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

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

#161

Post by blitmap » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #52

blitmap wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely learn things from people I don't expect to teach me anything. I'm used to pair programming being frustrating, but if you can put egos aside you pick up on different ways of thinking and way more exposure to life/programming experiences others have had. I think the shared office space is forced information exchange between people. It's not comfortable, it's not necessarily conducive to YOUR methods - but…

I actually am prevented from learning when I am forced to overhear exchanges between other teammates. Most of the exchanges are not relevant for me, often they are not discussing anything work-related as well. It also swiss-cheese's my schedule, because instead of setting aside dedicated time for pair programming and for information exchanges or meetings, like you would think you should do in a professional workplace…

I definitely agree that it's a balancing act between "find the right person to pair with this other person" and "I can't get anything done, this person is only giving me irrelevant information". Often times it's just forced, and arguably not successful.

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

#162

Post by blitmap » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #140

blitmap wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely learn things from people I don't expect to teach me anything. I'm used to pair programming being frustrating, but if you can put egos aside you pick up on different ways of thinking and way more exposure to life/programming experiences others have had. I think the shared office space is forced information exchange between people. It's not comfortable, it's not necessarily conducive to YOUR methods - but…

I found loss of autonomy and inability to use own brain completely killing my motivation. It might be fine with someone with high sociAl skills, but pair programming with someone who confuses own subjective preference with "objectively better" and have sever micromanagement tendencies is hell. And don't tell me that we should fire all bordeline autistic coders, I think we should cooperate in a way that does not make…

I don't think we should fire borderline autistic coders. I agree with you that it's not always the best approach to take to force coders to interact in a shared space. I used to enjoy something I had with a friend where we would watch git diffs and write back and forth to each other about the changes.

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

#163

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

randcraw wrote: post #113

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t buy the argument that bean counters are unable to account for vaguer aspects of productivity loss. For one, bigger corporations invest huge amounts of money into productivity research and take the topic very seriously. They aren’t unsophisticated or naive and corporations will really study the internal incentives they create for cost cutting, to make sure they aren’t mistakenly cutting costs that actually lea…

Not all open spaces are created equal. If a bunch of the square footage is allocated to non-work purposes (entertainment, artwork, airy high ceilings, food, staff services, etc) then reducing cost is NOT the primary goal. But in most IT shops, where cost cutting by management through reducing IT's physical footprint is seen as a major win to trimming the budget (wasted) on IT, the savings isn't a mere 9% but more lik…

But the producivity loss would be correspondingly gigantic in that case. For a big conglomerate like that, it seems more likely it is an IBM-style ageism strategy, to make the conditions so undignified and fundamentally unworkable for experienced adults that over time they quit and are replaced by young workers. The company is placing a wager on the idea that it does not need actual productivity, and benefits from warm bodies doing menial tasks with limited productivity.

It probably should be viewed as a direct statement that the company doesn’t value engineering talent, and experienced people should plan to leave unless they’re OK with this.

This seems more likely than the idea the company believes it’s somehow saving 75% on space with some open plan hot-desking approach without losing engineering productivity.

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

#164

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #131

dragonwriter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because management is almost never driven by science or productivity maximization but maximization of either narrow subdivided metrics (like costs for a particular function) or absolute cargo cult conventional wisdom. Even when there is an empirical, data driven culture somewhere in an organization, it rarely extends to the board, often doesn't extend to the executive suite, and almost never extends int…

I'm not sure I agree with this because if it were thus, I think 'most organizations' would be out of business quickly. I think the answer is more plain: shared offices cut cost, and and the resulting immediate an ongoing increase in profit is 'the most important of all benchmarks' for most companies, in fact it's not even a 'benchmark' ... it's 'the point'. So - essentially, 'private offices' are an 'investment' and…

“Deep work” is the vast majority of necessary work for software engineers and knowledge workers in most companies.

In fact, these jobs are almost defined by the characteristic that almost all of the work is deep work, requiring privacy, and states of flow.

I keep seeing this unsubstantiated claim that deep work is rare, or at least a 50/50 split with shallow work.

But it’s flat untrue across the board.

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

#165

Post by spiffytech » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

massens wrote: post #87

One of the big challenges that I've always had is creating this habits. I recently discovered an interesting thing: * I use email everyday. It's important that it is clean and not full of shit. I care about it. * At my startup (Happy Scribe), we recently implemented a small feature where the tech team gets emailed/called/sms every 10m if there's any user with a problem, or for wired 5xx request (Stripe style [1]). *…

I love this idea! I think it'd fit great for pursuing personal development and side projects.

Some feedback:

- The only documentation in your comment, no I'm guessing at how to use the app

- It looks like you're using a CRUD form generator? I'm confused on which fields I fill in vs which are supposed to be filled by your app.

- It's not clear how to set what time the alert should go off. I'd also consider a setting for "delay before reminder calls" important; if I get the activity when I get home from work, three hours later pretty late to start a lot of things.

- What does 'extra links' do?

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

#166

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #135

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…

Personally, I think it's because people don't really believe the research. I mean, sure, most people aren't aware of the research at all and just follow the herd, and there's a bunch of incentives problems here with people caring more about specific metrics like time saved, etc. And sure, you can't really say that most people are rational. But more importantly, I think this is one of those ideas that just doesn't rea…

This may be part of it, but it’s hard to believe there isn’t a more insensitive / tone-deaf dismissal of the research in favor of different, superficial preferences.

It’s such a widely and publicly disputed topic that it’s not a question of dismissing “mere research”. Rather it’s more like, “can I get away with not giving this important tool to workers?” and some degree of confirmation bias to avoid looking into it at all, like you say.

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

#167

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Sun, May 27, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

blitmap wrote: post #161

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually am prevented from learning when I am forced to overhear exchanges between other teammates. Most of the exchanges are not relevant for me, often they are not discussing anything work-related as well. It also swiss-cheese's my schedule, because instead of setting aside dedicated time for pair programming and for information exchanges or meetings, like you would think you should do in a professional workplace…

I definitely agree that it's a balancing act between "find the right person to pair with this other person" and "I can't get anything done, this person is only giving me irrelevant information". Often times it's just forced, and arguably not successful.

I meant that pair programming was often beneficial for me, and I work well with most partners.

It just has to be planned, put in a calendar item I can plan ahead for. If it’s constant pairing or if it’s ad hoc pairing that is thrown, unplanned, into my schedule, then it’s always a bad idea and makes both people worse off.

You also have to ensure the noise generated by pair programming doesn’t affect other workers who happen to sit nearby. They don’t benefit from my pair programming, and shouldn’t be forced to reduce their own productivity by putting on headphones, working from home, trying to find a conference room, etc. just because of my pairing session.

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

#168

Post by tomjen3 » Sun, May 27, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

massens wrote: post #87

One of the big challenges that I've always had is creating this habits. I recently discovered an interesting thing: * I use email everyday. It's important that it is clean and not full of shit. I care about it. * At my startup (Happy Scribe), we recently implemented a small feature where the tech team gets emailed/called/sms every 10m if there's any user with a problem, or for wired 5xx request (Stripe style [1]). *…

That would get me to very quickly do one of two things:

Quit

Turn of my phone.

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

#169

Post by dmak » Sun, May 27, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #152

This is delusional. And to be honest I thought I need the same deep and in the zone kind of work/situation. Until I took this Course which is based on real science: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn You can get stuff done, learn very sophisticated topics on a highly distractive environment (though you'll probably need short periods of concentrations here and there). The trick is not to force yourse…

For me, the whole point of college was learning how to learn. Everyone is forced to learn through traditional academic models and everyone tries their best to efficiently digest everything for exams. That said, I sucked at learning in an academic environment, but I learned what did not work for me.

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

#170

Post by watwut » Sun, May 27, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #158

watwut wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is middle ground where the team is together, but only the team and it means 4-10 collaborating people. You are not alone and you are not in one room with other teams (especially often calling teams) and not with over 40 people - which generates too much It should be not one extreme against another.

In my experience, even when managing a team of engineers, it doesn't matter if the people in your nearby open environment are working on the same team or a different team. It's much more about the basic environmental factors (e.g. not having people walking around nearby, having adequate privacy, being able to customize your own lighting, have a personal window to glance out, etc.) Even when there are only 5-10 people…

Environmental noise is much lower with 6 people then with 30. It is huge difference in amount of noise and interruptions. On average, 30 people generate five time as much "weekend golf" discussions and all on-topic debates of other teams are off-topic to you. It is also easier to police interruptions with around 6 people, unless they are jerks - but chance of jerk among 6 is still lower. By policing I mean saying something like: "you are noisy today and I cant focus, take it please elsewhere".

You don't get zero interruptions, but there is significantly less of them and the barrier to communication in team is still small.

Unless the colleges are very noisy, I would say that most people can focus in reasonably large room with 6 people. I guess it is individual, but the need to be completely alone with everything completely as you like it is rather on the more extreme side of spectrum. Most people can make compromise about lighting, are able to share window etc and can still focus. (I am absolutely cool with home office or whatever for those who cant. Just that the average worker should be both able to work in non-perfect privacy and simultaneously not to consistently disrupt those who are focused.)

If the relevant questions happen too often and you are not an analyst or pm or senior responsible for teaching new person (in such case it is your job to answer questions as they arise to speed up process), then it warrants organizational discussion in team and bundling questions into one meeting. After all, if private office would stop them, then they are not that necessary and it should be possible to lower them down by discussion.