31–40 of 58 posts
My solution to procrastination: 1. Identify the activities you procrastinate (for me, writing scientific papers); 2. Rearrange your life so you don't have to do them any more. (I just left academia to do a startup.)
what kind of startup? Is it linked to science?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But would you rather have good enough or Leonardo?
Good enough, because masses will be able to afford it and benefit from it. Bring in Leo and the cost goes from nearly free to extremely expensive. Think bicycle against Ferrari, when all you need is a way to make the 3 mile commute between home and the plant.
This reads like something out of Turgenev. A pair of boots is worth more than the complete works of Shakespeare! Before art, bread!
By contrast, one might ask: Leonardo's procrastinations have more value than the output of how many thousands of sensible, disciplined people?
Catchy title. Diagnosing "procrastination" seems to be all the rage nowadays, people will almost always identify with it.
Perhaps procrastination is a similar phenomenon. The workplace is ubiquitous now, if we allow it to be. Do we procrastinate so that our minds have time to recover from these new demands?
On a day to day basis Leonardo would allocate his time between customer projects and his own. He would balance client commitments with his natural energy for creativity - and according to this article, his natural energy often won that battle. It could be argued that it was the vision and taste of the Medici family in Florence that actually launched the renaissance. Their customer dollars enabled a new class of Itali…
The vast majority of the time it just takes far too much time and energy to survive.
On very rare occasions, people have enough time to create art. An example I can think of is the native Americans in the pacific north west, before the arrival of Europeans.
The unique combination of:
Seasonal salmon runs - very good calorie rich food that's easy to catch.
A mountainous geography - keeps population reasonably small.
Resulted in a societies that could quickly catch and store enough food for the whole year.
And they ended up with a surplus of time and energy - free time.
Unsurprisingly that led to a staggering amount of art. Sculpture - totem poles, music, dance, etc.
But again, that's very unusual. The only other example I can think of is ancient Greece and they had a lot of free time thanks to slavery.
The one entrepreneurial solution to this, that I can think of is robotics.
I already have a dish washer and a roomba, but those only save a few hours a week. To really free up my time I need something that will do my work for me, like a robot that can code in C++.
I just hope the robots don't rebel or something like that.
On a day to day basis Leonardo would allocate his time between customer projects and his own. He would balance client commitments with his natural energy for creativity - and according to this article, his natural energy often won that battle. It could be argued that it was the vision and taste of the Medici family in Florence that actually launched the renaissance. Their customer dollars enabled a new class of Itali…
The freedom to pursue creative fulfillment is very unusual in human history. The vast majority of the time it just takes far too much time and energy to survive. On very rare occasions, people have enough time to create art. An example I can think of is the native Americans in the pacific north west, before the arrival of Europeans. The unique combination of: Seasonal salmon runs - very good calorie rich food that's…
Is he a procrastinator for not actually attempting to build his helicopter with late-15th century technology? He would have failed, as the rough-hewn wooden gearboxes of the day were incapable of the power levels needed for rotary-wing flight. And other reasons. It was probably better to move on and sketch some new ideas than try to build things centuries ahead of what was technologically possible.
On a day to day basis Leonardo would allocate his time between customer projects and his own. He would balance client commitments with his natural energy for creativity - and according to this article, his natural energy often won that battle. It could be argued that it was the vision and taste of the Medici family in Florence that actually launched the renaissance. Their customer dollars enabled a new class of Itali…
The freedom to pursue creative fulfillment is very unusual in human history. The vast majority of the time it just takes far too much time and energy to survive. On very rare occasions, people have enough time to create art. An example I can think of is the native Americans in the pacific north west, before the arrival of Europeans. The unique combination of: Seasonal salmon runs - very good calorie rich food that's…
It wasn't the only choice though. Maybe some members of the tribe used their free time to kill more salmon. Maybe they killed all the salmon because it was so good, or because they could bag the prettiest girl in the village because they had all the fish.
One way (song/dance/art), you are enhancing survival for the group and future generations. Another way (using survival skills to create excess), you are profiting in the short term.
Hundreds of years from now our era may be remembered as the generations that killed all the fish, and took all the paint brushes to make more fish hooks and spears.
I completely disagree that Leonardo was a procrastinator simply because he didn't do everything he dreamed of. I'm sorry, I've looked through some of the books of his designs and he has things like strip-miners and hang-gliders and such. I'm sorry, they were physically incapable of making them in his day. He understood concepts and designed things that fit them, likely knowing he'd never be able to build them in his…
Because labeling Leonardo a procrastinator makes all of us procrastinators feel better about ourselves.
Is he a procrastinator for not actually attempting to build his helicopter with late-15th century technology? He would have failed, as the rough-hewn wooden gearboxes of the day were incapable of the power levels needed for rotary-wing flight. And other reasons. It was probably better to move on and sketch some new ideas than try to build things centuries ahead of what was technologically possible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An entrepreneur who caters to something other than a "customer driven market" is a rare one. And even if an entrepreneur can create a whole new market on their own by innovating, it will soon become customer driven. I am betting on the theory that entrepreneurship itself provides much more space for creativity than most other professions and if you succeed, you'll have a lot of money and time to pursue creativity ful…
The best creations are the ones inventors are making for themselves. I was reading the interview with Steve Wozniak in Founders at Work , and what most struck me was how he talked about Apple's biggest innovations as being things either he or Steve Jobs made for themselves, because they wanted their computers to be better. The guys at 37signals made their products so that they could use them. Mark Zuckerberg made Fac…
Linus did not start a startup to make Linux. He still hasn't bothered with one, though he certainly could have done so at various points. Similar stories exist with a huge number of open source projects.
Basically it seems like you only have to start one if:
-You don't get enough time any other way.
-You need additional resources to build the project.
-You like the people and energy.
-You want the money.