Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 382 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#361

Post by johnx123-up »

taneq wrote: post #136
ashtube wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Break down the tasks into smaller and smaller chunks, use an app like Todoist to track it. So create a project for each major task, and have all the todo's inside that project. You'll feel achievement as you complete each small task, and within no time you'll find you have completed the project, AKA, one big task.

Any recommendations for something like this that's local-only or self-hosted? I've been on the lookout for such a thing for a while but they all seem to be SaaS web app type things.

Probably http://restya.com/board ? In some aspects like offline sync and list view, it is better than Trello

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#363

Post by rqm »

lugg wrote: post #134

It's normal for some people. I've tried everything. Two things finally helped me: understanding, and that one neat trick. Understanding: Understanding yourself is important later, but for now, it helps if you understand procrastination. https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas... That one neat trick? Just do one. One push up, one minute of meditation, one minute of work. Setting yourself up for fa…

Thank you for that one neat trick.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#364

Post by orblivion »

davidjnelson wrote: post #284
orblivion wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So here's a question - what if I am of this disposition but I have a lot of ideas? And I would not be satisfied with life unless I'm pursuing them? Is there a way to reach out to find people to be in charge of me to execute on my ideas? Does anybody want to do that? (These are not necessarily businesses)

You might like something like this: https://www.commitaction.com/

That is pretty interesting. Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#365

Post by ashtube »

davidjnelson wrote: post #319
ashtube wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Break down the tasks into smaller and smaller chunks, use an app like Todoist to track it. So create a project for each major task, and have all the todo's inside that project. You'll feel achievement as you complete each small task, and within no time you'll find you have completed the project, AKA, one big task.

How would you compare Todoist to Trello? Would you recommend switching?

What arbie said. Todoist is great for a Todo/task management software, and I use Trello more in a business environment to visually see an overview of current projects and track next steps.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#366

Post by ideonexus »

dboreham wrote: post #243
ideonexus wrote: post #76

You are normal. Over the years I have learned that the internet makes us all distracted and that it's a problem many of my peers are wrestling with today. I was in a meeting just this week where our new product line manager started joking about how easy it was in a moment of distraction to open a news site with the intention of just spending a minute there and end up losing half an hour of productivity. I told him I…

>Over the years I have learned that the internet makes us all distracted I'm old enough to have worked before there was an Internet (well...I remember when we first got a Usenet feed via 9.6k dialup, early in my career). Based on my recollection of those days, I'm not sure it's all the Internet. There were other distractions prior to that. But definitely the Internet made the frequency and magnitude of the problem wo…

Thank you for this comment. I remember being a procrastinator and distracted without the internet in college. I share your ability to focus on planes. I find coffee shops help my focus as well.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#367

Post by domparise »

>Am I suffering from some form of undiagnosed ADHD?

You can very easily resolve this question by talking to a doctor, or two. If you are curious, don’t just sit and wait and keep “wasting your life away” in the indecision of whether or not to get checked. The lack of decisiveness to even get check may itself be a symptom of ADHD.

One obviously cannot understate the value and importance of having a healthy life, regular sleep, good exercise, good diet and hygiene and all the like, but for some people it’s a little harder to get things in order than just that. Also you don’t need to consider getting medical help as a terminal situation; perhaps you may just use meds long enough to retain your brain with what it means to be productive and do meaningful work.

No solution is one size fits all, and you need to find what works best for you, but if you have questions or doubts about whether or not you may have an attention disorder, the best way to discern with any real certainty is to ask a professional.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#368

Post by latexr »

riekus wrote: post #13
pieperz wrote: post #7

I always thought I was ADHD, then I started a business, turns out I just like to do things my way and lead not follow. I've struggled to "focus" my whole life I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. When you find the right thing you'll know. I would do what I do now for free or if I was worth 100 Million because I love the game.

And what is it that you do?

I’d also like to know.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#369

Post by arconis987 »

jseutter wrote: post #174
arconis987 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

Do you have a link or title to the video? I'm interested in watching it, but searching isn't turning up likely matches.

It was from a video where Don Knuth recreated one of his first lectures.

https://youtu.be/jmcSzzN1gkc

At one point around 20 or 30 minutes in, he says something like, “We’re going to start easy and slow and then work harder later on.” He exhaustively writes out a large number of different combinations of possible runtimes of an algorithm. It seems quite tedious, but eventually some cool results emerge related to Sterling Numbers :)

At first, I thought it was somewhat annoying that the lecture was methodically going through so many examples. Since then, I’ve realized that methodically going through small sub-problems patiently is often the way you eventually get to a giant leap.

Re: Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?

#370

Post by dboreham »

ideonexus wrote: post #366
dboreham wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Over the years I have learned that the internet makes us all distracted I'm old enough to have worked before there was an Internet (well...I remember when we first got a Usenet feed via 9.6k dialup, early in my career). Based on my recollection of those days, I'm not sure it's all the Internet. There were other distractions prior to that. But definitely the Internet made the frequency and magnitude of the problem wo…

Thank you for this comment. I remember being a procrastinator and distracted without the internet in college. I share your ability to focus on planes. I find coffee shops help my focus as well.

Yes the university library was an endless source of distraction for me. Never reading books relating to my actual fields of study. Interesting times though..
Post reply on HN