
Working hard for the sake of working hard is laziness - Xcelerate
http://www.lifestyleupdated.com/2013/08/05/eliminating-w4w-work-for-works-sake-and-an-announcement/
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cglee
Whenever I read articles like this, I'm reminded of Bill Watterson's
perspective, and now in illustrated form:
[http://zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-
cartoonists...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoonists-
advice/)

~~~
smtddr
That comic deserves its own submission to HN. People should never forget: you
work to live, not live to work. Who cares how much money you make when you're
too stressed & cynical to enjoy life.

~~~
jamesbritt
It was already submitted twice.

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BjoernKW
While I agree with the line of thinking exhibited by this article and people
like Tim Ferriss I'm stumped these ideas have yet to gain more recognition,
not to speak of mainstream adoption.

Sure, we can all aspire to living the 4-hour work week but not everyone is Tim
Ferriss and not everyone can or should live on selling digital products online
either. Software needs to be written, products have to be designed and
produced.

The question is: Why are these things measured in hours wasted during their
creation instead of the actual business value that's been generated?

Why do we measure the work of a freelance software developer in terms of
hourly payments instead of the value she creates? Of all things creating
software should be measured by something else than the hours wasted during the
process. Measuring output this way certainly is the easy way out. It provides
some well-known and commonly shared standard.

However, it also promotes lazy thinking. In this kind of framework the
programmer who develops software by using anti-patterns copiously is rewarded
because he makes sure he can waste even more hours on maintaining this
software in order to get paid even more. Basically, in this mindset writing
maintainable software is as valuable as copying and pasting
'System.out.println("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.)"' all day.

The problem with software in particular is of course that buying and selling
software this way is not only well-established but it's also difficult to
measure the business value beforehand.

Nevertheless, while I certainly haven't found a real solution to this problem
I keep thinking there has to be a better way of measuring the value of work.
Any thoughts?

~~~
Swizec
It's because most software developers aren't salespeople. Simple as that.

Every freelancer who has found a way to explain _why_ maintainable software is
better, and _why_ less code is better than more code, and _why_ they spend
less time than other person X, has thus also found a way to increase their
rate by a handsome factor.

Unfortunately this is only possible for entrepreneurs. In a traditional
employment situation your rate is defined by other people. They do define it
as a business value (Google engineer makes more money than a government
engineer), but they present it to their employees as a rate-per-time because
that makes them easier to manage and more interchangeable.

Point is, at the end of the day, your pay is always judged based on the value
you provide, not the time you put in.

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jared314
While I like the ideas (and I liked them even more the first time I read
4HWW), the real lesson I gained from my first, and second, attempt at
lifestyle design is: either succeed alone or find better friends. Nothing
kills enthusiasm and momentum like your entire social circle dismissing your
efforts as a fool's errand.

~~~
Swizec
It's a defence mechanism. Actively improving yourself makes the rest of the
group look and feel bad [because they aren't]. They don't like those negative
emotions, so they try to equalize. But it's much easier to equalize _you_ to
them, than _themselves_ to you.

So they make fun. They passively bring down your efforts. They're much too
nice to do it actively. And provide _plenty_ of excuses for you to fall off
the wagon.

BUT!

This is also a test of your resolve. If you can't do something against your
friends' and family's will, how do you know you actually want to do it?

At least that's how I look at it. If I'm not confident enough in my choices
that they would stand up to the scrutiny of my friends and family, then my
choices need some more polish.

~~~
sliverstorm
_It 's a defence mechanism._

Or it could be that they've seen the same song & dance before, and remember
how it turned out.

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Demiurge
> 3\. Stop associating your life with your work

Am I the only one who thinks this is very selfish and primitive attitude? I
like to think that I want to live not as an animal, for the sake of eating,
sleeping and procreation. That I need to force myself to go beyond living for
the sake of living and live for the sake of great ideas. I want to work on
great things that contribute to progress and I care about that more than
myself.

~~~
spectre256
I think wording along the lines of "stop associating your life with your job"
is more in line with what the author meant. You absolutely should want to
contribute to progress and be a part of something greater than yourself.

However, the distinction is that whatever you are working on RIGHT NOW is not
what's all important. You may and should love what you're doing right now, but
attaching too much of your identity to your current product/role/company will
cause you pain if the product/company fails, or prevent you from taking
opportunities elsewhere where you can contribute to your overall goals more
than where you currently are.

~~~
Demiurge
What you're saying makes sense, but I suspect is different than what the
author means to say: "What you do for a living distinctly differs from who you
are." There is work and there is job. I want to associate my work with my
life, not the job where I currently do my work. I think the original article
is telling me to not associate my life with my work.

He also says "learn languages, play music instrument, do sports", but these
actually require work and overcoming yourself, and are synergistic with
whatever you do 9-5.

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chadwickthebold
>We work 9-5 so that we can appear hard working in the eyes of others, so that
we can look ourselves in the mirror and conclude an elaborated illusion – that
we are doing something worthwhile.

I don't think this is the case at all, and its major point that a lot of
philosophy/lifestyle/newage/whatever gurus miss out on. The vast majority of
people on this planet work to provide for themselves and their families, not
to give their lives some sort of existential meaning. I'm so tired of web 2.0
entrepreneurs/serial startup people/bros saying that the way we live our lives
today is meaningless, and that only by following their philosophy can we hope
to wrangle some sort of meaning from our wretched existence.

I'll say what I've said a bunch of times before. If people in the same
position as this author want to effect some actual change in the meaning of
work and life and time for a great many people, they need to start speaking
with their dollars rather than their words.

~~~
sliverstorm
Large part of why so many people work 9-5 IMO is because great works require
the efforts of many people, and synchronization of efforts is a difficult
problem. Thus following the same schedule essentially obviates a piece of what
otherwise would be an eternal nest of scheduling headaches.

------
orofino
Sigh, this picture: [http://www.lifestyleupdated.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/j...](http://www.lifestyleupdated.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/08/just-living.jpg)

The quintessential picture of a couple, lifestyle designing the shit out of
their coffee after what was most assuredly an extreme bike ride.

As someone who spent significant time and effort to travel abroad for an
extended period, this bothers me. This is how you spend a Saturday, it isn't
what 99.5% of the population will be able to achieve (or should try to
achieve) for their day to day. Once you begin living without obligation or
schedules, you'll find that it is interesting for only so long.

What people should strive for is a balanced life, that affords them
flexibility to do the things they want, but also includes the obligations that
most of us have. Not everyone can live like Tim Ferris, at least not until
machines do all the work for us.

I actually agree with the article's main premiss, work for work's sake is
pointless, but to hold up the 4HWW as the pinnacle of this, won't work for
most people. So here is my attempt at a list of what will:

    
    
       - Live close to work (under 30 minutes)
       - Save as much as possible
       - Do your absolute best at work, then go home
       - Embrace things you like to do
       - Make time to do them
    

As an example I asked my boss if I'd be able to take 1-1.5 months off at some
point in the future to travel. He seems cool with it, so now my wife an I are
saving. This allows us to maintain some normalcy when after traveling so we
have a job and home to return to.

~~~
jcromartie
I didn't get the sense that the coffee-sipping couple was a picture of the
ideal everyday schedule for someone who is following this advice. It's just
something you _can_ do, if you aren't just the average wage slave with no
savings who can't fit a fun moment in edgewise.

Your advice is probably better and much more succinct.

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disbelief
I find it a bit funny that the author states:

    
    
      2. Never strive for endless perfection
    

and

    
    
      3. Stop associating your life with your work
    

and then goes on to use a quote from Steve Jobs to drive his home point.
Considering that Mr. Jobs was a repeat offender of the above two rules.

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hcarvalhoalves
When I read articles like this, it feels like people in the 1st world live in
another planet.

Who works 9 hours a day to _avoid boredom_?

~~~
krapp
It seems just as odd to most of the first world as well.

~~~
privong
> It seems just as odd to most of the first world as well.

I think it doesn't seem as odd as you might think. When people talk about the
economy, they talk about putting everyone in jobs, not ensuring everyone is
productive. It's a subtle distinction, but I think it's an important one. For
many people, the metric of a good economy seems to be what fraction of the
population work from 9-5, rather than how much people produce.

To be fair, I am stretching the applicability of the original article farther
than the author probably intended.

~~~
derefr
The distinction between these makes explicit what a "jobs program" does:
increases employment, without increasing productivity.

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adamzerner
“It’s easy to put your head down and just work on what you think needs to be
done. It’s a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why.” - Rework

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auggierose
1\. Introduce a condition-less basic income ($2800 dollars like soon in
Switzerland sounds pretty good to me!).

2\. Everyone will value their own time now much more, so you will
automatically get paid for what you achieve, not for the hours you worked.

3\. Or did I get this the wrong way around?

~~~
hackula1
> 2\. Everyone will value their own time now much more, so you will
> automatically get paid for what you achieve, not for the hours you worked.

While a Star Trek Earth style system sounds awesome and utopian, I cannot help
but thinking most people would just stay home and drink and/or watch Law and
Order marathons all day. Hell, that does not sound too bad to me at all, and I
love my work.

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malange
One if the big examples of ineffectiveness is the personal marketing large
corporations push all employees to do. And personal marketing became the norm
to conquer space in large corporations. Many times I was tasked with the
challenge of "earning a sit at the table" in projects and even activities for
which I had the title and the responsibility to get done, per job description.
Why is that? (I am not elaborating here, I'm in an iPad, sucks to type, but
you got the big picture). Those who dedicate fiercely to the tasks at hand to
actually complete projects and truly contribute with the bottom line are
systematically NOT rewarded properly.

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KeyBoardG
And for someone who finds hard work fulfilling?

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ratsimihah
Would that tedious philosophy paper I've been working on all week end and
that's standing between me and my fun work be considered W4W?

