Belly Button Lint

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Tag: productivity

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    Remote Work: Deleting the third Place

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    1–2 minutes

    The problem with remote work is that it gives us what we want but fails to give us what we need.

    Most people understandably say they want to be away from pestering oversight and politics, be more productive with less hassle, and be allowed some personal indulgences.

    Yet, in collapsing the workplace into the home, we tend to delete the excuse for the “third place,” that social space of regularity between work and home. This additional location provided a social camaraderie without necessity or responsibility. It offered the comfort and novelty missing from work and home, which we didn’t know we needed.

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    Workplace idiocy

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    1–2 minutes

    In the workplace, the common-sense logic of working hard, not taking any vacation days, and not complaining about anything does not get you promoted.

    Instead, consider that you must be just polarizing enough to be noticed (and possibly disliked) by some leaders in order to be championed by one leader. Once this Executive goes to bat for you (defends you), they must not back down in the competitive arena of high-power egos. The champion must then fight for your promotion to further validate his/her stance.

    Fighting for a stable, hyper-productive wallflower is seldom heard of.

    Your best bet is to be a hard-driving idiot: look like you are passionately working hard, saying “yes” to everything, and hurting yourself. Solve problems that don’t exist. Get others to help your silly crusades. This creates a much better emotional spectacle than methodical, logical progress, with the bonus of involving others which looks like leadership.

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    Politics Eating Your Productive Time

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    1–2 minutes

    In the office,, social time is more productive than producing.

    Consider that as you build loyalty and practice likeability, you will not only get into less trouble for being non-productive as you “form” ad-hoc committees for “feedback”, but the most likely way to elevate your career is moving into management, not being more efficient, timely, or productive. Look at your current management.

    Equally sardonically, if you want to achieve anything in life, quit paying attention to politics outside the office, as they occupy your free time and can get you into trouble at work.

    On a deeper level, political engagement accelerates into crisises that replicate and consume humans. Not to advocate for disenfranchisement, but prioritize something that can benefit you longterm, a produtive life, instead of allowing the politics of the moment as a placebo for living.

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    Beyond Capitalism: Post-Materialistic Order

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    1–2 minutes

    Capitalism was initially revolutionary. It broke ideological and feudal barriers, uniting people through mutual self-interest, yet also perpetuated the disposability of humans, similar to feudalism and religion.

    This system -equally stabilizing and disruptive- reshaped social dynamics but hinged on efficiency, materialism, and unending growth.

    As we consider post-capitalist revolutions, we may ask: is capitalism a transitional phase that has lasted too long? A new revolution, not into Marxist communal notions of governance, but a period where society learns to transcend the human-breaking thrill of efficiency and eternal expansion.

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    Pride in lethargy

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    1–2 minutes

    In today’s world, we are surrounded by the attention economy and the optimization movement that demands our attention every waking moment.

    However, there is a growing trend towards “disciplined disengagement,” which involves actively disengaging from these demands to maintain our mental health.

    This is not laziness or lethargy though it appears so, but a conscious effort to find a healthy balance between productivity and non-productivity. Yet this trend and prioritizing our mental well-being over the societal pressure to be constantly productive is itself another optimization to normalization and hyper-production: balance now for intense anxiety later.

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    You changed: time displacement

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    1–2 minutes

    One day you will get hurtful news that would have infuriated you a year ago.

    Today, you shrug it off.

    Your old priorities have been displaced over time. You can intentionally speed it up or hold on tightly, but physics will win.

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    Achieving is not the achievement

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    1–2 minutes

    Much of our fear (that produces laziness and impatience) derives from results orientation.

    Rather than focus on the “quality of doing,” which will generate its results over time, we fixate on an endpoint that must be measured, prompting not only anxiety over failure or success but also requiring you to pick another point afterward.

    Focusing on the quality of the process and steadily doing the work is achieved with the achievements bestowed as an afterthought.

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    Repeat daily snags

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    1–2 minutes

    I don’t change my behavior; I keep wondering why the world isn’t working the way my perfect routine is mapped out.

    I keep hitting the same snags and think I am having a bad day.

    But I’m not thinking: I am not attending to reality, and it is confronting me in more and more painful ways.

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    Attention (is you)

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    1–2 minutes

    What you pay attention to matters. It is in the end, who you will become.

    Participating in petty politics or inflating mundane worries at work shapes you. Similarly, ignoring your friends isolates you. Where your attention is (or is not) is who you are right now, but it also shapes you.

    Once you know who you want to be when you die (a person at peace, without regrets) any other behavior compromises your goals: keep your focus.

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    just don’t be stupid

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    1–2 minutes

    Charlie Munger offers some great advice: you don’t have to be brilliant or clever or intelligent to get ahead long-term, just try not to mess up.

    Don’t swing for the fence and miss, get base hits every day.

    In this case, ego-driven badassery is bombastic stupidity, which guarantees failure.

    Be nice, be basic: stupidity comes from overdoing it.