What is being forgotten by the author of this post is that we are all different. Each of these posts, regardless of the main theme (in this case productivity) are coming from different life experiences and different approaches. Some of these posts provide a specific set of insights with instructions, others just some morsels of wisdom on the subject.

Reading these types of posts will resonate differently to me versus to someone else. Having these posts out there is a nice repetition of the main ideas and at some point when the person is ready, it can come together. At that point, all the different posts on the subject that the person has read will have started to come together with bits and pieces from each.

We do only really change when we are ready. I see these posts as the accumulation of knowledge to be there for us once we are ready to take the steps. I guess these thoughts can be true for other areas.

For me personally, I have been reading about setting up a home gym, kettle bells, paleo diets, low carb diets, dangers of grains (a la Wheat Belly) for the past few years and yet wasn't in a position to do anything to act on all these knowledge either through lack of motivation and life circumstances. Recently, within the last 2-3 months, it's all coming together. I'm tightening up the diet, working out from home, starting to use kettle bells, removing a lot of the unnecessary carbs and all the knowledge for all of this has been ingrained in my brain from reading and learning about all these over all this time. My personal map of knowledge in this area allows me to dig deeper in the right places since I've visited these places before causally.

So to the authors point, no, not one article is going to make anybody jump up and start to make drastic changes to their life. Perhaps not even a hundred. But when that person is ready, all those articles will play a part in helping them make these changes.

That's an interesting theory, but I wonder if it's true? Does it happen that someone would read productivity posts for years, and then suddenly start acting on the accumulated wisdom? I've never seen that...

Why is someone reading productivity posts all the time? Or any other self improvement material all the time?

Obviously there is some intent to change. When this intention manifest's itself into real action is the real question.

It's common with people that are depressed to have them read and be exposed to as much uplifting and self improvement materials as much as possible. How much it helps may not be easily quantifiable but it is known to make a difference.

I do agree that suddenly is a big step and its most likely that its baby steps.

Productivity Tips are the geek's version of Men's Health:

http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/files/2012/02/Mens-Healt...

A single issue should drastically change your life (fitness, sex, money, energy, style). Yet this magazine comes out every month... hrm.

I used to read Men's Health for several years when I was a teenager. It's true, after a while it gets rather repetitive. But I thought it was alright. I thought they had some pretty good reminders. I was often pumped to hit the gym after flipping through the pages. I think it was a decent investment back then, and I still remember most of the fundamentals.

Yeah, I don't think the material is actually bad. It's just that the problem isn't with the material, it's actually doing it.

Issues #2 onward should be "So, are you doing what we told you in issue #1? Because if you did, you wouldn't be looking for more."

agreed

I keep track of the posts that work for me and refer back to them: http://x.are.na/uCUxINP

Nice! While we're in the spirit of sharing aggregated material that we've found helpful, here's mine. Sorry for the messiness: http://visakanv.com/blog/recommendations

The irony of a post lamenting the unproductivity of productivity posts is killing me.

Well, it discusses them on a meta level, and it doesn't pretend to be productivity advice itself, so not much irony to die from.

I'm tracking the "sparks", perhaps about five a week (through beeminder.com), with very high fluctuations. Interesting to look back at them in retrospect.

All those insights are then consolidated into an "identity framework" through draftin.com. Shortcomings are then expressed as quantitative goals on beeminder.com and tracked (using RescueTime for time-related goals and binary variables for almost everything else).

This method has actually had quite an important impact on how I perceive myself.

This is a well written self-referential post: maybe the most futile of them all.

The post is very negative. If you take away from someone what you think of as false, don't run way without providing a better alternative. Even if that is just thinking for yourself and not to follow anybody.

Yes, most blog posts go on to follow the same path as that of so called self-help books. But once in a while a sincere anecdote can make you think of fresh perspective on how to handle a situation in which you did not do better.

I think we as a generation should feel lucky to be living when Experimental Psychology is blossoming. Books from authors like Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, Daniel Gilbert have had a life changing impact on my thinking. To really understand that our brains are not perfect - but are infact a kludge - makes you think about taking necessary precautions about these limitations.

And for productivity, number one thing that we need to outsmart is our impulsiveness.

The post is negative because the productivity posts are bad and make HN worse.

The alternative is to post ANYTHING other than "These 5 weird things are making you procrastinate" and similar.

Negativity that suppresses distractions is good.

I seek out productivity because my livelihood depends on it. I live in an environment where very little mistakes can be made and time needs to have an extra sense of urgency. The difference is that I focus on monitoring my behaviors and on other habits for the sole purpose of making actionable decisions on it. As long as there is actionable advice it can be useful.

I wrote about my productivity lifestyle system here: http://juvoni.com/you-are-a-rocketship/

yes these posts should be life and perspective altering. If you do not depend on them and treat them as doses of lsd, effect might be quite theraputic. at the end of the buzz sometimes there is a tiny takeaway and thats how it goes. Later down the road lesson learned might be highly beneficial - at least there were moments like that for me.

imho

You've inspired me to add an activity to my agile coaching practice: bring a blog post that inspired you but you didn't act on. Then we'll design a goal around it together. Fun!

Maybe I can help my clients turn some of these McPosts into fine dining. :-)

Yes a lot of these posts end up being nothing more than dopamine hits. But on the other hand, it's probably better than watching TV or reading Newsweek. As long as we're clear it's entertainment then I think we're okay.

It reminds me of something that I read once: That all self-help methods work, mainly because they encourage us to monitor our own behavior.