The Work Life and Productivity thread

[yaxomoxay]

I thought it would be useful to have a single thread with conversations about the work life and productivity in which we can share interesting articles, books, testimonies, and just help each other out. This thread is not meant as a "my employer is evil, I hate my job" venting thread.

I'll start with an interesting article:

The New Yorker - "Why do we work too much", by Cal Newport

extract:
"turning to a satirical essay published in The Economist in 1955 by a British naval historian with the almost comically patrician name of Cyril Northcote Parkinson. This essay, which has become an underground classic among those who study work and productivity, is titled “Parkinson’s Law,” and it opens with a famous pronouncement: “It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Parkinson supports this claim by discussing the growth of the British Admiralty between 1914 and 1928. During this postwar period, the number of capital ships and the sailors who manned them significantly decreased. What caught Parkinson’s attention was how, during this same period, the naval administrative bureaucracy significantly increased. Parkinson argues that this administrative apparatus, in the absence of strict directives about what work it should accomplish, became an independent, self-regulating system that began to grow for the sake of growing, unrelated to the actual organizational demands it served."

 

[mikzn]

One of the Books that made a big impact on my thinking was Richard Kock's books -1)The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less, and 2) The 80 / 20 Individual

Both Books are based on the Pareto Principle

Quote
"How Does the Pareto Principle Work?

The Pareto Principle is a concept that suggests two out of ten items, on any general to-do list, will turn out to be worth more than the other eight items put together.

The sad fact is that most people procrastinate on the top 10 or 20 percent of items that are the most valuable and important, the “vital few,” and busy themselves instead with the least important 80 percent, the “trivial many,” that contribute very little to their success."
/Quote

I have always been intrigued by this concept and found is amazingly accurate for things like
1) inventory - 20% of inventory items often reflect 80% of sales of stocked items
2) customers - 20% of active Customers often reflect 80 percent of sales
3) Socks - 20% of socks in your sock drawer are the ones worn 80% of the time

at the very least Kock's book is a very interesting read

 

[Aggedor]

Great thread!

I'm dubious of most self-help or professional/personal development books (and people, actually - I had some "gurus" recommended to me, and while they've written lots of books and have big YouTube channels, I checked one out and his latest episode was a big (and slightly stoned) discussion of BitCoin), but one I love is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

His concept is that tiny incremental changes result in huge results over a LONG period of time. For example, if a plane takes off on a trans-Atlantic flight, but you vary the route by a tiny degree at the start, the destination will end up being completely different.

A similar concept is the "compound interest of consistency" - that is, we overestimate our ability to produce immediate, fast results, and underestimate our ability to produce huge, long-term results. This is from The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. I haven't read this yet, but my copy is due to arrive tomorrow.

My own personal goal is to aim for "atomic" consistency - a little effort, every day, with small, incremental improvement. Over time, this will produce huge results and will avoid the danger of burnout and guilt.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Great thread!

I'm dubious of most self-help or professional/personal development books (and people, actually - I had some "gurus" recommended to me, and while they've written lots of books and have big YouTube channels, I checked one out and his latest episode was a big (and slightly stoned) discussion of BitCoin), but one I love is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

His concept is that tiny incremental changes result in huge results over a LONG period of time. For example, if a plane takes off on a trans-Atlantic flight, but you vary the route by a tiny degree at the start, the destination will end up being completely different.

A similar concept is the "compound interest of consistency" - that is, we overestimate our ability to produce immediate, fast results, and underestimate our ability to produce huge, long-term results. This is from The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. I haven't read this yet, but my copy is due to arrive tomorrow.

My own personal goal is to aim for "atomic" consistency - a little effort, every day, with small, incremental improvement. Over time, this will produce huge results and will avoid the danger of burnout and guilt.

"Atomic Habit" is a great read, and he's completely right. His idea is very easy to implement and it will lead to great results. I used it myself in my fitness journey. First just go to the gym, even for five minutes. Then try to improve on it a tiny bit, and so on. Whenever I track my weight lifting routine, I always try to increment the total volume for each exercise by 1%. Doing so truly leads to amazing results (as I always want to do the "extra" rep).

Let me know how the Compound Effect is; if it's halfway decent I will get it.

About the world of self-help or productivity in general, yes there is lots of fluff. However, I believe that many books offer some insight that is useful, even if it's something that should be common sense. Sometimes we need to see things reframed in a certain, actionable way, or sometimes we just need to hear the concept repeated to us.

 

[yaxomoxay]

One of the Books that made a big impact on my thinking was Richard Kock's books -1)The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less, and 2) The 80 / 20 Individual

Both Books are based on the Pareto Principle

Quote
"How Does the Pareto Principle Work?

The Pareto Principle is a concept that suggests two out of ten items, on any general to-do list, will turn out to be worth more than the other eight items put together.

The sad fact is that most people procrastinate on the top 10 or 20 percent of items that are the most valuable and important, the “vital few,” and busy themselves instead with the least important 80 percent, the “trivial many,” that contribute very little to their success."
/Quote

I have always been intrigued by this concept and found is amazingly accurate for things like
1) inventory - 20% of inventory items often reflect 80% of sales of stocked items
2) customers - 20% of active Customers often reflect 80 percent of sales
3) Socks - 20% of socks in your sock drawer are the ones worn 80% of the time

at the very least Kock's book is a very interesting read

Yes, the Pareto Principle applies basically to everything. It's a very important concept to evaluate everything (including some sort of jealousy). I am intrigued by the books you mentioned, I think I'll get them. Which one should I read first?

 

[mikzn]

Yes, the Pareto Principle applies basically to everything. It's a very important concept to evaluate everything (including some sort of jealousy). I am intrigued by the books you mentioned, I think I'll get them. Which one should I read first?

Both are great - IMHO - I would start with the one I linked above - The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less - It is the first one, and is a general approach, and it impressed me to continue on to the second book

The second book "The 80/20 individual" builds on the first book and is more about how it applies to individual aspects and priorities

 

[A.Goldberg]

Yes, the Pareto Principle applies basically to everything. It's a very important concept to evaluate everything (including some sort of jealousy). I am intrigued by the books you mentioned, I think I'll get them. Which one should I read first?

In the world of psychiatric medicine, this is definitely true. 20% of your patients consume 80% of your time, energy, effort, etc. In fact it might be closer to 10/90.

I have not found however I wear 20% of my socks 80% of the time. I guess I have a good rotation going.

 

[KaliYoni]

I've been influenced and use principles from these books just about every day:

• Fooled by Randomness (Taleb). Luck, not skill, often causes outcomes.
• Thinking Fast and Slow (Kahneman). Forget Malcolm Gladwell.
• Getting to Yes (Fisher, Ury, Patton). Forget The Art of the Deal.
• Noise (Kahneman, Sibony, Sunstein). Best to ask for that raise BEFORE lunch!
• Why People Believe Weird Things (Shermer). More relevant than ever in this age of social media, conspiracy theories, and COVID-19.

 

[Aggedor]

Both are great - IMHO - I would start with the one I linked above - The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less - It is the first one, and is a general approach, and it impressed me to continue on to the second book

The second book "The 80/20 individual" builds on the first book and is more about how it applies to individual aspects and priorities


View attachment 1826475

I must check those out!

 

[yaxomoxay]

I mentioned it already in other threads, these are the two books that affected me the most:

• Deep Work by Cal Newport
• So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport.

I apply their concepts every single day of my life. Also, "Digital Minimalism" by the same author is pretty good.

I highly recommend his TED talks, especially the one "Follow your passion is bad advice".

 

[Aggedor]

I mentioned it already in other threads, these are the two books that affected me the most:

• Deep Work by Cal Newport
• So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport.

I apply their concepts every single day of my life. Also, "Digital Minimalism" by the same author is pretty good.

I highly recommend his TED talks, especially the one "Follow your passion is bad advice".

I'm in two minds about Cal Newport. Yes, he's smart (an understatement!), and yes, he offers some very interesting concepts to consider.

But, as he says himself, he's not, and never was, the kind of person he talks about - he isn't on social media, he was never addicted to Twitter, or emails, or whatever. He advocates for digital minimalism without any actual experience on the other side of the coin. So I kinda have to take his view as a little extreme, in a way. I don't feel he quite understands the digital world, simply because he doesn't experience it.

Having said that, I do find his books interesting (I listened to Deep Work as an audiobook), but... I dunno, there's something about his position that doesn't quite ring true.

 

[yaxomoxay]

I'm in two minds about Cal Newport. Yes, he's smart (an understatement!), and yes, he offers some very interesting concepts to consider.

But, as he says himself, he's not, and never was, the kind of person he talks about - he isn't on social media, he was never addicted to Twitter, or emails, or whatever. He advocates for digital minimalism without any actual experience on the other side of the coin. So I kinda have to take his view as a little extreme, in a way. I don't feel he quite understands the digital world, simply because he doesn't experience it.

Having said that, I do find his books interesting (I listened to Deep Work as an audiobook), but... I dunno, there's something about his position that doesn't quite ring true.

True. As for digital minimalism, he kind of revised his all-or-nothing position to "use social media in a professional way", that is schedule your social media presence, what you do, when, how etc. instead of just going for the mindful scrolling and - worse - for the perpetual useless debates. In other words, he now recognizes that some benefits can come out of social media and that the problem lies more on the uncontrolled use of it. For example, he now encourages visual artists to actually use Instagram, but he strongly recommends to limit the time and effort dedicated to them, and he recommends to be very selective in which IG account to follow.
He admits he uses twitter sometimes to check on baseball stuff. Like with any author, nothing should be taken to the letter and to the extreme.

 

[Aggedor]

True. As for digital minimalism, he kind of revised his all-or-nothing position to "use social media in a professional way", that is schedule your social media presence, what you do, when, how etc. instead of just going for the mindful scrolling and - worse - for the perpetual useless debates. In other words, he now recognizes that some benefits can come out of social media and that the problem lies more on the uncontrolled use of it. For example, he now encourages visual artists to actually use Instagram, but he strongly recommends to limit the time and effort dedicated to them, and he recommends to be very selective in which IG account to follow.
He admits he uses twitter sometimes to check on baseball stuff. Like with any author, nothing should be taken to the letter and to the extreme.

Ah, that's interesting! He's certainly softened his approach.

But yeah... it's not all or nothing. Social media is both terrible and useful. I'm an author myself, so I absolutely have to use it (Twitter and Instagram mostly), but I've really put limits on my time there.

So yeah, like he says, it's about management. Social media is a tool, and if you have a tool, it's stupid not to use it. Just... carefully and professionally!

 

[Aggedor]

I read The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy in a day - good book, very readable. It's also very simple, and really only the first half of the book discusses the compound effect. It ties in very well with Atomic Habits - small changes made CONSISTENTLY will give great results over a long period of time. It's the emphasis on consistency that makes this book interesting, with these tiny, almost invisible improvements each day being the compound interest that will give you exceptional results in the long run.

I think those two books make a good pairing, and it's good to see one agreeing with the other, so it makes you feel that the logic is pretty solid, given that two people came up with very similar concepts.

The second half of the book is more generic personal development - you too can be awesome by... being awesome! But I've subbed to his daily newsletter, so we'll see how it goes. I think the core concept is solid - be consistent, even in tiny ways, and it all adds up to positive change.