If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#111

Post by WhompingWindows » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

Cal honestly looks at a study of 6 violinists and makes sweeping generalizations to outside the musical realm?

1. Music is inherently a technical, movement exercise, especially violin with the bowing. If you are not relaxed, if you are not muscularly efficient, if you're tense from overwork, you're going to play less well. So, those who are busy may simply be less good due to that residual tension and stress....and this is much less relevant to coding or purely intellectual work, which simply requires typing and not muscular fluidity.

2. Deliberate practice is extremely hard to measure by looking at someone's time journal...it's a modality of practice, a time journal is not going to gather that information. Just because the talented ones practiced in huge chunks of time, versus spaced out shorter chunks, how do we know they were drilling the hardest skills and analyzing their weaknesses?

3. Looking at students who have promise (according to their professors) is vastly different than looking at actual professionals. Many pupils were not esteemed or had mixed reviews from their professors, and then went on to great things. I'm thinking Debussy and Valentina Lisistsa, both of who did not succeed initially but whose great talent was revealed later on.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#112

Post by ricklamers » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 3:46 PM UTC

hjkl wrote: post #10

Not sure how how legit it is, but I saw there was a follow up study where researchers couldn’t reproduce the deliberate practice finding to the degree the original researchers did: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190327

Thanks for sharing this, with reproducibility being an important topic in science I think this is an excellent contribution.

I think we should all try a bit harder to disprove our conclusions as advocated by Karl Popper.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#113

Post by achillesheels » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #74

Swizec wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. But crucially, at the peak of the game, both talent and hard work are just the cost of entry. The rest is luck and opportunity. For example: Phelps won the Olympics by a knuckle . That’s a difference so subtle it’s down to chaotic systems and butterfly wings for that particular race. Overall everyone at that level is hugely talented and incredibly hardworking

Honestly, I'd say in quite a few fields, talent and hard work aren't even the cost of entry, they're semi irrelevant to how well someone does there. Sports is one of those cases where being extremely good at something is directly correlated to success, and there's no way around that. And even that's got a certain element of opportunity in terms of the era you were born in. Tons of good athletes could have revolutioni…

Your hindsight bias is omitting the risk, or uncertain return on investment, in a business person throwing their lives at vaping, and the perseverance in keeping at it.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#114

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #97

caseymarquis wrote: post #9

Seems like a bit of a tail wagging the dog situation. How do we know the more relaxed/organized schedule leads to success, and not that success leads to a more relaxed/organized schedule? This reminds me of some other advice I remember reading: No level of hard work or organization will substitute for talent and opportunity, and nearly all success stories to the contrary are missing key facts. ie Myth: Michael Jordan…

> The lesson is that you need to figure out what you're good at and where you have opportunity, and then work hard in those areas. Just working hard is a recipe for failure for most people. You are right, but too often what people take from this is that the hard work doesn't matter and the people who succeed only did so because of random talent and/or opportunity. No, if you have talent and opportunity but don't work…

[deleted]

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#115

Post by jhoechtl » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

What this article IMO lacks is the impetus for work?

I can imagine myself well organized and focused when I largely work according to my schedules and according to my aims. Some else putting more goals into my system might effectively reduce my drive to get stuff done.

In this special case the aim and reaarding system of an artost is likely to be quite different to Hacker Average.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#116

Post by shantly » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

caseymarquis wrote: post #9

Seems like a bit of a tail wagging the dog situation. How do we know the more relaxed/organized schedule leads to success, and not that success leads to a more relaxed/organized schedule? This reminds me of some other advice I remember reading: No level of hard work or organization will substitute for talent and opportunity, and nearly all success stories to the contrary are missing key facts. ie Myth: Michael Jordan…

> The lesson is that you need to figure out what you're good at and where you have opportunity, and then work hard in those areas. Just working hard is a recipe for failure for most people.

It took me way too long to realize that I should focus most of my effort on things that are so easy for me that I'm taken aback when others find them difficult.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#117

Post by mikojan » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #29

varvar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myths are promoted as means to raise hope in the "little man" and to attract new blood (workers) to the specific industries, thinking they can also become as big as the stars of that industry, starting with very little. This is very deceptive, and probably gets people into trouble more often than not, changing their long term orbits based on fantasies built on selective factology about what is enough for success.

>The myths are promoted as means to raise hope in the "little man" and to attract new blood (workers) to the specific industries, thinking they can also become as big as the stars of that industry, starting with very little. Why invoke conspiracy when mere venality will suffice? Optimism sells. Hollywood has warmed its benches with a never-ending stream of would-be stars and filmmakers despite the fact that the image…

You are making this out to be a conspiracy. It's perfectly possible people are just unconsciously working together towards this end.

Let's say I grow up in a poor working-class environment. Years later I find myself CEO of a multi-national corporation and the people working for me are poor working-class people. - And most companies are set up like this. There's very few people at the top and they have all the power while the subordniate masses have none. You give orders. They take orders. - One way to justify my own place in this system is to convince myself that my sucesses have some special property rather than just coincidence: "You can make it if you work hard like me."

And if you're a media company one might suspect that because of this you would tend to tell stories of individual endeavor. And one might suspect the same would be true for a marketing company.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#118

Post by shantly » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

ta0987 wrote: post #86

eagerToLearn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered. Do you think someone studying Medicine or Mech. Eng. at Harvard wouldn't get a higher quality education than what many public colleges provide ?

One of my professors at an ivy would occasionally at the end of a lecture jokingly say something like, "ok here's what I think about all this, this five minutes is what you're paying 30 grand a year for so pay attention, everything else I've said today you could have read in the textbook. Nobody actually uses this algorithm, if you need it you're already overloaded, people just buy more capacity before utilization ge…

I can't speak to the quality of STEM education at top-tier universities, but having experienced humanities at a mid-level state school and watched a fair number of lectures for similar courses from Ivies, the main differences seemed to be:

1) The professor might be someone you've heard of,

2) Guest speakers/lecturers are both A Thing and are usually very important people (highly placed in government, NGOs, or corporations),

3) The students are way more engaged, which I think is a result both of actual higher levels of student interest in the material and more of the students having come through a K-12 education that was participation and discussion heavy (see: how most major prep high schools run their classes) so being used to behaving that way, because that's just what one does.

The actual material wasn't really different.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#119

Post by bsanr2 » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

eagerToLearn wrote: post #82

darawk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody goes to Harvard for the education. They go for the degree. The thing he abandoned was the credential - and that his high school did not give him.

I've always wondered. Do you think someone studying Medicine or Mech. Eng. at Harvard wouldn't get a higher quality education than what many public colleges provide ?

IIRC the consensus is that a Harvard undergrad education is high-quality, but not exceptional. The experience (including the networking, and the access to people and opportunities it grants) is what drives people to its gates.

If you want an exceptional education, with access to the hardest courses available, you go to MIT.

Re: If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)

#120

Post by qzx_pierri » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

This article spoke directly to me! I’m in college right now completing a fairly difficult class, or so I was told.. A lot of my classmates tell me the class is so hard, but I think it’s easy so far. I asked most of them how they study, and they all tell me the same thing: They skim through the textbook AFTER hearing the lecture, and cram hard before the test.

I do the opposite. As soon as I wake up in the morning I read the book for one hour, then I stop. I do this every day, weekends included. I also read the chapter before the lecture so it’s still interesting, and any questions I have, I can ask the professor during the lecture. Once I finish the chapter assigned for the week, I split this session into 30 minutes of creating Anki flashcards, and 30 minutes studying those Anki flashcards. I score significantly higher than the rest of the class.

I just learned how to do this at the start of the semester thanks to commenters on HN, and it has changed my life. This also deals with my attention lowering after about the 1 hour mark of reading, but the concept is still the same. Before, I would procrastinate on reading, and spend most of my days playing video games. Now, I spend most of my day playing video games, but it’s always a very relaxed, guilt free gaming session because I already know I read for an hour. I hope I’m not rambling here.