221–230 of 282 posts
Find people with expensive problems† and help them solve those problems with your words, a software product, or consulting.
- instead of consuming, try producing small things. Personally I started out writing a daily diary. First thing in the morning next to coffee is writing. That gives a good impression of what you actually did. - figure out what you actually like, what picks your interest in an amount that it can pull you off of procrastinating. I would recommend learning something completely new. I went off learning a new language, looked into two new programming languages, and started doing something that is the opposite of my day job.
If you want to try out Open Source:
- find projects you actively use. Improve them. Even making a README nicer is a start. - find something that you can Open Source. Personally I went with pushing out a new OS project every week and do that for two months now.
In the end it is very simple: you have to reach the point where you are fed up with just sitting in front of social media, etc. That mostly means realizing that doing has more value for improving ones self.
Stick with it. And that is the hard part.
Parting words: if you lack discipline and fall back to procrastinating, reserve fixed times in your calendar for activities.
Best advice for the end: enjoy yourself. Be you. Do what fulfills your inner self.
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…
> End result: I learned how to code, built a product, quit my job and am now at 500 customers. Fantastic! Congratulations :) What can you share about the product?
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 really appreciate this comment, mostly because I feel an immense amount of pressure to use my remaining time to do something "amazing" or keep up with the insane rate of frontend changes. I feel the core issue is that as developers/engineers, we spend a lot of time doing things that companies want, which can be at odds with skill growth, professional development or other things that are actually really important to…
1) Do non-amazing things that can build up to amazing things. E.g. help other projects with simple maintenance jobs like triaging tickets, reviewing pull requests, writing docs for things you know, discussing with people in IRC and mailing lists. By this you will learn things automatically that make other tasks later on easier. Another way to build up is to learn simple tools like linux, vim, git, etc better and more indepth. That enables you to handle more complex tasks with less effort and produces value in itself when combined with teaching others. The last example I can think off immediately is pg's doing non-scaling tasks. Really work with people and treat them very individually. Thereby you don't just build a following that can give more impact to what you are doing, you also really learn what other people need.
2) Don't build alone. We programmers hate all these meetings, but truth is, that few people are that good that they can do "amazing" things alone. Usually this is achieved by having a group off slightly above average people, and letting them cooperate. Organize non-meeting things that brings people together, like a lunch with your local docker group. Then use these opportunities to make small progress in complex tasks. Send everybody home with a small thing they need to do that together will be a huge step, but trust everybody to figure out what that thing is by talking not by commanding. Doing that a few times will lead to amazing results automatically.
PS: AFAIK google also doesn't do the friday projects rule anymore.
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…
For anyone interested, as someone that currently works 75%: At my last career change, I applied for a full time position, but asked if the employer would consider hiring me at 75%, with a matching reduction in salary. I work full time days, but am not paid to work Fridays plus a full week each quarter. Pros: the time off itself has been brilliant; I spend that extra time learning computer vision programming in Go, an…
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…
Reason being that I think we are already far far beyond a point where decreasing output would do any meaningful impact. Therefore I think we need more, better filtering, to get rid of all the spam. The same way as with email.
First of all I feel you should drop the wish to deliver "value to society". You are applying pressure to yourself based on a very vague statement: What is value? Who is society? What does a society value? You feel an emptiness, a need to please others and I argue that is impossible to fill the emptiness by focusing on anything but yourself.
There is no such thing as society, there are people, and people have very different opinions as to what constitutes value. So what do you do?
Assuming you are not a sociopath, you have loved ones, and you like to see them happy. Most of all, you'd like to see yourself happy. You have to realize that this is not a selfish goal (or that selfishness is not bad!). A happy person is a joy to work with, a happy person will make his surroundings better. So, what do you like to do? Maybe working with a computer makes you feel empty? I recently made a bunk in my caravan, working with my hands, using wood and tools and creating something tangible is nice and very different from computer related work. Programming, bloging and all that social network stuff is very much in your head.
Some books I can recommend: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, you will get down voted for liking it on HN ;) but to a pleaser such as myself (and you too, mr. "I want to deliver value to society"), it offers an incredibly powerful philosophy for seeing the morality in putting yourself first (as a healthy, non-sociopathic human!). Don't take advice on this philosophy from people who didn't read the book! It helped me a lot. My wife likes a strong me, that knows what he wants because she likes to do things I like. Doing things I like makes me happy and productive and allows me to give back much more! F society (it's to vague)! F the world (it's to big), focus on yourself, the rest will come later :)
(You know what selflessness is? Doing stuff you hate, purely for others, it's unsustainable and you won't be a pleasant person to be around while you do it. Doing something you love and making others feel better in the process is not selfishness, and it is a much more sustainable way to make yourself happy.)
Find out what makes you feel good, calm, makes your head tranquil, and do as much of it as possible. For me it is very specific: "Find beautiful natural waters and swim in them with the kids."
Start with getting rid of the pressure to make society better.
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cocktailpeanuts, one question, how would you describe the feeling of burnout?
Have you ever had brake fade in a car? It's like that, but inside your mind. Everything starts feeling mushy and mental processes don't get the results they used to.
Curiosity, and fun -- selfish fun. You're giving yourself not just too much, but the wrong kind of pressure. Find something that's more fun and interesting to you than browsing Facebook, something you'd rather be doing, and something that scratches an itch or helps you learn something you want to know. Don't do it for social value, don't expect to give more than you take, and don't commit to it. Do something for your…
I think it also helps to think less in a constant stream of content, but more how TV shows are organized: Seasons and episodes. So you basically start this "show" of 10 videos about X and then you're done with it. No eternal commitment necessary.
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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…
> Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover. Speak for yourself, buddy. I'm still trying to overcome medical issues from my last bout with burnout, including sleep disturbances and stress-related gastritis, and so far the medical profession hasn't had much luck in dealing with any of them. Burnout and the stress that goes along with it can absolutely do lasting dama…