Busyness is Not a Virtue
blog.idonethis.com
Busyness is Not a Virtue
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#2Less is more, as in coding.
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#3I completely agree. A few months ago, I switched from being ultra busy on my company to taking some time to do what I really enjoy. As a result, I actually get more done now than before.
The article is well written, you should read it. Here is a tldr if you don't have the time though: http://tldr.io/tldrs/51680e1bc2bdcc645c000169/busyness-is-no...
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#4My mom always going around telling how busy she is, just annoying as hell...
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#5Less is more, as in coding.
It's funny, many coders are smart enough to figure out that the solution to an O(n^2) algorithm is typically not more CPU cycles but changing to an O(n*log n) algorithm (or what-have-you). Yet they often refuse to make the same observations when it comes to their own productivity, they just throw more cycles at the same algorithms and expect that to be the optimal solution.
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#6I refuse to do what I think of as "building for inventory" -- working on things that I don't see a clear downstream consuming process for -- and I try to make everything I bother with perfect and part of a flow process (never one-off). I am one of the most productive people in my office, while my coworkers are always busy, busy and can't seem to get things done quickly.
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#7Earlier discussion of a similar article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4184317
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#8Less is more, as in coding.
It's funny, many coders are smart enough to figure out that the solution to an O(n^2) algorithm is typically not more CPU cycles but changing to an O(n*log n) algorithm (or what-have-you). Yet they often refuse to make the same observations when it comes to their own productivity, they just throw more cycles at the same algorithms and expect that to be the optimal solution.
I wonder about that kind of argument. I find it super appealing because I would love to work a lot less and yet get more done. Unfortunately I've found that if I work more, I do get more done. Granted, there's a time for stepping back and thinking about a problem rather than continuing to brute force your way through it. And you can get to a point where you spin your wheels and it's better to stop. But generally, more time spent does mean more done, no?
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#9There have been a few articles recently complaining about people who complain about being busy. They offer the keys to unlocking what people really mean when they say they're busy, usually that they're super-important.
There is another thing that "I've been really busy" means: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch. I'm sorry I missed your concert/art show/party. I'm sorry I've been mentally absent, unfocused, and overwhelmed. Can we be friends again?
Re: Busyness is Not a Virtue
#10Less is more, as in coding.
It's funny, many coders are smart enough to figure out that the solution to an O(n^2) algorithm is typically not more CPU cycles but changing to an O(n*log n) algorithm (or what-have-you). Yet they often refuse to make the same observations when it comes to their own productivity, they just throw more cycles at the same algorithms and expect that to be the optimal solution.
This also applies to "scaling." Scalability seems to be a major boogeyman among tech startups. The way you make something scalable is by improving the big-O of your processing algorithm, and the way you do that is not by throwing money and processing power at it (buying more servers, hiring more developers with "scaling experience," etc.), but by optimizing your application logic to do as little as possible per input.
Scaling is just a large value of n.