Comment by philipwhiuk
19 days ago
It's like CGP Grey hosting a productivity podcast despite his productivity almost certainly going down over time.
It's the appearance of productivity, not actual productivity.
19 days ago
It's like CGP Grey hosting a productivity podcast despite his productivity almost certainly going down over time.
It's the appearance of productivity, not actual productivity.
I always find that characterization of Grey and the Cortex podcast to be weird. He never claims to be a productivity master or the most productive person around. Quite the opposite, he has said multiple times how much he is not naturally productive, and how he actually kinda dislikes working in general. The systems and habits are the ways he found to essentially trick himself into working.
Which I think is what people gather from him, but somehow think he's hiding it or pretending is not the case? Which I find strange, given how openly he's talked about it.
As for his productivity going down over time, I think that's a combination of his videos getting bigger scopes and production values, and also he moving some of his time into some not so publicly visible ventures. E.g., he was one of the founders of Standard, which eventually became the Nebula streaming service (though he left quite a while ago now).
> Which I think is what people gather from him, but somehow think he's hiding it or pretending is not the case? Which I find strange, given how openly he's talked about it.
Well the person you're responding to didn't say anything like that. They're saying he's unqualified.
> The systems and habits are the ways he found to essentially trick himself into working.
And do they work? If he's failing or fooling himself then a big chunk of his podcasting is wasting everyone's time.
> videos getting bigger scopes and production values
I looked at a video from last year and one from eight years ago and they're pretty similar in production value. Lengths seem similar over time too.
> moving some of his time into some not so publicly visible ventures
I can see he's done three members-only videos in the last two years, in addition to four and a half public videos. Is there anything else?
> Well the person you're responding to didn't say anything like that. They're saying he's unqualified.
When they said "It's the appearance of productivity, not actual productivity.", that does very much sound to me like an accusation that he is pretending or trying to deceive you into thinking he's a super productive person.
> And do they work? If he's failing or fooling himself then a big chunk of his podcasting is wasting everyone's time.
I'm afraid I'm not close enough to Mr Grey to be able to confidently say one way or another. Everything seems to indicate that he is a fairly successful individual, as a YouTuber with a big following and founder of at least two companies that seems to be going pretty well. So unless he is incredibly lucky and keeps failing upwards, if I had to guess, I'd say he has had at least some success in making himself work on stuff from time to time.
> I looked at a video from last year and one from eight years ago and they're pretty similar in production value. Lengths seem similar over time too
Really? I mean, let's look at some concrete examples. His latest video [1] features many unique drawings, extensive animations, even some 3d stuff with the rotating globes, and almost every scene has an actual drawn background layer.
Meanwhile, one of his biggest videos from 9 years ago [2] is pretty much just a slideshow, with no animations, and most of the video features a static generic white background.
The overarching style (i.e. stick figures, no elaborate textures) is the same, and I guess this is a partially a subjective point, but I think it's a bit crazy to say the visuals in these two videos are of similar quality.
For an example of stuff other than just the animation itself, he put out the Rock Paper Scissors video [3] two years ago, which had a pretty insane huge scope (though that might not be obvious at first glance)
> I can see he's done three members-only videos in the last two years, in addition to four and a half public videos. Is there anything else?
By definition, I'm not aware of stuff he's not made public. I just know that there is stuff that he chooses not to talk much about (he never once mentioned the Standard stuff on his podcast, for example). He also handles a good portion of the backend stuff for the Cortex Brand line of products (I think managing/planning logistics/inventory?). I'm not a member of his channel or his Patreon so I can't tell you how much he invests in exclusive videos, or if there is some other work he discloses over those channels that he doesn't in others.
[1] https://youtu.be/HSRmfNDk87s?si=lORnzazCWoe2X4Xa
[2] https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?si=1_225YkqRact1Wgm
[3] https://youtu.be/PmWQmZXYd74?si=xEgxikMwCxNfinc3
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