The experiment Joe assigns: sit down to work with enjoyment as the #1 priority and work as #2. If you’re not enjoying yourself, stop and find a way to enjoy it. That’s it.
“Make your work something that is lovely for you to do and you won’t procrastinate.”
This works because procrastination isn’t about laziness—it’s about the work feeling like shit due to perfectionism, self-defining pressure, and fear of rejection. When you strip those away and make enjoyment the goal, the work gets done naturally, and often at higher quality, because connection (not perfection) is what makes great work.
“How do you just enjoy like right now? How do you enjoy this moment 10% more?”
The man’s breakthrough is somatic—his face flushes, he laughs, he realizes he doesn’t have to do anything to deserve love or enjoyment. He just has to be present. The recognition that “in a war with yourself you always lose” means the only path forward is to stop fighting and enjoy.
This is fundamentally different from “take the pressure off yourself,” which is just more pressure. It’s a genuine shift in orientation: from performing to earn love, to being present and enjoying the process.
Related Concepts
- How you do something determines whether you do it
- Procrastination happens when the work feels personal
- Goals can be self-abuse or creative expression
- Making something important is what makes it not fun
- Making enjoyment the only metric paradoxically increases productivity
- Falling in love with practice beats forcing yourself to practice
- Lack of enjoyment diagnoses the real problem
- Finding enjoyment in work is more efficient than pushing through