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The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

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Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#331

Post by munificent »

rkrishnaan wrote: post #255
munificent wrote: post #40

I've written two books over the past decade as well as learning some other skills and hobbies and this is absolutely the most vital lesson I've learned. There is an incredible power in simply pouring a little time into something every day over a long period of time. It feels like a superpower when you see it start compounding. The Grand Canyon was created by little drops of water bouncing off rocks for millenia. Cons…

Hey munificent, big fan of your work. Eagerly waiting for the paperback version.

ME TOO. It's getting close but, wow, what a pile of work it's been.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#332

Post by PragmaticPulp »

d_burfoot wrote: post #276

I feel like HN should have a special flag called "survivorship bias" that we can use to tag posts like this. For every project like this one, there are 1000 others where someone spent 15 hrs/week for 5 years, built something really cool, but never got any funding or traction. Now, that time was probably better spent on a cool project than on playing video games or watching TV. But you shouldn't think that consistent…

> I feel like HN should have a special flag called "survivorship bias" that we can use to tag posts like this

Pointing out the possibility of survivorship bias doesn't add anything to the conversation on articles like this. The author never claimed that everyone who works consistently will have a successful startup. The article is barely about startups at all.

We get it - Startup success isn't guaranteed and following someone else's actions isn't a guarantee that you'll get the exact same results. Startups fail and advice isn't one size fits all. I really don't want warnings that "results may vary" appended to every article about someone's success when we all already know that success is variable.

It's also missing the point of the article. The founded startup was just an example of something that was accomplished by consistent daily effort, but it's obviously not the only thing that can be accomplished with consistent daily effort.

The core idea of doing a little bit of work every day adding up into something bigger over time applies to more than just building startups, survivorship bias or not.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#333

Post by thorum »

dreamer7 wrote: post #263
dheera wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so maybe true effectiveness would be achieved by having a torrent of work once a week instead of a few minutes a day.

I think it depends on the activity. It's impossible to build any medium to high complexity software by working on it for 5 mins a day. But you can make a lot of progress by practising every day for very little time. For example, I've improved on my tucked planche progression by just leaning forward while holding a plank for 5 seconds every day.

My experience has been that a small amount of work each day builds mental momentum which can snowball into something bigger when my schedule opens up and I have some free time & an idea that excites me.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#334

Post by munificent »

jstx1 wrote: post #323
dgs_sgd wrote: post #313

I learned this lesson in a completely unrelated domain. I started lifting weights seriously about two years ago. Since then, I've averaged at least 5 days of training per week and now my physique is that of a completely different person. The lesson is if you do something everyday for years, whether it's body building, learning a skill, or bootstrapping a company, after several years you will see outstanding results.

It's good to point out that it works with bad habits too - if you repeat behaviours that you don't want every day, you're making your life worse in a very reliable way.

They used to say "you are what you eat". That's still true, but I think it's even more true that you are what you give your attention to.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#336

Post by SamBam »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #327
munificent wrote: post #40

I've written two books over the past decade as well as learning some other skills and hobbies and this is absolutely the most vital lesson I've learned. There is an incredible power in simply pouring a little time into something every day over a long period of time. It feels like a superpower when you see it start compounding. The Grand Canyon was created by little drops of water bouncing off rocks for millenia. Cons…

I've had a solid green GH activity log[0] for years. I try to write some Swift every day. Most folks seem to think it's fake. I have learned not to give a damn. Some of the days with the fewest commits are actually the ones where I worked hardest. [0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff

Do you explicitly try to keep it all green, like a "Don't break the chain" habit tracker?

I can imagine committing code nearly every day, but what with the occasional travel day, sickness, etc, there would always be some holes, unless keeping it green and making at least one commit was explicitly important to me.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#337

Post by patrickk »

superasn wrote: post #160
munificent wrote: post #40

I've written two books over the past decade as well as learning some other skills and hobbies and this is absolutely the most vital lesson I've learned. There is an incredible power in simply pouring a little time into something every day over a long period of time. It feels like a superpower when you see it start compounding. The Grand Canyon was created by little drops of water bouncing off rocks for millenia. Cons…

> There is an incredible power in simply pouring a little time into something every day over a long period of time. It feels like a superpower when you see it start compounding. There is an amazing book called The Slight Edge which is based on this very principal and it can really change your life. Here is a small excerpt from it that really resonated with me: It sure would be nice if, somehow, you could do something…

Scott Adams book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" touches on a similar theme, "systems vs goals". Have a system that takes willpower out of the equation - so you can do simple repetitive tasks everyday, to achieve big things over time.

A goal might be - lose weight! But a system might be - batch cook steamed veg with some healthy condiments, and eat that only during the day by having it always within reach.

By having a system for preparing easy, health food, you compound the effect instead of having a seemingly impossible intimidating goal that you keep putting off.

Other stuff that resonated with me were doing things that keep your personal energy as high as possible, stacking skills (be in the top 25 percentile at multiple things), and the idea that your brain is a moist computer that you can actually program in a desirable direction. The book really resonated with me.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#338

Post by baby »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #332
d_burfoot wrote: post #276

I feel like HN should have a special flag called "survivorship bias" that we can use to tag posts like this. For every project like this one, there are 1000 others where someone spent 15 hrs/week for 5 years, built something really cool, but never got any funding or traction. Now, that time was probably better spent on a cool project than on playing video games or watching TV. But you shouldn't think that consistent…

> I feel like HN should have a special flag called "survivorship bias" that we can use to tag posts like this Pointing out the possibility of survivorship bias doesn't add anything to the conversation on articles like this. The author never claimed that everyone who works consistently will have a successful startup. The article is barely about startups at all. We get it - Startup success isn't guaranteed and followin…

Let’s stop assuming that everybody here has been here for a long time and knows all the recurrent posts and culture of HN

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#339

Post by dimal »

d_burfoot wrote: post #276

I feel like HN should have a special flag called "survivorship bias" that we can use to tag posts like this. For every project like this one, there are 1000 others where someone spent 15 hrs/week for 5 years, built something really cool, but never got any funding or traction. Now, that time was probably better spent on a cool project than on playing video games or watching TV. But you shouldn't think that consistent…

I think it's still worthwhile even if you don't have "success". I spent about two years steadily cranking away on a side project almost every day. At a certain point I realized, "Whoops, this isn't going to work," and just stopped. I had hit a dead end. Was that two years wasted? Nope. I taught myself a huge amount of stuff about data structures, functional programming and application architecture in the process that I wouldn't have had the freedom to try in my real job. I learned a lot from the mistakes that lead to me coding into a dead end, about how to validate ideas more quickly and cheaply. It was a "failure", but the lessons learned have proved to be hugely beneficial in other projects. The payoff was far greater than just personal intellectual satisfaction.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#340

Post by weaksauce »

gilbetron wrote: post #247
weaksauce wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

watch J. Kenji López-Alt on youtube. does the full recipe from start to finish while telling you the whys. he started doing that kind of thing semi-frequently at the start of the pandemic and now has a pretty large catalog of videos. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqJQ_cXSat0KIAVfIfKkVA

The best part is that he does very little editing, so you see him screw up and make modifications on the fly - nearly all other cooking shows/videos don't show that and so you feel like everyone can cook perfectly. Kenji will forget to add things, or burn things, or do things out of order, but he keeps rolling with it. To add to the videos, he has the best articles on seriouseats.com that explain how and why everythi…

indeed... that and not following the recipe by the book and substituting or paring down the recipes for a more accurate representation of what cooks do at home. also suggests what you could add or omit all the time.
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