The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

Post by floxy » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

tryptophan wrote: post #285

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…

>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. You're probably right, but care to name some examples? I can't think of a single blog or article about failed companies or projects.I think they would be interesting to read and dissect. It seems that people who have that sort of persistence and choos…

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

chris_j wrote: post #156

simonw wrote: post #80

Duolingo taught me this. I started doing ten minutes of Duolingo a day... 959 days ago. It showed me the enormous power of doing something small every day. Since then I've tried setting myself other streak targets. My most successful has been publishing weeknotes (just published number 92) since that forces me to focus on what I've got done - and through that incentivizes me to get stuff done, so I can put it in my w…

What results do you find you get from using Duolingo every day for 959 days? Do you find that it's working for you, in terms of gaining better language proficiency? I ask because I personally became disillusioned with Duolingo's streaks and leaderboards. I found that I was forcing myself to use it every day but I lost the love of learning the language. Ultimately, I stopped using it because I had a lot of extrinsic m…

Post by amatecha » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #235

mtberatwork wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The surprising thing about so many of the artists is that they only work 2 or 3 hours per day, then spend the rest of the day walking around, socializing, etc. But they consistently show up and put in the work and it adds up to some amazing things over time. Artists don't have stand ups, team meetings, planning sessions, one-on-ones, commutes and whatever other office distractions to deal with though. I suppose fig…

Someone blew my mind describing why some artists are not appreciated until they are dead. The theory as it went is that most artists aren’t “ahead of their time”, it’s that they see Now in a way that nobody else will understand for years. Eventually, with the aid of the lens of nostalgia we see that they really “get us”, as we now understand ourselves. Being out in the world is how they “get” us. It’s material, not f…

Post by rchaud » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

johnnyApplePRNG wrote: post #365

It worked for Seinfeld, too! [0] [0] https://jamesclear.com/stop-procrastinating-seinfeld-strateg...

Post by MarcelOlsz » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #376

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…

> where someone spent 15 hrs/week for 5 years, built something really cool, but never got any funding or traction. I just created an "Ask HN" to try to gather any anecdata about projects that ended that way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27838479 I'm really curious to see what people say. (I just started my own 15+ hours/week project last month.)