It still irks me that people can tout off success as though it's guaranteed for small experiments such as this without even considering elements such as the Hawthorne effect - 'changed behaviour during the course of a study may be related to the special social situation and social treatment they received'
I don't think he's saying we should all hire some slappers. Rather, if we incorporate the right kind of social component to our workflow, we can improve productivity a lot. The slapping is an attention-getter for sure, but I think it's a creative way to make a point.
True, but when I work in a busy vibrant office, surrounded by interesting peers excited by their work, my productivity goes through the roof - I feel like a cheat spending time on Facebook or <gasp> HackerNews.
When working from home or in a dull share office...
Can you elaborate on why it's idiotic? As much as computer programmers like to think they're precious snow flakes to whom productivity tips don't apply to, this sort of system works for fitness, sales and from PGs post, sculptors.
Because as a one-time experiment, the subject is likely to do well as the phenomena itself is new. As the experiment progresses into multiple days or weeks, the subject is likely to say, "What the fuck? Stop slapping me. You're fired, I want to browse reddit." In my opinion, anyways.
I think anyone willing to pay someone ~$300 a week will not simply snap at the person and fire them because they want to browse reddit. They understand the value.
There are a lot of assumptions in this statement worth examining:
1. A productivity system must work for a long time.
2. A conversation about productivity systems must exclude those that are in the "doesn't work" and "interesting new idea" stages.
3. Productivity systems and workflows are not personality (or personality type) dependent - what works for one person doesn't qualify as something worth investigating by those who identify with the "successful user".
I think #2 and #3 stand alone, but #1 is a bit more interesting:
There exist people for whom any productivity system will not work in the long run. There are several factors that can be involved in this:
* they are actually more productive when ramping up a system and early in using it - the thinking about the system to productivity inspires actual productivity. Once they internalize the rules and the ramp up, it stops working because they don't focus any more
* The sort of person who internally chafes at rules/structure may experience productivity at first with a new system, because (s)he as decided to comply with that system, but subconsciously starts to figure out ways to meet the rules of the productivity system without actually being productive. Some people just do this, whether they intend to or or not, it's just a thing.
* Novelty itself inspires them to do more
* Productivity inspires productivity - the act of setting up a productivity system is productive, therefor inspiring other productivity elsewhere. (similar to the first example but a bit different)
And so on.
Why not give such people another system or lifehack or workflow hack or whatever you label it, to chew on?
(ok I claimed I'd leave #3 alone, but experiments like this allow people see more things that work for someone a bit, and help give them ideas to tailor the system to themselves)
Now that's idiotic. There needs to be a conversation before it can be used by more than one persion, and it likely needs to be used by many people as the result of conversation (and blog posts) before there is enough anecdotal evidence to warrant a scientific study.
Not to mention the fact that if it works for someone, it is by definition effective for that person, and worth noting for that person.
What's with the influx of HN'ers demanding scientific proof before any matter is discussed? Same debate happened over whether meditation was helpful.
As a blog post that serves as link-bait, it is GENIUS.
...which is to say, I think it excelled at the REAL goal. ;-)