Former Slacker

What do all productive people have in common? They’ve all followed the same simple advice we’ve heard over and over: Do something you love. It sounds so simple that it hardly seems worth mentioning, but it’s absolutely fundamental to productivity. Look at all the people you know who are unproductive. What’s the primary thing they have in common? Most likely, they all hate, or at least don’t care about, what they do for a living. Now look at all the most productive people you know. They all love what they do.

Doing What You Love

If you love cleaning, you’re going to have a spotless house. If you don’t love it, the best you’ll ever get is clean, never spotless. You won’t excel unless you truly love it. I know what you’re thinking. Suzie from work has a spotless house, and she says she hates to clean. Well, Suzie’s holding a secret from you. Either she actually has a maid, or she doesn’t hate to clean. She might say she does, but what she really means is, “I don’t enjoy cleaning very much, but I absolutely love having a clean house.” If Suzie loves having a clean house enough, then she will put forth the effort to get it done. It’s not hate for cleaning that has her scrubbing stains off the bathroom grout. It’s love.

You might think that nearly everyone loves to have a clean house, but that’s not true. Most people like having a clean house. If they loved it, they’s put forth the same effort that Suzie does. Liking a clean house will get you an occasional straightening-up, and a monthly mopping.

A careful reader might note here that Suzie still doesn’t like cleaning. She just likes, or rather loves, having her house clean. That brings us to an important corollary to the first rule of productivity.

No One Loves Doing Anything

With the exception of a few primal activities and urges, this rule is very nearly universal. You might not believe this, but just bear with me.

No one loves activities. They love results.

Linux fans don’t love using Linux. They love it when they get something to work. They love the feeling of accomplishment. Likewise, programmers don’t love to code. They love the final product. Programming can be extremely tedious at times, like most jobs, but the outcome is worth it if you love the outcome enough. If you know someone who claims to love programming for its own sake, ask him how much he loves it after a full day of unsuccessful debugging. You’ll get a very different answer. You might also witness a psychotic break first hand.

Similarly, great managers don’t love the day to day activities of managing. Instead, they love the payoff, a well-oiled machine. Some love the money or power, but those aren’t great (read: productive) managers.

Competition embodies the love of results. Love of activities doesn’t spur on sports. It’s the love of winning, of accomplishing something grand. It’s not a love of golf that makes Tiger Woods one of the best. Even casual golfers are trying for results. They are trying to improve their games. If it was really about just taking a leisurely afternoon, they wouldn’t get upset when they come in way over par, nor would they be elated when they shave two strokes off their best.

It is possible to be productive at something you simply don’t care about if you love the money enough, but it’s hard. You have to really love money. You have to love money just as much as the truly productive guys love the results. It’s generally much easier to just find something else you love, and find a way to make money at that.

So, what’s the lesson we can take from this corollary? Basically, the lesson is that effectively, Suzie does love to clean. Since no one loves activities, and everyone loves results, it makes no sense to talk about hating an activity if you love the results. If you truly love the results, they you’ll perform the activity, and you’ll probably be good at it.

Use The Rule

Rather than fighting with this, use it to your advantage. If you want to really be great at something, to truly be productive, your best bet is to ether: find something else to do (something that you do love), or find a way to love what you already do. The second option can be a pretty difficult task. I’d recommend the first when possible. Finding something you love isn’t always easy, but it’s certainly rewarding.

For those things you need to do, but just don’t love, you can either accept that you won’t do your best, or you can try to learn to love it. Find the little things about it that make you happy. Do you have to fill out paperwork constantly? Don’t think about how tedious that tenth report is. Instead, remind yourself that doing the work in a high-quality and timely fashion reflects well on you. Think about how good it will feel to be done with all the paperwork for today. Try to find the positives, and focus on those. Or try to effect a change, if you’ve got an idea for how to fix the problem. It’s about focusing on the positive.

Do you need to get in shape, but don’t enjoy exercise and dieting? Don’t concentrate on how hungry you are, how tasty that pie would be, or how boring you find running on the treadmill to be. Think about how good it will be to look at the scale and see another pound gone. Think about how loose your pants have gotten a month into your diet. Find things you love about what you’re doing. If you overlook the positive in favor of the negative, you’re more than likely going to find yourself buying larger pants next month, not smaller.

Successful dieters don’t hate to diet, in spite of what they might say. They love it. That’s what separates successful dieters from the unsuccessful ones. The unsuccessful ones don’t love the results enough to pass up the raspberry-drizzled chocolate torte. The successful ones would rather shave another half pound off their weight than have dessert. If you want to be one of the successful ones, then learn to love it.

If you want to be successful, if you want to be productive, do what you love. Either find something new that you can love, or learn to love what you’re already doing.