This ends up becoming “work on small side projects and distractions all the time, to the detriment of everything else” for me.
Nothing wrong with that.
Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
91–100 of 228 posts
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to water that generalization down a bit: Unrealistic expectations and following/giving bad career advice are multigenerational human problems that have likely plagued humanity for millenia. I'd wager this problem began in earnest the moment humans started farming. Generational division is also nothing new. Please try to respond to the bad advice, and not provide generational troll bait. I'm not saying this w…
> Generational division is also nothing new. This is a person of generation X talking about a problem of the same generation (i.e. X). > Please don't respond to this if you disagree, just give it a down vote so the discussion stays on topic. Down vote trolls, not people you disagree with. Down voting for disagreeing leads to negative experience with the whole discussion platform.
>Down vote trolls, not people you disagree with. Down voting for disagreeing leads to negative experience with the whole discussion platform.
Using downvotes to disagree has always been ok (and encouraged) on HN.
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#93I found this article really useful. It's important to note that the author is
explicitly talking about what you do in your leisure time, not what you do for
work.
I have often found myself trying to start side-projects that I didn't really care about, because I had some abstract, perhaps irrational idea that I "should" be working on this particular thing. Usually it's something that will teach me a new skill.
Recently, I've gotten a lot better about evaluating whether or not something is worth doing in my free time, but I still don't really have a good criterion for when I should pick one thing over another: When should I spend my free time learning about X, and when should I learn about Y instead?
One suggestion may be to pick whatever is the most useful or the most likely to help you earn money in the future, and indeed this is more or less the rule I have been using in the past.
I posted this article because I thought it gave some remarkably actionable advice for picking between different side-projects, namely:
> The basic idea of personal energy management is that you should focus on increasing your personal energy and lifting up your mood in your leisure time, instead of working on things that drain your personal energy. Hobbies should lift your mood, not drain you. This makes you better perform all the other tasks.
This is a different outlook from what you usually hear, but it makes a lot of sense to me when presented in those terms.
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#94What a simplistic way to put things in. You need to do a lot of things you do not love before you have the skills, the vision and the attitude to actually do what you love, and accomplish the goals you want to accomplish... As a millennial, I think this kind of attitude is the problem with our generation. I mean both simplifying things into instagram-quote-sized senteces like "always do what you love" and also convin…
I'd like to water that generalization down a bit: Unrealistic expectations and following/giving bad career advice are multigenerational human problems that have likely plagued humanity for millenia. I'd wager this problem began in earnest the moment humans started farming. Generational division is also nothing new. Please try to respond to the bad advice, and not provide generational troll bait. I'm not saying this w…
> Please don't respond to this if you disagree, just give it a down vote so the discussion stays on topic.
So that the forum stays an echo-chamber? That's not why I come to hackernews. On HN (and sometimes, but less on Reddit) I can be sure there will be a respectful conversation of the all the viewpoints. That doesn't take away from the discussion, it adds to it.
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#95My problem is that I get excited about my current job (at a very large company). I'd love to do my current job, but my way. Open source part of the work, run Linux on my development machine, focus more on the tech, less on the market analyses (we did them but management is not buying in, while I am a firm believer myself). I love to build my own front end, with modern technologies. Too bad the company does not apprec…
How can you reduce risk?
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But I’ve also learned to love the mundane. There’s more to washing dishes than you think. When I was looking for an entry-level New York studio apartment four years ago, one thing I absolutely insisted on having was a dishwasher. Screw the overall size of the kitchen or the square footage of the apartment, or even whether I had a stove or an oven—I needed a dishwasher god damn it! My parents and a lot of my friends…
Washing dishes takes no time. If you were single, it definitely takes less time than putting and maintaining the diskwasher.
IMHO it usually take time to wash dishes
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#97This ends up becoming “work on small side projects and distractions all the time, to the detriment of everything else” for me.
Nothing wrong with that.
I have responsibilities :( Thank goodness I don’t have a full-time job at the moment, but I’m fearful of what I’ll do once I get one…
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#98Everyone likes to masturbate. And with side projects and ideas there is no refractory period. Plus you get positive attention, but the end result is the same. You haven’t accomplished shit and now you’re tired.
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#99I can’t stop thinking about Coronavirus
Re: Do whatever you can't stop thinking about
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I see a lot here and on Reddit, any time something comes up that the person doesn’t want or like, the suggestion is to quit and move on. Work problems? Quit and find another job. Boyfriend problems? Leave and start a new relationship. Landlord troubles? Move out and find another place to live. My sister in law went to college and started working in the job she wanted at the company she wanted but at a locatio…
You’re just taking the opposite extreme. Yes, you have to shovel a lot of shit to get to the top. But you also have to dump a lot of people (and jobs, and interests, and homes) to find people and places that really complement you. Maximum progress is made by people who can both trust their inner voice, AND can grit their teeth. The really hard part is using the former to know when to apply the latter. The only thing…
> Maximum progress is made by people who can both trust their inner voice, AND can grit their teeth.
Part of this is having an educated inner voice. IME one does best with the intersection of ones passions and demand for those skills.
My younger inner voice craved to make videogames. Until gritting through the process a few years and learning about industry norms re-educated that voice. University also helped me discover some other passions that paid better and had better work-life balance, all with less risk. (Albeit none of the prestige.)