Doing the thing

Every block on the palette feels like work, because each one pays out a small, real reward right away. Planning gives you a plan. Research gives you twenty open tabs. Announcing gives you likes before a single hour of effort, which is why it tops the "Feels productive" meter. Paint whatever you want: that meter only ever goes up.

Only one block moves the other meter, and it's the one that feels least productive while you're in it. Doing the thing is slow and uncertain, and nobody claps while it's happening. That gap between how work feels and what it produces is the trap.

On a ward this is obvious: a care plan is not care, and the patient improves because of what someone actually did at the bedside. Most other work runs on the same rule; it just hides it better.

The idea and the closing line come from Strangest Loop's essay, which is a quick read. It also warns you that “Reading this essay isn't doing the thing.” Fair.

Source: Strangest Loop, "Things That Aren't Doing the Thing"