Just go “aah!” Hardcore!

My best work happens when a certain kind of relaxed determinism converges with methodic productivity.

If you work long enough in software you’ll meet people who think that success is the result of brute forcing through everything. Work needs to be fast, sleep needs to be less, overtime doesn’t exist because why would you want to do anything but work.

That’s not how life works. That might very well be how certain moments in life lead to a certain form of success, but t’s not a scalable solution to a successful and happy life.

Let’s take action. I’m a big believer in having just a maniacal sense of urgency. So if you can do it after this meeting, I would do it after this meeting. Just a maniacal sense of urgency. Like, if you want to get stuff done, maniacal sense of urgency. Just go “aah!” Hardcore!

Some people succeed by being loud and hectic.They shroud themselves in an aura of ever increasing urgency and hustle because – and that’s only my interpretation – they lack the skills to do deep work. They don’t understand that this different way of working even exists. If you seem like you’re busy and confident you must be doing something right.

The unfortunate truth is that people who do the actual work have to pick up the shards of those who rumbled and bumbled through life, breaking things on their way. This brand of workaholism is not cool anymore. It’s just another symptom of toxic alpha male energy nobody needs.

I’ve been blinded by people like this in my early years working. Now I understand that toxic hustle is nothing but a mating dance between somebody and their own ego. It’s not impressive or cool. It’s just clownish behaviour. Everybody is allowed to be a clown. As long as they don’t hurt others by being one.

The most recent episode of ATP has a segment on workaholism culture that’s worth listening to. They go a little more into depth on how a culture like this is detrimental to your health and even to the quality of your work.