Milan MecklenburgMilan Mecklenburg

Productivity and happiness

Status is a means for connection, not an end in itself

by Milan Mecklenburg on

People typically are more status seeking than they admit to others or even themselves

The impact of status and the desire for it in society is easily underestimated, because status is a taboo. It is not well regarded to be status seeking, in fact, seeking status is often seen as low status – an idealised high status person already has everything they need, including status. In addition, it feels unpleasantly adjacent to thinking of people as inferior or superior. Status has a zero sum quality that makes it feel meaningless.

Hence many status games have evolved plausible deniability, allowing the status drive to be pursued while being hidden from others and even ourselves. People pursue hobbies that can bring genuine joy, connection and growth and also just happen to be expensive (e.g. fancy camera equipment), demand a significant amount of time (e.g. travel), intellectual energy (e.g. appreciating challenging art and understanding its context), skill (e.g. performing arts like dance or music) or physical fitness or impress others in some other way. We may fool ourselves into thinking we’re not seeking status when we are, e.g. believing we just want certain clothes for their quality etc. – because it is simpler to fool others when we also fool ourselves. Our hearts draw no clear line between practicality, pleasure, connection and status. 

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For learning self help content, deciding what to believe is what’s most important

by Milan Mecklenburg on

Consuming self-help content for me is very different to learning other material, such as languages or dance. For the latter, there is usually a relatively clear answer for what is the right thing to do (e.g. if a given sentence is grammatically correct), at least at a beginner to intermediate level. We do not need to challenge what is taught that much, because the skill gap to the content creators and teachers is large. For such learning with a relatively clear correct answer my focus is learning and retention, using the principles I describe in my “How to learn efficiently and durably” guide:

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Growth through compassion

by Milan Mecklenburg on

A lot of people take an approach of being tough on themselves in order to facilitate growth, which when framed positively can be called accountability or taking responsibility. I certainly have often done so myself. However this approach comes with clear downsides – not only has self criticism a direct negative effect on our mood, up to potentially the point of depression, it can also inhibit growth and performance by draining our energy, or driving us towards avoidance behaviours. Luckily, I believe that a better, much more pleasant way is often possible, involving the following four steps:

  1. Recognize the self criticism
  2. Appreciate the upsides of dropping the self criticism
  3. Understand the purpose and benefits of the self criticism
  4. Find alternative ways to achieve the same purpose and benefits. Often these alternative ways can involve self compassion as a key part

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The implications of mortality

by Milan Mecklenburg on

In my 20s, I lived my life implicitly under the assumption that I would live forever. This state of ignorance has a number of advantages: 

  • There is not much need to fear missing out. I can just try something out and do something else later, there is no need to overthink decisions
  • If I want something I do not have, I can tell myself I can work towards having it or something similar, and will probably get it eventually
  • Any problem I currently have can be mentally reframed with a growth mindset: Whatever skill I am lacking I can learn
  • I can be generous with time towards others, and in that way avoid many difficult conversations where I say no to requests, because there is always time later for my own priorities

There is a wonderful lightness in living in such a carefree way, focusing on what we enjoy doing in the moment. Now at 31, with early visible signs of ageing beginning to appear, and the biological clock becoming more relevant for potential partners (representing a sort of mini death of possibilities) I am more and more drawn to thinking about death. Below are some of the approaches I have seen on how to address our mortality:

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What I learned at McKinsey

by Milan Mecklenburg on

I spent a little over four years working at McKinsey. One of my motivations was to pick up the sort of business soft skills one does not learn when studying physics. McKinsey is a great environment to do this given

  • Many trainings focused on interpersonal and other soft skills
  • Lots of opportunities to practice, due to interactions with many different clients and colleagues
  • A deep feedback culture, consisting of ad hoc comments, as well as dedicated feedback time every ~2 weeks in a direct reporting relationship and about once a month in relationship across two layers

Here are some of the things I learned – some of which I plan to keep, some of which I consider harmful outside the McKinsey context, and some of which I see as double edged swords.

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Productivity without anxiety

by Milan Mecklenburg on

As a management consultant I frequently relied on anxiety to drive myself to work – anxiety of feeling like a failure if I don’t get enough done, someone being mad at me, or not getting the promotion. Some common productivity advice seems to point into a similar direction, even if it is more deliberate – for example setting up accountability in the form of having to report to a friend, or even agreeing with the friend that you have to pay them money if you do not make enough progress. While using anxiety as a driver is to a certain degree effective, and might be a useful approach for people who find it easy to relax and switch off, it is not a very appealing way to live a life to me. In some instances it can even be counterproductive, since high degrees of stress increase productivity in simple and physical tasks, but for creative tasks may reduce effectiveness even in the short term. Here are some alternative approaches that helped me, starting with practical tools and moving on to deeper principles:

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