Update

School is winding down––I have a final project and two finals left and I’m halfway done with undergrad (possibly more if I graduate early). It’s really weird to think that I might be entering my final year of college and may have to become an actual adult soon.

I haven’t been the most productive in the past few days, but I’m learning to become okay with that. I used to attribute my self-worth with indicators such as general productivity, academic performance, and how stressed/overworked I was. I’ve realized now that those are just simply indicators of me working a lot, but not necessarily anything that reflects who I am as a person.

Productivity can mean nothing

Sam Altman says

It doesn’t matter how fast you move if it’s in a worthless direction. Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored. So think about it more! Independent thought is hard but it’s something you can get better at with practice.

Reading a lot about productivity has made me realized that the reason why I wish to procrastinate on many things is that I don’t really care about the thing I’m doing. And previously, the motivations of prestige/possible “hoop jumping” accomplishments made it such that I was willing to force myself to do the work in order to achieve these things. And, to be honest, I still do that. There is definitely some value in doing these things, especially if the alternatives include playing video games instead (which I’ve been doing these past 2 days). But, that’s not to say that video games have no intrinsic value as well––I got to destress when I could afford to do so, and the social/entertainment aspect does provide some sort of benefit to me.

In the absence of a greater thing to work on, I truly believe that there is value in working on things such as a college degree or prestigious internship/job.

In any case, understanding where my procrastination habits stem from has helped me with identifying possible solutions. Something that I’ve read that’s comforting is that pretty much everyone struggles with severe procrastination––even the most accomplished of people. Instead of feeling guilty about it, it’s been better for me to identify what causes it, accept that it’s going to happen (no point in suffering twice), and work towards positive solutions. As long as I can keep it in check, and I don’t completely throw away my life as a result, then procrastination is simply reduced to just another part of life.

I think Sam Altman puts it best:

I’ve learned that I can’t be very productive working on things I don’t care about or don’t like. So I just try not to put myself in a position where I have to do them (by delegating, avoiding, or something else). Stuff that you don’t like is a painful drag on morale and momentum.

Yeah. Unfortunately, school is something that I don’t always like doing.

Solution

Sam Altman says in the following paragraph after the previous quote:

The most impressive people I know have strong beliefs about the world, which is rare in the general population. If you find yourself always agreeing with whomever you last spoke with, that’s bad. You will of course be wrong sometimes, but develop the confidence to stick with your convictions. It will let you be courageous when you’re right about something important that most people don’t see.

I’m still at a point in my life where I’m developing a value system. And I believe that’s fine––people develop value systems pretty much their entire lives. However, what I do think I could work on is consuming more and more information––even though I will continue to develop my value system, it definitely doesn’t hurt to be more informed and develop a value system faster. My logic is that most everyone I respect in my life has a really strong value system––yes, they’re open to change, but often they know so much more than me that other people and other information doesn’t have an instant chance of changing their views because they’ve already consumed information before and have taken a stance. New information is simply another drop to the pool of knowledge that they make decisions from, and these drops can change one’s view, but at a much less significant rate than, say me at my current state.

Right now, new information/perspectives impact me greatly because I don’t have a ton of personal thoughts to fall back on––for all the time I spend thinking/reading, I still am at a disadvantage compared to many of these people. Years of experience and thinking, coupled with the compounding effect that knowledge often has, leads to quite the insurmountable gap. But, again, that’s not something I worry about––”what can you do” holds for me in this case.

To get to the point of this section, I believe developing a value system will help me pinpoint things for me to work on that I’m highly motivated by. Currently, I don’t really work on things 24/7 because I don’t really care about the things I work on. This difference is marked from high school to now––I cared so much about getting into college so I’d spend so much time and effort on academic stuff. Now, I’ve gotten to a point where I can get basically any industry job I want, so any additional work is rather moot. Motivation is a tangible object, and it definitely doesn’t really lie in torturing myself over a handful of GPA points.

Now, having a value system likely won’t magically cure my procrastination habits––but it will serve to directly stem the root causes that trigger it in the first place. And, in any case, developing more informed opinions can never be a bad thing.

Final thought

Over the past year or two, I’ve been constantly paralyzed by my analysis about figuring out what I want to do in life. There are so many options I could choose, and I am really scared about not picking the direction that maximizes my potential. Going into finance/tech felt like a cop out to me.

However, my biggest takeaway from all of this is that as long as you’re thinking about a value system/working on it, it’s less important the exact time you find it. Of course, a lot of notable people find it early on, but plenty of very impressive individuals find it rather late in life. The problem arises when people don’t look for a value system ever in their life or ignore it when it appears––that’s why people are unhappy with finance jobs, or end up spending their lives on something with little real impact. And, if your value system is simply making money for yourself/your loved ones, then that is more than okay. Developing a value system and sticking to it can never really be faulted from a “productivity/life meaning” perspective––it is when this does not occur that it’s a problem.