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The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

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Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#31

Post by bpizzi »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #14

One thing I cannot understand is why we have both: (a) a long history of research proving to us that principles like "High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)" are accurate and highly related to extracting the most economically valuable outputs from knowledge workers. (b) open plan offices. Maybe the tech industry is daunting for newcomers because we cram people into a sardine can, give them a…

My personal guess is that it's somehow related to fundamentals differences between introvert and extroverted personalities and that the people making theses decisions (floor plans) are mainly extroverted. Just my opinion.

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#32

Post by JaredMcFey »

cgb223 wrote: post #8
adamnemecek wrote: post #7

I agree one hundred percent with this. I quit my job a while back to hack on a project and it’s insane how much shit you can accomplish in a good week. I recommend it to anyone questioning their current employment situation. Hit me up (email is in my profile) if you want to explore this life style. The crazy thing is that even if you fail, you’ll be ten times the programmer as when you left.

I’d love to do something like this, but without any kind of income I’d probably be homeless in a few months How do you bring in money while hacking on your passion?

I’d call it investment. If you invest time into a new skill that you can use to switch jobs or get promoted, it’s very worth putting in the time even if it has no direct monetary value at first

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#33

Post by Barrin92 »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #14

One thing I cannot understand is why we have both: (a) a long history of research proving to us that principles like "High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)" are accurate and highly related to extracting the most economically valuable outputs from knowledge workers. (b) open plan offices. Maybe the tech industry is daunting for newcomers because we cram people into a sardine can, give them a…

I'm split on this personally. I don't like the type of noisy open plan office where you work next to the ping-pong table while someone rides a bike through the office or something like that, but on the other hand, I don't feel like being in total isolation helps to focus either.

I actually like a little bit of background activity, I work better when I listen to music (mostly classical or anything without vocals) or a not too noisy but not totally silent location like a library or a small open plan office with people spaced out

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#34

Post by mrfusion »

adamnemecek wrote: post #7

I agree one hundred percent with this. I quit my job a while back to hack on a project and it’s insane how much shit you can accomplish in a good week. I recommend it to anyone questioning their current employment situation. Hit me up (email is in my profile) if you want to explore this life style. The crazy thing is that even if you fail, you’ll be ten times the programmer as when you left.

What’s the project? It seems hard to find something inspiring to work on.

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#35

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #33
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #14

One thing I cannot understand is why we have both: (a) a long history of research proving to us that principles like "High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)" are accurate and highly related to extracting the most economically valuable outputs from knowledge workers. (b) open plan offices. Maybe the tech industry is daunting for newcomers because we cram people into a sardine can, give them a…

I'm split on this personally. I don't like the type of noisy open plan office where you work next to the ping-pong table while someone rides a bike through the office or something like that, but on the other hand, I don't feel like being in total isolation helps to focus either. I actually like a little bit of background activity, I work better when I listen to music (mostly classical or anything without vocals) or a…

There have been studies going back as far as Peopleware and The Timeless Way of Building that suggest people are generally adversely affected when the noise is more than noise they personally generate (e.g. keyboard clicking), and not in their control (e.g. choosing to listen to music may be fine, but when you’re forced to listen to music because the alternative is a distracting conversation between teammates it has adverse effects).

The other thing, especially mentioned in The Timeless Way of Building, is that you need privacy to reach a state of flow. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re isolated or that no one can interrupt you, but it means nothing in your immediate vicinity is triggering your peripheral vision or any sense of a fight vs flight reflex because someone’s walking around right behind you, etc. Most of that research advocates that individuals should be allowed to customize these aspects of their personal space, like privacy, quiet, lighting, ergonomics..

More generally though, it’s not about what works for you or for me. It’s about what we can empirically learn about states of flow, and on that front it’s utterly beyond dispute that open-plan offices are disastrously bad.

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#36

Post by evanlivingston »

sampl wrote: post #23
auntad wrote: post #2

I really like his example at the end - step-by-step deep dive into a specific topic. 30 hours of learning, direct links to resources, come out the other end as informed and aware of the topic at hand. I usually find it difficult to wade through the mountains of possible (often outdated) resources on a topic I'm unfamiliar with - At one point I was thinking it'd be useful to crowdsource those kind of step-by-step guid…

I'm building this right now actually. Superclass [1] is a place to submit online learning resources by topic, then upvote/comment on the most helpful ones. The goal is eventually something just like you described, kind of a crowd-sourced curriculum builder. This version is rough and buggy, but would love everyone's thoughts/feedback (sam@directedworks.com) https://superclass.co/ Edit: sign up for occasional email upd…

Hey, I just checked your project out and it's awesome. One thing id like to see is a way to filter submission types. Specifically it would be nice to filter out products likes apps and books.

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#37

Post by adamnemecek »

mrfusion wrote: post #34
adamnemecek wrote: post #7

I agree one hundred percent with this. I quit my job a while back to hack on a project and it’s insane how much shit you can accomplish in a good week. I recommend it to anyone questioning their current employment situation. Hit me up (email is in my profile) if you want to explore this life style. The crazy thing is that even if you fail, you’ll be ten times the programmer as when you left.

What’s the project? It seems hard to find something inspiring to work on.

http://ngrid.io feedback appreciated.

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#38

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

bpizzi wrote: post #31
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #14

One thing I cannot understand is why we have both: (a) a long history of research proving to us that principles like "High-Quality Work Produced = (Time Spent) x (Intensity of Focus)" are accurate and highly related to extracting the most economically valuable outputs from knowledge workers. (b) open plan offices. Maybe the tech industry is daunting for newcomers because we cram people into a sardine can, give them a…

My personal guess is that it's somehow related to fundamentals differences between introvert and extroverted personalities and that the people making theses decisions (floor plans) are mainly extroverted. Just my opinion.

I agree this is part of it. For example, as a high-achieving and socially outgoing introvert who is very sensitive to background noise, I found this paper really depressing:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55dcde36e4b0df55a96ab... >

Re: The Importance of Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill

#40

Post by adamnemecek »

JaredMcFey wrote: post #32
cgb223 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to do something like this, but without any kind of income I’d probably be homeless in a few months How do you bring in money while hacking on your passion?

I’d call it investment. If you invest time into a new skill that you can use to switch jobs or get promoted, it’s very worth putting in the time even if it has no direct monetary value at first

I agree one hundred percent. There isn’t really a failure mode to this. Worst case you lose some money, but like when you rejoin the workforce you’ll be somewhere else. Right now I’m like 20x the programmer I was when I quit.
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