Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

openheartproject.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 77 posts

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#11

Post by beebmam »

atoav wrote: post #9
acalzycalzy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sense this didn’t work out for you either - financially anyway

First, finances are most of the time just a roundabout way of trying to be happy. So in a way doing things that make you happy directly instead of doing things hoping to gain money for that activity and then spending that money to hope to gain happiness will never work the same (provided you are not starving). Second, many people on this platform, me included, got good at the things they do for a living, because they…

> finances are most of the time just a roundabout way of trying to be happy

If you consider not dying a form of happiness, sure. Seems overly reductive to me.

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#13

Post by jodrellblank »

> "If I’m not vigilant about making myself do stuff, I won’t do anything. And my commitment to meditate is critical on every level."

Alan Watts said that meditation shouldn't be a grim duty, it should be done for the fun of it, it should be a 'grooving with the eternal now'. "Getting meditation done" makes as much sense as "getting dancing done" or "getting music listened to" - the goal isn't to hurry up and finish playing music or dancing, it's to enjoy doing it for its own sake.

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#14

Post by nicbou »

boredemployee wrote: post #3

>> Once I get all my work out of the way, maybe I can do something fun or satisfying or just cuz. That's where I'm struggling recently. I barely find anything joyful lately. I tried many many "discipline" frameworks, I can commit more than 1 week.

Maybe you're tired? Too much work kills your energy for anything remotely intellectual.

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#15

Post by jcadam »

dorkwood wrote: post #2

> Yesterday, I finally realized that this method would never, ever work. I was shocked. But it never, ever has. I’ve been after myself on this score for, what, like ten years? Had it ever worked once in that time, I asked myself. No! I had a similar realisation a few years ago. I used to try to come up with side project ideas by sitting down with a piece of paper and writing down every idea I could think of. Then, I’…

I used to spend a lot of my spare time on side projects, thinking I'd hit on something successful eventually.

Now, I'm in my 40s and I'm like "Done with work; I think I'll go for a walk and then take a nap."

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#16

Post by wizzard0 »

langsoul-com wrote: post #5

This approach works if the stuff you want to get done also is very enjoyable. Nobody wants to wash the dishes, do maintenance or clean up, but it has to be done. The question is how does this work for things you want to get done, but it's hard. Say I want to make some form of rubber duck app, but with an AI voice. The idea is great, I talk my programming ideas and she'd respond back, giving an illusion of listening.…

Isn’t washing dishes one of the few instantly rewarding actions available in todays’ workspace?

The feeling of warm water running over your hands, the immediate change, the purity that you create, the complex pattern of light reflecting in the water drops, the sound of it…

To me, this is an immensely pleasant activity.

Sure, if I’m in a rush, I just load the dishwasher and jump to other things, but otherwise this is a great time to relax and meditate.

Compare that to waiting while the CI pipeline is chugging through over and over, only to end up with frustrating disappointment that another test started to fail, or that something has stuck in the cloud house-of-cards again

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#17

Post by gretch »

dorkwood wrote: post #2

> Yesterday, I finally realized that this method would never, ever work. I was shocked. But it never, ever has. I’ve been after myself on this score for, what, like ten years? Had it ever worked once in that time, I asked myself. No! I had a similar realisation a few years ago. I used to try to come up with side project ideas by sitting down with a piece of paper and writing down every idea I could think of. Then, I’…

I agree with you and have similar feelings about myself.

There’s a saying I like that I think captures this well - “strike when the iron is hot”.

Whenever I feel that spark swell inside of me, I drop everything else and immediately follow it. It’s okay to put off the haircut or the grocery shopping or whatever other mundane day to day chore I had - this is what living is for.

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#18

Post by fogzen »

Doing only what you enjoy prevents you from getting what you want, if what you want requires action you don’t enjoy.

If the pain of not being where you want to be is greater than the pain of remaining where you are, you’ll take action.

It’s great if you enjoy what you’re doing. But often we enjoy where we want to go more than what we have to do to get there. I want a clean house more than I want to clean it, which is why I take action to clean it every day.

The problem comes when we aren’t in tune with what we really want, and we can’t make the choice about what’s required of us. It’s okay to accept that you don’t want to be someone who meditates every day. Or that you want to eat and drink more than you want six pack abs. Be honest about what you want, without influence from the expectations of other people, culture, or tradition.

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#19

Post by cinntaile »

jodrellblank wrote: post #13

> " If I’m not vigilant about making myself do stuff, I won’t do anything. And my commitment to meditate is critical on every level. " Alan Watts said that meditation shouldn't be a grim duty, it should be done for the fun of it, it should be a 'grooving with the eternal now'. "Getting meditation done" makes as much sense as "getting dancing done" or "getting music listened to" - the goal isn't to hurry up and finish…

Just because somebody says something doesn't mean it's the only way. It's just an opinion, no matter who said it.

Re: Getting Stuff Done by Not Being Mean to Yourself (2010)

#20

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

jcadam wrote: post #15
dorkwood wrote: post #2

> Yesterday, I finally realized that this method would never, ever work. I was shocked. But it never, ever has. I’ve been after myself on this score for, what, like ten years? Had it ever worked once in that time, I asked myself. No! I had a similar realisation a few years ago. I used to try to come up with side project ideas by sitting down with a piece of paper and writing down every idea I could think of. Then, I’…

I used to spend a lot of my spare time on side projects, thinking I'd hit on something successful eventually. Now, I'm in my 40s and I'm like "Done with work; I think I'll go for a walk and then take a nap."

>Now, I'm in my 40s and I'm like "Done with work; I think I'll go for a walk and then take a nap."

I'm in my early thirties and never had any side projects. After busting my ass coding like hell for 6 years in university and after 8 hours of coding at work per day, I was always seeking to do non-coding activities in my free time: trying out new hobbies, going for a walk, having drinks with friends and going dancing, dating, witching a movie, jerking off, cooking, reading, hiking, SLEEPING! etc.

This hurt my chances of getting into flashy well paying VC funded agile scale-ups where every applicant was a 20-something with a huge GitHub portfolio, but, and I hope I don't offend anyone, life is too short to spend my free time doing things I don't enjoy, just to look good in front of $COMPANY, that will lay you off the next day if 'line goes down', so I narrow my job search at companies where coding is done for the paycheck, not for the lifestyle.

I do spend my free time sometimes tinkering with various linux distros and DEs, and sometimes reverse engineering, but moistly working on hardware projects to build to increase my comfort around the house like a tap-water to air apartment AC cooling unit for the summer. I've always been a hands-on kind of tinkerer, with physical things, not with code, since I can't touch it.

Post reply on HN