Jordan Peterson ‒ How To Increase Industriousness ‒ Q & A

Jordan Peterson "How To Increase Industriousness" Q & A

[trikata]

I want to share my experience with people who are struggling to be productive. I've had fantastic progress, but I started from a really really low-point. The first thing that I managed to do regularly and the first thing which if I forgot I would just get up and do was to brush my damn teeth regularly. After about a week I started to make my bed regularly, after a month I started cleaning dust regularly, then I started to study regularly...and at a certain point I even started to have fun regularly because I stopped feeling so stressed from not being productive that I can now just lay back and enjoy a hobby. I used to procrastinate so hard and so much that I couldn't bring myself to do even something that used to be very pleasurable to me, regardless of any duties looming over my head. Just know that it's possible.

[drakemitri]

How To Increase Industriousness:
1. Set meal times, sleeping and waking up at the same time daily.
2. Plan and prioritise for what is to be accomplished tomorrow.
3. Use a calendar to plan for the week, month etc.
4. Create a month, 3 mths, 6mths and yearly goals.

[whycantwebefriendzz]

Scored first percentile in industriousness. Looks like I'm buying a calendar.

[MrMultiPat]

He was answering my question. It's good to look back on this and see how I did.

[jacky]

1. Make a plan for your life - vision and counter vision
2. Micro-habits - Create Schedule - negotiate with yourself (hr, day, week, year)
3. Eat 3 times a day at regular times, wake up and sleep at regular times
4. Wake up earlier and get to work

[doublea]

Took his test. Ended up at the 0th percentile. Glad I found this.

[sae]

honestly, it's really refreshing to hear someone just tell you make a plan, think how catastrophic it will be otherwise, get your things done, wake up in the morning, no excuses, that's irrelevant, who cares.

[oumuamua]

I'm at the 18th percentile for industriousness, but high in orderliness, and I'm shocked to see some ppl are at 0 (nothing wrong with that, i'm shocked that there are ppl less industrious than me). I never applied myself at school, I always pushed responsibilities to the side, and I don't seem to feel bad when I let myself down by missing a deadline. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time and opportunities by having this plague me. I will start small and work my way up. I just need to stay patient.

[BarbaraMolin]

Regarding industriousness, I can give my own example. I was so smart in school, that I never learned how to study and be industrious. Everything came very easily to me all the way to highschool. So when suddenly in university, work became necessary, I didn’t have the skills and rather than learn them, I just quit. My friends, on the other hand, learned how to work from an early age and these skills helped them suceed.

[chickenshieee]

Aimlessness leads to suffering, suffering leads to bitterness, bitterness leads to cruelty, cruelty leads to hell. Be with you, may the force.

[adamjohns]

Hi future self
I'll add a reminder exactly 2 years from now to rewatch this video and replay to me

[silhouetta]

This advice... it feels like telling a low IQ person to just think harder and they’ll improve. My ability to generate willpower, even for things I badly, badly want to do, is so low, I can’t apply these methods for more than a couple of days. I’m 36 and I’ve been trying a long time. The associated self-disgust is excruciating.

The only thing that seems to work is to structure my life so that I’m subject to someone else’s willpower, in very immediate ways, in areas where I want to achieve things. Then I become amazingly productive, and start to like myself.

It feels really degrading to admit, when willpower is seen as an issue of moral character. I don’t understand why I can’t do it. It’s like taking a step with a missing leg. Just nothing there.

[silhouetta]

Ok hear me out, my dear fellow low-industrious folks. I think... we are not a blight on society after all. I think the gene pool held onto us for a reason: high-industriousness is adapted to thrive when conditions are stable, because they’re good at long term planning and implementing, but that is useless when conditions are radically uncertain; low-industriousness is adapted for when conditions are *not* stable, because we’re good at living intensely in the moment and adapting rapidly. The gene pool had to place bets both ways, because conditions varied hugely between stable and unstable in our evolved environment.

Maybe you don’t know yet that you do well in a crisis, but you probably do. You probably know that you can clean the whole house in 10 minutes when someone’s coming over (even though you can’t do it the rest of the time) and can write an essay in the 4 hours before it’s due (but can’t do it a week early). Maybe you’re good at surfing or sports that involve snappy reflexes and constantly adapting. Maybe you are drawn to complex people or situations, because there’s just something stimulating about navigating the challenge of that.

Our society today is very much designed for the benefit of the conscientious. It pursues stability relentlessly so that investment makes sense. That’s why conscientiousness is a predictor of success *in this culture*.

I want to suggest that trying to run the industriousness treadmill harder is not the way forward for us. We can all make a little bit of progress that way, but we’re going to have to ration our efforts there to a few really important things like saving for retirement and feeding the kids. (I’m talking about *really* low industriousness, like bottom 20%).

For the rest of life: explore the possibility that you actually run on adrenaline, not planning, and structure that into your life. Go for a job where challenges are coming at you in real time and you have to rise to meet them, and you’ll probably find that you thrive under that kind of pressure, especially once your competence grows. (Do it gently if you’re neurotic.) Try a fast-paced job like a busy cafe and see if there’s something about it that stimulates you and gets the best out of you. Then look for what will match your other strengths. If you’re agreeable, try a job where you’re repeatedly called on to respond with care in real time, like emergency response or customer service or animal care. If you’re disagreeable, look for competitive environments. If you’re extroverted, look for something where you have to deftly navigate a social environment or there’s some thrill seeking involved. If you’re neurotic, I recommend embracing the fact that a little bit of panic activates you. I do this. Go for something with a lot of accountability. Once you accept that this dynamic helps you actually achieve things and then you like yourself more, it stops hurting. If you’re intellectual or creative, follow what fascinates you.

Feel the pride of your ancestors when you surf the chaos. They survived, and so can you. The species needs what we have, or we wouldn’t be here. If a measured walk to the finish line doesn’t inspire you, aim to stumble across the line panting and utterly spent but with a sparkle in your eyes saying “Fuck, what a ride!”
<3

[Jawnwickk]

@3:04
I have to be to work by 6am.
So I get up at 4am
I’m done work at lunch time.
He’s right here. Makes a huge difference in what I can get done in a day. Problem is I’m too damn lazy to do anything else 😢

[relaxationstation]

Really grateful for the level of specificity he achieves in his mass production of content. I am incredibly low in industriousness. “5th percentile would be low.” I’m in the 4th percentile. Luckily it seems that industriousness and openness are inversely proportional in my case. I’m in the 96th percentile of openness. I have self medicated a remedy for my low industriousness: drinking absurd amounts of caffeine. The main issues with this solution have to do with tolerance and dependence. I will be using the self authoring program and following his advice. Hopefully it is effective.

[jackh_irl]

It's reassuring to hear more people are 0th percentile too. I'm 0th percentile Industrious and 97th percentile neuroticism... after I became more relaxed at work, my productivity plummeted. I hope setting goals etc. can help with duty, I don't want to be a loser in life

[andym]

Gotta wonder why your desire to clean the house and be "orderly" suddenly increases 10 fold when you are supposed to be studying for a test on a really tough subject.

[jordeman]

1) Have a plan where u want to be and where u want to stay away from (Future Authoring). The plan should be worthwile in spite of all the suffering that exists.
2) Eat 3 times a day regularly.
3) Get up early. If you wake up at 6 you're a deadly creature, having most of your stuff done when other people haul their sorry asses out of bed. No excuses. Discipline yourself to do it.
4) Use a Google Calendar. Design the day that u want to have.
5) Make a plan for 3 years, the next year, 6 months, 3 months, the week, the day, the hour

[-mkz-]

1:41 don't let your stupidity get the upper hand.

[caleuxx]

make a plan for the future - what you generate a strategy.... Calendar - helps keep anxiety at bay. Create a vision of what your life might be like 3-5 years When life is complicated and chaotic its very difficult to make