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Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

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Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#131

Post by _carbyau_ »

outworlder wrote: post #117
01100011 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hours. Sort of. Several 'death marches' over my career were in fact necessary for business reasons. Large penalties can exist in contracts when deadlines are not met. No one is going to reschedule CES, the Christmas shopping season, or the Superbowl for you because you were running behind. In some…

> Large penalties can exist in contracts when deadlines are not met. If you are cutting it so close that an extra few hours are the difference between delivering or not, _ the project has been a failure for quite a while _ Some things cannot be easily foreseen and you have to fight some fires. That's fine. But let's not normalize lack of planning.

I don't work in coding but as sysadmin. And the same stuff applies.

Projects with multimillion dollar outcomes are somehow managed by people who don't stoop to ask your team anything in the planning phase.

Instead they come in the implementation phase and want you to jump. Then you point out the resources required - in writing - and the fires are burning...

At that point, I may help or may not depending on whether they pay good overtime and it suits me.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#132

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

01100011 wrote: post #115
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me over 15 years in the industry to realize a couple of things. If you're young and reading this then I hope you at least spend a few minutes thinking deeply about it. 1) Any productivity gained over that one-or-two-day session makes very little difference in the big picture. Even a week. A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hou…

> A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hours. Sort of. Several 'death marches' over my career were in fact necessary for business reasons. Large penalties can exist in contracts when deadlines are not met. No one is going to reschedule CES, the Christmas shopping season, or the Superbowl for you because you were running behind. In some…

> Several 'death marches' over my career were in fact necessary for business reasons. Large penalties can exist in contracts when deadlines are not met.

This is why management should be setting internal deadlines LONG before the actual deadlines. If they fail to do this, it's their fault, not yours (as the engineer).

If you play up to their illusions of success by telling them "it'll be fine, we can do it" (I've done this -- a lot) then of course they'll go along because you'll be the one to blame when the deadline isn't met.

Setting yourself up as the one to blame for promises outside of your control is a very, very bad thing to do.

> No one is going to reschedule CES, the Christmas shopping season, or the Superbowl for you because you were running behind.

This is WRONG. Of course they reschedule things for CES. If a product isn't ready in time for some event, the company WILL find a way to deal with it.

This is what took me a very long time to learn.

Nobody cares about CES. Not in the big scheme of things.

> I get to take off time whenever I want and WFH whenever I want because I accept that there will be times when I absolutely cannot do whatever I want.

Taking a couple weeks off is nothing. Tell me a story about how you take off a couple weeks every 3 months -- you don't. Because, in order to meet the "demand" you speak of, you're not actually going to use those times off.

There are something like 104 weekend days in the year. Now combine that with non-work hours there are in a year. Now add a standard amount of vacation days per year in tech companies (like 4-6 weeks?). That's how much time you're giving up by working nights and weekends.

> Embedded devs are often on a schedule dictated by hardware schedules, production schedules, factory availability, shipping time, etc. etc. Just because the job is software doesn't mean it has to resemble any other software job.

But it isn't the responsibility of the hardware developer to ensure timelines are appropriately padded.

The reality is, and this is especially true in hardware, non-software related delays happen all the time. It needs to be accounted for either way.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#133

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

Graffur wrote: post #109
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me over 15 years in the industry to realize a couple of things. If you're young and reading this then I hope you at least spend a few minutes thinking deeply about it. 1) Any productivity gained over that one-or-two-day session makes very little difference in the big picture. Even a week. A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hou…

Can you describe your current job and company?

No, but if you have a less open ended question then I'm happy to answer.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#134

Post by 0xFACEFEED »

nefitty wrote: post #123
wombatmobile wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to read so many comments against marathon sessions. I can't imagine reading the same set of comments 20 years ago (when I was young and a frequent marathoner, as were my teammates). Is this indicative of a cultural shift in the industry? Or collective learning? Or might it just be that no 20 somethings are commenting here and it's just a sample bias resulting from older commentators? Do 20 something…

This “Type-A” hustle mentality resonates with me. I do see lots of people pushing back on it, ie ridiculing JD’s that mention passion, emphasizing work-life balance, disdain for “brogrammer” culture, etc. This seems especially prevalent on Twitter. My personal life doesn’t allow me to do marathons. If I was single I would probably be hauling ass all day every day. I understand the health implications, but the desire…

I've always thought of brute force work (like marathons) as compensation for not being as gifted as rms, Carmack, etc.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#135

Post by _carbyau_ »

wombatmobile wrote: post #97
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me over 15 years in the industry to realize a couple of things. If you're young and reading this then I hope you at least spend a few minutes thinking deeply about it. 1) Any productivity gained over that one-or-two-day session makes very little difference in the big picture. Even a week. A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hou…

It's interesting to read so many comments against marathon sessions. I can't imagine reading the same set of comments 20 years ago (when I was young and a frequent marathoner, as were my teammates). Is this indicative of a cultural shift in the industry? Or collective learning? Or might it just be that no 20 somethings are commenting here and it's just a sample bias resulting from older commentators? Do 20 something…

I suspect more people:

- see the rich vs poor divide

- see what it took for the rich to get there. And it isn't just "hard work".

Plenty of people work hard at all levels of life. But the "hard work as a virtue" meme is dying.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#136

Post by [deleted] »

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #58
nicoburns wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you say is true over the long term, but not so much over the short term. Need me to skip breaks and work hours for one day when I'm well rested. I definitely can be significantly more productive than usual. Problem is that it's not sustainable.

It took me over 15 years in the industry to realize a couple of things. If you're young and reading this then I hope you at least spend a few minutes thinking deeply about it. 1) Any productivity gained over that one-or-two-day session makes very little difference in the big picture. Even a week. A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hou…

[deleted]

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#137

Post by nefitty »

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #134
nefitty wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This “Type-A” hustle mentality resonates with me. I do see lots of people pushing back on it, ie ridiculing JD’s that mention passion, emphasizing work-life balance, disdain for “brogrammer” culture, etc. This seems especially prevalent on Twitter. My personal life doesn’t allow me to do marathons. If I was single I would probably be hauling ass all day every day. I understand the health implications, but the desire…

I've always thought of brute force work (like marathons) as compensation for not being as gifted as rms, Carmack, etc.

Yes! Unfortunately I was not born with Vitalik Buterin’s innate genius, so I understand I have to move myself forward more mechanically.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#138

Post by treeman79 »

238475235243 wrote: post #110

There are people who have had a cognitive impairment they've worked with and they're are people who haven't. If you have a brain injury, head trauma, stroke, cognitive migraine.... You're aware of the space you vacate. You can feel it missing and its "a thing". For everyone else, you just convince yourself you're just as effective as you were. You think multitasking works or driving after two beers is ok. You're not…

Been all of these.

Used to multi task like crazy when younger. Turned out it was a coping mechanism for severe ADHD.

Then had a few years of brain injuries.

I would see a problem. Say “reverse a string”, and think oh that’s trivial. A week later I would finally finish. I “knew” how to solve the problem, but as you described something was missing.

Eventually recovered, plus got on adhd medication. Now I don’t multitask much. Only if I skip medication.

I still can but it’s harder unless I’m off medication.

In general I’m much more productive. But grander problems are a little harder as I’m not thinking too much beyond the moment.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#140

Post by darkerside »

godot wrote: post #98
0xFACEFEED wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me over 15 years in the industry to realize a couple of things. If you're young and reading this then I hope you at least spend a few minutes thinking deeply about it. 1) Any productivity gained over that one-or-two-day session makes very little difference in the big picture. Even a week. A company/product/feature is never going to live or die on that 30 hours of coding that you managed to squeeze into 48 hou…

I will preface this by saying I agree with you. However, I'd like to point out (as someone else did too about downplaying the upside) -- if you did get rewarded with money, respect, promotions (decision making power), knowledge -- these are all real material gains from those long hours. True, from the business point of view, your extra hours didn't matter to the business in the long run. It did matter for your career…

I learned a lot and shipped a lot in the few "long hours" coding sessions I did in my life. Those returns then compound over the rest of your career. Just because parent post went overboard doesn't mean it's a bad idea for people to challenge themselves once in a while.
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