How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#91

Post by timwiseman » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

ozataman wrote: post #69

I applaud the author for his tenacity. There is no doubt that kind of discipline produces results, both in terms of work product and personal advancement. However, I have serious doubts about the merits of writing a book about a subject intricacies and philosophy of which you have not yet had the chance to distill through the lens of experience. The method may, perhaps, work for simple recipes, how tos and other proc…

It depends very much on the topic. Something that can be approached with analytical rigor or determined completely through a few tests can probably be written by diving in and learning everything while you write. Personally, I write technical articles mostly to cement things I just found out in my own mind and I have often found that in my testing and writing I learn things creating my articles that I hadn't known.

But more ephemeral topics benefit greatly from experience. When I was in the military, I benefitted greatly from the experience of my NCOs and much of what they passed on to me where things that would have been very hard to put into a book or discover through any process other than experience.

But I suspect most technical topics fall into the former category rather than the later.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#92

Post by davemel37 » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 6:08 PM UTC

My takeaway, "Just Write. Go and Create Content. Stay Committed and you will surprise yourself at what you can accomplish."

The only thing I take issue with is the comment that the author has more than quiting smoking to show for it, he has 3 books.

as a former smoker, who hasnt smoked in 20 months, I can assure you that the struggle never ends, whereas once the book is finished, you can move to the next project.

I still rely on my 20 month chain once in a while to remind myself that I can do and continue doing the impossible... but the battle to quit smoking, is a constant one, and pays off for the rest of your life... the battle to write a few books is hardly comparable.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#93

Post by dodoflying » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 6:09 PM UTC

mr-ron wrote: post #68

anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

http://chains.cc is a good gui for this

Thanks for this.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#94

Post by statenjason » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

Specific to open source on Github, but I've encountered this before:

http://calendaraboutnothing.com/

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#95

Post by gjm11 » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #87

gnosis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also this guy, who painted every day for nine years, and went from a completely unskilled beginner to a master artist: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3031684

And the guy who, to test Gladwell's "10,000 hours" theory, has taken up golf and intends to turn pro. He knew nigh unto nothing about the game when he started. (BTW: how's he doing on that? anyone have updates?)

http://thedanplan.com/ where there's a blog, regularly posted videos, etc.

Current status (I just looked): 2 years in, 2700 hours done, and he just shot his first sub-80 round of golf.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#96

Post by ajross » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 6:32 PM UTC

ozataman wrote: post #69

I applaud the author for his tenacity. There is no doubt that kind of discipline produces results, both in terms of work product and personal advancement. However, I have serious doubts about the merits of writing a book about a subject intricacies and philosophy of which you have not yet had the chance to distill through the lens of experience. The method may, perhaps, work for simple recipes, how tos and other proc…

Or maybe this post says more about the merits of writing a book vs. writing software than it does about the author's awesomeness.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#97

Post by its_so_on » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 7:18 PM UTC

dreeves wrote: post #82

its_so_on wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one problem. When you do break the long chain you're out for the count. When was the last time you heard anything from Seinfeld after his long-running eponymous show was cancelled? How are you supposed to motivate yourself to start a new chain, when it means you'll be working on this shit for the next 3,000 days?

I wouldn't call Seinfeld himself an argument against the Seinfeld hack (aka "don't break the chain"). I think things worked out quite well for him! But I agree that the Seinfeld hack's greatest strength is also its fatal flaw: Once you do break the chain, all the motivation it provided bursts like a bubble. You've got to somehow motivate yourself to build up another long chain to not break. Until then you're on a "on…

thanks. your second paragraph is exactly my point - but I don't know if it's true, just a guess on my part (a hypothesis if you will). The way you stated it in the second paragraph is exactly what I was getting at.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#98

Post by BerislavLopac » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 7:19 PM UTC

mr-ron wrote: post #68

anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

http://chains.cc is a good gui for this

I'm impressed. My first thought was "I should write an app for this", but seeing what they have done I have no intention whatsoever to even try. :-)

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#99

Post by jwwest » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

Theres a lot of 'sayers' in the world: armchair quarterbacks, pundits, etc, but not enough 'doers'. There will always be a glut of consumers and a small fraction of producers. Not even our "consumer generated media" age of twitterbooks and instafaces has stopped this. Although it has raised the amount of snark and uneducated criticism.

So if you move your hand to write three sentences about Django, you're already in the 2% (totally made up) of producers on the internet. Hell, if you blog consistently for a month straight you're in the top .5% of bloggers.

The fact is doing something, anything, is worthy of some admiration. People that would try to detract from your work are often the 98% of never-have-beens.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#100

Post by LyleK » Thu, Apr 26, 2012, 9:41 PM UTC

anthony_franco wrote: post #2

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

Staying on track with a goal or two is easy. The hard part is that when you have enough goals, they all compete for time. So choosing which goals you want to follow becomes the ultimate problem.