Thanks for commenting! That seems like an interesting question/āpredicament, and well-worth reaching out for peopleās advice about.
Iāll send you a PM to see if Iād have more useful things to say if given more context. But first Iāll share a few very tentative, low-effort-from-methoughts/ālinks that might be useful in situations somewhat similar to this one. And Iāll do so publicly in case thatās helpful for other people too. But these are not confident recommendations, since I havenāt been in precisely that situation and donāt know your full context. (Also, no need to respond here unless you want to; you can also respond via PM.)
And hopefully some other people can jump in with advice as well, here or in PMs.
With those caveats in mind...
---
It sounds to me like maybe there are two angles from which this situation could be tackled:
(How) Can you increase your ability/ātendency to be motivated about and focused on the things you think it might in theory be highest impact for you to do?
With the key issue being motivation and focus on a very practical level and relatively short time-scales, rather than something like higher-level goals.
What career paths should you pursue, given your hypotheses about what youāll be motivated about and focused on?
Iām not sure how much reading posts would help by itself, but Iād guess itād help with similar things for some people, and it could be a quite low-effort thing to try
I think this has relevant stuff, though I havenāt read it since early 2019 so I canāt remember for sure
Iād normally suggest the Replacing Guilt blog post series as an option as well (mainly because some people I know found it useful, rather than because of my own views on it). But it sounds like youāve read that already.
I think each of these things would be essentially just starting points, rather than full solutions in themselves; Iām pointing you to them in hopes that one of them can point you to further relevant and useful things.
---
On Q2, some thoughts that come to mind are:
ābeing interested in your work sure is good for productivityā seems very true to me
Relatedly, Iād be cautious with thoughts like āThe reality of work is that itās not something you do because itās exciting, itās something you do because itās usefulāsurely everyone feels that way.ā
Iād guess that (i) almost everyone does feel that way sometimes, but (ii) probably a lot of the particularly productive people will fairly often not feel like theyāre āworkingā or having to āpush themselvesā when doing their job.
As such, I think itās probably indeed wise to really think about what work you can be excited about, on a day to day level, a lot of the time (though it wonāt be all of the time).
But I donāt think that that by itself strongly pushes in favour of doing what you currently expect youād be most excited about, or strongly pushes against doing the two paths you currently expect you wouldnāt be excited about on a day-to-day-level. This is for three reasons:
Have you actually tried out what day to day life would be like in the two career paths you mention? It is plausible you actually would like that, even if you donāt currently imagine you would, or even if you donāt like the day to day life of the sort of preliminary or training activities (like relevant college courses)?
Maybe there are relatively low-effort ways to test out how much youād like doing the tasks involved in actually having those jobs?
Maybe there are other career paths that would be highly impactful and that you would become excited about on a day to day level, but that you havenāt considered much or havenāt tried out?
Maybe thereād be some way you could make one of the highly impactful paths more motivating to you than itād be by default?
E.g., maybe thereās a way to tweak the exact nature of the role, or combine it with some side activity, such that itās more appealing?
E.g., maybe if you get better at a particular skill, that part of the role will suddenly flow easily, and thatāll make the day-to-day less aversive?
(Again, I should know that I have very little context on you or your situation, so these are just quick thoughts.)
(But all that said, for all I know, it definitely is possible that the best career path for youāfrom both a personal and impact perspectiveāwould be a path thatās quite related to the things you currently expect to be most motivated by.)
Thanks, Michael! Itās taken me a while to respond to this because Iām still going through all the links you sent. Iām glad to have so many reading directions to explore. One thing thatās stood out to me so far is the section on mental health in 80Kās āAll the evidence-based advice we found on how to be more successful in any job,ā which motivated me to rethink how much time and energy I should invest in that area.
As I mentioned in another comment, I think I have a good idea of the day-to-day of software engineering. Research not so much, and I do hope to get some experience in that direction soon. Iāll also be thinking about your other suggestions about exploring other career paths and adapting the paths Iām on.
Thanks for commenting! That seems like an interesting question/āpredicament, and well-worth reaching out for peopleās advice about.
Iāll send you a PM to see if Iād have more useful things to say if given more context. But first Iāll share a few very tentative, low-effort-from-me thoughts/ālinks that might be useful in situations somewhat similar to this one. And Iāll do so publicly in case thatās helpful for other people too. But these are not confident recommendations, since I havenāt been in precisely that situation and donāt know your full context. (Also, no need to respond here unless you want to; you can also respond via PM.)
And hopefully some other people can jump in with advice as well, here or in PMs.
With those caveats in mind...
---
It sounds to me like maybe there are two angles from which this situation could be tackled:
(How) Can you increase your ability/ātendency to be motivated about and focused on the things you think it might in theory be highest impact for you to do?
With the key issue being motivation and focus on a very practical level and relatively short time-scales, rather than something like higher-level goals.
What career paths should you pursue, given your hypotheses about what youāll be motivated about and focused on?
---
On Q1, some things that come to mind are:
You could schedule a free call with Lynette Bye, who runs EA Coaching
I havenāt used this service myself, nor interacted with Lynette much, but it looks like various EAs have found her services valuable.
My impression is that she especially focuses on productivity, but sees things like motivation and focus as part of /ā related to that.
You could read relevant-seeming posts from Lynette
Iām not sure how much reading posts would help by itself, but Iād guess itād help with similar things for some people, and it could be a quite low-effort thing to try
You could read LessWrong posts on akrasia
Iām not sure this is exactly the right concept for what youāre talking about, but it seems somewhat related
You could read 80kās All the evidence-based advice we found on how to be more successful in any job
I think this has relevant stuff, though I havenāt read it since early 2019 so I canāt remember for sure
Iād normally suggest the Replacing Guilt blog post series as an option as well (mainly because some people I know found it useful, rather than because of my own views on it). But it sounds like youāve read that already.
I think each of these things would be essentially just starting points, rather than full solutions in themselves; Iām pointing you to them in hopes that one of them can point you to further relevant and useful things.
---
On Q2, some thoughts that come to mind are:
ābeing interested in your work sure is good for productivityā seems very true to me
Relatedly, Iād be cautious with thoughts like āThe reality of work is that itās not something you do because itās exciting, itās something you do because itās usefulāsurely everyone feels that way.ā
Iād guess that (i) almost everyone does feel that way sometimes, but (ii) probably a lot of the particularly productive people will fairly often not feel like theyāre āworkingā or having to āpush themselvesā when doing their job.
As such, I think itās probably indeed wise to really think about what work you can be excited about, on a day to day level, a lot of the time (though it wonāt be all of the time).
But I donāt think that that by itself strongly pushes in favour of doing what you currently expect youād be most excited about, or strongly pushes against doing the two paths you currently expect you wouldnāt be excited about on a day-to-day-level. This is for three reasons:
Have you actually tried out what day to day life would be like in the two career paths you mention? It is plausible you actually would like that, even if you donāt currently imagine you would, or even if you donāt like the day to day life of the sort of preliminary or training activities (like relevant college courses)?
Maybe there are relatively low-effort ways to test out how much youād like doing the tasks involved in actually having those jobs?
Maybe there are other career paths that would be highly impactful and that you would become excited about on a day to day level, but that you havenāt considered much or havenāt tried out?
Maybe thereād be some way you could make one of the highly impactful paths more motivating to you than itād be by default?
E.g., maybe thereās a way to tweak the exact nature of the role, or combine it with some side activity, such that itās more appealing?
E.g., maybe if you get better at a particular skill, that part of the role will suddenly flow easily, and thatāll make the day-to-day less aversive?
(Again, I should know that I have very little context on you or your situation, so these are just quick thoughts.)
(But all that said, for all I know, it definitely is possible that the best career path for youāfrom both a personal and impact perspectiveāwould be a path thatās quite related to the things you currently expect to be most motivated by.)
(My thinking here is informed by 80kās 2014/ā2017 article on personal fit.)
Thanks, Michael! Itās taken me a while to respond to this because Iām still going through all the links you sent. Iām glad to have so many reading directions to explore. One thing thatās stood out to me so far is the section on mental health in 80Kās āAll the evidence-based advice we found on how to be more successful in any job,ā which motivated me to rethink how much time and energy I should invest in that area.
As I mentioned in another comment, I think I have a good idea of the day-to-day of software engineering. Research not so much, and I do hope to get some experience in that direction soon. Iāll also be thinking about your other suggestions about exploring other career paths and adapting the paths Iām on.