The Master of Drudgery

Avoid spending too much productive time on worthless chores.

A productivity antipattern: indulging too much in “quick wins.”

The running joke online: someone with a huge, colossal productivity system who gets nothing done. Five todo list apps, everything categorized and indexed, but material output is zero. They complete a hundred tasks a day and when you interrogate what those tasks are, they’re “brush my teeth” or “reorganize my bookshelf.”

Every task falls into two categories: quick wins and everything else. Life is not made of quick wins. Creative, generative, open-ended work requires long periods of focused work. But the quick wins are infinite — there’s always some micro-chore to do.

No specific advice on avoiding this, but notice if you’re doing it and course-correct.

See also: Borretti - Using Neuroticism to Defeat ADHD for the productive version of this tension.