
The Feedback Loop of Productivity - root993
https://www.sankalpjonna.com/posts/the-feedback-loop-of-productivity
======
brendanfalk
I think positive feedback is good. I also think it is better and more
motivating than negative feedback (although both are necessary).

I tend to set goals that I can hit. I have longer term goals. But if I only
focus on long ten goals I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything even
though I’m working hard. If I set lots of short term goals that lead up to the
long term goal, I feel like I’ve accomplished way more, even though really
I’ve accomplished the same.

It’s important to actually hit the short term goals. If you get in the habit
of not hitting them, then they just become ideas you have but never get around
to.

------
Jumziey
Oh no, this article is on hacker news so you wont get incrementaly higher
spikes in the forseeble future...

------
ayyy
It works in reverse too, but with failure.

~~~
grwthckrmstr
Such is the nature of feedback loops :P

------
Uptrenda
In psychology papers they repeatedly talk about intrinsic motivation (internal
things that you yourself value) being more reliable than extrinsic factors
(like money, bigger house, etc) for motivation. I don't think $blogs ideas are
that useful given that they're mostly about small, repeatable, extrinsic
rewards.

In experiments done on paying people for tasks to see the impact on
performance there's data that shows it only works well for large amounts. So I
question small external results from the get-go. The other issue is relying on
external factors to boost task performance is bad in general because
experiments also show that when they're removed your performance drops lower
than if you had of started with no external carrots.

In this case: what happens if OP writes something and its a dud? Does he keep
writing? What if the next 10 articles are ignored? Compare the same process to
someone who loves writing for their own reasons. Maybe they have been reading
since they were a kid and have come to appreciate prose. No carrot is needed
so they will keep writing long after most quit.

------
discreteevent
I sometimes think when reading Dr Bob or Kent Beck and so on, that a lot of
what they do (e.g. overemphasis on low level unit tests) is for personal
psychological reasons. But this doesn't mean they are sound engineering
reasons or even that they are good for the psychology of anyone else who has
to work with that code.

------
sqreept
Here's a humble translation of the article in German:
[https://github.com/adi/deutsch/blob/master/001_rsp.md](https://github.com/adi/deutsch/blob/master/001_rsp.md)

