Work Lamming

A paternalistic oasis for people who prefer to 'lam' instead of work; featuring expert advice on "failure management", if only to delude yourself you can get better. Here's a useful tip: you never will.

[adulting]

Non-Adulting Move of the Day

I spent last night in my neurotic positive feedback loop, which looks something like this:

As you can see, you can easily loop around in this for hours and hours. So now, I am late to the Old-West Shootout at the Albany Rifle and Pistol Club. Le sigh.

[skawi-cant-stop-procrastinating]

Just look at my user name. Look at it. Understand it. Understand it at much deeper level. Look again. Look at the flowchart. That applies, too.

[worklam]

In the US, 80% of girls have been on a diet by the time they’re 10 years old.

facepalm + tears + rage -> emotional numbness

[worklam]

Loser Hacks Round-up: Following the advice of an ex-boyfriend, via Eisenhower, and how to accept failure as a life-strategy

Ugh. I don't know who James Clear is. He seems like your typical body-builder cum entrepreneur cum lifestyle self-improvement guru. There are like literally thousands of these guys on the interwebs, spewing advice and making money out of publicizing their dedication to fixing themselves. I suppose Tim Ferris is the King of these lifestyle-hacking gurus (for now I'll save discussion of Ferris for when I need a doozer in the chamber) but he has spawned a whole legion of fanatics all packaged according to the Malcolm Gladwell/TED Talk/Start-up Valley hack-speak of our day. *Remember kids, it's not bullshit if you have stats*. 

The thing is, I can't help think there is something a little sad about these guys, and perhaps it's just because I can recognise too much of myself in them. There's always this vague whiff of delusion that surrounds their earnest efforts to change their behaviour - a wild glint of enthusiasm that produces a slight sheen on the toned edges of a well worked-out and ripped blog post that reminds me too much of the amazing high of a manic episode right before the bipolar slump back into hopelessness and despair. I spend some time pouring over their archive of articles and I think to myself: I know I could only sustain this much effort into changing myself if I actually quit my life and made it my 'job' to do so (hence, "entrepreneur").

Surely it's only a person well-acquainted with failure who could spend their lives devoted to such a task? Most of the A-type workaholic success stories that I know in real life are often far too busy being successful at what they want to do to spend any time at all blogging or thinking about how to be successful. Sure they may read an article or two every once in a while, and make some efforts to make their lives more productive, but the change is easy for them. They don't spend hours obsessing over it the way that I do. I do it because I'm desperate for any piece of advice promising that I could be less like me. Truly successful people simply commit to do something, then do it. And there's no rippling 5-week course needed for them to get used to the idea that developing Habits is a good thing. 

ANYWAY, what I have meant to do in this rather strung-out preamble is to effectively ask that you please not judge me for spreading the advice of lifestyle gurus, since the lifestyle guru must be some kind of expert in failure in order to consider that a life option in the first place, and failure is nothing but a way of learning from experience. As my high school woodwork teacher used to say in his heavy Transvaal accent: "FAIL spells FIRST ATTEMPT IN LEARNING" (and that was also my last woodworking class ever I might add).

So I don't really have great expectations when it comes to advice. But every once in a while, reading something can sometimes be motivating enough for me to get off the internet and actually do what I need to do. If it means recycling wisdoms that have been around since Australopithecus Aforensis realised that going off to hunt for a wife first thing in the morning instead of leaving it to the last minute makes more sense, then okay, guilty as charged. 

With that: Here is a roundup of various bits of lifestyle advice mined from the delusional group of 4-hour working-week gurus that have made their careers out of fighting against their natural inclination to recline forever on a couch eating pot noodles and watching reruns of CSI: Miami or So You Think You Can Pluk?  

I'll add to the list when I can, but consider this post, much like my flabby self-discipline, a work-in-progress. To begin with I'll include some of the stuff I found on James Clear's blog simply because it happened to be something I arbitrarily stumbled upon just now and such is the nature of our wanton generation that it's easier to blog about his advice than trying to actively remember it, Also, his advice about the Eisenhower box is something my ex-boyfriend once told me about and given that that relationship failed along with my implementation of that same piece of advice, I could only find its existence fitting here. 

Summary: This strategy uses fancy terminology like "decision-matrix" and it's also named after someone whose first name is Dwight so you know you're already winning right there.

Basically this all means dividing your tasks into four possibilities in order to delete and delegate things that you think you need to do but don't really: 

1) urgent and important (to do immediately)

2) important but not urgent (schedule to do later)

3) urgent but not important (delegate to someone else if possible)

4) neither urgent nor important (to be eliminated)

Explaining the terms:

"Urgent" is stuff you feel like you must respond to ASAP otherwise the very fabric of the universe will fall apart and you'll find yourself seated on a one-way ticket aboard Flight 815, crashing into one of TV's most disappointing series finales ever (cue LOST reference). So when a lecturer writes to you asking if you have dropped out of the course because you no longer show up or hand in essays, an email response on your side explaining your decrepitude would probably be an urgent as well as important task.  "Important" is for long-term goals. If you have any of those, well my condolences, because that usually includes proper work like doing research for a thesis so you can get a degree so you can get a job to pay off your debt, doing exercise so you don't get fat, writing your girlfriend/boyfriend a letter. Some of those things are important, but not necessarily urgent.

The bottom line of the Eisenhower Box is to force you to actually delete tasks from your task list. If things are not important but urgent, delegate. If they are neither urgent nor important, delete them. So yes, it's important to clear out your email inbox, but it is not actually urgent. It's an excuse to do fak all, so save those proto-productivity activities for your time-off.  

Of course the reality is that you often have an overwhelming list of tasks that are both urgent and important and no way of deciding how to handle the situation without compromising your sanity, and that's the real issue that no amount of optimisation hacks like deletion and delegation can ever solve. Because why else are you on the internet doing something as ridiculous as googling advice on how to do a "to-do" list? What are you, a mongoloid? At best the Eisenhower Box is helpful if you're the type of person who's just striking out for some last-minute damage control. If it makes you feel better to make a list like the one above, and it gets you working, then go for it. Ultimately this is just one of those mental de-cluttering techniques, and there's nothing wrong with some mental flossing. 

Read the full article at James Clear's blog here.

2: Three rules that make sticking to a habit really easy, apparently. 

Summary: This advice is pretty simple and it's in the spirit of setting the bar so low it makes success sound easy.

1: Select a habit you want to develop, but modify the habit to a really simple version of it so that it's impossible not to do and that it's also really easy in the beginning.

2: Then you increase the habit daily, but in an incredibly small way.

3:  Repeat the habit but so that all repetitions remain easy. 

Example:  Habit to develop: Reading. 

Day 1: Read for 1 minute (omg this is serious)

Day 2: Read for 2 minutes (wow, breaking a sweat. pace yourself!)

Day 3: Continue this pattern until you a reading for a period of time that satisfies you, or a period that you is too long to do at once. 

Read more at James Clear's blog. 

3: The Paradox of Choice: How limiting personal freedom is the greatest idea developed by a white guy in a coffee shop since Slavery: 

Here is one way to really fuck with free will. It's a program called "Freedom" developed by a kid in a coffee shop called Fred Stutzman and how it works is that if you are gearing up for a work session (or worklam) you turn on the app and input the amount of time you want to work on and then are prohibited to go online during that period unless you are willing to shut down and reboot your computer. 

Truth is, I'm the kind of person that will download this program and use it only once. Like a crack addict going cold turkey, all it will take is 5 minutes before I throw the towel in and am forced to reboot, banishing the program forever to live out the rest of its well-meaning days in my recycle bin. 

But the underlying principle behind the program is interesting because it goes back to the paradox of choice. Decision-making is draining on willpower, even if it's the same decision (like resisting the urge to check your Tinder app every 5 minutes). The same with starting a raw food diet and swearing off all protein unless it belongs to airborne microbes.

Apparently this problem is related to something called decision-fatigue, and it can fuck shit up even if you're not a criminal (a study on 1100 judicial rulings examined over a 10 month period revealed that judges decisions were more influenced by factors such as fatigue, no matter what the nature of the crime presented to them such that judgments made in the mornings were treated more favorably than ones made in the afternoon).

Some advice on dealing with decision fatigue includes 1) planning daily decisions the night before, 2) doing important stuff first, 3) stop making decisions and making more commitments, 4) eating something, refreshing or resting before making an important decision, 5) simplifying things so you aren't making decisions about unimportant things. 

Read more about the Freedom app and decision fatigue here and here at Clear's blog. Read the New York Times article about decision fatigue here.  

There's more to be said about the benefits of constraining freedoms. First there was that work done to show how brainstorming is actually bad for creating good ideas. If you create a canvas for a problem, a space with boundaries and parameters, you're going to end up with some interesting problem solving. Dr Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham was created as a result of a bet he took to write a story using only 50 words. 

Then there are two TED talks that come to mind on this topic (yes, I know, fucking TED Talks. But if you ever want to break up with someone in a creative way, it's always fun to do so via a TED Talk. Or Infographic. I can't remember where I got that piece of advice from). The first talk is by Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice. Say what you like, this was one of the better Ted Talks I have seen, not only because of its seeming pessimism and Larry David-style anecdote about shopping for jeans, but also because it takes a nice jab at our modern valorisation of freedom. Moreover his views chime with my own that having low expectations always results in greater happiness. At least that's the only reason I can think of to explain why the sex is so good. He's also written a book, so that's also more respectable than a mere TED Talk.  I also highly approve of his manner of dress. 

Then there's Dan GIlbert's video on why we make bad decisions, and of course in traditional TED style it involves a little story about an 18th century Swiss polymath called Bernoulli who comes up with a formula that I'm surprised never became a plot point on LOST. Giilbert's point is just that we are really bad at decision making and evaluating probability. It's a bit of a stretch to mention GIlbert in this conversation, but when I have the time I'll find a way to make it relevant (truth is I'm kind of getting bored of doing this post now). After all, adding him into the mix is a constraint which might lead to a more creative application of his insight when considered in this context. In the meantime, suffice it to say that the following image describes how a shitty ability to estimate probability against preferences can be a recipe for disaster:

[worklam]

Loser Hack: The 2-Minute Rule Sets the Bar Low So You Can't Fail

I was on Quora the other day, procrastinating no less, when I accidentally stumbled upon a little hack that sounds low-maintenance enough to be occasionally possible. It's called the 2-minute rule. It's appeal is that it makes a big achievement out of a tiny commitment - to commit to do a task for 2 minutes, or doing tasks that only take 2 minutes.

So if i have a 98 page reading to do and I aim to read for 2 minutes, I'll still consider the activity a success, even when I'm failing. And isn't that what winning's all about? 

Here it is:  

Most of the tasks that you procrastinate on aren’t actually difficult to do — you have the talent and skills to accomplish them — you just avoid starting them for one reason or another. The 2–Minute Rule overcomes procrastination and laziness by making it so easy to start taking action that you can’t say no. There are two parts to the 2–Minute Rule… Part 1 — If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now. Part I comes from David Allen’s bestselling book, Getting Things Done. It’s surprising how many things we put off that we could get done in two minutes or less. For example, washing your dishes immediately after your meal, tossing the laundry in the washing machine, taking out the garbage, cleaning up clutter, sending that email, and so on. If a task takes less than two minutes to complete, then follow the rule and do it right now. Part 2 — When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. Can all of your goals be accomplished in less than two minutes? Obviously not. But, every goal can be started in 2 minutes or less. And that’s the purpose behind this little rule. It might sound like this strategy is too basic for your grand life goals, but I beg to differ. It works for any goal because of one simple reason: the physics of real life. The Physics of Real Life As Sir Isaac Newton taught us a long time ago, objects at rest tend to stay at rest and objects in motion tend to stay in motion. This is just as true for humans as it is for falling apples. The 2–Minute Rule works for big goals as well as small goals because of the inertia of life. Once you start doing something, it’s easier to continue doing it. I love the 2–Minute Rule because it embraces the idea that all sorts of good things happen once you get started. Want to become a better writer? Just write one sentence (2–Minute Rule), and you’ll often find yourself writing for an hour. Want to make reading a habit? Just read the first page of a new book (2–Minute Rule), and before you know it, the first three chapters have flown by. The most important part of any new habit is getting started — not just the first time, but each time. It’s not about performance, it’s about consistently taking action. In many ways, getting started is more important than succeeding. This is especially true in the beginning because there will be plenty of time to improve your performance later on. Try It Now I can’t guarantee whether or not the 2–Minute Rule will work for you. But, I can guarantee that it will never work if you never try it. The problem with most articles you read, podcasts you listen to, or videos you watch is that you consume the information but never put it into practice. I want this article to be different. I want you to actually use this information, right now. What’s something you can do that will take you less than two minutes? Do it right now. Anyone can spare the next 120 seconds. Use this time to get one thing done. Go. If you want to do something, DO IT NOW!!

Source: Quora thread:Tips and Hacks for Everyday Life: What is something useful I can learn right now in 10 minutes that would be useful for the rest of my life? 

[akraticwolf]

He is the Dude. His rumpled look and relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep. 

[worklam]

This is pretty much the set up of any Work Lam session: A night spent in a pristine aisle of a supermarket or petrol station, milking the dairy section for traces of one's lost motivation, and later, pouring over that late deadline with a White Russian in hand. Amen.   

[worklam]

I think this is what they call enabling? 

[worklam]

Some advice for productivity and generally optimizing your life. You're probably more likely to be able to work efficiently if you feel the rest of your life is a well-oiled machine, otherwise how the fuck are you meant to be do anything productive with your day if you can't even figure out an established routine to get out of bed in the morning. You worthless piece of shit.  Try these lifehacks on for size:  Get out the house in time: 

"Make your playlist exactly as long as you have to get ready in the morning. Go from chill songs to more energetic. You will be able to tell how you are doing on time by the currently playing song. "

This hack also involves a bit of gamification, in that you can 'race' against yourself to best the time of your playlist. See how quickly you can shove that boiled egg down your throat while you sit on the toilet playing with your ipad, responding to emails, finding out what latest dick move Putin is doing in The Economist app.

Make sure you get your flashdisk back if lost: 

Put an "identification.txt" file in your flash driver. Include all relevant contact info so you can get it back if you lost it.  Buy more time for a late paper if you are lax on ethics: 

"Grab a jpg, mp3, or some other media file and rename if 'My Awesome Essay.doc' and send to professor. The 'paper' will look 'corrupt' and it'll but you a day or two more". Finding sources for your thesis/paper if you have no idea where to begin: 

"I you are charged with writing a lengthy research paper, find one very solid source that directly pertains to your thesis, and then you can use that source's bibliography to back into locating new sources. Alternatively use the bibliography of a Wikipedia entry". 

*Sorry I don't know the source of this information. I got some of these tips from one of those huge scrollable images with like 5000 'tips' written on them. I left off 'how to peel a banana' for the sake of brevity, and my sanity. 

[worklam]

Another fantastic win for productivity! 

[worklam]

5 Incredibly Effective Ways to Work Smarter, Not Harder

"incredible" and "effective". apparently. 

Let's see how much there is to this so-called expert 'advice'.