Most of the misunderstandings concerning productivity appear because productivity gurus measure productivity with time as the variable. If only we could manage time more effectively, we would get more things done, the thinking goes. This is true insofar that one is doing piecework where each actions takes a certain amount of time so that work volume is directly proportional to time. Although many people are still paid in the old fashioned way by the time they put in, most products are more accurately measured by the value they add regardless of how long it took to create this value.

From my perspective, the amount of value that can be created on average over time is limited by individual creativity. In other words, a person is capable of producing X amount of value and another person is capable of producing Y amount of value. If a person creates a lot of value in a single day, you can rest assured that very little of the same kind of value will be produced the next day. It simply averages out. To understand this, think of the goose who lays one golden egg a day. The goose may be considered highly productive during the hour during which the egg is laid. Naively one would expect that with proper time management, the goose would be able to lay an additional egg every hour. Obviously that is not how it work. If the goose was asked to do that, it would quickly burn out.

As I said, I think we each have the capability to produce a certain amount of value each day without burning out. If left to our own devices, that is exactly how much we will produce.

We will have

• a certain amount of creative energy
• a certain amount of physical energy
• a certain amount of social energy

Productivity is not about doing biceps curl with your left hand while brushing your teeth with the right hand. It is about using the above mentioned reserves most optimally. This is NOT done by maxing out each capacity (think of the goose). A certain amount of energy must also be spent maintaining the capability.

This is something our culture is not very good at, but consider this.

To use any given resource, you absolutely must consider THREE things

1. Extraction
2. Maintenance
3. Expanding

Extraction is the process of taking the energy. Productivity should not be about about maximizing the rate of extraction. Let’s repeat that three times. Productivity is not about maximizing extraction. The rate of extraction rate must not be maximized. Maximizing extraction is bad. You must not maximize extraction! Yet this seems to be what many gurus are preaching. It is certainly the way the career-reward system is set up.

Without maintenance, think of the United States infrastructure, for example, the system eventually crumbles. Without maintenance, the system can not be sustained. If the system is not maintained, it eventually dies with a whimper as extraction is limited as well. Maintenance is what the goose does to recover from laying the egg.

The importance of expansion is obvious. As well as maintenance, the system should be improved. This does not mean bigger or more, it means better. With expansion, the system stagnates and eventually gets crushed by non-stagnating competitors, and so some energy must be used towards that end as well. Expansion is what the goose does to get better at laying eggs.

Productivity must consider all three aspects. Ignoring one of them is fine in the short term but destructible in the long-term. Naturally there are short term incentives to ignoring maintenance and expansion in the short term, but this results in long term costs: Working a dead-end job, letting bridges collapse, running the world on non-renewable resources. Productivity, therefore, is not about expending time more efficiently, it is not about about expending more energy, it is about expending more energy either. It is about expending energy most efficiently.

This is exactly what happens when one says that work expands to fill the time alloted. This is also the reason why more free time does not result in more things getting done (see here and here). More free time does not result in more energy unless the previous energy is uses to expand capacity. Usually when just leaving a job (which pretty much only focuses on extracting as much as possible from you) a lot of energy must first be used on maintenance to rebuild yourself.

Originally posted 2009-01-11 17:42:17.

According to the government, the average family spends $700 on food. That’s $700 a year, right?

Alright, so here’s one way to do it. I call it the sloppy joe pinto bean one dollar meal.

You need a can opener, a knife, a pressure cooker, and a spoon. These are all available from the minimalist kitchen. If you don’t have one of those, here’s how to get one. Aside from that you need some ingredients.

• Pinto beans, soaked and cooked (these are essential). We got a 10lb bag of these on freecycle. Pinot beans are good for anything that gets mushy e.g. refried beans.
• Sliced and diced onion (this is essential)
• Can of tomato paste (this is also essential)
• Chopped jalapeno peppers. (this is optional) We used to have them in the garden. One of the few things that actually worked (tomatoes being the other one), but this came out of a can.
• Basil (optional)
• Oregano (optional)
• Tabasco (optional)
• Chili pepper (optional)
• Black pepper (optional)
• Garlic (optional)

Leaving out the optional parts changes the taste but does not affect the general idea.

Fry the onions in a pan. Add the rest except the beans. Stir. Now add the beans. You’re done.

You can serve it on bread with lettuce, tomatos, olives, etc. or with rice and pasta. All these options create a balanced amino acid profile. Have fun.

Originally posted 2008-11-27 06:51:40.

In a nutshell, engineering is making certain simplifying assumptions of the real world and building a piece of technology by combining separate parts to build a functional whole. During this engineering process, the degrees of freedom, that is, the play between its components is reduced as much as possible. This is possibly due to the limitations of the brain power or comprehension of the human engineer. As a result, most technology only has a few degrees of freedom. Some of the most complicated devices, like nuclear bombs only have a few dozen (this is a lot).

The 20th century saw many fields get engineered. I will discuss three of them. The first field to receive the engineering treatment was the socio-economic system. As a result, communism was a new design that led to enormous suffering. Fascism was another. I am not going to go into details, but socio-economic engineering are all based on the idea that humans are essentially “particles”, and so if we have enough particles and we know the “microphysics”, that is, the laws governing individual particles, we can predict, design and create large scale human behavior. Some of these designs failed. Other designs have so far been successful. If you wonder why you prefer particular brands, you are the result of one of the successful experiments.

The next field to be subjected to engineering was physics. The result was the nuclear bomb and the power to wipe out human civilization. Through a fantastic show of diplomatic skill, game theory, and forced collaborations, politicians avoided getting us all killed. This was possible because there were few degrees of freedom; here, that is, few nations had the bomb. Now that more and more nations become club members, the problem is getting more and more complex. I hope it does not become unsolvable. Although the inventors of the bomb knew the consequences, game theory clearly states, that the risk of the other guy “cheating” when you don’t is much too large. Therefore I fully support development of nuclear weapons … on our side, because the human level of civic mindedness is too low. To put it in other words. I am sympathetic to the anti-nuclear crowd, but the problem is that I do not think that the anti-nuclear crowd of the opposing side is anymore effective than ours. It’s the complete picture that counts. Now, despite scientists refusing to take responsibility for their actions of creating the bomb, politicians avoided mutual destruction.

This was not the case for financial engineering. Financial engineering is the synthesis of new contracts by combining existing contracts. Like with all technology, it’s use depends more on the user than on the inherent qualities of the technology. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. Incidentally, people kill more people with cars than with guns. I digress. Financial engineering could have been used to greatly reduce risk in the system. Unfortunately, the choice was made to use this protection to “fight bigger wars”. This is not much different than from what happens in collision sports (Without any direct knowledge, I get the impression that Wall Street recruit a large number of ex-jocks?) when better protective technology is introduced, like helmets and padding. Better protection does not lead to safer play. Rather it leads to more risk taking. While the small injuries are reduced, it tends to increase the likelihood of rare but dangerous events, which were previously avoided by playing it safe, as the smaller injuries were bad enough. This is the problem whenever the goal is to win.

The reason nuclear war did not break out was that there could be no winner.

The next field to be engineering is biology. Whether this will lead to the equivalent of communism (like Darwinism lead to eugenics in Germany, the US, and many other “scientific” countries), or the equivalent of everybody having his own bomb is a matter to be determined. Imagine that the genetic kits that Freeman Dyson imagines being part of science fair projects being used to make something similar to, oh say, a computer virus. A genetic virus constructed by an clever teenager lacking the wisdom and full intelligence/appreciation of the consequences of his actions. The difference between biology and computing is categorical. A computer virus may destroy your files. A genetic virus might destroy your food, or your life. It is in my opinion a huge problem, when technology is invented by people with little wisdom (in general anyone younger than 60) when it comes to human experience and have that technology be used by the very same. An pragmatic solution would be the nuclear solution: Let the young invent the technology, but hand over its use to the wisest generation.

Perhaps there are some technologies that should not be used. Unfortunately, it would seem that humans have not attained the required degree of wisdom to make such choices in advance. However, to our defense, as humans, it seems we are able to make the right choices reactively when we are standing on edge of the cliff. Let’s just hope that this strategy of no foresight will keep working for a long time.

Originally posted 2009-08-09 00:23:03.