Building a shed is a finite process with known steps that produces a tangible result. If you spend time on it, you will make forward progress and be able to see it.
– saalweachter on Hacker News
If you are a knowledge worker, this is frequently lacking. […] And at the end of the day, what you accomplish might not be very visible or might end up being finished but useless.
So it’s nice to do something where you feel like you actually did something.
This struck a chord for me in how neatly explains the uptick in my at-work satisfaction when I pivoted from management back into individual contribution.
The desire for finite steps and tangible results also looms over my investment practice. Coding up reports and executing trades – fun! Doing analysis, sitting on my hands waiting for a trade to materialise – less fun.
Yet it is in still-infinite and not-yet-intangible that the new, the wonderful and the profitable lay waiting to be uncovered.