The mythical efficient worker

I can't help but point out and comment on Randy Pausch's Time Management slide deck.

I've met Randy. I met him when I went to CMU, and he's a really great, affable guy. Moreover, he gets that computers are useless if they don't actually help people, and as such, computer science is fundamentally a human endeavor. He's also actively involved in making computer science a better place for women and trying to understand why it seems to be such a deterrent for half of the human race. These are all laudable qualities.

At the same time, as evidenced by his time management deck, Randy is guilty of "type-A syndrome." All of his suggestions for leading a hyper-regimented, ultra-efficient life seem reasonable on the surface, and all of us at some point or another have kicked ourselves for not having our shit together more, but nonetheless, he's missing something.

The something he's missing is that different people have different personalities and different skills. Maybe having a meticulously clean desk and a journal of his time efficiency works for him, but for many people (myself included, to some degree), nothing could be more torturous. Part of the joy in life is living in unplanned spontaneity, and to so rigorously regiment it like that is, for lack of a better term, soul-destroying.

I have no doubt that Randy is incredibly efficient. But at what cost? For him, apparently very little. He's happy, and perhaps more importantly, he wouldn't be happy if he weren't like that. But for many people, that would be to live a life that isn't them. Sure, they might be able to carry on the charade, and even to achieve great material or reputational success, but they'd find themselves empty and unhappy. They'll wake up in their mid-forties, discover they've dedicated their entire life to achievement, and suddenly decide they need a red porsche. This is the mid-life crisis.

Sure, Randy says that you have to schedule vacation and down time, and you have to be damn sure not to work on your down time. This is at least better than executive culture where you work until you either die or have enough money to retire at 35. But still...you can't really schedule enjoyment like that, at least not effectively. Think about it...does it really work to say, "I'm going to have fun from August 12th through August 28th. Then I will have achieved 2 weeks worth of refreshment, which will lead to a 20-40% increase of efficiency over the following three months, exponentially decaying." It sounds stupid, and it is.

The part of it I particularly don't like is the indulgence in the uniquely American mindset that you should "do what you love." It's a nice idea, and if you can pull it off, great. But we're the only nation on earth, really, that equates work with life to that degree. The reason you should do what you love is because we expect ourselves to spend our lives working. But think about it...isn't that concept terrifying?

Look at history. In the dawn of time, people spent most of their lives struggling to survive. They had to work in order just to live. But advancements in agricultural technology allowed people to settle, and moreover it allowed division of labor such that each family did not have to spend all of its time foraging for its own food. Suddenly, farming could be left to the farmers, which left other people to spend their time on *gasp* other things. Now, granted, other people would somehow have to support themselves, and maybe now they spent their time on metal smelting, but still...

Eventually, improvements in efficiency allowed by technological advancements allowed for free time, and it was only once people had this free time that art, literature, philosophy, government, etc. took off. Free time built civilization!

Your forefathers worked hard to save and provide for their descendents precisely so that their children would have an easier life than they did. Isn't is sadly ironic, then, that we choose to use that freedom to work just as hard in pursuit of, well, basically nothing? I find it downright discouraging that we're not even working for any particular reason anymore than a blind faith in work as a self-fulfilling ethic.

But, I digress. The point I was aiming for was that not everyone can do what they love. In fact, most people _can't_ do what they love. It's only a priviledged few that can, and therefore as a general piece of advice, "Do what you love" is absolutely terrible.

I would rephrase it. I would say, "Do what will allow you to do as much of what you love as possible." Okay, granted, not as pithy, and probably doesn't fit on a t-shirt, but I think it's more accurate. For most people, work is _work_. It's not the thing they want to optimize. It's the thing they use to allow them to do the other things they want to do: play with their children, lie on a beach, paint, write, travel, whatever. Hell, even watch tv.

Which brings me to another point. I _hate_ the "kill your tv" mantra. _Hate it_. I'm itching to get into an argument with those people. I like tv. TV is a joy of my life. Moreover, it's not even that much of an empty indulgence. Some shows are compelling pieces of art. Battlestar: Galactica is a _damn_ good show. I'll put it up against many of the better movies and a whole bunch of the shit books they made me read in school. Similarly, I love watching Nova and National Geographic and such, and I learn from them. And sure, Daily Show is fucking hillarious, but it's actually getting people to engage in politics and current events in a way that they never have before. So the people who say, "Kill your television!" because it is a stupefying anesthetic are arrogant, ignorant bastards who need a strong shot of "shut the hell up."

Anyway...another digressive rant. I should wrap up the original thrust of this post, which was the cult of hyper-efficiency. I don't buy it. I'm not saying you should just do whatever the hell you want and not have any goals or plan on how to achieve them. But life is a balance between planning and working towards an end, and living in the moment and being spontaneous. It's a balance that's different for different people, because everybody's different. For those that seem to enjoy their lives hyper-regimented, it is supremely arrogant and detrimental to try to get everyone else to live the same way, just as it is arrogant and detrimental for evangelicals to try to make everyone else find religion just because they think it works for them.

Granted, I'm not a tenured professor at CMU. So why should you listen to me over him? Because, even though I haven't (yet) achieved fame and fortune, I'm happy. I like the pace of my life. I'm not going to be the next Bill Gates. I probably won't change the world or become fabulously wealthy. But I'm okay with that, because the process of trying to be or achieve those things would make me miserable, and I'd have to waste a good chunk of my life on them. It's not worth it. And I think too many people beat themselves up for not being those kinds of people. So what I'm saying is: don't worry about it. Find your balance. Let Bill Gates be Bill Gates. He's like that because that's his nature. He wasn't a lazy stoner who woke up one day, read "The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People," and suddenly became a zillionaire. He was an aggressive, competitive, driven bastard, and he was born like that. You aren't him, and you don't want to be him anyway.

BTW, to that end: fuck Bloomberg for firing that guy who was playing Solitaire. Fuck you, you arrogant, rich prick. The guy's life is probably shitty enough given that he's a city employee. He's allowed the occasional game of solitaire. You fired him without knowing whether or not he was otherwise doing good work, making his deadlines, etc. You don't own his life. The contract didn't say he had to be working every minute of every day on his office drone responsibilities. Would it have been better if he had sat with a Word document open for two hours, not making any progress on it whatsoever because he was burned out, instead of taking a short break to play Solitaire? Would you have even known? No, you wouldn't have, you arrogant fuck, because you judged the guy and fucked up his life based on seeing what he was doing for one minute out of one day. If you were in his job, your sense of entitlement would have probably kept you from performing _any_ of your responsibilities. So: _Fuck_. _You_.

Ah hem. Okay, that's out of my system. So yeah...don't follow Randy's advice. At least not to the letter. Sure, being more organized is a good thing. Make lists. Lists are good. Identify what you want to get done, then get it done. These are reasonable things. But don't let it get out of hand. Every so often, throw your plans out the window. Waste an afternoon watching tv. You only have one life, and your parents and ancestors went to a lot of trouble so you could enjoy it. So don't fuck it up.