Motivation and Discipline: which way to go? (Productivity) (Cont.)

Welcome back. This is the second installment, so I would highly recommend reading the first part, as this is written in sequential order.

Now that you have seen the first person’s life, let’s look at Person B. Person B is a developer at a company; let’s call it XYZ. His job is to finish requirements before the deadline, and the deadlines usually are lenient and one requirement generally requires a few hours of coding and debugging. He receives several requirements a week. Person B’s mantra is discipline, so he sits 8 hours a day, with 1 break for lunch, and grinds the work, regardless of the circumstance. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Monday morning or Friday evening; he gets 8 hours in. Now, this person is a very adept coder so he’s good at his job and sometimes finishes work early but starts working on the next requirement if 8 hours are not logged. While this helps him complete tasks way ahead of deadlines, his mental health is unfortunately taking a heavy toll. There’s days he’s just burnt out, and has to push to get through that last 2 hours. He feels like he cannot press another key, but as a stern follower of disciplined productivity, he trudges through. However, he can see his efficiency decrease but who cares; he needs this requirement finished. This is the problem with discipline. Things can go very bad very fast. Humans were not built for just menial labor but for happiness and enjoyment too. It’s okay if you take Friday evening off to watch Netflix; when you feel a wind of motivation on Monday, just compensate for that extra hour there.

When we consider these two scenarios, it becomes clear there is not one route to productivity.  You need to know when to take the day off as well as when to push through the slump. Sometimes, deadlines are just coming up fast but at the same time, life happens and you can’t do work. It’s important to forgive yourself for not being disciplined and to also not wait for motivation to do your work for you. 

Productivity is not a path you take; it’s a painting that you perfect and as with all paintings, balance is key.