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Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

alexand.ro

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Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#201

Post by gremlinsinc »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #200
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

Reading this thread, so many things apply to me, too. When I am deep in the zone, I am thinking in... pictures? not really, more like structures and graphs; they don't have colors, but they are connected. And then at a random moment my manager interrupts me to ask for a short summary of current status of the other project I was working on yesterday. For a few seconds I am like when Windows is swapping, because my min…

This is be except it drove me semi suicidal as in I was depressed and thinking or wishing I was dead but not at attempt level yet.

I just had a kid and had another in the way. I told my wife about it and we agreed I should get some therapy.

My therapist deemed I have ADHD inattentive or what used to be ADD. I talked to my Dr and got on Vyvanse, I also went to gym and lost 50 lbs. I don't do therapy any more. I don't know if talking and thinking about things helped but I somehow learned to cope.

But the meds do help me stay in a more focused and alert frame of mind.

I don't feel broken anymore. I still get off topic and focus on the wrong things sometimes but I can be productive when I really want to be and get a ton more shit done.

I'm also convinced I'm on spectrum but therapist didn't really want to go there or test for it. Not sure if that would have changed anything.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#202

Post by starpilot »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #159

I'm surprised meditation hasn't been mentioned yet. Meditation drastically boosts focus and increases awareness, which then accelerates learning of whatever is being observed / studied. Because of this, focus is a prerequisite for learning, and learning is a prerequisite for intelligence, so focus is very important and more beneficial than many realize.

Meditation is awesome, though I don't do it enough. It's like push-ups for your brain. You just focus on your breath, and if you can do that, you can focus on anything regardless of how boring it is.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#203

Post by charlieflowers »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #186
pplonski86 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music helps for me. Try to listen music that makes you feel better. I can listen one track in the loop for the whole day and work.

I do that too, and sometimes this gives me bursts of exceptional productivity. But ultimately, it's just a pale shadow of what I had then, a whole year of sustained, exceptional productivity.

Have you changed caffeine consumption? You might be shocked how much of a difference that can make.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#204

Post by Viliam1234 »

arez wrote: post #44

One aspect nobody mentioned so far is, why do I have to focus so much on my dreams and "work on the next rocket to mars"? Why isn't it okay anymore to just do my job, have friends and watch movies? Why does everyone has to be an entrepreneur and do a successful side-project? Why can't I just have a hobby that doesn't pay off at all, like playing an instrument alone in my room, without any pursue to ever play a concer…

> Why isn't it okay anymore to just do my job, have friends and watch movies?

Partially because you having friends and watching movies doesn't make anyone rich. When people give you advice, it's meant to improve their lives, not yours. A guy who writes books will tell you to read more books, a guy who organizes seminars will tell you to attend more seminars, a venture capitalist will tell you to create a startup. (If you need to be told that watching movies is all right, you have to ask Netflix.)

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#205

Post by gremlinsinc »

collyw wrote: post #184
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

I don't think you need to be "on the spectrum" to experience what you described.

I might be spectrum but definitely have ADHD-i my wife has ADHD-h

Difference basically being I can only focus on one thing at a time (and the things connected to that thing), but I jump from 1-1-1-1 in a circular mode.

My wife is now like she's mentally got a rope on everything at once but never finishes any of the things in her focus because there's too many.

I guess in programming terms we both have focus issues but she's asynchronous and I'm only synchronus.

If I get bored or my mind wanders of task I end up on hn, Google, Reddit or doing anything that isn't work. Started taking meds a year ago at 39 and light and day difference when I'm on my Vyvanse.

Sometimes I front load a couple days worth of work (freelance by the hour),; I'll literally be up 48 hours and put in 24+ hours of work, insomnia is a side effect of Vyvanse, so I usually when I'm past me limit I'll go off the next day and catch up on sleep and family time and relax a little then the following day jump back in, though I don't always go full in for two days.

Trying to not kill myself cause I have kids, but I work best when everyone is asleep anyways.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#206

Post by gremlinsinc »

cutler wrote: post #104

There's so much middle-class context assumed in this piece I don't know where to begin. What if, for starters, you have a family and the responsibilities that come with it? "I'm only going to focus on my passion from now on" will probably lead to homelessness in pretty quick time unless you have a nest-egg to burn through while you reach profitability. What if you're in your 50s and stuck in a low paid job with a wif…

Middle class doesn't always mean well off. I'd consider myself middle-class but have zero savings and rent because my income is never certain (freelancer).

I also get bored with client work so when I do get a nest egg or bills together I work on side projects hoping one gets me to ramen profitability (ideally a little more than ramen 2-3k/month mrr would be nice).

I've got a family now (2 kids under 3), been married 14 years just kids weren't easy to get (lots of ivf and shit jobs for the free ivf), I was struggling over summer with no clients, and now my clients are not great pay wise (35/hour vs 60/hr what I'd like to make vs 100/hr what a lot of freelance devs claim they earn), so I've been putting in 60+ hours per week to catch up on bills and had to borrow 8k from family to make monthly bills over the summer.

I live in rural Utah near wife's family and her mom is really sick so moving isn't an option so freelance or remote is my only option.

I'm tempted to try and get a remote job with benefits cause it would be a lot easier just to be on salary again but I hate interviewing.

I feel exhausted by this cycle of ups and downs financially. Thought I'd own a home by now.

I guess things are better than ten years ago though. I weighed 260 lbs more than I do now. I wasn't a developer (seo marketer), I earned under 10/hr. Learned to develop in 2012/2013 started hr Dev work in 2013, changed my life. I'm on the right trajectory just feel lost from time to time with what I should be doing to move up and not down.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#207

Post by sunstone »

sscarduzio wrote: post #90
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #20

As someone that is "on the spectrum," I can report that focus can be pretty awesome. I generate vast amounts of code, in relatively short time, and am an insanely obsessive debugger. However, it don't come for free. If I get "roused" from my "fugue" (what I call "the zone"), I can be cranky. This has not always been helpful in my marriage. Also, I find that I can be "vocabularily challenged" for a few minutes after I…

I have been experiencing exactly this in the last 10 years without being aware it was a side effect of high focus. 10 years ago I was really bad at studying, then I had a peak of low self esteem, believing I was not intelligent. Ready to give up uni, my GF suggested I'd give myself only one more opportunity. So I started studying like it was the very last time I'd do it. Like, in an angry state, like I was demonstrat…

I find that about 3 hours of focus followed by an hour of defocus gives closer to optimal results. The defocus time (say, noodling around the net) gives my subconscious time to reconsider the assumptions I was using during the focus time thereby less often going racing down a blind alley.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#208

Post by icelancer »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #187
icelancer wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It (probably) won't. My kids are years older than yours and I have only increased my workload, transitioning from an FTE at a software shop to running a small business (not out of my house).

> (not out of my house) That's an important point, isn't it? Home office is a wonderful thing, but now that I'm a dad, I find myself wishing for an actual, external office. Not because I don't like my own home, but because catching even a tiniest fragment of my daughter's cry next door is incredibly, incredibly distracting - even though my wife is taking care of her perfectly, I have to fight myself to not just get o…

No question. I have a home office as well but I rarely work out of it unless it's very late or very early.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#209

Post by tomrod »

arez wrote: post #44

One aspect nobody mentioned so far is, why do I have to focus so much on my dreams and "work on the next rocket to mars"? Why isn't it okay anymore to just do my job, have friends and watch movies? Why does everyone has to be an entrepreneur and do a successful side-project? Why can't I just have a hobby that doesn't pay off at all, like playing an instrument alone in my room, without any pursue to ever play a concer…

I see nothing wrong with this. 100% nothing amiss.

For me, I was part of early-career layoffs during a recession. I push myself because I was put in a hard situation, and I want control over my career.

I have that now, and I still push (though not as hard) to maintain it. It keeps my anxiety over providing for my responsibilities in check. I want to be independent.

Re: Focus has become more valuable than intelligence (2018)

#210

Post by kervansaray »

cutler wrote: post #104

There's so much middle-class context assumed in this piece I don't know where to begin. What if, for starters, you have a family and the responsibilities that come with it? "I'm only going to focus on my passion from now on" will probably lead to homelessness in pretty quick time unless you have a nest-egg to burn through while you reach profitability. What if you're in your 50s and stuck in a low paid job with a wif…

> What if you're in your 50s and stuck in a low paid job with a wife to take care of? What if you have a disability?

> Unfortunately this isn't a universal given. A lot of people are stuck with massive amounts of debt just trying to survive and live from one paycheck to the next

Where would one find statistics or some numbers regarding the above?

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