Re:Stop trying to make hard work easy
by cseleborg on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @05:55AM
(#23165227)
I think it's worth distinguishing between hard work (working long hours), rote work (doing lots of menial work) and challenging work (important work that requires attention/concentration).
I agree with you that rote work should be minimized with better tools and processes. I can delegate the bookkeeping for example.
Hard work seems like a matter of culture. There might be the expectation from your organisation, family, community etc. that working long hours is the only right way of working. But I don't think that's what the author is addresssing here.
So that leaves challenging work, like writing, marketing, cold-calling, etc. I should be cold-calling much more for example, but I've become quite proficient in finding excuses not to do it (one of them is that it's illegal here in Germany for my product in many cases). I certainly see the author's point about avoiding the discomfort for these types of activities.
Re:Stop trying to make hard work easy
by kd5bjo on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @08:18AM
(#23166076)
Sometimes completely eliminating rote work is a mistake. If there’s a lot of challenging work to be done, doing some rote work can be used to rest some while still staying basically on-task and minimizing context-switching costs.
I agree with you that rote work should be minimized with better tools and processes. I can delegate the bookkeeping for example.
Hard work seems like a matter of culture. There might be the expectation from your organisation, family, community etc. that working long hours is the only right way of working. But I don't think that's what the author is addresssing here.
So that leaves challenging work, like writing, marketing, cold-calling, etc. I should be cold-calling much more for example, but I've become quite proficient in finding excuses not to do it (one of them is that it's illegal here in Germany for my product in many cases). I certainly see the author's point about avoiding the discomfort for these types of activities.