[HN Gopher] I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me produc...
___________________________________________________________________
I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a
month
Author : sberens
Score : 168 points
Date : 2023-02-04 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (simonberens.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (simonberens.me)
| steele wrote:
| Before I clicked I had expected a satirical humor piece about
| helicopter management and interruption work culture. What a sad
| realization as I read through it... that it was both serious, and
| somehow worse than what I expected this to lampoon at the same
| time.
| [deleted]
| praxulus wrote:
| My wife is my productivity assistant. It works great.
|
| Since COVID started we've had our desks next to each other, and
| even though she's not constantly checking on me, I know she can
| see if I'm just wasting time. On days where she's not working, or
| if one of us moves to another room to take a call, my
| productivity falls off a cliff.
| usefulcat wrote:
| > I have an endlessly growing list of projects I want to make,
| books I want to read, and skills I want to learn, so productivity
| means a lot to me!
|
| If it really meant a lot, it wouldn't be a challenge to actually
| do it. It sounds like the real problem is a lack of interest in
| the particular books, skills, etc.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| TikTok will always release more dopamine than doing basically
| anything else I can do. That doesn't mean I'm uninterested in
| doing other things, it just means tiktok has succeeded in
| optimizing content that immediately releases dopamine.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I think there's something to that. It could be that there's no
| _immediate_ interest, i.e. everything is tantalizing but
| roughly equally so, so they cancel each other out and all
| simply exist as vague desires rather than actual goals.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| This sounds like a complex way of maintaining an identity as
| interested in things that are not actually interesting.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Not sufficiently interesting, at least.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| I somewhat identify with this. I have dozens of things I want
| to do and if I get started on something, I can happily work on
| it until 2-3 in the morning, even though I usually go to bed at
| 11. It's the getting started on something that takes so much
| effort.
| jmckib wrote:
| I have the same problem. For me what helps is having a
| schedule, you do your thing at a certain time automatically
| every day, which seems to lower the activation energy. For
| one-off tasks it helps to set myself a reminder that I intend
| to do whatever it is at a certain time.
|
| But I still struggle with this for sure. I could always use
| more advice myself.
| [deleted]
| anonymous344 wrote:
| This must be lies and made up story. i mean the guy is not even
| making real work
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I'm actually seriously thinking about a similar service:
| Basically I pick an online course (say Berkely 61B 18spring) and
| a deadline (say 90 days), and I need to hire someone to _make_ me
| study. It is not that I do not have the intellect to complete
| them, the thing is once I get bored I give up. Maybe I 'm not
| that interested but I still need to complete it.
|
| Probably can't do that right now as my toddler wakes a few times
| every night so the whole family is barely dragging. I'll probably
| wait until he reaches 5/6 and more independent.
| Nihilartikel wrote:
| Ah, to be young...
| darcys22 wrote:
| I think the traditional way of doing this is just to make a team
| you work with.
|
| Working solo with a fake "manager" is probably less productive
| then hiring a team member and sitting in the same room while they
| work for you
| dasil003 wrote:
| The obliviousness to the human element and power dynamics here is
| shocking. It would be one thing for an eccentric billionaire to
| do something like this; it would feel sort of par for the course
| and understandable that they don't really have to answer to
| anyone there's no downside in letting it all hang out. But a
| 21-year-old Meta engineer with big ambitions? It's sort of mind-
| boggling.
| wuiheerfoj wrote:
| I'm sure the assistants were happy to earn some easy, casual
| money - far more demeaning or difficult jobs pay a lot worse.
|
| One assistant expressed interest in the experiment and honestly
| I'd have been open to helping a friend do this for science
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| You spent this entire comment shutting down self reflection.
| Bit weird.
| popotamonga wrote:
| I already have people in slack asking hows it going or is it done
| yet the whole time. incentive enough
| waynesonfire wrote:
| And standups
| [deleted]
| chris222 wrote:
| One word comes to mind: cringe.
|
| Please go live on a farm or something and do real work.
| trenning wrote:
| This reads like a Mike Judge pitch. And some of the comments in
| here read like this guys burner accounts trying to make it sound
| like any part of this made sense. I really hope it's all real
| because it makes the comedy of it all so much better.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| This is fascinating, bravo for trying different things and
| sharing about it! Now I'm wondering if there can be a human or AI
| that can sit on calls for me so I can be working during the
| meetings where I'm just there in case higher ups have a question.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I tend to do the dishes and laundry on those kinds of calls.
| nivenkos wrote:
| Alternate title: Wealthy gringo discovers domestic servants.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Also reads a bit like American Psycho 2.0 (or 3.0 NFT edition)
| thrownaway89865 wrote:
| >Also reads a bit like American Psycho
|
| My thoughts exactly.
|
| I read this part using Patrick Bateman's voice in my head:
|
| >"The rest of the experiment continued in a similar fashion
| (albeit less hectic), with me doing yoga and working out in
| the morning, working my job, working on my company, reading
| books, doing my UI/UX course, writing blog posts, working on
| some side projects, all interspersed with ping pong and
| breakdancing classes."
| Keyframe wrote:
| Exactly. Blog posts (wtf is that all about, writing blog
| posts as a task/job?) and reading reactions on HN reminds
| me of business card scenario.
| DaviNunes wrote:
| This reminds me of "This Guy Hired Someone To Slap Him In The
| Face Every Time He Got On Facebook"
| https://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-hired-someone-to-sl...
| strgrd wrote:
| This comment reminds me of reddit, where people feel like
| reading a headline warrants a comment without actually reading
| the article
| khazhoux wrote:
| Why do you think he didn't read the article? There is clearly
| a strong similarity between the OP and the article he posted.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| (for context, in the article you could read, the story linked
| above, was the inspiration for this experiment)
| throw14082020 wrote:
| I really enjoyed this article because it was funny. The critical
| comments make it even funnier. Thanks for writing, sberens!
|
| Now I wonder if I should get an assistant too: come in at 11AM
| for 2 hours: make lunch, do some cleaning and perhaps some
| tedious phone calls every day. And maybe a mini stand up.
| wakefulsales wrote:
| [flagged]
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| What?
| birdyrooster wrote:
| People in general don't do that much research on candidates or
| friends. OP will be fine, also you are the only one making this
| about romance. What are you basing this on? For being so
| concerned for OP you seem to want to drag them a bit more than
| I would anticipate.
| protoman3000 wrote:
| I'm startled about what to say.
|
| Did you try Buddhism?
| fencepost wrote:
| So hiring someone to be around you and enforce productivity -
| kind of like hiring a personal trainer and working out while they
| watch.
|
| I'm pretty positive a lot of the folks around me in a late-night
| Starbucks in the Before Times (always packed but now closed, no
| drive-through) were doing exactly the same thing. There were a
| bunch of regulars working on side projects, they all knew each
| other, and if someone was screwing around they'd probably get a
| question "How's the project going?"
|
| Second, you could probably do this for less by arranging a "study
| buddies" setup with college, grad or medical students but you'd
| also have to commit to keeping them productive as well.
| busyant wrote:
| Universal Summarizer was making the rounds on HN recently
| (https://labs.kagi.com/ai/sum) and when I clicked on the link
| here (I hired 5 people), I decided I didn't want to read so much
| text.
|
| So, in keeping with Simon Berens' theme of increasing
| productivity (or at the very least, increasing the throughput of
| my procrastination), here is a summary:
|
| https://labs.kagi.com/ai/sum?url=https://simonberens.me/blog...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| It's missing all the weirdness of the original.
| jnwatson wrote:
| That's a fantastic summary.
| suddenclarity wrote:
| Somehow this is a decent example to highlight the weaknesses of
| summaries. For example, all context about the challenges, the
| missing assistant and how he massaged the data is excluded. It
| sort of says the same thing but still misses everything.
| Kibae wrote:
| One thing I've done to increase my productivity after reading a
| comment from a Hacker News post [1] is recording my work sessions
| on OBS.
|
| The benefits for me are two-fold.
|
| 1) It keeps me accountable while working and
|
| 2) I could rewatch my work sessions and recall my thought process
| from a future me perspective.
|
| It's amazing how much you forget about a day, but by watching the
| recordings after the fact, you recall the micro lessons you
| learned during your work sessions and you have the opportunity to
| encode these lessons into your long-term memory.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32215277#32215958
| megablast wrote:
| OBS - why do people use acronyms that most people have no idea
| about?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Benjamin_Dobell wrote:
| Because that's the name of the software. Google will return
| it as the first result. It is technically an acronym, Open
| Broadcast Software, but all the marketing material refers to
| it as OBS.
| [deleted]
| lbotos wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBS_Studio
|
| Released in 2012, pretty popular software.
| LogicWolfe wrote:
| I had to look it up too. In this case it's Open Broadcaster
| Software, but they seem to treat OBS more as a name than an
| acronym so the usage seems appropriate.
| https://obsproject.com/
| jzb wrote:
| I often feel the same, but I think OBS is the name here: OBS
| may be Open Broadcasting Studio, or Broadcaster Software, but
| it seems to mostly go by and be referred to as OBS...
| twosdayz wrote:
| Because that's the name of the software?
|
| https://obsproject.com/
| joaogui1 wrote:
| It's how the software is known really (I think lots of
| people, including myself, don't recall the original meaning)
| [deleted]
| tomdekan wrote:
| The amount of negativity on this post is bizarre. If you don't
| like something informative that someone has tried and written
| about, why bother complaining about it?
|
| In contrast, I enjoyed the post and found it useful.
| strgrd wrote:
| This is unhinged
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| He says it tripled his productivity, then later says he got an
| extra 57 hours of work done for the month...
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm quite surpised how many people here are strongly shocked by
| what for me looks just like self-organized ghetto co-working plus
| a bit of domestic service. There's also obsession with
| productivity but I think many of us have been there at some
| point. I don't think there's anything wrong with that guy, the
| whole thing is framed as an experiment and I don't think it
| brought any harm to anybody.
|
| Btw ... Is 'ghetto' racist? What would be a better word insted?
| tryauuum wrote:
| I'm also shocked by the amount of people shocked. Guy chose the
| most straightforward action for his goals, good for him
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I could've sworn I read a similar article to this years ago,
| except it was only one person hired to keep the author on track.
|
| This one!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661940
| gms7777 wrote:
| The not-completely-bonkers version of this is called "body
| doubling". Especially for people with ADHD and other executive
| function disorders, just being in someone else's presence can be
| hugely beneficial for productivity. There are several body
| doubling apps out there that virtually pair you with people while
| you're working.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Working Discord channels have worked well for me. When you
| share your screen and you are in a room with other people
| working it adds some level of motivation.
| [deleted]
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > When I woke up, I put the finishing touches on a blog post I
| had started earlier in the week and published it. It hit the #1
| spot on Hacker News; I couldn't stop myself from constantly
| refreshing the post as it got more upvotes while chuckling at the
| classic Hacker News hate comments. I only escaped the Skinner box
| when Sophia came in and I explicitly told her I wasn't to be
| allowed on Hacker News.
|
| Ah, the feeling! Nothing like it.
| hownottowrite wrote:
| I'm not sure what's more shameful: the fact that this might have
| happened or that it is on the front page of HN.
| [deleted]
| birdyrooster wrote:
| We have morbid variety of intrigue
| siva7 wrote:
| Whenever the writers for "Silicon Valley" seek inspiration, i'm
| sure they're filling entire seasons straight from HN
| SunghoYahng wrote:
| What a great idea. I've been grappling with low productivity for
| 20 years, trying various solutions without success. I would love
| to emulate your approach, but don't have the means at present.
| Regardless, I'm eager to observe the outcome of your experiment,
| with hopes of replicating it in the future. Don't pay attention
| to detractors, as tackling productivity is a critical concern and
| worthy of pursuing with determination. Individuals who don't
| support or comprehend your experiment likely lack the same
| productivity challenges or are just mediocre.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| I think the people who don't support his experiment can
| probably justify their reasons for themselves without you
| insulting them.
| SunghoYahng wrote:
| Dear urbandw311er,
|
| I apologize if my words were perceived as insulting. That was
| not my intention. I believe in open and honest communication,
| and my goal was to express my thoughts and opinions on the
| subject at hand. I understand that everyone has different
| perspectives and experiences, and I respect your view on this
| matter.
|
| In regards to the experiment, my enthusiasm stems from my
| long-standing struggles with productivity and a desire to
| improve. My hope is to learn from and potentially replicate
| successful methods, rather than to discredit or demean
| others.
|
| I appreciate your feedback and concern, and I will take it
| into consideration moving forward.
|
| Best regards, SunghoYahng
| joxel wrote:
| Dude you literally called people who disagree mediocre and
| respond to people saying you're a dick with an email like
| reply. Do you think you're a good person?
| zht wrote:
| You're responding to a chatgpt comment
| trh0awayman wrote:
| This and things like FocusMate seem symptomatic of much larger,
| more serious latent problems. It reminds of the younger
| generations having to put YouTube on to eat a meal. I can't quite
| put my finger on the connection, but paying a person sit behind
| you and ask how you're doing, and make you a smoothie... it feels
| like you're hiring someone to be your mother. This entire
| experiment left me feeling unclean.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| And how about his completely unexamined panic over his mother-
| for-hire watching porn. It is assumed that this is awful and
| terrible and horrible, and not another word of ink is spent
| examining what horrified OP so much about it.
|
| And the insistent coincidence that he only hired women.
| CPLX wrote:
| I'm not sure it's that deep.
|
| Can you imagine a way to hire a personal assistant of the
| opposite sex and catch them watching porn (or claiming to)
| and not have it be awkward?
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| The loss of "public life" in NA is a fairly well documented
| phenomenon. Putnam's _Bowling Alone_ was a famous warning shot
| that we never quite reacted to. For a whole host of reasons,
| many people nowadays, and especially many young people, are
| lonely in a way and scale that is hard to imagine 50 or 60
| years ago.
|
| Btw this doesn't just include young people. People needing
| youtube on to eat is just another variation on needing the TV
| on. I know and have read about some elderly people that keep
| the weather channel or 24hr news on all day out of sheer
| loneliness. Across the board people are just lonely in numbers
| that lead it could be called an epidemic by many health and
| mental health organizations.
|
| This experiment left me feeling unclean for a different reason:
| this person essentially just hired a retinue of servants.
| drivers99 wrote:
| > ADHD body doubling is a productivity strategy used by
| individuals with ADHD to finish possibly annoying jobs while
| having another person beside them. This person is the body
| double. The body double's duty is to keep the individual with
| ADHD focused on the task at hand to reduce potential
| distractions.
|
| -- add.org google extract
|
| Sounds like a legitimate strategy.
| mtgentry wrote:
| My thought as well. People with ADHD will appreciate the
| experiment. Productivity tools may help some people, but
| there's something about having people in the room that
| greatly amplifies productivity for me.
| nvarsj wrote:
| This has got to be satire, right?
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Chop wood. Carry water.
|
| Just do the work, or don't.
|
| This is some bullshit.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| This isn't really helpful. I have ADHD and it's been a major
| limiting factor in my life. I have things I want or need to do
| and I'll easily spend 3-4x as long as the tasks actually end up
| taking just trying to do them.
|
| Unless my brain happens to be "in the mood for work", the only
| way I can get things done is by being in a structured "you must
| do X now" kind of environment. Doubly so since shifting gears
| from something you are focused on to something new is
| essentially impossible.
|
| It is shitty and stressful being forced to run 100% towards
| artificially imposed deadlines that I'm always just barely late
| for but unless I do that, I will never make progress regardless
| of how much I actually want to do the work. And this really
| hurts me for burnout as I constantly feel like a failure for
| not meeting deadlines that I knowingly set to be nearly
| impossible. So I'm stuck in a balance between not being able to
| do work because I'm not running against an impossible clock or
| feeling like a failure for not beating said impossible clock.
|
| Even worse is the reality that if I start to recognise that the
| constraints I've placed are artificial or have consequences I
| control, any help they provide falls apart. So it's a constant
| struggle to find new, increasingly ratcheted constraints for
| myself so I can continue to do the things I enjoy or even basic
| day to day personal or work related tasks.
|
| Because of this, I 100% get the author. I couldn't see myself
| doing what they did but the thought process makes complete
| sense to me. I'm practically doing the same thing but using
| friends, coworkers, or technology to do it, even if they aren't
| necessarily in the same room as me.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| There's something to be said that manual labor is probably less
| anxiety-inducing or at least less easy to shirk than abstract
| work.
| nickjj wrote:
| I think in a lot of cases the manual labor is extremely
| ironed out - Pick up shovel - Move
| dirt from pile A to pile B
|
| There's not much else to think about, you do it and you know
| you're doing the right thing so there's no opportunities to
| second guess yourself into not doing it.
|
| Compare that to a vague action of "build xyz app". There's a
| million things to think about and you can easily talk
| yourself out of it because maybe you're doing what you think
| is the wrong thing (note: the "what you think" is a really
| important phrase here).
|
| But if you break that down to "open up code editor" and
| "design user registration page" that at least starts to get
| less vague. Eventually you get into precise actionable tasks
| like "create user model with an email, password and username"
| which you can start progressing on without much distraction.
| k__ wrote:
| I love procrastinate my "abstract work" with "manual labour".
|
| Somehow it's more obvious that it will yield results (at all)
| and soon.
| tronicdude wrote:
| Based king
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Absolutely. He identified a problem and figure out solution.
| The True Hacker among us. How can us, mere mortals, even come
| close to such unorthodox out of the box thinking?
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| Of course the writer lists Effective Altruism as an interest.
| Could save lives with malaria vaccines but instead spends $5k of
| hiring babysitters.
| mjfisher wrote:
| This is a really interesting experiment, and the author did a
| great job of breaking it down and quantifying it.
|
| I do wonder how much a measure of "productive time vs
| unproductive time" corresponds to actual outcomes though; it's
| very different than knowing you've spent that time on the right
| things.
| sberens wrote:
| I agree I don't know if I spent time on the _best_ thing, but
| in general I think the things I classified as productive
| (writing, coding, fitness, etc...) are much better than the
| unproductive things (social media, youtube, hn, etc...).
| germanNitro wrote:
| haha amazing there's gotta be an easier way to say productive
| sberens wrote:
| In terms of productivity per dollar probably, but in terms of
| absolute productivity I doubt it.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Maybe delegating to them instead of paying them to watch you.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Depends if you're optimising society or optimising an
| individual.
| tyfighter wrote:
| This is much more mental illness than productivity.
| tiagod wrote:
| Well fuck. This is definitely the weirdest thing I've read this
| year. I doubt something will dethrone it before the end of the
| year.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| I miss updates on n-gate.com
|
| They'd have a field day with this.
| vl wrote:
| First rule of n-gate you can't talk about it on HN. Now we
| both broke the rule.
|
| But honestly, his last updates stopped being fun. It became
| just too repetitive.
| arein3 wrote:
| I check the website from time to time. Hope it will start
| posting again.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Somewhat related:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best but
| quite a different idea to this one.
| piazz wrote:
| sincerely hoping this is satire
| [deleted]
| ianmcgowan wrote:
| It reads like the script for the Krazam "The Hustle" video:
| https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U, but over several weeks instead of
| one day.
| siva7 wrote:
| nah sorry that one is real
| dougdonohoe wrote:
| This is idiotic.
| l0rn wrote:
| Sounds hella neurotic. Probably very interesting guy, but just as
| insufferable. I think I know someone with a very similar
| personality.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| I hope this is satire. If it is not, then the author is a
| disgusting narcissist with no understanding of people or of human
| dignity. It's very depressing that HN readers are genuinely
| responding with approval and encouragement.
| resource0x wrote:
| I looked into some other blog posts of the author - this is not
| satire. Something is seriously wrong with the guy. His parents
| have to convince him to seek medical attention.
| netsharc wrote:
| There's a lot of negative comments here too. Funnily enough
| (from the article):
|
| > When I woke up, I put the finishing touches on a blog post I
| had started earlier in the week and published it. It hit the #1
| spot on Hacker News; I couldn't stop myself from constantly
| refreshing the post as it got more upvotes while chuckling at
| the classic Hacker News hate comments.
| danesparza wrote:
| I'm sorry it's depressing. I think that just makes you older
| and wiser (and probably indicates you have different blind
| spots in your life compared to these commenters)
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Misguided sure, but disgusting? Nothing he did was disgusting.
| There's nothing undignified about being paid $20/hr to watch
| someone work, people do far worse for far less everyday.
| rey0927 wrote:
| ritalin is cheaper and more effective
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I like how he concluded that $88 per extra productive hour is
| worth it and more people should consider it.
|
| Here's other ways you could introduce productivity: 1. Hire house
| cleaners @400/month for a large house to come in twice a month.
| 2. Get a grammarly or similar subscription @60/month to write
| documents faster 3. Personal trainer 2 days a week for
| $60/session 4. A dietitian for weekly sessions @100/session (you
| could also do virtual sessions with people abroad for a lot
| cheaper if you want) 5. $200/session for a monthly career coach
|
| The list goes on and any of these would help you more than just
| the additional productivity. Interesting experiment though.
| fho wrote:
| Just what you listed comes out to USD 1540 a month ... which
| (here in Germany) is more than half of what an average software
| developer earns [1].
|
| [1] https://platri.de/informatiker-gehalt/
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Right I wasn't suggesting you do all of the above. Plus in
| Germany, those costs are lower.
| jstx1 wrote:
| This is one of the reasons why I'm more productive when I work
| from an office and not from home.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| not a bad idea, or you could try to figure it out why you are
| procrastinating and try to do that. That'd give lasting results
| but you may or may not find out and use weeks and months as you
| also procrastinate on finding out why.
| zachwill wrote:
| Interesting read! Crazy that it was basically 3x
| increase/decrease in productive hours. Wouldn't try this myself,
| but found it interesting nonetheless @sberens.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| I read this entire article in the voice of Patrick Bateman
| searchableguy wrote:
| Have you tried an entirely remote version of this?
|
| I imagine someone could build an effective AI with face to watch
| over you to increase productivity/$ spent but it wouldn't have a
| physical presence.
| sberens wrote:
| I have not, but I'm looking at doing it down the line! One
| thing that I would miss is the homecooked meals; I'm surprised
| at how much I enjoyed them.
| RektBoy wrote:
| As I saw his schedule with girls names I knew this will be a fun
| shii. I can imagine not mentioned interviews part, some guy shows
| up, sorry we're not a good fit, yeah right hahaha.
| 888666 wrote:
| This is very interesting, but this doesn't seem like a good thing
| to me. We don't need to be productive all the time. As he
| mentions, he had little time to introspect; I much prefer having
| downtime where I can stop and think for a while or run into
| something new and interesting within highly curated social media.
| If this truly made him happy, then good for him, but I would put
| more effort into being comfortable with being "unproductive" as
| long as my needs are being sufficiently met.
| syndacks wrote:
| This is why San Francisco sucks.
| trynewideas wrote:
| For context on the reference, Focusmate is $7/month. Just FWIW.
| vuckin wrote:
| This is incredibly bizarre, to the point where I wonder if this
| isn't just a creative writing exercise.
|
| Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day?
|
| Why did he think the best way to deal with this was to hire a
| group of babysitters?
|
| Why was he being so weird to his assistants?
|
| It just doesn't add up. The whole thing is so damn strange.
|
| Maybe this is an experiment on the readers of his article, to see
| how we will react to something on the borders of credibility.
| granshaw wrote:
| > Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a
| day?
|
| Yeah after reading the post I'm like this guy must be a founder
| to value productivity so highly... NOPE, just works at Meta!
|
| EDIT: Oh wait, he DID also start a company, during the
| experiment in fact, but of course it's in stealth mode!
|
| Can't make this stuff up...
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Wouldn't hiring people to sit behind you and watch you work
| be a breach of contract?
| granshaw wrote:
| I have a feeling this guy doesn't really care...
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| I hope that it is a parody of what _the modern western manboy_
| (tm) has become, otherwise it is a bitter window to the state
| of affairs of the west.
| bspammer wrote:
| The whole time I was reading, all I could think of was this
| video.
|
| https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I'd say it's also the perfect marriage between the gig
| economy and techbro hyper-optimized productivity.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I get it...
|
| //Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a
| day
|
| When you are shooting for an outcome, you want to make sure you
| are working on it. Productivity is the means not the end.
|
| // Why did he think the best way to deal with this...
|
| I can relate. I am reasonably successful/ productive, but I am
| exponentially more successful and productive when focused. But
| focus is hard. If hiring someone to focus me was practical, why
| not?
| barbarr wrote:
| He is into effective altruism.
| sberens wrote:
| Related the being productive 16 hours a day, I enjoyed this
| blog post by Dan Luu: https://danluu.com/productivity-velocity/
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| I like how this guy posted this twice in the same week.
| eatkd wrote:
| This is one of the best blogs I have seen on HN ever
| [deleted]
| windowshopping wrote:
| The bit about Rachel is truly the classic Craigslist experience.
| Anyone who's dealt with strangers through Craigslist would find
| this a very familiar type of strangeness.
| nickphx wrote:
| In my ~20 years of mashing buttons, I've found the primary driver
| of 'productivity' has been my interest in the
| problem/project/task. The skinner box comment gave me a hearty
| chuckle.
| boxingdog wrote:
| [dead]
| dqpb wrote:
| Wow, what a creepy dude.
| Mustache wrote:
| I'm not sure why there so many negative comments. I work from
| home for myself and I can say not having a boss to report to
| makes it easier to get bogged down in non productive tasks. When
| I used to go to an office and had a manager there was always that
| external pressure to get things done. I have to constantly remind
| myself to be productive and not spend time on time wasting
| websites so I can see how just knowing someone is watching would
| make you more productive. I remember a few years ago there was a
| website where you could be on a webcam with someone else while
| you both worked, sort of a productivity buddy type thing. Kudo's
| to the author for trying something new and sharing it with
| everyone. I think that's brave especially with all the keyboard
| critics in the world.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| Most people would agree that having somebody keeping you
| accountable in the same room does tend to increase productivity
| in the short term. Long term, not being micromanaged has a
| positive mental impact.
|
| Regardless, I think most people are rather reading between the
| lines, since there's some weirdness to hiring (from Craigslist)
| a "productivity manager" who watches you, does house chores and
| cooks for you. This is basically a servant with another title,
| and not acknowledging it makes it seem like the author is
| missing some common wisdom. There's other details like his
| assistant being caught watching porn, to which the author
| reacts in an.. even more awkward way than expected? It reads a
| lot like satire.
| tomdekan wrote:
| I agree. The amount of negativity on this post is bizarre. If
| you don't like something informative that someone has written,
| ignore it.
|
| I really enjoyed the post and found it useful.
| RektBoy wrote:
| Shouldn't this guy be fired from Meta, I mean he's revealing code
| to the third party, basically leaking stuff.
| ruborcalor wrote:
| How do you think this compares to coworking?
| sberens wrote:
| I feel it's hard to achieve consistency with coworking; I never
| had enough overlap with a friend's schedule to make a
| meaningful impact on my productivity. I actually made a tool
| (before the experiment) to try to coordinate coworking between
| a group of people, but it never took off.
| phphphphp wrote:
| Pick any WeWork in a populated city and you'll find people
| there 24/7 and at least a few of them as will be kooky enough
| to engage in this performative nonsense (I say that mostly
| without judgement). Or pick any office building, really,
| because they'll have 24/7 security who do nothing but sit and
| watch movies or listen to podcasts. There's an entire world
| of people bored out of their damn minds in boring office
| buildings all night, and you wouldn't need to do things like
| schedule.
| kodisha wrote:
| Is there a saas/browser plugin where you enter a name and then it
| alerts you if this name shows up in any hiring emails/slack
| conversation/twitter browsing?
|
| Asking for a friend ;)
| voakbasda wrote:
| Maybe curate a list of such names? One that can only be viewed
| using dark mode?
| throwaway378037 wrote:
| What
| sjducb wrote:
| Whenever I'm in an office I pick the computer with the most
| visible screens, so everyone can see what I'm doing. It has the
| same affect, but it's much cheaper.
| nervysnail wrote:
| Mild Patrick Bateman.
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a
| smoothie request, dating dinners.
|
| This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even
| think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the
| fact?
|
| He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity
| software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods?
|
| This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being
| honest here
| SMAAART wrote:
| Don't let the truth come in the way of a goods blog post that
| makes it to the front page of HN.
| Aaronmacaron wrote:
| He's got a 'Date Me' button on his website which takes you to a
| Google Form where you can apply to be his girlfriend. I can't
| decide if this makes the blog post more or less believable.
| Could it be that he's just a satirical character and doesn't
| really exist?
| tryauuum wrote:
| holy fuck it's smart
| Aperocky wrote:
| This is in line with the content of the blog post and make me
| believe it is real. Author may have certain degrees of
| narcissistic personality, but I am no doctor or psychiatrist.
| sberens wrote:
| Therapy would take away productive time :)
|
| I did actually use my own custom built productivity tools to
| block websites[0], and I used ActivityWatch[1] to track my
| time.
|
| [0]
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webblock/jeahkphmd...
|
| [1] https://activitywatch.net/
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| > Therapy would take away productive time :)
|
| 1 hr a week for most people. Give up 1 of your 100
| unproductive hours instead lol.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| While working out your data, have you considered, that you
| were basically doing a long sprint?
|
| Meaning, I am pretty sure, your effective productivity would
| have declined after the month, with assistants, or not. And
| that you got Covid, might be a clear sign of that.
| sam1r wrote:
| Did you ever consider building your own custom tools?
|
| Or based on the ones custom you described aforementioned,
| which features or tools do you wish you had on top of it?
|
| Just curious, and I respect the setup thus far.
| sberens wrote:
| Yeah I built that chrome extension I linked (WebBlock).
|
| ActivityWatch is great for single device tracking, but I
| wish there was a tool for multi-device tracking and also
| away-from-device tracking (tracking gym, sleep, etc...)
| that integrated all of the data into one place and made it
| easily accessible. My use case is pretty niche though :/
| fragmede wrote:
| Have you considered a Fitbit or similar device?
| viraptor wrote:
| > Therapy would take away productive time :)
|
| I'm not sure if that's a joke, or not. But if you sincerely
| mean it - I put it away for years and now I feel like an
| idiot for wasting a lot of my time fighting rather than
| actually addressing my issues. This would've been the most
| productive time investment I could've done a decade earlier.
| theonething wrote:
| On the other hand, I've seen a handful of therapists, three
| of them for longer than six months and really, they've done
| zilch for me. A waste of money in hindsight. Reading
| helpful books and really applying the good ones (for me)
| has helped me more while costing way less, aka
| bibliotherapy [1]
|
| That's great that therapy worked so well for you, but don't
| make it out to be a panacea for everyone.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5788928/#:
| ~:tex...
| chrisandchris wrote:
| I think, it's quite obvious where the "productivity" goes:
|
| > In the morning session, I did yoga, went to the gym,
| started two blog posts, and did some work for my job.
|
| If it's the 5th you mention, it's just not that important?
| sberens wrote:
| My desire to increase my productivity was not solely (or
| largely) driven by doing better at my job; I find it's
| relatively easy to be productive if you go into the office.
|
| I mainly wanted to get a lot of side projects/hobbies done.
| tacotacotaco wrote:
| Maybe I'm too cynical but it just seems performative. It seems
| like any number of YouTube videos where some financially well
| off influencer spends their money doing something awkward to
| attract views. And it worked. Here we are gawking at the latest
| stunt. Like and subscribe. Don't forget to smash that bell.
| Check out my patreon for access to my Discord.
| fragmede wrote:
| Oh no! The person I'm watching wanted to be watched!
|
| Wait, what?
| t-writescode wrote:
| I feel like this perspective is missing the point. A lot of
| what we see on the internet nowadays is pornography. It has
| no point at all except to be a spectacle and to generate
| conversation and views and to keep the person watching -
| thereby getting ads, thereby getting money.
|
| I see _a lot_ of this on TikTok nowadays; and, if my
| YouTube feed were less curated, I 'd probably see it there,
| too. It's the food videos where someone makes an absolutely
| terrible meal out of 8 whole fast-food burgers, covered in
| fries, then honey, then mashed potatoes; or the videos
| where someone makes a mess with spaghetti and sauce in
| their hands and then puts it in the oven.
|
| Once I got this perspective on a lot of video content, I
| could see it basically everywhere.
| mindslight wrote:
| The idea seems decently self-aware to me. All the systems and
| techniques in the world can't compensate for poor discipline,
| and social accountability is a strong pull.
|
| The porn thing was most likely a generic "mind your own
| business" non-response.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBE4262nxkE
| d0zome wrote:
| The scant photos in the blog post are not convincing enough for
| me. I'm calling it fake.
| moffkalast wrote:
| You really think someone would do that? Just go on the
| internet and tell lies? Smh, what a world.
| sberens wrote:
| I wish I was good enough of a fiction writer to fake this :/
| joxel wrote:
| Do you think having a girlfriend application on your page
| makes any sense? Is it a joke? Or are you just that self
| absorbed and insane?
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| Yes (to him). No. Yes.
| LegitShady wrote:
| He's got effective altruism and defi in his about me page - if
| he isn't a made up character he might as well be.
| SunghoYahng wrote:
| Some people don't respond to any treatment. I am one of them.
| If I were rich, I'd be the one writing and posting about this
| topic.
| [deleted]
| 1270018080 wrote:
| If he did that, then this blog and the clicks he is getting
| wouldn't exist.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The article strikes me as an amount of weirdness within the
| normal range for 'rationalism' people.
|
| And the guy literally links to a website-blocker he develops.
|
| I guess his being weird doesn't particularly bother me. I liked
| that the post was frank and (seemingly) honest. Doing that sort
| of experiment and writing about it seems basically fine to me.
| Maybe he'll be able to contrast it with other things, like
| maybe having one extra hour of productive work is worse than
| using the same amount of hours more productively by eg avoiding
| blunders.
| jonathanyc wrote:
| I clicked on the "About" page and learned that the author is
| 21. For a minute that made the experiment make more sense. Then
| it stopped making sense again.
| Sakos wrote:
| I'm more confused by these comments. Like, he's 21. This is
| an interesting experience and a great story to tell. Sounds
| like money well-spent and I'm glad he's experimenting in
| unusual ways. That's what makes life interesting and worth
| living. Some of my most memorable and valuable memories stem
| from bad decisions or experimenting with different ideas that
| might be dumb.
|
| Some of you need to touch grass.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| This man is insane. He'd rather oppress himself at great
| expense than spend any time at all actually thinking about
| where his problems come from (and _why_ its so important to
| him to "all work and no play"). Perhaps there's a reason
| "touch grass" is on the tip of your tongue.
| jonathanyc wrote:
| Alice thinks it's odd that Bob budgeted $10k/mo to hire
| proxy moms to check in on him & cook for him. Do you tell
| _Alice_ to touch grass?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Dude works for Facebook. He can afford a 10k experiment
| and in fact him being on of the very few that can
| probably contributed to doing it.
| simultsop wrote:
| Life hitting me with a brick.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I doubt this 0%. I've hired people just to help me focus and
| also to help with chores. To me, this is someone with the same
| job in the same city as me just taking what I've done two steps
| further. Literally nothing in that post is unbelievable to me,
| including the behavior of the people he hired.
|
| In the first paragraph he did mention tools for focusing,
| saying he went as far as making his own.
| capableweb wrote:
| > I've hired people just to help me focus and also to help
| with chores
|
| But were those people the same? Usually have have one type of
| person for each purpose, one psychologist/therapist to help
| you figure out why you can't focus and then one cleaner that
| helps you keep a tidy house.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I'm not sure everybody needs a psychologist/therapist but
| I'd be willing to bet most would benefit from somebody to
| talk to (or even at)
|
| If you ramble on long enough and your maid starts to answer
| and ask questions, are they a makeshift therapist?
| capableweb wrote:
| > If you ramble on long enough and your maid starts to
| answer and ask questions, are they a makeshift therapist?
|
| If all you think a therapist does is just answering and
| asking questions, you should maybe see a therapist and
| experience it for yourself ;)
|
| Joking aside, the struggle of loneliness can probably be
| helped by having just somebody to talk to, though not in
| a professional setting.
|
| But if you're constantly having trouble focusing, it
| could be a sign that something is amiss. Personally,
| sometimes I get affected by things in my social
| environment without really noticing it, just that things
| gets less interesting and that I'm being less productive
| than usual. A therapist can help you realize those
| things, while friends will usually be more supportive
| rather than trying to actively combat your "inside
| problem", as they have their own.
|
| Could also be that some sort of medication can be helpful
| for you. I have some friends who didn't realize that
| suffered from ADHD until they were 30-40 years old, and
| having access to medication and therapy helped them a
| lot. A therapist can again help you realize if you
| need/don't need this.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Psychologist/therapist helping you figure out why you can't
| focus is a different approach to the problem, one that you
| can do at the same time. But it's really on a different
| timeline and sometimes it just doesn't work. Sometimes you
| need help now.
|
| Imagine your arms barely work. Or even more accurately,
| sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and you really
| can't predict it. This is greatly interfering with your
| home and work life. Sometimes you can do laundry, sometimes
| you can't. Sometimes you can type, sometimes you can't.
|
| You go to a doctor. You take meds. You see a physical
| therapist twice a week. Maybe this is slowly helping. But
| consider during all that time in the doctor's office, the
| PT's office, the pharmacy, _your laundry still isn't
| getting done_.
|
| So, you need something that helps _now_. Some people will
| call this a quick fix, but that's what you need. You know,
| that oxygen mask isn't really a solution. You can't fly
| like that all the time. You should figure out the root
| cause of your airplane's depressurization. Or, you know,
| just focus on staying alive first and talk to the mechanic
| at your weekly session.
|
| So you hire someone to be your arms for eight hours a day.
| What do you need help with? Everything. When? All of the
| time and none of the time. 50/50 at any given moment. So
| you basically need someone with you a lot of time. While
| your arms are working and you're paying them, you might
| want them to do something else for you. And a normal
| assistant won't cut it because this can apply to stuff that
| you specifically have to do, or requires some skills that
| other people are unlikely to have.
| dinobones wrote:
| So... This is what the adderall shortage has come to?
| unity1001 wrote:
| He could have contacted his hood's local adderall mafia - like
| in the series Silicon Valley...
| hartator wrote:
| > accountable for my work, similar to
| https://www.cnet.com/culture/man-hires-woman-to-slap-him- every-
| time-hes-on-facebook/. (No slapping here, just sitting next to
| me.)
|
| > I didn't mean to only hire women; it just turned out that way.
|
| > surprisingly relaxed about the prospect of working the next 8
| hours from a stranger's home
|
| > She retorted coldly that she was watching porn.
|
| > getting to know my assistants (the savory ones).
|
| The underlying of this "experiment" feels oddly more sexual than
| productivity-focus.
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