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I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

newyorker.com

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Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#111

Post by type0 »

voidhorse wrote: post #13

Funny piece. It can be so easy to waste time when we have the internet. I think the most dangerous distractions are the ones that feel productive but don’t actually work toward your goals. For example, browsing hacker news. Such an activity is useful every now and then, but at least for myself I often scroll around only to realize later that it was a massive waste of time I could’ve spent working on something I care…

what sort of gamification is there on HN, upvotes not much else? Maybe it's plausible to strike a deal with oneself not to look at upvotes or downvotes, I think that would make comments more sincere. It would be great to have a setting not to display upvotes and down-votes on your own comments but to still be able to respond on threads tab

Generally I'm glad that HN has minimal gamification, at least compared to the worst offenders reddit, fb, twitter etc.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#112

Post by jgilias »

This resonates a lot.

One of the greatest realizations I've had is that there really is no other time than the present. The future never is, neither the past, it's only the present. So, if all we have and can interact with time-wise is the present moment, then everything you can actually do can only be done at each particular now.

So, if you want to learn French, or Lisp, or riding a dirt bike, you can only ever actually do it, at some particular now. The trick then is to try and make sure somehow that for each particular now, you always have a clear idea of what it is that you should be doing. Otherwise you risk falling into the procrastination trap that can last as long as ones lifetime, as the article brilliantly demonstrates.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#113

Post by TeMPOraL »

simonsarris wrote: post #88
voidhorse wrote: post #13

Funny piece. It can be so easy to waste time when we have the internet. I think the most dangerous distractions are the ones that feel productive but don’t actually work toward your goals. For example, browsing hacker news. Such an activity is useful every now and then, but at least for myself I often scroll around only to realize later that it was a massive waste of time I could’ve spent working on something I care…

Even among people trying to be productive you sometimes see vortexes of distraction, for instance around note-taking. I like note taking (apps and paper) but I think there is such thing as an over-reliance on them. They promote collecting over being. Perhaps also they stop people from completing their own ideas. One becomes Penelope, weaving the burial shroud of a thought forever. Note taking can be pernicious becaus…

It's ironic because the same tools can be used to empower your thinking[0]. Instead of collecting notes, note taking utilities can be used as a sort of L2 cache when you're trying to think something through. E.g. most of my problem solving involves repeated sessions with a text file, in which I dump my stream of thought and refine it. Sometimes it means literally talking with myself via a text file, sometimes it's constructing an artifact (like a prioritized list of things to do). Same tool, slightly different approach.

--

[0] - Or damage your brain. The fact that I can't think things through unless I'm writing thoughts down or drawing diagrams may be a sign of improved quality of thoughts, or a sign of me no longer being able to think without a crutch.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#114

Post by k__ »

vmception wrote: post #107
k__ wrote: post #100

I'm 35. When I look at the people I follow on social media, I feel bad, because they're much nore successful than me, often even much younger too. When I look at the people I meet in my daily life, I'm doing quite okay. I haven't set an alarm for work in years, can buy what I want without too much consideration, mostly work when I feel like it, and the work I do is often interesting.

And what kind of success do you think those younger people on social media have? Can you give an example of what you look at? Is that success something you want?

Don't know really.

They got thousands of followers, people actually engage with them, their opinions are valued, etc.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#115

Post by neilalexander »

vmception wrote: post #107
k__ wrote: post #100

I'm 35. When I look at the people I follow on social media, I feel bad, because they're much nore successful than me, often even much younger too. When I look at the people I meet in my daily life, I'm doing quite okay. I haven't set an alarm for work in years, can buy what I want without too much consideration, mostly work when I feel like it, and the work I do is often interesting.

And what kind of success do you think those younger people on social media have? Can you give an example of what you look at? Is that success something you want?

The "success" that you see on social media is probably exaggerated at any rate.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#116

Post by abootstrapper »

Everyone here is reading this article as a cautionary tale on procrastination. To me it’s about the unrealistic expectations we place on ourselves. Maybe that’s due to our fake meritocratic society, or comparisons made on social media, or our parents expectations.

I thought I’d be a millionaire by now, changing the world for the better, with a Wikipedia page and a yacht. But what I really want now is to put down the measuring stick, and be ok with being me. It’s time to stop beating myself up for not living up to the absurd expectations I set for myself as a child.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#117

Post by sanmon3186 »

jgilias wrote: post #112

This resonates a lot. One of the greatest realizations I've had is that there really is no other time than the present. The future never is , neither the past, it's only the present. So, if all we have and can interact with time-wise is the present moment, then everything you can actually do can only be done at each particular now . So, if you want to learn French, or Lisp, or riding a dirt bike, you can only ever ac…

You pretty much summarised “the power of now” by Eckhart Tolle.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#118

Post by type0 »

> but I didn’t finish it, just like I didn’t finish my Ph.D. in political science

I hope it's to the best. Humanity needs less ph.Ds in non scientific fields and more Ph.Ds in fields that don't urge the need to call themselves science, you know like real scientific endeavors, chemistry physics and so on

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#119

Post by TeMPOraL »

pensiveharsh wrote: post #79
etrautmann wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I rarely think of HN reading time as wasted afterwards.

Perhaps you haven't spent an absurd amount of time on HN

But I had, and I can tell from experience, it's the one Internet activity where I find it hard to determine its net value.

With anything else - TV shows, Reddit, Facebook, browsing memes - I can tell the marginal value becomes negative very quickly (after satiating the basic need to relax/unwind). So it makes sense to spend some, but only a little time on this.

But with HN... it feels like the above, except every other week I'll find some thought that will improve my understanding of the world. Every other month I'll find a tool that solves a problem or improves something in the projects I'm working on. Every couple years I hit something that essentially alters the course of my career. And around people I work with, I'm known to be the guy that, when told a problem, half of the time will point out a solution mentioned in some HN comment a year earlier (thank $deity for Algolia making finding it again easier).

So bottomline, I suspect the total net value of HN for me, after accounting for opportunity costs, is actually slightly positive. At least the procrastinator in me keeps saying that, conveniently omitting the confidence interval, which is absurdly wide.

Re: I thought I would have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35

#120

Post by superasn »

Funniest thing I read all day. But coincidentally I was reading this book earlier called Chasing dalylight. For those who don't know, it was written by the ex-CEO of KPMG and how he spent his life doing things like taking 36 hour flights from NY to Australia just to get 30 minute facetime with someone (iirc) and he was hoping to retire peacefully with all his money when he was diagnosed with brain cancer and given 5 months to live.

Really interesting book about how we waste away our present for future that we may never get.

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