Book I Will Never Finish: Leveraging Your Slacker

[SinbadEV]

So, as a slacker, the chances of me writing this book are highly unlikely... but the idea is sound...

Basically, loosely defined, a Slacker is someone who lacks that "spark" of motivation that makes most people productive members of society.

Unfortunately Slackers also tend to be Romantic, Creative, Intelligent and Good at things like programming and writing... Meanwhile "hyper-motivated" people tend to be Morons who get by primarily by pure effort... the practical effect is that decisions are being made by idiots who try hard instead of smart people... because the smart people don't care enough.

So the idea would be to figure out some practical ways to make Slackers behave like motivated people, because in theory a Motivated-Genius would be significantly more use then a Motivated-Moron...

Now, there is always the chance that the person you think is a Slacker is actually just a lazy stupid person... in which case there's really no point in trying to motivate them...

anyways, here's how far I've gotten (it will update as I edit... copyright me is implied... might crowd-source(wikihow/wikibooks?) if I give up.)

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df7qd3dg_148hbhpgjhm

[JohannesH]

Unfortunately Slackers also tend to be Romantic, Creative, Intelligent and Good at things like programming and writing... Meanwhile "hyper-motivated" people tend to be Morons who get by primarily by pure effort... the practical effect is that decisions are being made by idiots who try hard instead of smart people... because the smart people don't care enough.

What a moronic idea. You really think youre more romantic, creative, intelligent and good at programming and writing than others just because youre lazy? XD

[Pxtl]

Won't work. What, you think I'm actually gonna _read_ all that?

[Licho]

Thats a nonsense. Slackers are slackers. By definition you cannot expect anything good from them. You are just making random assumptions that fit your own self-image.
Oh well I'm this uber creative genius, who just lacks/shuns motivation of ordinary mortals!

But book can sell well as masturbation for all those people who rather think of themselves as slackers than incompetent.

[Peet]

Delusions Of Grandeur are the best kind of delusion.

[SinbadEV]

I spent my entire childhood and adult life that I wasn't living up to my potential... it's hard to not have an inflated ego. I'm pretty sure I'm not an idiot, and I'm pretty sure I'm not incompetent, which leaves Lazy... which is basically what I am trying to resolve.

[Gota]

Oh I thought we had enough threads with people casually reporting on how they were in some special school for brilliant kids or how they are good at tasks most "regular" humans find difficult or how they flew an f22 without training(of course they are too modest to use their talents for personal gain) etc..
Do not encourage more of this..

[Licho]

But who is lazy is incompetent. Lazy people can't do stuff -> incompetent.

Proper self motivation is necessary for whatever you are doing.

Without it you cannot even judge how capable/skilled you are! You can only compare outcome.

Even if you have high general intelligence or creativity, without correct personality/motivation it never translates to anything useful. And you certainly cannot compare it until it does and is judged by others.

[Gota]

Lazy people are good at being lazy...
Lazyness IMO has a lot to do with bad parenting.
If you were not imbued with the proper habits and values and had nobody to look up to that was a motivated and productive you will have lower chances of being productive yourself.

You wanna leverage yourself?You need to spend years rebuilding yourself and becoming an active person.
Start by doing more and more and giving yourself more and more responsibilities and just avoid doing nothing.
If you have no job,do your laundry,clean your house,rewire your computer,whatever just don't stop doing stuff.

[Beherith]

This reminds me of a really nice line in The Guild, when the hopelessly WoW addicted chick introduces herself as 'former child prodigy'

[SinbadEV]

The point of my book will be for people in relationships with or employing/working with Slackers to find practical ways to motivate a Slacker to achieve the unmet potential they "should" have.

I am defining a Slacker and someone who COULD be great if they were wired to achieve. There will be a section on identifying weather this is the case or not... it will be at the front of the book so as to assist people in their purchase decision.

[zwzsg]

The point of my book will be [..] to find practical ways to motivate a Slacker

But if you knew such ways, then you would not be one! Ergo, your book is a lie.

[Licho]

What I wanted to say, was that motivation/ability to work hard is extremely important attribute.
For example - take spring. I bet people with average intelligence could do all what developers do here - code engine, make mods, arts - if they were motivated enough.

As all developers know, motivation is the most important aspect. Without it you just won't do anything - you wont spend hours of hard work for a distant goal. And those hours of hard boring work are simply necessary.
Without motivation you wont even learn skills necessary to do what you want to do.

I know that many people think they come up with brilliant ideas, or that their ideas are worth implementing. But its almost never true! Most key new ideas that really work come from those hard working people again.

Person who is able to consistently work on project for long time and do boring things like bugfixing over and over again impresses me far more than random flashes of genius. Because I know that this first thing is harder, more rare and more important for success of any project.

[Licho]

And what's "achievement"? Why would non-slacker be wired to "achieve"??
I doubt many of my friends who work on same projects are real world "achievers" - that they struggle for conventional high social status and similar things. Motivation can really be different.
I know people who just want to see their creation in action. People who want to get perfection or beauty/elegance in what they do.
And I'm motivated by rage/anger a lot. Usually when I see things don't work well I just want to improve them/fix them.

It does not matter what motivates you, and I don't think there are many general rules. But as social beings social pressure works best on most -> if their good friends work hard.

[Pxtl]

I would disagree that the idea rats don't come up with good ideas that are worth implementing. Yes, their ideas _are_ good and worth implementing.

However, everybody else is also coming up with good ideas that are worth implementing.

Good ideas are cheap and easy to come by. The reason people learn the skills to implement things is because they already have their own good ideas.

Ultimately, if you want something done, you've got to do it yourself.

/self-admitted idea rat and procrastinator, but I also don't expect anybody to do my work for me.

[SinbadEV]

What I wanted to say, was that motivation/ability to work hard is extremely important attribute [...] more rare and more important for success of any project.

I'm not arguing with you at all... I completely agree with you in fact... I also agree with the other people who have mentioned the whole "If you knew how to motivate a Slacker, you wouldn't be one anymore."... but the trick with my book is twofold:

Number 1: I know a WHOLE CRAPLOAD of things that DON'T WORK.
Number 2: The goal of the work is to find ways to provide EXTERNAL tactics that non-slackers can apply TO a slacker to motivate them.

The idea, theoretically, being that if there are some simple tricks that can be used to get a slacker to become motivated the return on investment should outweigh the effort of the slackers wrangler.

For instance, for the measly cost of buying me a video game ($25) my wife managed to get me to spend 8 solid hours washing the 2 months of dishes that had piled up.

My boss has significantly improved my ability to work a full 8 hours a day by requiring me to submit my timecard on a daily instead of weekly basis.

When I eat and sleep healthy and avoid caffeine and sugar I tend to be less prone to sleeping in and other work avoidance strategies, so my wife stopped buying coke.

My wife yelling at me tends to trigger a stress induced "shut-down" mode where I fail to even bother to get out of bed so she has had to stop yelling at me quite so much.

[Pxtl]

Just go see a doctor. Get some ritaline.

[knorke]

Delusions Of Grandeur are the best kind of delusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GZf8pjy40c

However, everybody else is also coming up with good ideas that are worth implementing.

This. But its fun to see threads like "awesome game idea!!1 An RTS where you can construct your own units and then also control them fps style and it should be online and you can import your wow char." Just wondering what goes on in some peoples head?

And what's "achievement"?

Good question. For example when programming with BASIC ( ) I spent so much time writing a "game engine/frame work" with joystick stuff, levelloading, splitscreen, graphicstuff but never made a real game with it. I guess it was instructional but nothing usefull ever come out of it.

Putting it all together is just as important. The whole is more than the sum of its parts blabla

[Machete234]

This reminds me of a really nice line in The Guild, when the hopelessly WoW addicted chick introduces herself as 'former child prodigy'

Is that a movie?

btw I think im more intelligent than the average person but im also lazy and it is really hard to break such a pattern.
For example when lectures are over I could go home and study more or I could do something that I want and then its very hard or impossible for me to sit down and study.

Or you say I do xyz at 14:00 at 14:00 you say oh I do it at 15:00 and so on till you go to bed (going to bed you also postbone in the same way)

Its an illness and they just need a name and a pill for it. :D

Unfortunately Slackers also tend to be Romantic, Creative, Intelligent and Good at things like programming and writing... Meanwhile "hyper-motivated" people tend to be Morons who get by primarily by pure effort... the practical effect is that decisions are being made by idiots who try hard instead of smart people... because the smart people don't care enough.

What a moronic idea. You really think youre more romantic, creative, intelligent and good at programming and writing than others just because youre lazy? XD

He didnt say "more" but people who have succes are often loudmouths and they never realise how stupid the things they say actually are.
They dont feel ashamed because they dont get that they are stupid. (everybody should know such people)
I always think "please kill yourself or at least shut the fuck up"

Person who is able to consistently work on project for long time and do boring things like bugfixing over and over again impresses me far more than random flashes of genius. Because I know that this first thing is harder, more rare and more important for success of any project.

But you also need real geniouses to make a good programm like john carmack (just read masters of doom- the biography).
You could argue that beeing a real genious is a gift and you cant be blamed if you have it or not, so the geniouses are "just" lucky

[Spawn_Retard]

inb4 advances.