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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?

#121

Post by Frondo »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #85
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I will counter with one (older person's, I guess) observation of a bunch of my friends who are now in their early to mid fourties and late thirties. The one's who focus on making a career and accomplishments, be they for social value or greater equality for all or the justice in society being more balanced, etc. etc...... anyway, they end up at my age, when naturally, the larger group starts to drift apart a bit, loo…

Anyone who builds accomplishments without building lasting and deep relationships with people around them has done something wrong in the process.

Early in life, I had a small amount of artistic success (music). Though I probably couldn't have gone big with it, I did enjoy some amount of regional fame. Hard work, definitely an accomplishment, and I built several friendships out of it that have lasted over two decades (as well as lots that did fade away in time).

Similar thing with a startup I cofounded several years ago--the problem we were solving had me out in the public eye for a while, and I ended up building friendships with lots more people...people I'm still friends with.

And you know, if not for the relationships I build, some of which turned into lasting friendships, I wouldn't have had the success in the first place.

Nothing goes anywhere in life without people around you, helping you out. If you don't treat those people as the most important part of whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

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

#122

Post by vcool07 »

Don't start with "How", you'll most probably give up after some time. Always start with "Why?". If the "Why" part is a strong enough reason for you, you will find a way to accomplish it. If it's not, well, you'll find excuses and give up on it sooner or later !

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

#123

Post by Xcelerate »

TheArcane wrote: post #119
Xcelerate wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when their friends start dying, they'll see them all start saying the same sorts of things, and none of them are, "I wish I'd spent more time working." I hear this a lot. But I'm not sure if this is always true. I chose an education path that required a much greater amount of work than other paths I could have taken. I would spend weekends working on homework and projects when others were out having fun. But as…

Just curious, what kind of a career do you have?

B.S. chemical engineer -> Ph.D. chemical engineer -> data scientist

The "working a lot" was mostly the last couple years of my Ph.D. where I would frequently pull all-nighters to finish everything I needed to, but I'm glad I did that now. It's not nearly the optimal path for rapid wealth accumulation, but it's a good balance between having work that I enjoy and having enough leftover time to work on startup projects and hang out with my family.

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

#124

Post by theparanoid »

Xcelerate wrote: post #116
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…

> I know some people who have energy levels that allow them to sustainably burn the candle at both ends, but they are a small minority. I am quite envious of this group; they appear to have a big leg up in accomplishing great things, but there appears to be a component of either genetics or upbringing that leaves only a small portion of people with this capability. Why isn't there more research on this? A huge number…

"But how do you do it?" Drugs is a consistent method. I did it for years.

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

#125

Post by slothtrop »

watwut wrote: post #45
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…

My experience worth people who work a lot in their spare time is that their productivity at work drops. Basically, former in the pub socialization is replaced by in the office socialization. Their tv watching is replaced by more browsing at work. Effectively they do 60% position, but are able to switch to full time productivity when needed. There are positions where it is ok (slow company) and there are situations wh…

I've seen the very same thing. I wondered why one particular guy I know managed to be relatively productive at his leisure with personal projects when development was also his FT job. He let it slip, effectively, that he was not so productive at work and even neglected it in favor of personal projects. This must be common practice in creating that mythos of the tireless programmer with a strong involvement in open-source.

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

#126

Post by dizzystar »

>> Lately I've realized that I consume way too much. Be it Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, HackerNews, Youtube, etc.

Maybe easier for me to say since I don't like social media much, but really the mindset is wrong.

There is a HUGE difference between using FB, YouTube, Twitter, etc, for product promotion -vs- consuming content. You are sort of consuming, but the mindset and results are very different.

>> Another thing that is holding me back I think is the fear of commitement. I have a partially ready youtube channel, with two videos, not listed. I tell myself that I'll open the videos to the public and then start realising videos on a weekly schedule but the commitement seems like a such a burden on me that I don't think I'll be able to keep up.

This is wrong as well. You are confusing "commitment" with "consistency" or rather, attempting to reach some undefined metric of consistency. The only "consistent" thing you have is either "do it" or "don't do it." It doesn't matter if you post once a week, once a month, or every day. Just get started.

The first step is always the hardest step, and this goes for your project, blog, YT channel, whatever. Just doing it once is enough to get those first steps past your fear.

And don't confuse myth with reality. Every overnight success story took 10+ years to write, and the back-story is a graveyard of failed ideas and plans.

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

#127

Post by zem »

somewhere along the line ​our notion of amateur internet content production shifted from a site model to a blog model, and I feel we do not consciously examine that enough. take your youtube channel - why are you bothered by your weekly production rate? the 'channel' (an unfortunate name that plays into this fallacy) does not consist of one latest video, growing more and more irrelevant the longer ago it was posted, it consists of all the videos you have added there, living in parallel, and interesting to different people at different times as and when they are discovered. posting two videos and then nothing for months does not mean you have a dead channel, it means you have a collection of two videos. add to that collection as and when you feel like it; it will only grow over time.

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

#128

Post by transposed »

It may come across as a simplistic answer but here it goes: just get comfortable making mistakes and being wrong. When I first entered this sphere, one thing that immediately struck me was the worshiping of brilliant ideas/code and the perfectionism that comes with it. In my opinion, less is gained when there is a culture that causes the majority of people to first doubt and second guess themselves while the people who have established a reputation raise their hand and continue to dominate the discussion. I like to believe the we live in a meritocracy, and that the best ideas inevitably make their way to the top, but that is stifled when our western obsession with flawless individualism gives pause to our intuitive and creative thoughts.

If you have good intentions and find yourself in good company, you should have nothing to fear. It really is a matter of "just do it". Thought without the possibility of action is imprisonment.

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

#129

Post by paublyrne »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #91
paublyrne wrote: post #28

I would ask if you think uploading videos to youtube that you feel obliged to produce for the sake of being 'productive', is really contributing to society. We have a glut of online content. For every tweet that illuminates, there are 9 that constitute meaningless chatter, background noise that serves only to obfuscate the good stuff. The freedom that the internet has given people to communicate is a wonderful and em…

The freedom that the internet has given people to communicate is a wonderful and empowering thing, but the idea that we must 'produce' something to be contributing to our world is just wrong, in my opinion. Isn't that the definition of contributing?

Not at all. Contributing is giving. Producing is making.

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

#130

Post by JohnStrange »

Okay, I believe I can say something about that, because I've just finished my 9th novel in German - where only one [1] is (self-)published so far, though -, have published a little hobby music album [2], and also used to sell a little shareware program [3] next to my full-time job. So I'm definitely not super-productive but still relatively active, even when most of my projects never see the final daylight.

In my experience, if you find something that you really, really like and manage to reserve the necessary spare time, then you will become productive automatically. That could be anything, from sword smithing to rocket construction. If your projects persistently fail or die, then you're perhaps already too busy with family or daytime job, or maybe what your doing is not really the right thing for you. Just do it for the fun, never for money or fame.

Self-advertisement: [1] http://richard-loewe.de [2] https://ericspace.bandcamp.com/releases [3] http://peppermind.com

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