Ask HN: What to do about no work ethic?

4 pointsmetamuas3y ago3 comments

I feel like I have zero work ethic. I do not know why. I want to work, I do not wish to feel awful about doing nothing, but I do nothing all the time. I do not care or feel respectful or grateful for having a job, and I do not know what to do. I am a terrible programmer, and I am unmotivated to become a better one, despite daydreaming about being a 10x programmer.

I remember watching a documentary on indie games, and the developer of Super Meat Boy showed how he just keeps a to-do list on a piece of paper, and I feel awful because I feel so incompetent I cannot work off of a simple to-do list.

What should I do?

Are there any tricks you can recommend to learning how to function as a normal employee?

How do I go from uncaring towards caring?

3 comments

EddieDante3y ago

> I do not care or feel respectful or grateful for having a job, and I do not know what to do.

Hello, me. Meet the real me.

I'm not respectful or grateful to have a job either. I sure as hell don't care. I'm a mercenary, and proud of it. I'm only in it for the money, and I refuse on principle to pretend otherwise. Workism, the belief that you should find community, emotional fulfillment, and meaning through your job or career, is just another bullshit religion.

You already know this, if only subconsciously, and that is why you don't have the "work ethic" you think you should. Instead, you've embraced tang ping -- lying flat -- without so much as reading a manifesto.

Free yourself from the tyranny of "should". Your only duty is to yourself and your own happiness. Stop worrying about what you think you ought to do and ask yourself what you want to do. Never work harder than you absolutely must to get what you really want from life. If work was actually fun, we'd call it play instead.

PaulHoule3y ago

To-do lists can be a problem as much as a solution. It is easy to get depressed about writing them or end up overloading them with so many things you get depressed about it.

Kanban is the basic practice of management. Just like a juggler can juggle a certain number of balls there are a certain number of projects you can have going at once. At the cafe at the engineering school the staff have a certain number of food orders in progress and they don’t accept a new order until an old order is cleared out. Everything is like that.

Domobran73y ago

Try to find something interesting in your job. Generally, just wanting to work is not enough of a motivation: you need to want to do the thing you are doing. I found it easy to put in effort in the jobs I did so far because I enjoyed doing them, enjoyed learning. So try to achieve that.

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