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mattnewport comments on Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality - Less Wrong
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I wouldn't really say I'm using them to measure by as a deliberate choice. These are the dimensions which seem to me to be relevant differences between tasks that pose motivational problems and those that don't. This is partly observational but also based on material and research I've encountered over the years on these issues. The lack of motivation comes first however and the dimensions are attempts to identify a pattern.
Convincing myself that my work is important seems a more daunting challenge than finding motivational hacks and also more dangerous - what if I end up like the monk, squandering my efforts on some sub-optimal activity?
Two things:
You did ask how people could love their work, and
If you aren't convinced what you're doing is important, maybe that's a bigger problem than falsely convincing yourself it's important!
Note, for example, that lots of people have ended up accidentally doing important things as a direct result of trying to do something stupid that they thought was important. (Like, say, Columbus.)
True, I think a couple of things are getting conflated here (largely my fault because I'm still confused about the distinctions).
A couple of people have said they 'love their work' but still have motivational issues with particular sub-tasks of their work. If that is what people generally mean by 'love their work' I think I have a better grasp on the idea. If this is what people generally mean then all kinds of motivational hacks for dealing with low-level sub-tasks that are not inherently lovable are useful. They might even be useful for someone like me who does not 'love their work' but values the resources it provides to do things they actually want to do.
You originally seemed to be claiming that people who really 'love their work' do not suffer from motivational issues on not-inherently-pleasurable sub-tasks or need ways of avoiding being distracted by 'shiny things'. I find this slightly implausible but it sounds like nice work if you can get it.
Either sense of 'loving your work' above sounds like a great place to be and I'm very interested in attaining such a situation if possible. That seems a bigger / higher level problem than simple motivational hacks can help with however.
For me and the vast majority of people I know however work is merely a particularly large and burdensome sub-task required to attain the resources to pursue things we actually value / consider important. Figuring out if there's an alternative is a major personal project for me however so I'm open to any and all advice in that area.