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

Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 135 posts

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#21

Post by throwaway_stuck »

lisper wrote: post #17

Definitely familiar. What I would suggest is to figure out what it is you're really getting hung up on. It has to be something more specific than "my brain turns to mush." Try writing down a description of the problem you think you're having. The act of rendering a thought into writing will often break a logjam for me.

I get hung up in a number of ways, but the most severe is when I'm trying to learn how the existing system works. I'll be listlessly paging back and forth between spaghetti code classes, and things get all fuzzy, and then it feels like I've spent enough time on this, and some sort of strategy to do my project occurs to me.

And then I try it, but it doesn't work because I still didn't understand the existing code. Rinse, repeat.

However, just the other week I decided somehow to FIGURE OUT HOW IT ALL WORKS, DAMMIT. I actually kept a glass of ice cubes next to my desk and pressed one to my head if I felt I was drifting, which worked surprisingly well. I realized that this codebase always had a lot of the functionality I had always wanted, hidden away in a particular method. I'd been staring right at it for months and it didn't click in my head.

I felt ashamed.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#23

Post by willcannings »

lisper wrote: post #10
lsc wrote: post #3

several strategies that have worked for me: 1. get yourself checked out for ADD. I'm not saying this is the problem, but it's easy to check for, and if it is the problem, there are drugs that can at least temporarily make the problem just go away. Now if this is something you've never experienced until just now, it's probably not ADD. But if you've had these sorts of problems on and off forever, (I know for me, my pe…

> it's easy to check for Really? That's news to me. How do they check? > Move into management +1. The tech world needs more managers who actually know tech.

> Really? That's news to me. How do they check?

Typically diagnosis is made after an interview (about an hour) and questionnaires. If there's some doubt about the diagnosis you may need to bring in old school reports. It's also possible to diagnose using brain scans now (e.g http://www.sydneydevelopmentalclinic.com.au/brain_scanning.h...), and medication can be trialled and selected on the basis of an individual response to the medication (shown with another brain scan, or using testing, e.g http://www.sydneydevelopmentalclinic.com.au/medication_testi...).

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#24

Post by MaOEZKmzhG »

lisper wrote: post #10
lsc wrote: post #3

several strategies that have worked for me: 1. get yourself checked out for ADD. I'm not saying this is the problem, but it's easy to check for, and if it is the problem, there are drugs that can at least temporarily make the problem just go away. Now if this is something you've never experienced until just now, it's probably not ADD. But if you've had these sorts of problems on and off forever, (I know for me, my pe…

> it's easy to check for Really? That's news to me. How do they check? > Move into management +1. The tech world needs more managers who actually know tech.

My experience with a neurologist specializing in ADHD treatment:

1. The doctor will interview you and ask you about your history, all the way back to childhood. If you haven't had problems focusing, concentrating, etc. throughout your whole life (even as a child), the doctor might be skeptical.

2. They'll test you to make sure you're not having seizures.

3. They'll also test your focus, concentration and short term memory with a computer test called CPT (continuous performance test).

Assuming you have a history of ADHD symptoms, you currently have symptoms that are interfering with your life, and you do poorly on the computer test, the doctor will probably start some kind of treatment, probably using prescription stimulants.

That said, I'm sure there are a lot of other medical conditions that cause symptoms similar to ADHD's. You might end up learning you have some other problem entirely.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#25

Post by sunkencity »

When I get this, I add extra constraints to make the problem harder. Switch to using VI editor instead of using Emacs like I normally do. Do an ambitious rewrite/refactoring, make it harder just to to add more FACTOR X. Having more unknown in a projekt makes it more rewarding imho, especially if you're turned on to constantly learning new things. It can be as simple as developing from a new platform (running some weird ass OS inside a VM and developing from that), or it can be (depending on project, writing it in some weird little language just for fun). You probably don't need less of a challenge, you need more of a challenge to get you really motivated.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#26

Post by kevinelliott »

dlsspy wrote: post #14

I get this sometimes. For me, it takes the right balance of something I'm excited about, having a lot to learn, and having drive from people whom I feel are pushing me in a direction that's better when I'm having trouble ramping up, but not in the way when I'm really rolling out code. I've been doing most of that lately, though I can get into a dream state quite a bit where I want to make something really awesome tha…

You're really lucky people are pushing you. I'd love to have that! Some of us are less fortunate, either because other associates are not interested in the projects you're working on, or because they're super busy in their own.

I don't get a lot of friends and associates asking about my progress, but I always make sure to reach out to them every so often to see how they are doing and offer myself as a resource if they need it for anything.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#27

Post by christopherslee »

throwaway_stuck wrote: post #7
jaddison wrote: post #2

Burnout takes a lot of forms, has many stages and is felt differently by everyone. Are you happy with your job - or just the salary that you get paid? Take some time and think about your motives for staying where you are. Maybe you can look for advancement (challenge) that will help you to be renewed in your current job; maybe you simply need a change. If you do decide to move on to something new, I highly advise tak…

This is serial. I've lost a couple of jobs in a row from this. Luckily I still have a reputation earned from some years ago. Plus, I interview well. People still give me jobs. Managers don't seem to have a response here. In my experience most managers only have one bit of information devoted to programmer ability (ROCKSTAR xor SUCKS). They have alternately told me to try harder, or threatened then fired me. I had fel…

Someone mentions this below, but, are you trying to engineer the most perfect elegant solution known to man when you could get by with something more simple?

Working with existing code that someone else wrote is harder than a new project. I've only really gotten into heavy testing in the last year or two, but having tests also improves confidence that your changes are not bringing down the entire system.

Finally, what I would say is you need to get into a habit of mentally stimulating yourself after work. I found that when I was in a rut, I thought that I was burnt out and needed to "veg out" more, but I later felt that vegging out only bred more laziness and more procrastination. Once I started to get my brain stimulated in any way, whether it was reading a book, or trying something to learn something new, the effects would carry over.

Summary, laziness breeds more laziness, and stimulation actually recharges you.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#28

Post by mrtron »

sliverstorm wrote: post #18
rbranson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second the ADHD check. This sounds like classic ADHD symptoms to me. Once you sort of reach that pinnacle you've been striving for, it's easy to lose the drive when you can relax and quit striving or when things are less challenging. You will find your motivation will wax and wane, week in and week out. You start avoiding the real work so much with distractions that it becomes painful just to face it and your own p…

> I second the ADHD check. This sounds like classic ADHD symptoms to me. Once you sort of reach that pinnacle you've been striving for, it's easy to lose the drive when you can relax and quit striving or when things are less challenging. You will find your motivation will wax and wane, week in and week out. You start avoiding the real work so much with distractions that it becomes painful just to face it and your own…

I think everyone finds themselves with those thoughts and feelings.

I think that the lack of drive and focus is a symptom of something, in rare cases perhaps ADD/ADHD. However from personal experience I usually discover a core problem that was causing these symptoms. Resolving that problem takes care of the lack of motivation and focus.

Perhaps the specific work environment isn't for you. One job I worked directly out of university crushed my soul as a developer. As an intern I had vast responsibility and did a lot of interesting projects. Once I joined on fulltime, they were going through a restructuring period and I ended up doing trivial work putting out fires. Luckily they downsized a third of the company a few months later and I was fired - a blessing in disguise there. A week later I was running a small team doing innovative new projects at a large corp.

Often it can be outside factors in life that strangle your productivity. When my father was very sick and hospitalized, my work drastically suffered. I'd like to consider myself a strong individual whose outlook on life would allow me to deal with such events with ease. However, in the situation without knowing it at the time it was impacting my life. Instead of taking a few weeks off and dealing with the issues at hand, I threw myself into my work while my progress continued slowing exponentially. Eventually I was working 16 hours a day and writing 0 lines of code. I ended up quitting that job, and taking time to deal with my life.

Anyways, the moral of the story was stepping back and discovering the root cause of these symptoms can be very beneficial. Don't block it out with meds unless that is really the cause.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#29

Post by crizCraig »

Few things that have helped me:

1. Tim Ferriss's 4HWW suggestion to focus on one or two things a day and when you're doing one of those things, do it in one shot. Don't take any breaks, ready any news, or get lunch before you're done with it.

2. Scrum. The daily meetings and sprint demos have highly motivated to show what I've done. It's also hard to explain away bad performance when the burndown chart is falling behind because of you.

3. GTD tip: What's the next action? It feels great to boil big projects down to a next action. Sometimes great enough to actually start doing it. :)

4. Listen to some music. Sometimes this boosts my mood and motivates me to delve into a project. The trick is turning off the music once you get to the first problem that requires some deep thought.

Re: Ask HN: Underperforming, feeling stuck

#30

Post by seancron »

jaddison wrote: post #2

Burnout takes a lot of forms, has many stages and is felt differently by everyone. Are you happy with your job - or just the salary that you get paid? Take some time and think about your motives for staying where you are. Maybe you can look for advancement (challenge) that will help you to be renewed in your current job; maybe you simply need a change. If you do decide to move on to something new, I highly advise tak…

Just to expand on your comment about burnout and its stages, this post by jacquesm gives an excellent explanation of burnout:

http://jacquesmattheij.com/Are+you+suffering+from+burn-out

Post reply on HN