It feels like you’re haven’t discovered something that you would wholeheartedly embrace as a “success“, that you would experience as a genuine pleasure. What is the ultimate game you want to play? Do you like animals? Cuddling a pet gives you a warm fuzzy feeling? That might be the feeling that you should look for when defining that „success“ in work. And once you know what it is motivation will come to you as a lucky dog or a cat asking to be petted.
Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
101–110 of 382 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#102I can relate a lot. I'm still burning through self-motivation hacks at 35, some of which are helping while most don't. Eventually, the hack with by far the largest impact (which brought me to currently being cofounder and CTO of one of the more successful German startups) was realizing that while I simply suck at self-motivating, I never had a problem getting stuff done when working for others. I effortlessly produce…
This is a very encouraging testimony, thank you for your honesty. I am wondering: were you up-front with your cofounders about these issues when first coming together to start the business, or is it something that you just kind of brushed under the carpet and hoped that it would somehow work out (and it sounds like it did)? Or otherwise, were you aware of it enough at the time that you knew what to look for in your c…
Hey, of course this didn't come out of nowhere. After lots of failures on my own ambitions right after college, I eventually caved in (completely broke) and started a job in tech support to pay the bills. It was only then — where I got my problems and structure from an external source — that I started really excelling.
I eventually automated my job away, worked my way up through engineering into a Lead Architect position and started looking like a credible CTO position — meanwhile I had started doing therapy and coming to grips with accepting my real self.
So in the end, yes, I was pretty honest with my cofounders. Funny thing is that as long as someone else is setting the goalposts and calling the shots, I'm running super smooth, even in a lead role. I guess most people who don't know me a bit better wouldn't even notice I had these issues.
BTW this piece from Tim Ferriss helped me accept my own spiky personality a bit better a few years ago - as there's apparently lots of unexpected upvotes, maybe it might help others too :) https://tim.blog/2013/11/03/productivity-hacks/
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#103I identify with you 100%. This post could've been written by me.
The only difference is I'm not a freelancer, and I've never been one. I've worked at small and large companies, and I've always struggled with this so everyone suggesting you just join a company is probably a bit naive.
I've ALSO wondered if I have an undiagnosed case of ADHD, and honestly when I look at the lists of symptoms online, I match more than half of them. I've wondered if I should talk to a doctor, but always avoided it. Maybe both of us should.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#104Yes, it is very normal in an unstructured life, many very smart graduate students at the top universities struggle with it. It is the curse of freedom. People don't realize a regular 9-5 job gives them routine, social commitments and a visible positive feedback on a good job done in a timely manner, and a negative feedback otherwise (both positive and negative social feedback are stronger than self-awarded rewards and punishments).
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are funny. I am the complete opposite. (Not that I don't get lonely working alone)
Hey! I am an introvert and love staying alone. I like to think that staying alone helps me solve problems creatively but my major problem is that when I plan things they don't go well. For me, most of the success has come from flowing along tide when I wasn't eyeing the end or reward when I was going insane with the group.
I don't understand the last half of your last sentence, but the rest sounds about right.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#106I fought this draining battle for about 15 years of a relatively typical IT career, from desktop support, to junior dev, too dev and all-hats, to application support, to QA (less stressful), to finally getting out of the game for the most part. Rarely did work not stress me out, aside from when I was starting out in desktop support roles, and maybe when I was trying out QA.
I knew people that seemed to be made for it. They may not have liked it, but they managed to power through day after day of drudgery like it was nothing. They were productive, accomplished their workload, and did it consistently over and over. Sometimes I envied them and wished I could be like them. But in the end, I just am not.
One of the biggest problems for me was that I rarely felt like I was working on anything worthwhile. It was either advertising to sell stuff, or tools to help people sell and ship stuff more efficiently, or number-crunching to track money, or various forms of CRUD to keep track of the cogs, and so on.
And even when the work was interesting, it was still largely driven by deadlines and plans and getting X done in Y time units. Put these here frameworks together, work out most of the kinks, and ship, ship, ship! This was also kind of soul-crushing for me, because I like to get things "right", even if it means prototype after prototype that's discarded after a month or two of learning.
In the end, I opted to minimalize my life and switch largely to supporting myself through barter and scavenging. Now much more of my time is under my control to do with as I please, and I try to make the most of it. For me, that means much more yoga and movement, and coding irregularly—when I am struck. I also feel much healthier, because I can sleep as much as I want and on whatever schedule I want.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#107I'm going through this exact thing currently, too. I sometimes struggle to follow even the most basic of instructions, I have to really, really focus very hard to follow someone explaining something to me because my mind starts to wander half way through the explanation. I have to have things explained to me two or three times, and I can feel very dumb at times because of it.
I find struggle to have productive meetings, because I'm bored to the point of physical discomfort at times. I went to the doctors about it and they referred me for relaxation therapy (?!). So I'm struggling to know what to do about it currently. I was tested for ADHD as a child, but they concluded that I was just poorly behaved.
It seems to be a pretty common issue with engineers, I've came across loads who have similar issues.
I actually posted something similar to your post in the funfunfunction forum recently: https://www.funfunforum.com/t/attention-and-focus-issues/389...
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#108Do you like your job and way which you do it? Could you continue doing this for 20+ years more not getting mental?
If there is at least 1 "no" answer, you should think about changing the way you earn, at least. Life is not about the money, it's about excitement and passion, about things you really want to do.
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#109I'm familiar with this. There's no magic solution, sadly, but I'll share one thing that has helped me and may apply at least to some of your situations. I realised a while ago that my main issue was with nebulous tasks -- that is, the more concrete, defined, and _meetable_ a task was, the less trouble I had with it. So I started to break down large tasks, which never got started much less finished, into smaller ones,…
This approach has helped me significantly. Another aspect that is also useful has been my experience of Pomodoro technique. At a job where we were practicing Pomodoro technique, I realized I don’t struggle with concentration anymore. The minimalistic explanation of the technique is to work on a task inside 45 minute intervals; then walk away from the computer for several minutes.
+1 for pomodoro technique.
I find one of the additional benefits it has is that it gives you a means of quantifying your day. Often I can't remember exactly what I've been working on but knowing that I've completed x amounts of intervals leaves me way more satisfied at the end of the day and makes me feel much more confident that I've been productive.
I find it can also reveal how long some things take to complete. Rather than thinking 'uhh I couldn't even complete that task today' it can often lead to 'wow, I worked on that task for x intervals and it still wasn't complete - I definitely underestimated that one!'
Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
#110I'm familiar with this. There's no magic solution, sadly, but I'll share one thing that has helped me and may apply at least to some of your situations. I realised a while ago that my main issue was with nebulous tasks -- that is, the more concrete, defined, and _meetable_ a task was, the less trouble I had with it. So I started to break down large tasks, which never got started much less finished, into smaller ones,…
This approach is immensely helpful to me as well. Started practicing problem slicing after watching a lecture from Don Knuth. He started by writing down a problem and underlining it. He then solved small bits of it and worked through many examples that seemed almost trivial. Eventually, some amazing results began to emerge after the many trivial examples were worked through. Impressed on me the power of breaking a large problem down into small, simple parts and working through them one at a time. I think problem slicing is one of the only ways to actually solve some kinds of big problems.