If You Aren’t a Programmer, Then You Shouldn’t Be Hacking Anything

I’m sick of the lifehack phenomenon. If you aren’t hacking code, then you shouldn’t be hacking anything at all, much less your life. While I recognize the value of sharing tips to make life more efficient or to be more productive, “life-hacking” won’t bring the kind of long-term success that we all seek. Why? Because productivity tips are what Stephen Covey famously called “band-aids” and part of the new-age “Personality Ethic” in 7 Habits. That is, these tips emphasize covering up our deficiencies of character like band-aids. The problem is two-fold: 1) these life-hack tips save only marginal amounts of time at best, and 2) you can’t hack your life to greatness, because it violates the principle that you reap what you sow. Try telling a farmer that he should “lifehack” his way to a better crop. Unless you have something genuine to share with him, like better seeds or better techniques to farm, you won’t help him much at all. Lifehacks and other productivity tips are “secondary” – that is, they add marginally to our success. They might be useful if you need that slight edge over a competitor, but I’d argue that its far more important and effective to focus on getting the more important things right first. That usually involves putting in the time and hard work – “primary” behaviors, or qualities of the “character ethic”.

Fake it ’til you make it.
Your attitude determines your altitude.
Whether you believe, or don’t believe, you’re right.

We’ve heard these all before. While these tips may be useful during certain situations we face in life, they’re not solutions in of themselves. That is, you’re not going to be able to “fake it til you make it” your entire life. When was the last time you heard of someone faking through their entire life without being discovered? If you’re fake, you’ll be discovered sooner or later. This advice is only useful in certain short-term situations, such as when you’re in an interview, for example. You have to put on your best front and make the best impression you can make, because that’s the only one you’ll get. However, you can’t fake what your skills are if they test you. You can’t life-hack your way to a technical position if they test your technical skills at the interview.

What about the second one? Your attitude determines your altitude? So having a positive attitude is the key to how high you will reach. Great. All that’s left to do is to have a positive attitude, for the rest of your life… but wait, how does one develop a positive attitude if my attitude is really negative? Maybe I should fake it ’til I make it. Yea, and end up in an insane asylum someday. No thanks.

Therein lies my problem with the entire lifehack philosophy: people place too much importance on these band-aids, these shortcuts that might save you 3-4 minutes a day but can’t solve the deeper problem of why you hate yourself or can’t seem to let go of your fear of failure. They can’t solve technical problems for you in an interview. They won’t grow you a better crop on their own – no, first you need the “primary” behaviors which actually have substance, like seeds, fertilizer, and hard work.

How many lifehacks are out there on the web now? Thousands? Tens of Thousands? If you really think that by spending your time reading these tips you’re saving time, I have some magic beans to sell you. You might even come out with a negative gain after all is said and done. No, focus on the your character, from which the actions that have the most effect on your success spring. It’s the hard path, and that’s why people don’t take it. They’d rather believe that they can hack their life to success because that’s the easier path. That’s why I’m afraid that the personality ethic will never completely die out.