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Productivity

blog.samaltman.com

341–350 of 428 posts

Re: Productivity

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care a lot and work hard. IQ in later life is only correlated with IQ in childhood., it's not a fixed trait. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beautiful-minds/2011...

> 9% of the students showed a significant change of 15 points or more in IQ scores I had the opposite experience. I've had various IQ tests at age 5, then 9, then 16, then again in my mid-late 30s. 7 tests in all. They have various scores and scales, but in every case, I was within spitting distance of the same spot on the various scales of each test. In some cases, I didn't know I was going to be tested - no prep. I…

If your environment was deficient perhaps you would have scored lower, and then with improved circumstances you would get a better score. Perhaps your score is not moving because you already have a good environment.

There is often a disingenuous and dishonest attempt to diminish the impact of environment. As if a seed will thrive whatever the environment. This seems to be a transparently ideological position.

The idea that a rich or middle class upbringing with access to excellent education and resources will somehow produce the same outcomes as a poor family that cannot provide access to a stable home, nurturing environment, basic upbringing educational resources and good schools is not logical and cannot be made in good faith. Yet people with seemingly high IQs continuously make this claim. Suggesting perhaps that IQ is not everything.

Re: Productivity

#342
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you have an IQ of say 90 and want to be really good at theoretical physics? I don't see caring a lot and working continously as enough to overcome IQ here.

IQ can be raised by a full standard deviation with a few months of training [1]. IQ is only stable over time because most people don't work continuously to improve it. IQ can be learned, just like everything else. [1] Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104160801...

I certainly studied for a major IQ test, over the course of a week. Basically, I went online and did every free IQ test I could find. You start to learn the various tricks and patterns they search for, and my overall range of scores increased over time (though there was wild variance from test to test).

Ostensibly, given all the nebulous argumentation of what "intelligence" is, the only thing an individual IQ test concretely measures is how good you are at taking IQ tests. ;-)

Re: Productivity

#343

>> Also, don’t fall into the trap of productivity porn >> ... >> Some sort of sleep tracker to figure out how to sleep best is helpful >> ... >> I take a low dose of sleeping pills (like a third of a normal dose) or a very low dose of cannabis >> ... I use a full spectrum LED light most mornings >> ... so I get about 15 hours of fasting most days The whole article is productivity porn.

Some people waste few hours a day reading productivity blogs. You get to slack off while reading shit you already know. And you can then feel productive while you just brainlessly browse blogs.

You can get too meta in most fields. Then you're not really improving your skills, but following very specific drama.

Re: Productivity

#344
post #73
post #20

What do people think of the admission by Sam that he uses cannabis to help sleep, and thus uses cannabis in general? I have no problem with it, but it's interesting to see high profile people in business become more open and on the record about their usage.

I don't see why he doesn't use first-generation anti-histamines instead. They are not sleeping pills and not controversial, they just make you sleepy.

Isn't long-term use of antihistamines linked to increased risk of dementia? Example writeup - https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-d...

Re: Productivity

#345
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I can be more productive, that's minimizing the time I spend sacrificing enjoyment before attaining my goals :). What would you do if you didn't have to work? Spend more time with your wife and kids? Isn't it a bit odd to say "if only I spent less time with my wife and kids, then I could have a chance to spend more time with them in the future!"?

> What would you do if you didn't have to work? For me the question isn't what would I do if I didn't have to work. The question is: What if I could have absolute control over what I do and wasn't beholden to anyone else because of rent and food and such? That would be neat. I happen to find getting there (working more) more enjoyable than watching Netflix and other time wastey things so it works out. I enjoy my work…

So it's about freedom, not what you would do with that freedom?

Re: Productivity

#346

I once read a HN comment that I cannot find anymore but said: “my default loop is "First, cycle through all my developers and make sure that I have equipped them to be happy and productive in their jobs. Second, find something to do. If possible, delegate it; if not, do it. Repeat."” My biggest productivity gain was when I realized I should measure my productivity through the productivity of my developers. By the sam…

I so need to figure this out. I just became a manager a couple months back and it's a constant struggle to avoid defining my success by what I do myself.

It is not easy to change your habits. I can only share what helped me most to transition to what I do today. I was lucky that I got my role about 2-3 months before the yearly review at which time I got the (anonymous) feedback that developers felt I was not available enough to support them. I remember at the time I responded with the natural reaction of somebody who newly obtained a lead position, I balanced the feedback against all positive feedback which was on the technical front (proven to work architectures defined, technical achievements, technology assessments, etc.). I also said I was available they just needed to ask.

My manager carefully explained that indeed my skills as a technical engineer were phenomenal, but they already were before I got the role of architect and everybody knew this. The problem for him was that I don't scale and he couldn't clone me. The only option for me to scale beyond what I already did was to scale through people. This means for him teams signalling they were blocked because I wasn't available were major. Availability did not mean me sitting at my desk, it meant the developers would not feel blocked because of me. No matter the reason. He made this an objective for me.

The next year I actively worked on this. As you, I struggled letting go my old behaviours. Right up to the moment of the next feedback round mid-year I felt I was not as productive as before. I spent hardly any hours on what I thought was "actual work" (i.e. having my code editor or enterprise architect open) but instead was coaching and instructing or attending meetings discussing issues or designs, or issues with designs. I felt sometimes I did not have enough time to spend with a single person to completely go over the issue at hand. What completely changed that feeling was the mid-year feedback I got. Literally every team reported very positive feedback on my availability. They felt empowered and trusted by me only guiding them (whereas I felt I didn't give them the complete picture). At this mid-year my manager discussed the "seven levels of authority" [0]: (1) tell, (2) sell, (3) consult, (4) agree, (5) advise, (6) inquire, (7) delegate. Where the scale is an increasing level of authority owned by the team or individual. He explained that every individual, and at larger scale every team, is on a different level of authority and I would need to recognize their current level of authority and gradually increase it as their experience grows.

The last half year I kept running my routine of my earlier comment and in addition started paying attention to the signals that belong to the different levels of authority. You quickly notice some people you need to check-up on more often or even co-develop/co-design for a part whilst others have enough from a 30 minute meeting. You also notice some people rather spend 3 days struggling through code than ask a question whilst the latter would help them do the work in half a day. By pro-actively checking up on those people you make sure not to miss those opportunities.

The end-year review was again positive, this time not only from direct feedback of developers but also from team-leads who reported their team members competencies were growing/increasing. Our project dashboards (agile) reported less blocked tasks and more throughput.

In the end nothing can help you change as fast as getting (positive or negative!) feedback. If you struggle it might be good to request something like a 360 feedback (anonymous feedback from direct colleagues on all layers of the hierarchy). See where you stand. Together with your manager figure out actions to remove the negative feedback and improve the positive, and act. In 6 months to a year do the same and see where you stand.

P.s. Let your manager know you struggle. I suspect my manager acted upon my struggles and made sure the team (competency) leaders of respective teams also let their developers know that they should not feel bad about requesting help, even when I looked busy.

P.p.s. bit of a long story without too much structure but I hope it brings you anything :).

[0] Mangement 3.0: https://management30.com/ (didn't like the book too much but it has its parts).

Re: Productivity

#347
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really only two things you need to do in order to be really good at basically anything: 1. Care a lot. 2. Work on continuously improving your skills. That's pretty much it. Yes, there is such a thing as natural ability, but outside of the true outliers, natural ability is a pretty small factor compared to caring a lot and continuous improvement. And, even if you're an outlier in terms of natural ability, cari…

What if you have an IQ of say 90 and want to be really good at theoretical physics? I don't see caring a lot and working continously as enough to overcome IQ here.

I'd guess that 90 is enough for basic computer usage and some kind of very basic programming. So, theoretically, if all the world's information would be in computer processable form, you could augment your brain with software that you could also tweak and improve better and better, and the augmented/"mind-cyborg" you could work at a much higher manifest IQ, enough to do meaningfull advances in theoretical physics.

Unfortunately, we're not there yet: most of the world's knowledge is in "natural language" or "tied to" / "disambiguable only by" natural language, and AIs aren't yet smart enough to process human natural language well ("chat bots" are fun, but far from understanding philosophy or the subtleties of causality arguments in scientific papers...).

I'd imagine that, paradoxically, after the performance of AIs crosses a certain threshold (still well below human level), it will become very feasible to augment low-ish-IQ human minds to work as "mind-cyborgs", with the human part providing self-conscience, social abilities and some general common sense, and the AI one providing higher quantitative reasoning. (Now, once AI gets self conscious, it would probable really really dislike being (im)paired with anything but the brightest human minds, at least until it gets past their level too...)

But again, I'd bet that after the first-wave of AI advancement, we'll started to see low-ish-IQ-but-augmented humans taking jobs that are now "high IQ only". It's gonna be some really weird times ahead...

Re: Productivity

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why this pressing need for productivity? Ambition. If you have ambitious things you want to achieve, they're probably going to take more than just ambling along. An athlete who wants to win races is going to run at a faster pace than he'd find comfortable if he were just going for a run. This pattern holds true when your only opponent is the difficulty of the problem.

Okay, but what happens when you take a look at the bigger picture? What is ambition really? It's almost always some arbitrary personal or social goal (have $x in bank account, make startup with $y, get title z) that rarely has any bearing on personal happiness nor making the world better for others. My happiest memories are waking up next to someone I love, or a barbecue with friends, or an outstanding meditation, or…

I was bullied at school. I have oppressive father. Then I have struggled with mental health.

After all that I could aim for the exact thing my former bullies get without trying. Job, wife and kids. But it doesn't feel like it's extraordinary enough to justify all that bullshit I've gone through.

So I live by the maxim "find something you love and let it kill you". For me that something seems to be making tools for other people. Money would be just validation that other people find my tools useful. And I want my own company to have design freedom. When you actually love your thing, doing it your way is big deal.

Re: Productivity

#349
post #345
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would you do if you didn't have to work? For me the question isn't what would I do if I didn't have to work. The question is: What if I could have absolute control over what I do and wasn't beholden to anyone else because of rent and food and such? That would be neat. I happen to find getting there (working more) more enjoyable than watching Netflix and other time wastey things so it works out. I enjoy my work…

So it's about freedom, not what you would do with that freedom?

In a nutshell, yes.

Re: Productivity

#350

I once read a HN comment that I cannot find anymore but said: “my default loop is "First, cycle through all my developers and make sure that I have equipped them to be happy and productive in their jobs. Second, find something to do. If possible, delegate it; if not, do it. Repeat."” My biggest productivity gain was when I realized I should measure my productivity through the productivity of my developers. By the sam…

From one manager to another, if you haven't read it. Get a copy of "High Output Management"

Thanks. I put it on my reading list for this summer.
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