Productivity – The Value Problem (A rambling self-indulgent post)

October 20, 2024

People get annoyed with me. They get annoyed with me a lot. When I think about time spent doing things, I think in terms of a productivity enthusiast. I think in terms of ‘value.’ This is the thing which annoys people.

They get annoyed because they don’t think that hanging out with your pals should be a considered as a value proposition. They don’t think there is anything wrong with ‘just playing a game’ and there isn’t. There is absolutely nothing wrong with spending hours playing video games and watching movies. However, when I do this, it puts me in a mood which I now realise feels like being depressed but isn’t quite the same thing.

Warning: I get rambly here, but I had a great time writing it. You should probably stop reading right here!

Let me explain myself…

I think it’s also challenging because when I say ‘value’ I know exactly what I mean by it. Other people don’t think in the same terms as productivity enthusiasts.

When I started thinking about my own productivity, I was at a time in my life when I was feeling useless and without purpose. I was just realising that the things I used to care about were ‘placeholders’ for the things I now care about. I used to enjoy playing games for six or eight hours straight while chatting with friends in Discord all evening. Furthermore, I took it as a point of pride when I played Guild Wars 2 long enough for GFN to tell me I had to log out and refresh my connection (six hours.)

I enjoyed it a great deal.

With the rest of my leisure time, I had begun writing more seriously, and I was doing well at work. I am in generally good health (I need to lose a bit lot of weight) and was happy with my little world.

Then, as I became more and more immersed in productivity and the mindset it creates, I realised that it worked. The more organised I was, the more things I could accomplish. I jumped around countless workflows and tools. I enjoyed trying new ways of doing things, and still do. Now, though, my own personal system is basically settled (This is not a technology/workflow post, so I won’t go into detail.) This means that there are no major improvements to be gleaned from switching note-taking application or using a different calender app on my phone.

This was the moment when my productivity hungry brain turned on me. I started thinking about my personal life with a productivity glint in my eye. What was I doing, where was I wasting time, what could be improved. What added to my life and what took away.

What is value?

When thinking about how I spend time, outside of working hours, I asses things in terms of ‘value.’ However, I order to understand this, I think I need to articulate thought process which I have in order to deep something ‘of value’

Basically, if I play 100 hours of Halo, I get to be good at Halo, which is not something I care about. Being good at Halo is not of ‘value’ to me. If I spend 100 hours learning to play the sitar, then I spent the time ‘well’ gaining a skill, assuming I want to play an instrument, it’s a good use of time.

It doesn’t matter if I’m good at the thing either. For example, I like to draw. I’m currently making a shitty comic about a vampire and an eye on a stalk. In of itself it’s pointless, But each time I make one, I am spending time on skill-building. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. All that matters is that I practice drawing so that one day, I stand a chance of being ‘good’ in a way which I will be satisfied with.

My primary pastime, however, is writing. I enjoy writing for two main reasons:

1. Inside benefit: I like telling stories and find the process of writing them relaxing, proving its self as something which lowers my anxiety levels and makes me ‘feel good.’
2. External benefit: While sating my own urge to tell stories, I am also increasing my ability to use words, both in written form and in conversation. I become better in all aspects of my life when It comes to communication.

To me writing is literally the most ‘valuable’ way to spend free time.

I clearly say ‘free time’ because time with my daughter is always winner, but I consider that primary and not the same as ‘I’m at home alone with dog.’

Changes because of this

Because of this, I have naturally played games less and less. It was not intentional or planned, but the sorts of games which my friends play don’t interest me. I still enjoy the odd little ‘session’ of something casual, or maybe I’m unwell and just want to play Civ6. These are exceptions to the standard ‘not really interested in games’ mindset I have developed. I also enjoy retro stuff like ‘Zombies ate my neighbours’ and ‘wipeout’ on one of my retro-handhelds because they allow instant access to mental resets and in times of high emotion or high stress (which I need to go away) I can reach for those older games and get instant gratification without the need to ‘process’ anything. I don’t play them for very long, either.

The main difference between the games I still enjoy and the ones I don’t is the ability to exit. If I start playing Fortnite and ten minutes in I suddenly realise ‘I would rather read email now’ I can’t exit without negatively effecting other people, or appearing grumpy. I can pause Sonic 2 and go do something else. It feels like less of a commitment, and knowing it’s only where until the moment I don’t want it any more makes it less burdensome.

I don’t get involved with ‘tinkering’ any more, either. I still CAN learn and perform technical tasks. I simply choose not to, because I would rather spend time on other tasks. I no longer want to monkey with code and edit scripts. I just want to sit down and write, draw or even read.

Recently, I switched this very site to WordPress and while friend wing helped me through the complicated parts, I still had to sit and screw with themes, plugins and such like. I enjoyed completing the task and having the desired output, but it all got in the way of writing and drawing. While it was building a skill, it was not a skill I desired, so it all felt like a chore.

It’s all actually the point fault of the productivity mindset I developed. I want to feel like my time (the only nonrenewable resource) is used in ways which I find rewarding. It leaked into other aspects of my life, and it feels great!

Evolution end?

I honestly thought it was the final piece of my mental arrangements when I started drawing. I felt like it had got to the point where my solo pastime of writing was as rewarding as it could be, and then suddenly I had drawing, so that when I was chatting with my friends, I was also doing something creative. For a while back there, I was at a loose end while they were gaming. Now I feel like I have a purpose. I usually stream my (bad) drawing over discord to them so that I feel like I’m sharing my interests while they are sharing theirs. I enjoy it a great deal and find pleasure, value and satisfaction with my two major hobbies.

Now, though, my mind has moved on to where next to optimise. Rather than saying ‘we’re done, chill my dude,’ my stupid brain has moved on to other aspects of my life. I’m now being more purposeful with time in other ways. No more ‘random’ YouTube watching or ‘shorts’ while on the potty. My productivity mindset has moved on to that, and now I’m watching, in theory, higher quality stuff on Nebula rather than YouTube, purposefully avoiding Reddit and removing things which pull me into distractions such as notifications and ‘news’ services.

Over the last month, I have begun to intentionally declutter and optimise my physical space, including throwing out countless things. I have even become adverse to the clutter of physical books, in favour or digital. I have listed some stuff on eBay, sorted my wardrobe and organised my tool box. It’s like as soon as I was happy with one aspect of life, I had to move on to the next opportunity for improvement and optimisation.

When it comes to health, my weight has fluctuated a lot recently. I have taken steps to hold myself more accountable recently as well as setting firm, no negotiation, goals for myself.

With finances, I hope you understand why I don’t go into great detail here, I am even working hard on optimising my finances. I am one ‘small-ish’ credit card away from being debt free – totally debt free and if I can end next year (2025) with a cash surplus and no debts, I will not only have accomplished something I set out to do, but something which for a while I thought was impossible for me.

I don’t believe that humans have ‘final forms’ but I think I should be as close as I can plan for in about eighteen months.

I know a lot of the people in my life see my obsession with doing things that are ‘of value to me’ as worrisome and some even think it’s a coping mechanism for something deeper (it really isn’t) but to me, it makes me happy. Knowing I am better today than I was yesterday bings me joy.

If you have any questions about my optimisations, workflows or mindset, please use the comments below to ask. I would be glad to share my thoughts is there is something I missed here.

Thank you for reading. ❤️

I didn’t proofread this post…. If you see a typo, imagine me shrugging and drinking tea.