Rube Goldberg and the Paradox of Productivity Advice

Elliott Ge
Sep 9, 2018 · 4 min read

Reading self-help strategies and productivity tricks has become a game.
We win points for all the pabulum we consume, and reassure ourselves that we’re going to be better today: all it takes is reading one more article that offers a foolproof technique to act “productive”.

We can track and scrutinize every minute of the day. We can juggle seven different morning habits that supposedly usher in success. And after throwing every life hack at ourselves, we still find that nothing sticks.

There’s no better model for the never-ending search to act as productive as possible than the Rube Goldberg machine: a comedic contraption designed to do a simple task in a “clever” and elaborate way.

Rube Goldberg [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

When we take the human desire for efficiency to its most ludicrous extent, hilarity ensues. Rube Goldberg productivity is the promise that if we add enough hacks and planning to a task, it will become effortless.

In reality, it is a mind game — putting time into schemes that would be better spent actually working.

Losing the Goal in the Journey

We know that at the end of every Rube Goldberg machine lies a mundane result. The page of a book is turned. A door is opened. We do these things every day.

But in a Rube Goldberg machine, we watch every step with bated breath because of how whimsical and absurd the parts of the device are.

The machine is a perfect example of enjoying the journey and not the destination. In other contexts, this is an admirable quality.
In the pursuit of being productive, it’s an awful characteristic to have.

Having a “perfect” process is only as valuable as the results it creates: the reps in the gym, the words on the page, the sales calls made.
If you never create something, you can delude yourself into thinking that it is for a lack of the perfect process.

Never mind that you’re just terrified of making a mistake.
The problem must be that you haven’t written a manifesto outlining your life goals first.

We can always find some hiccup in our routine that feels suboptimal, and someone will always try to sell us a formulaic solution for it.
And if the columnists and gurus can’t fix it, they can sell you the feeling that you’re making progress anyway.

It’s unnecessary over-optimization — changing out the parts in the Rube Goldberg machine for shiny new ones.

What if we were just one page away from finding the ultimate piece of advice that would save us time? Online media outlets only encourage such informational hoarding and paranoia.
(The irony of writing this on Medium isn’t lost on me, when I spend half an hour daily going down the rabbit hole of related reads.)

The more you’re engaged by what you see on the screen, the longer you stay, and the more money those platforms make.

The endless parade of Rube Goldberg schemes — each promising to improve our lives with just a few minutes of our time — becomes a way to keep people hooked. No wonder the vast majority of productivity advice is a lineup of silly gimmicks.

This is a great deal for everyone involved in the information economy, except you.

Instant Productivity: Just Add Listicles

If living an optimal life was as simple as following someone else’s list of worn rules, or chasing after the habits of the successful, we’d all be rich, charismatic, and have washboard abs.

But is the point of success to run after the shadows of others? To choke on the dust from someone else’s trail?

When we read articles about someone else’s life lessons, it keeps us from exploring the lessons and insight in our own lives.

I run into this delusion in my own attempts at knowledge work and learning how to think. Regurgitating information and tricks from article upon article does not help you build an idea.

Staring at lists of advice, and expecting to gain any skill from doing so, is like glaring at a pot of water and desperately hoping that it’ll boil.

Or in the case of Rube Goldberg productivity, you wonder why the water doesn’t just boil after you’ve read 5 books about water, put a smart wi-fi connected thermometer in the pot, and visualized the water bubbling up.

Are our challenges really caused by a lack of knowledge?
If you tossed out your urge to read more blogs about your work, listen to more podcasts about productivity, and consume endless content, what tidbit would you miss that would actually prevent you from working?

Think of it like skydiving: after finding the right instructor and facility, going through every important safety check, and ascending in the plane, there isn’t more you can do to be “ultra-prepared”. Adding further conditions and steps won’t change the one thing you have to do.
The only option is to take the first step out of the plane.

You don’t have to set up an ingenious contraption or follow someone else’s 20-step program. You can’t flip a switch and suddenly write a book, but you can make the decision to put 300 words on the page now.

It is much easier to improve upon something that exists rather than something that does not. If you are making plans to improve a hypothetical habit, routine, piece of art, or personal essay that you haven’t started, you are trying to aim darts at a target while blindfolded.

The only thing necessary to do your own work — to begin an exercise habit, read more books, start a side gig, etc. — is to give yourself permission to do so.

Elliott Ge

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Exploring the stories we tell and philosophies we weave around the thoughts in our heads.

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