Give it five minutes • Hacker News Board

Re: Give it five minutes

#21

Post by Toenex » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:42 PM UTC

Interesting. I read this as saying "have some respect for those brave enough to present a novel idea for consideration" which I think we would all agree with. How we do that is always a function of our personalities and consequently of our personality disorders of which we should be mindful. However, good ideas need to be tested and must therefore survive robust discussion.

I'm an ENTP/ENFP on Myers-Briggs personality tests and thus I do tend to get very enthusiastic about ideas, bombard people with questions and point out any issues I observe. This is just how I learn but can be annoying for people unless they know me so I try temper my behaviour. I'm from England where the workplace can still be a little more reserved.

Re: Give it five minutes

#22

Post by irishcoffee » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:52 PM UTC

funkah wrote: post #5

At the same time, the world is full of ideas, and a pretty tiny fraction of them are any good. The world feels especially full of ideas these days, since a lot of folks now fancy themselves "creatives" (that is, people who come up with ideas without having to get into the yucky business of actually executing on them). Here's the real challenge: What deserves your five minutes in the first place? Many intellectually b…

To be fair, your "floating around idea" example has been "floating around" for quite some time.

You destroy the value of the article by bringing up a topic people fight wars over.

And I don't agree that thinking about anything is ever a waste of time, even if it is in fact a stupid idea. A waste of time is vegging out in front of a TV.

Re: Give it five minutes

#23

Post by draggnar » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:53 PM UTC

This relates quite closely to the idea of thinking "fast" and "slow" as proposed by Daniel Kahneman. Here is an interview from the other night: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12185

The basic idea is that our brains have two methods of thinking, first on intuition, like when we are driving a car. Natural reactions based on intuition are very powerful, but the flip side is that they are often wrong and we won't realize we are making a mistake. That takes going into the second mode of thought, thinking "slow". It is important to realize when to step back from the intuition of fast thinking to the rationality of slow thinking.

Re: Give it five minutes

#24

Post by pshc » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:57 PM UTC

zotz wrote: post #12

rumblestrut wrote: post #4

I have found this approach to be quite useful with my co-workers, friends and even my spouse. Sometimes I hear an idea and my initial reaction is "No," when what is really going on inside me is "Let me mull it over." The trick for me is to not open my mouth too soon before I've truly given the idea a chance to breathe a little.

> The trick for me is to not open my mouth too soon before I've truly given the idea a chance to breathe a little. Silence is the ultimate wisdom. I just proved I'm a fool by even mentioning it.

Tangental: reservation of judgement can be taken too far, becoming extreme relativism/pacifism/social signalling.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/yp/pretending_to_be_wise/

Re: Give it five minutes

#25

Post by fourmii » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:58 PM UTC

I think this is a pretty simple but important little piece of advice. I am certainly guilty of speaking before thinking a lot of times. In the day of 140 characters, blogs and a steady stream of self-anointed 'expert' bloggers and media pundits, you don't get too many examples of the eloquent thinker. I'm glad I came across this post, as it applies to my actions, in professional and certainly in private life. Thanks again Jason!

Re: Give it five minutes

#26

Post by fourmii » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:05 PM UTC

pazimzadeh wrote: post #16

There is a French expression for this: "Tourner sept fois sa langue dans sa bouche" or "Turn your tongue in your mouth seven times before speaking." http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/7foissalangue.htm

I love this expression!!

Re: Give it five minutes

#27

Post by Chirag » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:12 PM UTC

If I get a negative remark, I usually take a step back, kind of like a out of body view, and see if there is any validity, if there is truth in the remark, I thank the person and ask questions; else I just smile.

Some people mistake a smile for agreement and I use smile to put a full stop to the argument. In my limited experience I have seen there is no point winning a pointless argument :)

Re: Give it five minutes

#28

Post by LargeWu » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:12 PM UTC

drats wrote: post #15

aspir wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Sure this blog is marketing. All blogs serve at least a partial marketing purpose, whether they be from individual software developers, small businesses, big companies, or nonprofits. The difference is that "good blogs" are ones where I can extract value from the post. Signal vs Noise is one of these blogs. I don't understand your complaint at it's cor…

But they don't share anything of worth to my mind. I like most HN links that make the front page but I've yet to find a 37 Signals post that's really anything but smoke and mirrors designed to indirectly praise themselves. Someone made that same smoke and mirrors criticism of PG's essays a while back and I think that's false, he puts work into his "blog" and it's interesting. More than that he gets other people to re…

There is a foolproof solution to this. It doesn't even require any time or effort on your part. It's this: Don't click on the link.

Just don't click it.

I'm not even going to speculate why you are so worked up over the fact that other people find value in something you don't. We get it. You don't like what they write. Just don't read it. Problem solved. Ask yourself if this is really worth any more of your time or emotional investment.

Re: Give it five minutes

#29

Post by youlost_thegame » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:12 PM UTC

analyst74 wrote: post #11

I come from the opposite direction, where I was thinking too much. In the sense that I am quiet in most conversations, because I need to think about what to say back, and most conversations flow quite quickly, and I end up with a response well past the point it's applicable. This is bad for two reasons: 1, if you don't say anything, the default assumption is you don't know anything, unless you have well known achieve…

I've observed that engineer-driven conversations are very, very fast and dynamic, whereas business and managing conversations are quite slow.

My guess is that the key here is empaty. Engineers discuss ideas, where managers usually evaluate people. Of course, ideas belong to people (at least when they're conceived), but that quickly dilutes.

In order to evaluate people, you need a lot of empaty and some time. My manager is an excellent evaluator, and his tactic is quite simple: he lets people talk. They talk, talk and talk, until they have to shut up because they said something stupid and realize that themselves. He has the ability to make people self-conscious about their own mistakes with the least effort, as he does nothing but listen.

However, when it's time for him to talk, he talks little and observes the reactions. This gives him an aura of being very, very wise, which is absolutely correct (I work in research and he's a big fish)

Sorry, I'm moving away from the article's point, let's get back to the track. Splurting and dismissing ideas is good for brainstorms, but not for regular meetings. As an engineer, this is hard to percieve, but it's true. About a year ago I started copying my manager's tactics and it has worked very well; people percieve me less of an asshole and more of a smart guy who thinks before talking.

It all comes down to the Family Guy conversation between Brian and Peter: "Peter, do you think before you talk?"

Re: Give it five minutes

#30

Post by youlost_thegame » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:13 PM UTC

Chirag wrote: post #27

If I get a negative remark, I usually take a step back, kind of like a out of body view, and see if there is any validity, if there is truth in the remark, I thank the person and ask questions; else I just smile. Some people mistake a smile for agreement and I use smile to put a full stop to the argument. In my limited experience I have seen there is no point winning a pointless argument :)

I absolutely agree with you. I try to avoid fighting about some stuff, especially if I have the feeling that the responsible to implement some feature is going to do whatever he wants anyway.