
The "Work" Trap - samvj
http://notes.unwieldy.net/post/29050677758/the-work-trap/
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dsirijus
I notice that many of the commentaries misunderstood both the title and
content. It's about "work", not work. He's not speaking to extremely occupied
people. Quite converse.

The trap here is that procrasinating makes you fail to deliver, guilt stops
you from doing anything else (hence, "busy"), and not doing anything else
makes you unproductive. Rinse and repeat until you get to the state where no
one even bothers anymore to call you to take you out.

That being said, I have a breaking bug in my live web app. I'm going to go out
now and take a sloooow macchiato with complimentary homemade croissant. And
then I will come back and fix the bug. If anyone calls meanwhile, I'll say I'm
not busy.

~~~
nater
Perhaps another way to think about this is the distinction between the act of
working and the objective one's trying to accomplish. I think it can be very
easy for some people (myself, ahem) to conflate these two, and ultimately to
come to view the act of working as the essential good. Seems like this has
been coming up a lot recently ('The Busy Trap', etc.).

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spodek
Statements about time to do things are statements about priorities. You have
time to do lots of things, only you have to give up other things. Someone who
says they don't have time for something important doesn't understand their
priorities.

People who know their priorities work on them in order and get them done
because you aren't distracted by less important things.

People who don't know their priorities get distracted by less important things
and don't finish important things.

If you want to avoid busy-work, know your priorities.

~~~
flyinRyan
That's easy to say. My job (required to maintain current standard of living)
takes up a minimum of 12 hours, 5 days of the week. I need a minimum of 8
hours sleep to be productive at my job. That leaves a maximum of 4 hours per
day during the week to give attention to my wife, my two kids, eat, shower,
"honey do's", etc.

I'd also like to do something that gets me out of this situation, but I can't
pick anything up without dropping something else. Should I neglect the wife
some so I can work on a startup? She probably won't still be around by the
time I'm ready to release and the release may fail in the end anyway.

Some of us truly don't have enough time and are actively working to fix it as
we can. We're not all morons who don't know how to prioritize.

~~~
j_s
One option would be a new job.

Edit: (either I missed this or it was a ninja edit; no big deal) re: 'standard
of living': that's a choice of less risk for what you've got vs. the 'HN way'
of shooting for the moon. If you truly want out, choose something else. Yes,
easy to say...

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blehn
not suggesting the OP lifted the idea or title, but this Times article from
June is a good read on the same subject.

[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-
tra...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/)

~~~
endtwist
Author here; I didn't (intentionally) lift the title—had no idea there was an
article of a similar name already.

~~~
netcan
Incidentally, I find it very interesting how differently you , the NYT article
& dsirijus (top commenter paraphrasing but also interpreting you) are
describing what is going on when people are "busy".

NYT: _Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against
emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or
meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand.._

You: _I call it The “Work” Trap. What is it? It’s both a procrastination
technique and a way of staying in your comfort zone while feeling or seeming
productive._

dsirijus: _procrasinating makes you fail to deliver, guilt stops you from
doing anything else (hence, "busy"), and not doing anything else makes you
unproductive. Rinse and repeat.._

~~~
dsirijus
Yes, I'd very much like to hear more from author on this.

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thesash
It's the classic battle of urgent vs. important. It's easy to fall into a trap
by always focusing on the most seemingly "urgent" task at hand while
neglecting things that are actually more important. Responding to emails,
fixing bugs, or hiring a new developer might seem urgent, but what longer-term
goals end up suffering? Things like building company culture, fostering
business relationships, or developing long term strategy are hardly urgent,
but extremely important things that often get neglected when we fall victim to
the day-to-day tyranny of urgency.

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tsotha
This isn't really about work, but rather procrastination. But you don't
actually have to have work to be "to busy" to do whatever. I once rented a
room in a house where the landlady was divorced and living off of alimony
(this was a few years ago). She didn't have any hard demands on her time (like
employment), but whenever she didn't want to do something she would tell other
people she didn't have time. Funny thing was I think she actually believed it.

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kamaal
I understand where the author is coming from and where he wants to take us to.

But these things are not as black and white as people show them to be. When
you chose something over the other, you are just making a trade off. You need
to be happy with that trade off or you should not make it. If you feel you
will be happy taking hours off and doing something else, then you should be
happy for that and not worry about lost money you could have otherwise make if
you had worked instead.

Now this is OK for a day or two. If you do this for years, you will lose
substantial money compared to your peers. Enough to make that distinction
apparent. It will show in everything. The house you live, the clothes you
wear, the car you drive, the vacations you take, the food you eat, your
hobbies, your lifestyle. There will hardly be anything in your life which
won't be affected by this. You should be happy with all this.

Don't go down to a state where you have to tell yourself and people around-
'Even I could have been like the person Y had I worked for X more extra hours,
I would have everything he has'

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jmspring
It is called - get out and enjoy life now and then. As someone who is often
"busy due to work", it is easy to ignore the fact that you have reached the
point of diminishing returns in a given day. Going out, letting your mind
wander on to other subjects and just having fun add to life more than just the
"hey, I am being social".

Life is certainly more than work, even when we love what we do.

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K2h
It seems he is saying to take some time to work on your career instead of just
focussing on your job all the time. Good advice.

~~~
yesbabyyes
Yeah, or even that 'life' thing.

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mikesmullin2
its called Workaholism. the workaholic sabotages to make work because his
ultimate fear is not having enough work. google "Chained to the Desk" book on
amazon and read it on kindle. also google my post "Hero - Martyr Cycle" or
"Kent Beck: Ease At Work (Part 1 of 7)". also read "4 Hour Work Week" by Tim
Ferris to learn how to really get shit done and go play. also "Rework" and
"Getting Real" by 37Signals.

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afhof
On the other side of things, how do you convince someone who is in this trap
to get off their butt and go (with you or not) do something worthwhile?

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jcfrei
I can very much relate to that way of working. I found that the best way to
avoid falling into this trap, is to start your day with an activity that you
enjoy doing, outside. sports are perfect, like going for a bicycle round in
the morning. adding the relaxing effects of the released endorphines should
give you a great start into the day.

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guscost
Personally, I'd recommend working on whatever you're interested in and best
at. Just hope for the best.

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monicaemiller
You say "work," I say learn. Artistole's social animal still needs time and
space to learn, change, improve. I think "job" is more appropriate. To the
comments below, quoting Tim Ferris when he doesn't work 4 hours a week is like
quoting Romney about paying taxes.

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hkmurakami
_"Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate
action."_ \-- Tim Ferris

(this blogpost reminded me of this quote)

~~~
kamaal
Not the kind of laziness we know of.

I think its not laziness but rather more of mismanagement.

