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

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

#141

Post by marcus_holmes »

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…

But the people who are really successful in a field don't find it hard work to do that. They genuinely enjoy it, and find it extremely satisfying to do what the rest of us would consider to be a gruelling schedule.

There's also a cohort of people who are insanely talented in a field but don't really enjoy it that much, and find it hard work. One of my best friends is an incredibly talented artist, but burnt out doing commercial work in his 20's and rarely puts pencil to paper these days. I consider it a criminal waste of talent, but it's his life ;)

Then there's the cohort of people who are a bit talented in the field, but have decided for whatever reason (usually parents) that this is what they'll do with their life, and hard work is how they're going to do it. Watching them beat their heads against the brick wall is horrifying.

In the end, we need to avoid survivor bias. For every person who says "I did this, and you can too!" look for other people who did the same and yet didn't succeed. Learn from them, too.

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

#142

Post by Loughla »

rusk wrote: post #103
Loughla wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You read that wrong. OP never said s/he wasn't good at their job, nor did they say they didn't care. They said they do it in such a way as to make it seem easy. I'm in that camp as well. I never get flustered. I never get overwhelmed. I never get bothered to run around like an idiot or panic over everything, like so many other administrators in my field do. And it's all on purpose. I never get flustered, because I wa…

No, I think you and a few other people read me wrong. You see these people going around in a flap, all heat, little light. Meanwhile there's other people in the office quietly getting on with things. The noisy one is compensating for inability with visibility.

Ah! Then I would argue that your original sentiment is too vague to be understood that way. How I read it was that the poster who doesn't look disheveled doesn't look like s/he cares about his job.

For what it's worth now, I agree with you 100%. The loudest person to talk about how useful they are, generally are the least useful.

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

#143

Post by algaeontoast »

bvinc wrote: post #138
qzx_pierri wrote: post #120

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 r…

I did this for a few classes because my teachers had such a thick accent that I could barely understand them. I figured out that if I read the book beforehand, I basically knew what they were going to say and I could follow along much easier.

I tried this with my algo class in college, but my prof also just cared about research and made the entire class a focus of obtuse proofs (still kind of interesting) and not vaguely applicable stuff for interviews etc.

In retrospect I probably should’ve eaten $2k and dropped for a better prof. Then again $160 on leetcode has given me more algo knowledge than my $160k degree lol.

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

#144

Post by cryptozeus »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #120

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 r…

Just want to say this is great, you are already ahead of the many. Keep this going even after college. Studying never stops even after you get job.

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

#145

Post by cryptozeus »

I think many of us like being busy because we use it as an escape. If you are not busy then the mind chatter will start about that side project you have been ignoring or that career move you have been planning. There is a huge dopamine hit in staying busy in your work and ignore more important things.

Btw if you have not read his boom “deep work” then I would really recommend it.

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

#146

Post by Swizec »

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…

Spotting opportunities and trends is a skill. Building a network is a skill.

Seizing opportunities is a talent I’d say.

You’re falling for the fallacy that technical brilliance/execution is what matters. It doesn’t. It just needs to be good enough.

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

#147

Post by screye »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #120

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 r…

I think this is this is a great habit to get into early in life.

I will however recommend one thing.

Find out what internal representation of information works for you. I am an extremely visual thinker to whom things click the second they are put into context or situated in a flow chart / graph of concepts.

Since I have started started fitting every new thing into that mental model, I have started found memorizing significantly easier.

IMO, good studying and work structuring habits are among the most valuable long term skills a person can learn.

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

#148

Post by james_s_tayler »

MaximumYComb wrote: post #45
james_s_tayler wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But but but... When I do one morning and one night period of very deliberate practice I wind up getting one hour LESS sleep :(

I think there's a certain degree of privilege that helps with success. Someone born into money that gives them more time to pursue interests is going to have certain advantages.

Not even just that. The difference I had in available time in my 20s compared to my 30s is very different.

Moral of the story is succeed while you have the time.

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

#149

Post by InvisibleCities »

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…

Bill Gates is the epitome of a no-talent ass-clown who owes 100% his financial success to his personal family connections (his mother was personal friends with John Akers and John Opel of IBM due to their work on the United Way board together, and she leveraged this connection to get a fledgling Microsoft a sweetheart deal to develop the OS for the IBM PC) and his willingness to mercilessly steal the source code of people far smarter than him. Seeing this vicious bastard praised on a "hacker" forum is mind-boggling to me.

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

#150

Post by viklove »

3minus1 wrote: post #136
hanoz wrote: post #30

Good job the violinist works in the music industry not the software industry, or he might find after all his sessions of focused deliberate practice that now no-one wants to hear the violin anymore, and he must in future focus his efforts on the upcoming disciplines of both xylophone and clarinet.

I appreciate the humor but I also think working in tech is much easier. Like you can be 25th percentile programmer and have comfortable salary/job security vs 99th percentile violinist.

Well yes, one provides an actually valuable service while the other is a form of entertainment
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