This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding – Medium and was authored by Jarek Orzel
Being productive to me and being productive to my boss might mean two entirely different things. My boss may evaluate my work from a short-term, subjective perspective based on outputs he can see and expectations he has.
I should focus on long-term personal development and well-being.
Improving your craft over the years is essential to staying in the game. But staying in the game also means keeping balance — work-life harmony, mental health, long-term aspirations, and integrity.
The Backlog Will Always Be Full
“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.”
Robin Sharma
There will always be more tickets. Always more emails. Inbox zero doesn’t matter much in the long run. What matters is making space for development, setting aggressive challenges, and seeking growth.
This is where the Pygmalion effect comes in — our performance often matches the expectations we set for ourselves. That’s why proactively seeking out new things to learn is essential.
We often repeat tasks we’re already good at. It’s safe and fast. But it’s not a growth path. Naval Ravikant, in his great conversation with Chris Williamson, mentioned that the difference between iteration and repetition is key. Repetition is doing the same thing over and over. Iteration is doing it again — but better — because you’ve reflected and corrected mistakes. Iterate 1000 times, and you’ll master it.
Seeking perfection often means avoiding hard things. Over time, this becomes harmful. Without improving your toolkit, every problem will look like a nail, and you’ll keep reaching for the same hammer.
Five years of experience can mean five years of growth. Or it can mean repeating the same year five times.
Getting Comfortable with Discomfort
Setting aggressive challenges and stepping out of your comfort zone is not easy. You’ll fail. Get stuck. Be embarrassed. That’s part of it.
Learning, by definition, means leaving your comfort zone. You need to cultivate love for the process. Hold back judgment — it only leads to frustration.
Use your end goal like a rudder to steer, not as a scoreboard.
Doing something difficult, struggling, and eventually succeeding brings joy. It gives confidence. Self-esteem grows when you do what you once couldn’t.
Break things down. Drill the weakest parts. All learning is error correction, so stop treating errors as failures. They are part of the process.
Adopt a growth mindset: improvement is possible, but the pace will vary. Find a way instead of an excuse.
Every challenge is a set of skills you can learn. Put (lack of) talent aside.
Be aware of your constraints — working memory, environment, time — and use them to design better strategies instead of giving up. Even learning how to learn is a learnable skill.
The quality of your practice matters. Obsessive work ethic helps, but only when it’s smart and well-designed.
Design Your Work Time
Use timeboxing. Design your schedule intentionally. Stay flexible, but within constraints.
I don’t enjoy hot deadlines or stress. I prefer to work with soft checkpoints and structured planning.
Be aware of long timelines — they can make you complacent. Parkinson’s Law still applies: work expands to fill the time available. That’s why it’s crucial to set deliberate constraints.
Do deep work. When it’s time to focus, avoid distractions. Stay on the task. No multitasking.
Deep work. Essentialism in asynchronous culture
Self-Directed Aspirations Build Persistence
It’s much harder to persist when motivation is external. If your drive comes from within (your aspirations), it’s much easier.
Have a mission. Stretch your identity.
External motivators work, but only while they’re present. Eventually, they disappear, like authoritarian parents who must one day send their kids into the world.
Intrinsic motivation lasts. But it requires you to know yourself, what matters to you, and what kind of person you want to become.
Breaks, Recharge, and Burnout
Aggressive learning and constant improvement can be exhausting. Long-term success needs balance.
Take breaks. It’s okay to stop learning for a while.
There are times to grow and times to recover.
Build redundancy in your life. Even if you love your work, have other sources of energy: hobbies, family, rest.
Loving your work can make it hard to switch off. Especially in remote work. Your laptop is your office, and your office is always there.
The most important thing? Stay in the game for a long time. Survive. Don’t burn out.
Sometimes it’s better to slow down. One bad decision can cancel out ten good ones.
Think long-term: balanced effectiveness over short-term bursts of efficiency.
Money as Autonomy
Money can be over- or underestimated, but it’s useful.
It gives you autonomy. It gives you options.
Financial security lets you take a break, explore, or even switch careers. It lets you make decisions you want to make, not decisions you’re forced to make.
It’s worth achieving material success — if only to realize that it’s helpful but not enough for fulfillment.
Abundance Can Be Overwhelming
More is not always better.
Put boundaries in place. Understand The Paradox of Choice. Barry Schwartz highlights the difference between Maximizers and Satisficers.
Maximizers seek the best possible option in every decision, often leading to dissatisfaction and regret because they second-guess their choices.
Satisficers, on the other hand, set clear criteria and settle for “good enough,” leading to greater happiness and less stress.
Be a satisficer. Set a standard — once it’s met, you’re done.
“Life is a river, not a bucket”
Naval Ravikant
You don’t need to collect and carry everything. Let some things flow by.
You can’t do it all. You can’t read everything. You can’t consume all the content. And that’s fine.
I used to read 50–60 books a year. I thought if I read fast enough, I could cover it all. I couldn’t. The stream is endless. So now I leave books unfinished. I skip things. And I’m okay with that.
You don’t need to fill the bucket. Just dip your hand into the river now and find something interesting.
The Long Game: Meditations on Productivity and Improvement was originally published in Level Up Coding on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
This content originally appeared on Level Up Coding – Medium and was authored by Jarek Orzel