Great book! One of the business classics, along with The Halo Effect and The Goal. For me it made me realize that when I adopt all these productivity techniques for writing, it's really just a method of entertaining myself. Balzac and Zola didn't need Scrivener to write their books--you don't actually gain anything of value in terms of output from these techniques. They're just a method of procrastination. But....procrastinating is fun, so I do it anyway. I just don't expect it to matter.
It's astonishing how little people actually study productivity. And then, when people do study it, how little those insights actually matter. Like you can do research from now until next Tuesday saying people can do just as much work in a four hour week, but that doesn't mean companies will institute four hour weeks. They just won't do it. These are cost savings and efficiency gains that we simply have no incentive, under our system, to capture.
*Sits down and writes for 2-3 hours every early morning, by hand in a paper-filled notebook. Sits at laptop and revises what was written (being able to type with 10 fingers) for 30-45 minutes every afternoon. Her spelling is better on the laptop but ignores attempts to change her grammar because she has no desire to sound like the grammar check thinks she should. Works for her.
Tim, those of us who span the eras can see the benefits from older regimes. I don’t even know if this could work for the middle aged, much less the youth. Don’t you have to know how to write by hand before you go all in on that? Typing this on my iPad with my index finger, now that I think of it. Don’t even ask what my texting looks like. Not giving up my paper and pen/pencil, though. I don’t need a charging station for those.
Great book! One of the business classics, along with The Halo Effect and The Goal. For me it made me realize that when I adopt all these productivity techniques for writing, it's really just a method of entertaining myself. Balzac and Zola didn't need Scrivener to write their books--you don't actually gain anything of value in terms of output from these techniques. They're just a method of procrastination. But....procrastinating is fun, so I do it anyway. I just don't expect it to matter.
It's astonishing how little people actually study productivity. And then, when people do study it, how little those insights actually matter. Like you can do research from now until next Tuesday saying people can do just as much work in a four hour week, but that doesn't mean companies will institute four hour weeks. They just won't do it. These are cost savings and efficiency gains that we simply have no incentive, under our system, to capture.
*Sits down and writes for 2-3 hours every early morning, by hand in a paper-filled notebook. Sits at laptop and revises what was written (being able to type with 10 fingers) for 30-45 minutes every afternoon. Her spelling is better on the laptop but ignores attempts to change her grammar because she has no desire to sound like the grammar check thinks she should. Works for her.
Tim, those of us who span the eras can see the benefits from older regimes. I don’t even know if this could work for the middle aged, much less the youth. Don’t you have to know how to write by hand before you go all in on that? Typing this on my iPad with my index finger, now that I think of it. Don’t even ask what my texting looks like. Not giving up my paper and pen/pencil, though. I don’t need a charging station for those.
This seems to be mostly about shuffling work off differently to employees, but there's also shuffling work off to customers.