Summary
Joe and Brett explore how the obsession with productivity often becomes a hedonic treadmill that prevents actual accomplishment. Joe shares that when he was a venture capitalist, he accomplished more doing one-tenth the work when he was deeply aligned with what he wanted versus grinding through tasks.
Key insights include: distinguishing between “pace” (sustainable speed) and “spin” (effort that doesn’t move things forward), recognizing that answering emails can feel productive while accomplishing nothing, and seeing that the most productive thing is often doing the most uncomfortable thing—the thing you don’t know how to do, which is usually the most important.
Joe describes his evolution from procrastinator to someone whose primary job was “not doing things and getting them done”—finding the three things on a to-do list that would make everything else easier or redundant. The episode challenges the cultural addiction to conspicuous busyness and the dopamine hit of responding versus actually creating change.
Key Concepts
- Busyness feels productive but often accomplishes nothing
- The most productive thing is usually the most uncomfortable thing
- Deep alignment with what you want eliminates procrastination
- Pace and spin—two metrics that reveal whether your productivity is real
- Responding feels like doing but often changes nothing
Key Quotes
“Your job isn’t to work hard. Your job is to have great ideas. If you have one great idea it could save this company 2 years, 3 years, 4 years.”
“The person who started the local tire shop and the person who started Google probably worked about the same amount of hours.”
“My job wasn’t to get things done. My job was to not do things and get them done.”
“I’m answering emails but I’m not doing anything… my mind was being tricked by a response that feels good but I was a video game.”
“The thing I was most likely not going to do was the thing I didn’t know how to do and was usually the most important thing to do.”
Transcript
I used to say this to CEOs all the time when I was a venture capitalist: your job isn’t to work hard, your job is to have great ideas. If you have one great idea it could save this company 2 years 3 years four years. The person who started the local tire shop and the person who started Google probably worked about the same amount of hours. Joe and Brett discuss how productivity itself can become a hedonic treadmill. Joe shares his journey: early on he procrastinated, but when deeply aligned with what he wanted, there was no procrastination—just addiction to the doing. He accomplished more doing one-tenth the work as a VC. They discuss pace (sustainable speed) versus spin (effort without forward movement). Joe evolved to asking: what are the three things on this list that will make everything else easier or redundant? His job became “not doing things and getting them done.” He recognized the most productive thing was the most uncomfortable thing—the thing he didn’t know how to do. He also saw that answering emails felt productive but was really just a video game—responding without creating change. The cultural layer reinforces conspicuous busyness, especially in large corporations where people respond to meetings all day but nothing moves forward.