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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

#491

Post by adt2bt »

This worked wonderfully for me when prepping for interviews the last time I searched for a job. I just committed to 3 months of doing the Leetcode monthly challenge at a minimum. Some days I did more, yes, but only when I felt like it.

By the end of the experiment, I'd seen the majority of algorithms and data structures problem classes that I'd likely ever see in an actual interview. Just doing the daily practice was enough to keep my muscle memory sharp, and in an interview setting, being quick to bang out an algorithm almost always gives you good marks.

To test it out further, after I did my first interview (and felt I aced it), I did not do any daily practice for about 3 weeks between that and my next one. The difference was shocking. I was noticeably slower at answering very similar questions, and occasionally got stuck on things I knew I should know.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#492

Post by adventured »

colonelanguz wrote: post #360
robocat wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Warren Buffet That is selection bias at its worst: he really is an outlier. There are plenty of investors that beaver away every day and do not get his returns. I suspect you could pick one of his decades and only find a few people that exceed his ability.

Yeah. And he also hasn't beaten the market in over a decade.

> And he also hasn't beaten the market in over a decade.

You say that like it's an accurate condemnation of Buffett's investment skill.

A 30% - or higher - average annual return like the old days means Berkshire would have to go from a $636 billion market cap to a $8.7 trillion market cap in one decade. Yeah right.

Berkshire no longer competes with the market. It is the market. The larger you get, the harder it is to keep high returns going; Berkshire got really, really large. In terms of value it's also overwhelmingly an operating holding company, not an investment portfolio. The investment side of the business is not what drives Berkshire's stock higher, and hasn't been the primary driver for decades, operating results are.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#493

Post by zuhayeer »

Couldn't agree more. Tangentially, this article came to mind: http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-...

You don't fully appreciate the details for what you're solving until you naively take it all on and show up everyday. Slowly uncovering every nook – solving an annoying bug over the course of a week, while implementing core pieces of your product you thought would take months within a day.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#494

Post by ma2rten »

reggieband wrote: post #189

One of the more interesting sayings I have come across lately is: People overestimate how much they can get done in the short term but they underestimate how much they can get done in the long term. I see this all the time with friends who pick up the guitar as a hobby. Often someone practices intensely for one week or one month and then gets frustrated at their progress. That frustration often causes people to give…

I heard this saying attributed to Larry Page.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#495

Post by fbelzile »

mattjaynes wrote: post #89

If you haven't read or listened to this book yet, I highly recommend it: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work[1] It's a collection of daily routines of many famous and prolific artists. 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 amazin…

Someone mentioned a book called War of Art [1] here on Hacker News which I went out to buy and read.

The author, Steven Pressfield, describes it as some metaphorical "Muse" (God of Art) that helps inspire your imagination when you set aside some time to do work.

I loved that line of thinking since work can't happen if you don't show up. It motivated me, as indie dev that works from home, to make a concerted effort to show up ready code. Doing it consistently (whether or not it's a long time) will eventually lead to new and improved versions of software.

"This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete."

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1319.The_War_of_Art

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#497

Post by yCombLinks »

chii wrote: post #487
phamilton wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also related is how effective walking away is. 20 minutes + a good night's sleep + 20 minutes is often more effective than an hour of practice in one go. Possibly even 2 hours.

20min x 2, and a night's sleep being around 8hrs, means a total of 8hr40mins so, is the above more effective than practising for 8hrs40min straight?

That is an absurd comparison, the sleep would be happening regardless

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#498

Post by p5a0u9l »

fbelzile wrote: post #495
mattjaynes wrote: post #89

If you haven't read or listened to this book yet, I highly recommend it: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work[1] It's a collection of daily routines of many famous and prolific artists. 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 amazin…

Someone mentioned a book called War of Art [1] here on Hacker News which I went out to buy and read. The author, Steven Pressfield, describes it as some metaphorical "Muse" (God of Art) that helps inspire your imagination when you set aside some time to do work. I loved that line of thinking since work can't happen if you don't show up. It motivated me, as indie dev that works from home, to make a concerted effort to…

Steven Pressfield is an amazing writer. I think he's the one who wrote about the Spartans and how ridiculously tough they were. I encountered the book as a paperback left in a bin for soldiers to take and read during some dumb deployment. Not that one, but a small one to Poland. This was 2002.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#499

Post by karterk »

hallqv wrote: post #54

Good stuff! How many hours per week did you put in on average?

I used to code for an hour every week day and maybe 3-4 hours on weekend. But there was also a lot of "background processing" of what I plan to work on next and how to implement it. The more background processing I did, the faster I was in the actual implementation. So those hours I actually spent on the keyboard were really productive.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#500

Post by curiousllama »

chii wrote: post #487
phamilton wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also related is how effective walking away is. 20 minutes + a good night's sleep + 20 minutes is often more effective than an hour of practice in one go. Possibly even 2 hours.

20min x 2, and a night's sleep being around 8hrs, means a total of 8hr40mins so, is the above more effective than practising for 8hrs40min straight?

Absolutely.

If you do the 20 min sessions, you’ll be refreshed and on top of your game.

If you do the 8hr sessions, you’ll die of sleep deprivation in a week or two.

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