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Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#71

Post by leblancfg »

factsaresacred wrote: post #18

How much spare time do you have, what are your living conditions like, your energy levels, hours of sleep, computer speed, monitor size, task management approach? I ask because you need to: A. build an environment conducive to producing. B. practice discipline. Like you, I had some half-baked blogs and projects that were doomed for failure. After way too much wasted time it was obvious that I wasn't living a lifestyl…

This resonates well with my experience. In sports training, many top athletes will use 2-3 month cycles broken in 3-4 sections that focus on specific adaptations. Endurance, strength, power, etc.

For long-term goals, the most important section -- base conditioning -- aims at slowly building up your body's training capacity. If your body can withstand one more hour of workout without injury or sickness, then over time these gains will accumulate. As opposed to strength training though, it can take many months before there is a tangible difference.

I feel as though for the brain, and creative work in general, the situation is very similar. With months and years of "training", it too can withstand to work for longer hours. The parent's comment on creating the proper environment is certainly key.

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#72

Post by aurelianito »

What I do is to publish short things that I may want to read latter in my blog. Sometimes someone else find them useful, if so great. But the main consumer of my blog is me. I usually use it as reference for some little problems that come over and over. And, sometimes, I do send links to my blog when someone else has a problem I blogged about in the past.

Doing this I publish about 25 articles every year. Wanna take a look? Is at https://aurelianito.blogspot.com (warning: content is written in Spanish)

And lately I also do some YouTube screencasts about go, the game. The trick for me is to commit to upload whatever happens in the screencast, no preparation at all. Check them out too. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTQoyI2lMoFO2bGa2b6Sy-...

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#73

Post by bitL »

marvin wrote: post #27

I'm going to say something that might be wildly unpopular among ambitious people: If you have a full-time job, you are by far not a passive consumer. You presumably contribute >40 hours every week of creatively demanding, high-quality labor to society. For most people, the premise of this question is wrong. Procrastination, when you don't obviously have a lot of available time and effort, is a symptom that most of yo…

Job is rarely utilizing all your capabilities, in fact rather forces you to spend too much time on things you hate and would do differently or even not do if you weren't forced by your employers. Your advice is for people that are happy to be defined by their job, not by their accomplishments and potential fulfillment. The rest of us with some ambitions and drive have to do/study things on our own with the hope we can go ballistic on those ideas and make some part of our world better.

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#74

Post by mi100hael »

wpietri wrote: post #69

My biggest tip: minimize what you do. Since you want to do more, I know this sounds crazy. But when I set up a personal kanban system, it really changed my life. You establish a backlog of what you want to do. Then you limit the amount of work in process (WIP). That gives you a very small number of open tasks to switch between, which means you end up increasing your focus and being forced to finish things. (Or at lea…

+1 my wife and I set up a kanban board in our house for tasks we needed to accomplish so we could easily see each others priorities and current efforts. It was game-changing. We are able to get more done with much lower stress.

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#75

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

marvin wrote: post #27

I'm going to say something that might be wildly unpopular among ambitious people: If you have a full-time job, you are by far not a passive consumer. You presumably contribute >40 hours every week of creatively demanding, high-quality labor to society. For most people, the premise of this question is wrong. Procrastination, when you don't obviously have a lot of available time and effort, is a symptom that most of yo…

The guy wants advice on "how", not some words to make him feel better about not doing stuff, so let's give him that.

> for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.

I want to point out that this is one of the reasons why people never start things. Let me share my experience as someone who has started, AND burned out, multiple times. Hopefully this helps people change their beliefs.

1. Yes you are right that you will burn out if you push yourself too hard, but this only happens if the result is not satisfying enough compared to the effort you pour in. From my multiple experiences where some I succeeded and some failed, I only burned out enough to give up when things weren't going well despite the effort I put in. I guarantee you you WILL NOT burn out if your thing goes well.

2. Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover. This is why people want to "save it for the best" and don't commit 100%, because they "want to be able to commit 100% only when they truly really come across the perfect opportunity". But the thing is, these people NEVER end up doing anything because of the law of inertia. "The perfect opportunity" is an elusive thing, and the more you wait, the higher the bar goes up, which means you will never meet that perfect moment.

3. Burning out is a phase, not the end. I've burned out multiple times, and stopped working for a couple of months to several months (and did nothing but entertain myself). But eventually you recover and can't wait to start a new thing. This never happens to people who wait for the perfect moment because they don't even know what it feels like. They think there's only one chance.

4. Don't try to bend the spoon. It's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#76

Post by aurelianito »

What I do is to publish short things that I may want to read latter in my blog. Sometimes someone else find them useful, if so great. But the main consumer of my blog is me. I usually use it as reference for some little problems that come over and over. And, sometimes, I do send links to my blog when someone else has a problem I blogged about in the past.

Doin this I publish about 25 articles every year. Wanna take a look? Is at https://aurelianito.blogspot.com (warning: content is written in Spanish)

Oh! The key for me is no commitment. Just do the first video/ blog post and work from there. If I take a year off it is fine.

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#77

Post by k__ »

klibertp wrote: post #53
k__ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic. I met a few devs with family and children, and they were blown away by my commitment.

> I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic. I'm so jealous! :) I publish a new post once every couple of months. Some posts take really long to prepare, like 40 hours (and more) of work long. The biggest problem is that it doesn't really show - for that much time my posts should be each as long as "Steve Yegge's Best Of" anthology. I'm not even sure it's worth it as a lear…

Well, sometimes I try to prepare stuff workdays. But I mostly write about stuff that comes to mind on the day of blogging.

If it's Sunday and you need to write your post, you aren't picky with topics, haha

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#78

Post by mark_l_watson »

I write books and sometimes blog. I keep a file for notes and ideas for future writing. This process might provide you with kickstart material for the times when you are motivated to spend an evening writing.

For open source projects, choose something that you are really interested in and start a public git repo. Whenever you are motivated to work on your project for an hour or two, then add a feature. My friend, it is all about one thought at a time, one keystroke at a time. If you are not enjoying the creative process then stop and start up again on another day.

Re: Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

#79

Post by wpietri »

klibertp wrote: post #53
k__ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic. I met a few devs with family and children, and they were blown away by my commitment.

> I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic. I'm so jealous! :) I publish a new post once every couple of months. Some posts take really long to prepare, like 40 hours (and more) of work long. The biggest problem is that it doesn't really show - for that much time my posts should be each as long as "Steve Yegge's Best Of" anthology. I'm not even sure it's worth it as a lear…

Oh! Please don't feel bad about that. Writing short is harder than writing long. But it's worth it because it respects the time of the reader.

As an analogy, think of those radio talk show personalities that can go on for hours every day just running their mouths. It's impressive, but what they're doing is glib entertainment, a way for people to fill the hours while driving.

These days the world is filled with quickly-made, quickly written stuff. Nothing wrong with that, really. But I love it when I come across people who are doing something different.

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