61–70 of 86 posts
At one point I spent a couple of days watching dozens of videos on procrastination, and this video [1] by Tim Pychyl was by far the best. I strongly recommend it. It's ostensibly focused on helping grad students with procrastination, but the tips and techniques he gives in the talk can be applied by anyone. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA
Not a bad piece, but for me it turns out almost all of my so-called procrastination and laziness is rooted in a congenital medical condition. When I can manage to take good care of myself, energy and mental focus lead to productivity. When I can't, then I look like some kind of loser to the outside world. I suspect that under recognized health issues are a common factor in such patterns. I knew a guy who swore he was…
Pardon? Can anyone elaborate on this idea?
Looking back, it's very easy for me to blame the US education system, which seems to make it very easy for slightly intelligent people to avoid a lot of work. I feel like I learned really bad work habits early on and am cursed with a flawed brain now. I almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is little in the way between wanting to accom…
The curse of the smart lazy person. I've felt this acutely in my life. But I've made it a goal to develop proper discipline. I'm no Elon Musk and I have my good and bad days, but I at least learned how to work consistently hard for the most part. It only took twenty years to unlearn the bad habits from school.
The 10 minute rule: if you want to do something, really force yourself to do it, but only for 10 minutes. If you want to build a daily habit, commit yourself every day no matter how you feel, but only for at least 10 minutes. More generally, if you have a bunch of tasks, commit yourself to at least one. Don't necessarily push yourself to do everything but force yourself, no matter how hard, to do at least one. If it'…
When there's not a blocker, I usually end up doing way more than 10 minutes worth.
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You might want to take a serious look at your nutrition. Nutritional deficiencies or imbalances can cause all sorts of very serious issues, including mental issues. Taking long walks in nature (as in 2 or more hours long) can help, as can unplugging from the internet and other media, and meditation. Many of us hyper-stimulated, and are in a pavlovian loop of jumping from one source of instant gratification to another…
The nutrition point is so difficult to evaluate - a lot of personal variation, many anecdotes, few good scientific studies, a lot of subjectivity and misattribution, people getting fired up online and turning it into ideology... it's very difficult to figure out what's true and what actually works for you.
Since we're all sharing, the concept of tracking progress by the day as popularized (but not created) by Jerry Seinfeld[1] has helped me quite a bit. What also helped is realizing there isn't a silver bullet or magic pill that will get me to do the work: the work has to be done, and I have to do it at some point. I started a few spreadsheets for things I'd like to log: amount of piano practice per day (aim for 30m),…
Remember, streaks are not goals in itself, but a mean to achieve a goal.
Looking back, it's very easy for me to blame the US education system, which seems to make it very easy for slightly intelligent people to avoid a lot of work. I feel like I learned really bad work habits early on and am cursed with a flawed brain now. I almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is little in the way between wanting to accom…
I’ve found that as you move up, the ability to “lead yourself” (e.g. solve for those despite clear direction) is essential. A CTO can’t just ask their leadership what to do. It’s their job to figure that out! (With high level vision/direction from the CEO, but the details are on you)
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>I almost envy countries that focus on almost militaristic rote practice. For some of my foreign educated colleagues, there is little in the way between wanting to accomplish something and accomplishing it. It has its downsides. I had mostly bad experience working with software developers from rote learning cultures, because you may guess it, they tend to execute but not think about it. IMO the main worth of a softwa…
Do you personally feel that it would be valuable to have the high authority/rote people in place to execute and low authority/creative thinkers in place to plan?