. However, done to excess would imply doing things you hate all the time, against the peril of doing things you hate more, which will make your life miserable.
This line of thinking reminds me of most school systems, which uses somewhat the same strategy, ie. do this simple task, now, or in the immediate future, to some exact specification, and if you don't do it properly you'll get a bad grade.
I find it much more helpful to tread lightly when considering doing things you don't like in order to accomplish a goal. If you can find a way where you are enjoying yourself and working towards a goal at the same time, it is much better even if it seems likely to cause you to take longer at doing it.
For instance, I often switch projects during the day, rather than work on only a single project, getting bored with it, but pushing on and hoping that I'll get through it quick and be able to go onto the next one. By switching it up, not only am I happier and actually excited to work on the stuff I do, but there is a synergistic effect, since the concepts of one of the projects often applies to the others as well.
In the times where an emotionally charged goal isn't driving me forward, adhering to disciplined regimes for time and knowledge management has helped me to prepare and therefore perform better in times there IS a highly motivating goal.
There don't have to be two extremes of X-management (one fuelled by emotion and one dragged down by apathy). Like anything, building a discipline in the slow times will set you up really well for when you need to run hard in the fast times.
All that said, I use Roam Research[0] for my knowledge management now. I consolidate my thoughts and ideas weekly, and aim for evergeen knowledge[1].
I think this advice is correct, but if I follow it I'm going to have a hard time ever getting the most important thing done. Why would I want to work on that, when I can work on the most interested thing instead? :-)
I guess at some point one needs some discipline... but that's not very fun.
It even seems intuitively true for domains other than basketball. When I’m ‘in the zone’ I’m probably way better at doing whatever I’m doing, so a streak of productivity is likely to continue. And each success probably heightens your cognitive readiness and gives you enthusiasm to commit entirely to getting the next.
If the "fun part" of learning or working on a project is analogous to the climbing of a mountain, you have to acknowledge that there are parts of learning and working that have natural plateaus - you wander in them for a long time and you don't seem to be climbing at all. There are only two ways to consistently get through those spots: by habit, or by obligation.
By obligation is the more familiar method for a student: You were told to do your homework and study, now you have to deliver. And then you fear not fulfilling it so you get into a panic at the last minute and scramble to produce the image, if not the reality, of someone who knows what they're doing and learned what they were supposed to learn. Somehow you retain some of that knowledge and so you do become more competent, but you associate the process of getting there with the stressful experience of delivering to a deadline.
Doing it by habit means that there is a part of your time in the day where you do some subset of "important but boring" things, entirely for yourself. Not because somebody told you to. This is the sane way to learn things and also the only one that you can sustain throughout your life.
That is, tomorrow, instead of sitting in your comfort zone at home and watching yet another lecture or skimming yet another blog post, you go out to a coffee shop and you sit there for at least one hour to study "the doing of work." You don't dare get up until you've seen at least a tiny fraction of productivity. Maybe you learned one fact, or you figured out one part of a math problem, or you set up your development environment, or you wrote one important business email. If you accomplish it at the start of the hour, you keep going, you find one more thing to do, and then one more after that, and so on.
This feels horrible in the homework mindset, because the goal there is to minimize effort and maximize output, to procrastinate and then rush to get the grade. Here the goal is akin to going to the gym, to practice putting in effort, to get used to the idea of everyday struggle so that you don't fear it. Here, it does not matter how little your output was, if your effort was good. And if you are frustrated with what you are trying to work on, allow yourself multiple options. You shouldn't do only bicep curls every day, and you shouldn't do the same with intellectual work.
The homework mindset will creep in and say that this free time should be carved up, rebalanced, and associated with deadlines again, in line with whatever goals and values the parents, teachers, or institutions presently uphold, you should be progressing as fast as the course does, but that is not true. You don't know what is efficient, you don't know what is valuable, and you don't know exactly where you're going in the future. You won't progress exactly as fast as any course, you will breeze through some things and be stuck on others. You will have to try to know. Defer to your own motivations in practicing the doing of work, because sitting there dumbfounded by material you cannot bring yourself to engage with is a good way to crush your spirit and make you feel incapable. This is true even if it should lead to failure within your coursework, as that failure, in tandem with knowing that you were actually practicing and learning things each day, will indicate that you were lying to yourself about what you want and why. That is more important than simply maintaining the image of competence.
Try make sure you are actually as healthy as possible. Maybe you are eating or drinking something that makes you unable to focus, or not enough of something else - experiment, try things. Maybe you need to get out so that when you come back, you're excited about what you're doing. There are many things to try. A well-rounded life needs to try as many of them as possible as early as possible.
I really appreciate this advice, this is a great framework by which to judge my goals and keep me focused on relevant tasks. Do you recommend any books or articles I should read that expound on this mindset?
Great article but I think it's a fine line. I am so much more productive when I am doing something I enjoy.
Let's say I am 5 times faster working on what I love to do, but it's only 50% as effective for my business as what I should do. Well it's still better than being 5 times slower to do something that's only twice as important.
The hard part is working out those numbers and knowing what wins, but being aware of the concept is a great start.
Building a constant feed of productivity requires a lot of iteration in your schedule to see what works and what doesn't.On the other hand,I firmly believe that productivity is directly proportional to your goals.Once your understand your passion and inclination towards a particular object.You will never miss an opportunity!.
To pickup on the don't waste time point, sometimes I think ambling along can produce a better results than just heads down pushing towards a goal.
Writing my thesis recently, I spend plenty of time going off on tangents, sometimes related, sometimes not. Or going for a walk or a ride just to let ideas sit in my unconscious mind.
I'm personally trying to have "what I actually do" be closer to "what I want to be doing", and if I decide to do something, I want to always be doing it at peak performance.
How about just "work," and whenever it makes sense? I've always figured that if I achieve what I'm supposed to achieve, why does it matter how or where that happens?
I agree strongly with your first point, for the simple reason of “unknown unknowns.” Maximizing the optimization of your current situation, so to speak, can often result in missing out on opportunities which would bring you to a higher, better level than the one you are on currently.
Extreme focus and hours can be effective in short bursts, but need to be balanced with some time for randomness, wandering, and other non-planned activities. One should always be trying to expand their current intellectual domain, but it’s nigh impossible to do so if you keep your head down 24/7.
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