Thanks!! I’ve got some more questions, would love it if you (or anyone else) would answer as many as you feel inclined to.
Any thoughts on the difficulty of reading posts like the Ugh Fields one? Would you say you dislike reading long posts in general, or just long posts about productivity? What about posts that aren’t framed as being about productivity but nonetheless contain insights about how to be more productive? If I’ve got some kind of productivity insight, is it best framed as an insight about productivity or just a random interesting insight?
Also, if a post is actually going to ask you to take steps to be more productive, what’s the best way to accomplish that? Is it better to have some kind of call-to-action at the end of the post giving the reader an easy way to take action now? Or is it better to just give the reader some actions they can take later when they’re in a high-energy, motivated state? (Or just tell the reader to save the post and come back later when they’re feeling high-energy and motivated?) What if the call-to-action is relatively easy, like, say, installing a Google Chrome extension that tries to help you waste less time on the internet in a relatively unobtrusive way?
More generally, if you (or anyone) looks as the posts that actually resulted in them trying things out to improve their productivity (regardless of whether those things worked or not… that’s not the stage in the process that I’m trying to debug right now), what features did those posts have?
This essay felt exploratory to me, as though it was trying to take a concept and introduce it to the reader in a very thorough way that would be fully understood. It went into a lot of detail and sometimes described the same idea in two or three different ways. I think this approach is better suited for providing an academic argument than for providing actionable advice.
The Ugh Fields post is attempting to introduce a new concept, whereas this post is attempting to provide a list of useful steps that the novice can follow. So an academic approach fits the Ugh Fields post better. That said, I feel like even that post would be improved if it were condensed.
I have a slight dislike for lengthy posts. But it’s the efficiency or inefficiency of a post that concerns me most. A medium post with dozens of insights is better than a short post with none.
The best productivity post that comes to my mind is Humans Are Not Automatically Strategic. I also like some of PJEby’s stuff. It’s not clear to me why I like those so much more than anything else, but that’s how it is.
This essay felt exploratory to me, as though it was trying to take a concept and introduce it to the reader in a very thorough way that would be fully understood. It went into a lot of detail and sometimes described the same idea in two or three different ways. I think this approach is better suited for providing an academic argument than for providing actionable advice.
Thanks, that’s valuable feedback.
How do you think this post compares to my other one? Does that one frustrate you as well?
I like the intro to that. The four subdivisions were a smart idea, they helped make it easier to process quickly.
The “Organize” section felt a bit disorganized to me. It went into a lot of detail about emails, to do lists, and various zones. That was a lot of content to put in a mere subdivision, you might have been better off breaking it into its own post. If that option didn’t seem like a good idea, you could at least have shortened the advice. Just guessing, it feels like half your word count went into this section, when it should have been closer to 1/6th based on your headers.
The “Do” section had a problem similar to this post’s, though less egregious. You could probably have described the Pomodoro technique in one paragraph instead of several, or even just provided a link to Wikipedia or something like that.
The “Additional Tips” section was haphazard, though you probably already know that.
But don’t let me discourage you. I liked and agreed with all of the content. A lot of my criticism here is nitpicky, I am trying to provide a lot of criticism in order to be as helpful as possible, but don’t think that means I’m only seeing bad things. I liked the post a bunch despite these minor issues. Anything I failed to explicitly mention is probably something that I liked.
Also, I probably care more about word efficiency than the average reader because I did debate back in high school, and that places a premium on efficient communication because speeches are only a few minutes long.
Thanks!! I’ve got some more questions, would love it if you (or anyone else) would answer as many as you feel inclined to.
Any thoughts on the difficulty of reading posts like the Ugh Fields one? Would you say you dislike reading long posts in general, or just long posts about productivity? What about posts that aren’t framed as being about productivity but nonetheless contain insights about how to be more productive? If I’ve got some kind of productivity insight, is it best framed as an insight about productivity or just a random interesting insight?
Also, if a post is actually going to ask you to take steps to be more productive, what’s the best way to accomplish that? Is it better to have some kind of call-to-action at the end of the post giving the reader an easy way to take action now? Or is it better to just give the reader some actions they can take later when they’re in a high-energy, motivated state? (Or just tell the reader to save the post and come back later when they’re feeling high-energy and motivated?) What if the call-to-action is relatively easy, like, say, installing a Google Chrome extension that tries to help you waste less time on the internet in a relatively unobtrusive way?
More generally, if you (or anyone) looks as the posts that actually resulted in them trying things out to improve their productivity (regardless of whether those things worked or not… that’s not the stage in the process that I’m trying to debug right now), what features did those posts have?
This essay felt exploratory to me, as though it was trying to take a concept and introduce it to the reader in a very thorough way that would be fully understood. It went into a lot of detail and sometimes described the same idea in two or three different ways. I think this approach is better suited for providing an academic argument than for providing actionable advice.
The Ugh Fields post is attempting to introduce a new concept, whereas this post is attempting to provide a list of useful steps that the novice can follow. So an academic approach fits the Ugh Fields post better. That said, I feel like even that post would be improved if it were condensed.
I have a slight dislike for lengthy posts. But it’s the efficiency or inefficiency of a post that concerns me most. A medium post with dozens of insights is better than a short post with none.
The best productivity post that comes to my mind is Humans Are Not Automatically Strategic. I also like some of PJEby’s stuff. It’s not clear to me why I like those so much more than anything else, but that’s how it is.
Thanks, that’s valuable feedback.
How do you think this post compares to my other one? Does that one frustrate you as well?
I like the intro to that. The four subdivisions were a smart idea, they helped make it easier to process quickly.
The “Organize” section felt a bit disorganized to me. It went into a lot of detail about emails, to do lists, and various zones. That was a lot of content to put in a mere subdivision, you might have been better off breaking it into its own post. If that option didn’t seem like a good idea, you could at least have shortened the advice. Just guessing, it feels like half your word count went into this section, when it should have been closer to 1/6th based on your headers.
The “Do” section had a problem similar to this post’s, though less egregious. You could probably have described the Pomodoro technique in one paragraph instead of several, or even just provided a link to Wikipedia or something like that.
The “Additional Tips” section was haphazard, though you probably already know that.
But don’t let me discourage you. I liked and agreed with all of the content. A lot of my criticism here is nitpicky, I am trying to provide a lot of criticism in order to be as helpful as possible, but don’t think that means I’m only seeing bad things. I liked the post a bunch despite these minor issues. Anything I failed to explicitly mention is probably something that I liked.
Also, I probably care more about word efficiency than the average reader because I did debate back in high school, and that places a premium on efficient communication because speeches are only a few minutes long.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. :)