Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself

http://zenhabits.net/2009/08/get-less-done-stop-being-productive-and-enjoy-yourself/

by onreact-com • 17 years ago

104 35 17 years ago

zenhabits.net

dzlobin• 17 years ago

Good advice for everyone except maybe yc groups burning through seed capital.

"sorry we didn't finish our demo because we took too many naps and ate Bon Bons"

bfung• 17 years ago

And as an addendum, I'd like to say that it's really about managing your time well. There are times when focusing and being productive is important, and there are other times when it is ok to not be producing. Knowing when to be which state is the part that can be managed better by everyone, esp. workers and managers in the US.

unohoo• 17 years ago

at certain times, couldnt agree more. few weeks back was feeling so burnt out that had to unplug everything and elope on a vacation.

davidw• 17 years ago

I think the key is to avoid burning out like that because ultimately you lose more time that way. I was pushing myself a few weeks ago, doing 9 to midnight, and it caught up with me, and I got sick. Oops.

tsestrich2• 17 years ago

I don't think I can do this, lol.

I tried relaxing without work to do for a week recently during a school break and by the end of it I felt lazy and self-loathing... as if I had spent the whole week doing nothing but watching Judge Judy and eating Cheetos. I just think I enjoy having responsibilities and things to do.

pbhjpbhj• 17 years ago

Wanna swap - 2 businesses, 2 kids, no free time and a million things that need doing.

peregrine• 17 years ago

its not about being lazy or being lethargic for an entire week. Its about taking a hour or two, after you've got some work done to relax.

tsestrich2• 17 years ago

Point taken, and that's something I can definitely do

varjag• 17 years ago

For me (and probably many other people), it is much easier to relax and chill out than to stay focused, concentrated and productive. Add to that economic reprecussions for slacking and motivations for being competitive workforce, and you will know why productivity books sell better than relaxation-HOWTOs.

jcdreads• 17 years ago

Does putting on makeup before going to the beach like the model depicted in the article count as relaxing and enjoying yourself? Just sayin.

cracki• 17 years ago

that's not makeup, that's photoshop. besides, it's an illustration, not an engineering diagram.

sketerpot• 17 years ago

The position she's in looks like it would become painful after about 30 seconds; the sand would hurt her arms.

That was pretty distracting to realize.

onreact-com• 17 years ago

I'd argue that enjoying life is also doing something and sometimes it's hard work to do so.

bhousel2• 17 years ago

I can definitely relate to this. I was following the David Allen "Getting Things Done" method for about a year, and it was great, but eventually I couldn't keep up. I just found myself kind of passively rebelling against the whole idea of productivity -- refusing to look at my next action lists, playing sudoku on my phone, just wasting time wherever I could. I think when you get in a situation like that, the only thing to do is a full restart -- reevaluate everything on your plate and decide what's important to you.

Lately I've found that I can avoid burnout by having 2 different projects going at the same time. But they need to be in completely different domains. For example, I'm working on a stealth startup and training for a marathon. I rest my body while working on the computer, I rest my mind while out on my runs. Yin and Yang. Doing things this way, everything gets done that needs to, and I always feel like whatever I'm doing is a fun break from something else.

felipe• 17 years ago

I think the issue is the focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness. GTD is great on the efficiency part (i. e.: tracking and execution), but not on the effectiveness part (i. e.: what should I be doing right now, what are my passions, what is my mission in this world).

To do lists are important even when you need to relax. For example, I love to do trip check-lists so I minimize my stress DURING the trip. And, even if you want to turn-off, you need to plan for that. Just turning off GTD (or whatever other tool) is not the way to go IMO.

I highly recommend First Things First by Dr. Covey. It outlines a process to find out what's really important to you, and then how to execute them. I think a combination of FTF and GTD is ideal.

mcav• 17 years ago

Exactly. One of the primary benefits of using GTD (or being organized in general) is that you don't have to worry about something popping up at the last minute, like an obligation you forgot or a task that really needed to be done earlier.

It lets your leisure be all that more relaxing, since you understand that you aren't forgetting to do something else during that time.

bhousel2• 17 years ago

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely check out FTF. It sounds like something that would work for me.

I am still doing a kind of GTD-lite, and I still keep my lists up to date and my inbox reasonably empty. I didn't completely throw away the whole system, but I did need to do a restart and scale it back.

GTD has the concept of weekly review, where you go through all your projects and lists and make sure that everything is where it belongs. I think I got to a point where I wasn't just forgetting to do the reviews, I just flat out refused to do them. It was a conscious rebellion against the idea that we need to be as productive as possible all the time.

Sometimes things are going to be messy or broken or imperfect and I needed to find a way to be ok with that - it was more an issue with me than with the GTD methodology. We broke up, but we're still friends. It's not you, it's me - that sort of thing. I still recommend GTD to people. It's a good first step for getting things under control, but not necessarily for achieving balance.

tungstenfurnace• 17 years ago

Hear Hear! Doing nothing --just being-- is a vital part of the creative life.

(and I'm so glad this article wasn't titled "The 10 rules of how to enjoy yourself")

augustus• 17 years ago

That's why the happiest people are those who are enjoying themselves when others see them as working.

thaumaturgy• 17 years ago

My massage therapist girlfriend insists that I should read this, and I would love to -- maybe I will later -- but I have to be at a client appointment in an hour, check in with another client after that, start installing a handful of gigabit network drops later today at another client while doing a workstations audit, and we have to do a quick photo shoot for some upcoming marketing.

Usually I could get all this done a little bit faster even, but I was up until about 3 last night and up again at 8:30 this morning.

...what?

crux• 17 years ago

This is magnificent. Zen Habits has managed to squeeze an message against the facile, uncreative, stultified, by-the-numbers webcock formula directly into a facile, uncreative, stultified, by-the-numbers blog post.

There is still much waiting to be said to fight back against the lifehacking, GTD, how to work for only 4 hours a week by being a giant dick and how to convert all of your farts into actionable GasHacks and become more productive by making sure you never have an original thought again movement. It is not said by productivity bloggers with a shitty book to hawk.

unalone• 17 years ago

I hate how lifehacking as a term degenerated. I remember first hearing it in 2005 and seeing instances of really clever "hacks" that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Using salt water as a mouthwash and baking soda to whiten your teeth, or learning about effective weightless exercises for staying in shape, or making cool and attractive piles to store your stuff. When computers did get involved, it was always something neat and small and pleasing - the FuzzyClock app on the Mac still stands out to me as one of the smallest and most pleasant programs on my computer, and I'm pretty sure I came across it via Lifehacker. Teeny tricks to make life better.

Somewhere along the road, lifehacking became focused more on productivity and less on pleasure. That's when I stopped reading Lifehacker. I know Merlin Mann had a semi-meltdown of a similar sort two years ago.

Zen Habits once really irritated me - it was list-based and monotonous - but for the last year it's really been a great source of occasional reading and relaxation. This article in particular was terrific.

pvg• 17 years ago

It might have 'degenerated' the moment someone got it into their head that the sort of mathematical cleverness one sees in HAKMEM is somehow transferable and applicable to wild and woolly fields such as 'life' or 'the economy' or 'human relations'. It's a tremendously tempting and alluring notion - its lustre is such that otherwise rational thinkers are eager to leave their critical faculties in their other pants and toot its every minor or anecdotal random success as deeply significant.

hassing• 17 years ago

Indeed. How dare they advertise a book by giving advice that relate to it.

The important things to remember when reading books like Getting Things Done and 4 Hour Work Week is that they are not written specifically for you. If you read them, take the advice that fit /your/ life from them - then they're pretty good books.

I read this article as basically: If you feel unproductive at times then don't panic. Which seems like good advice.

Reading it and getting mad because it wasn't exactly what you hoped is not very zen. :)

intellectronica• 17 years ago

I strongly doubt that anyone forgot how to be lazy. Laziness is a very basic innate characteristic of human behaviour designed to conserve energy.

If what you do is interesting and challenging, it can be very enjoyable. If it isn't, then you need to change. And yes, a bit of balance with time to play and run outside is definitely a good idea too.

randallsquared• 17 years ago

Being lazy while pretending (possibly even to yourself) to work is the worst case scenario, though. I wasted immense amounts of time when I worked for myself, because I felt like I was always "at work" no matter what was happening, and I rebelled against that by not actually accomplishing anything some days, while continuing to have all the stress of "being at work".

flooha• 17 years ago

I solve my most difficult problems when I'm not trying. Usually while driving or napping. If I push myself to keep going until I figure it out, I just waste a lot of time and get frustrated. Work hard, take breaks.

aw3c2• 17 years ago

The best way for me to crack creative blocks or even programming problems is to take a walk (for an hour or more). My mind will start working much differently than if I stared at the screen or even sat at home. Make sure to carry something to take notes though in case you get too wild with thoughts.

howdooi• 17 years ago

I believe we just pretend to be busy. We think we have so many thinks to do but in reality we do not, it is all noise. The point is that to dedicate your time to important thing in your life and cut the rest of noise. 20/80 rule, just do 20, collect results and enjoy your life. Easy to say you think, but has to be done to enjoy life

robertk• 17 years ago

"Are we producing more in order to make more money for corporations? Or to make more money for ourselves? Or just to hold on to our jobs — jobs we might not like anyway?"

I'm studying to be able to contribute to the singularity, so that I can spend a much longer time relaxing than I ever could in this body.

Is that different?

c00p3r• 17 years ago

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/

electronslave• 17 years ago

Platitudes: Everything You Already Know (But Don't Care About) Is Reprinted and Schilled Annoyingly on Your News Source.

10ren• 17 years ago

There's much wisdom in this article, but one counter-point is that motivation often comes after you start. A related idea is that "inspiration strikes he who is at the typewriter" (a writer's saying).

But perhaps this counter-point is more appropriate for the chronically unproductive, rather than the chronically productive that article targets.

derefr• 17 years ago

GTD (or other-methodology-X) is a how, not a what; it's a framework that lets you accomplish whatever you like quickly. You must figure out what you should be doing before you can Get It Done. If you're feeling stressed, make taking a nap your Next Action.

Get Less Done: Stop Being Productive and Enjoy Yourself

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