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Work Hard (2007)

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Re: Work Hard (2007)

#111

Post by airstrike »

themacguffinman wrote: post #78
paulpauper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if you work hard and derive meaning from your work

I can certainly understand how one can derive meaning from a trade or profession, but I would find it difficult to believe that anyone could really do that for menial jobs like a cashier or warehouse packer. These jobs are dead ends, they don't have a meaningful spectrum of quality and you're little more than a warm body. A comedian (David Mitchell) once joked that he's proud of the UK's terrible service reputation.…

> A comedian (David Mitchell) once joked that he's proud of the UK's terrible service reputation. It doesn't seem honest or appropriate for service staff to be so happy and enthusiastic, why would they be? There's very little to be happy about.

I remember watching this episode on TV but I haven't the faintest idea what the show was called... though it was incredibly funny

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#112

Post by fuzzfactor »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #93
TameAntelope wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of the submission is that even when high IQ is required, you also need to "work hard" to do anything substantial. The common thread is "work hard", not "be smart", but people obsess over intelligence/natural gifts, and consistently underestimate the "ditch diggers". Jobs was a ditch digger. Gates was a ditch digger. Musk is a ditch digger. PG is a ditch digger. Tao is a ditch digger. Jordan was a ditc…

You do need both, and therein lies the problem. If you don't have the IQ, your hard work is meaningless.

I see no reason to downvote, I agree,

>You do need both

This has been proven to me over and over.

>therein lies the problem.

But I see no problem.

>If you don't have the IQ, your hard work is meaningless.

I don't think meaningless if it's well guided, it can still get each person further if they do go there.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#113

Post by ralmeida »

selestify wrote: post #73
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. I like to compare work capacity to exercise capacity. Too much exercise will actually harm your fitness rather than improve it. However, reasonable exertions, combined with appropriate rest, will improve your fitness over time. Like exercise capacity, one's ability to work hard can also be improved through practice. This doesn't mean pulling all-nighters and chugging caffeine to override the sleepiness,…

Are there any such tracking software that you’d recommend?

I use Timing for macOS, pretty good: https://timingapp.com/ (available also from Setapp)

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#114

Post by fuzzfactor »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #99
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do need both, and therein lies the problem. If you don't have the IQ, your hard work is meaningless.

That’s absurd. Discoveries are rarely made by lone scientists, progress is made by tens or hundreds of people, each exploiting their comparable advantage, even if that is digging ditches.

>Discoveries are rarely made by lone scientists

Any more.

Because they are not in the mainstream.

To overcome this you better not be intimidated by however hard the work is.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#115

Post by quickthrower2 »

herodoturtle wrote: post #4

> there is an important distinction between “working hard” and “maximising the number of hours during which one works”. In particular, forcing oneself to work even when one is tired, unmotivated, unprepared, or distracted with other tasks can end up being counterproductive to one’s long-term work productivity, and there is a saturation point beyond which pushing oneself to work even longer will actually reduce the to…

Working smart then :-)

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#116

Post by didibus »

spoonjim wrote: post #103
didibus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays people extend luck to include: - Your genetics - Your intrinsic abilities - Your intrinsic tastes - Your parents - The teachers you had - The time you were born in - The environment you were born in - Etc. So for example for mathematics you'd assume you need some predisposed genetics, you need some good education towards it, access to books and material, you need to be someone who loves doing math, you need…

Well if you take that all as “luck” then certainly your predisposition to hard work is also “luck,” at which point you’ve denied free will, which might actually be true but isn’t very actionable.

What if looking for actionable things related to working harder is a useless waste of time?

It might be better then to look into medical, genetic and environmental aspects, and focus on that instead of trying to find tricks to work harder.

For example, trying to change your environment might help more than busting your a$$. Can you move to a place with better access to education, books, or people with expertise? Can you find places that support some of your needs that enable you to focus on taking a course or other? Can you find programs that can fast track you into a new discipline that's paid for? Etc.

Another example is that if genetics plays a big role, than working hard is counterproductive, instead you'd want to find something that plays to your genetic, whatever that is. Find something that is easy to you, and focus on doing that. Don't waste time trying something you find really hard that you don't have the genetics for.

Now the medical aspects I would say is more in terms of where we invest, instead of paying for self-help pseudo science books and talks. Should we invest in ways to medically address deficiencies in motivation, intelligence, judgement, perception, sleep, etc. This might be a long shot, but I think better understanding the role of genetic, the brain, and all that with regards to accomplishment will help us find actual mechanism that might really work, unlike "hard work".

Personally, I tell people to focus on "easy work". Forget hard work, your goal is to make it so the work you do is as easy as possible. You can achieve that by finding something you have a natural aptitude for, or for which you have the right environment to succeed at. Focus on choosing the right people and place to surround yourself in for whatever the work is you are trying to do. Focus on something that motivates you, and feeds into your reward mechanisms.

Finally, don't consider yourself a failure if you fail, because if you think hard work has nothing to do with it, its just bad luck, so don't be too hard on yourself ;)

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#117

Post by uhhyeahdude »

airstrike wrote: post #111
themacguffinman wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can certainly understand how one can derive meaning from a trade or profession, but I would find it difficult to believe that anyone could really do that for menial jobs like a cashier or warehouse packer. These jobs are dead ends, they don't have a meaningful spectrum of quality and you're little more than a warm body. A comedian (David Mitchell) once joked that he's proud of the UK's terrible service reputation.…

> A comedian (David Mitchell) once joked that he's proud of the UK's terrible service reputation. It doesn't seem honest or appropriate for service staff to be so happy and enthusiastic, why would they be? There's very little to be happy about. I remember watching this episode on TV but I haven't the faintest idea what the show was called... though it was incredibly funny

I believe it was called “Peep Show”, and if you enjoy the style, I highly recommend “That Mitchell and Webb Look”

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#118

Post by mlcruz »

travisjungroth wrote: post #66
542458 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, so little of most people’s work is deep abstract thought like that. I used to have this research assistant - she was from an entirely unrelated arts major, and was a bit… well, let’s say not terribly book-smart (which she was very upfront about). We ended up with her due to some last minute issues with other candidates. But holy smokes could she ever focus. She could sit down for hours and hours and process way m…

Outlier strengths in one area can make up for weaknesses in others. She had extreme focus, which pushed her past where her intelligence would normally go. Imagine if she had great focus and great intelligence.

I'd argue that 'focus' is at least part of what we consider as intelligence.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#119

Post by a1369209993 »

albatross13 wrote: post #35
TameAntelope wrote: post #24

I've held for a long time that you must know the rules quite well before you're "allowed" to break them, and I think this reinforces my opinion on that. Additionally, I think the obsession over "intelligence" and "natural ability" is vastly overstated, in general. It absolutely helps, and it compounds, to be smart, but a person who "works hard" is infinitely more valuable to their colleagues than a smart person who d…

It's kind of a double edged sword- I've worked with a few people that "work hard" and "get things done", only to find out once they leave (or go on vacation) that now we have to untangle a 600 line bash script that's integral to production. I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but the gist of my point is: not everyone who works hard is worth keeping around, especially if their hard work leads to an un-managable mess in t…

How is that hyperbolic? 600 lines is pretty short for a (longest-involved-in-this-project) un-managable mess of a production-critical bash script. I've seen several well upwards of 6000 lines.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#120

Post by vymague »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #97
cushychicken wrote: post #19

If there's anyone I'll listen respectfully to about the value of hard, diligent work, it's Terence Tao. Reminds me of Richard Hamming talking about his professional envy of John Tukey: One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode's office and said, ``How can anybody my age know as…

> If there's anyone I'll listen respectfully to about the value of hard, diligent work, it's Terence Tao. Why? He is a genius, and most of us aren't geniuses.

Ikr. The advice doesn't sound that convincing coming from the smartest man alive.
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