What I Learned by Going It Alone • Hacker News Board

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#21

Post by sthatipamala » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:29 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #20

sthatipamala wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By himself" = physical isolation "alone" = societal, emotional, or other abstract isolation

You could interchange these definitions, and they would be correct. English has a lot of word pairs where you can say "This is not X, it is Y", where the statement would work in reverse. Both alone and 'by himself' have both physical and moral meanings.

Possibly. I'm just inferring the GP's distinction of the terms from context.

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#22

Post by jlees » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:49 PM UTC

msrpotus wrote: post #14

sturadnidge wrote: post #8

Really useful post, thankyou. Specifically for me, the part about wrestling with focus... I tried Pomodoro a while back but assumed it was something you just either 'got' or didn't - it didn't seem like something anyone without ADD would have to work for. So when it didn't quickly work for me, i just threw in the towel. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

If only it was something you either "got" or "didn't". I think it really depends on your personality and what you're working on. I find that it works best for long, drawn-out projects where each single task can take hours (so I used it a lot during school). Now, sometimes a task will take 10 minutes, others 45 minutes, others 3 hours, and so I find that it's much more difficult to break down work into Pomodoros.

One of the valuable things about Pomodoro is just the forcing factor. You might have a bunch of random tasks with varying lengths, but getting into the habit of "I will work on X until this signal" forces you to actually start and get into the swing of work, rather than procrastinate.

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#23

Post by jlees » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

dominostars wrote: post #4

Has anyone else had experience with the Pomodoro Technique? It feels like a way for the website to just sell you books/timers/etc.

Here's a variant I used successfully to deal with a complex project that was in danger of ratholing. The concept is "Tabata for work", if you're familiar with the Tabata principles, but it's basically just pomodoro with a twist.

PDF: http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/39_05_Tabata_My_Job.pdf

Instead of, say, 20-minutes-on-5-minutes-off-20-minutes-on the same work, the idea is to divvy up a series of tasks and work on each of them for one Tabata sprint. Ten minutes, with five minutes to enjoy yourself between tasks.

Over two hours, you cover eight separate tasks. It's also really surprising what you can get done in ten minutes; send a certain set of emails, review a document, re-work a spreadsheet, test an app. I would not recommend it for coding, for obvious reasons, but if you are in more of a product management role where you are juggling cats and need a structured system to help you deal with all the cats, this definitely worked for me.

It also helped with prioritisation because after spending 10 minutes on each sub-project, it was easy to see what would need more attention that day and have a better idea of how long it would take. The only drawback is that sometimes I really did need a little more than ten minutes (I experimented with some 20 minute blocks, but interruptions became more of an issue).

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#24

Post by rokhayakebe » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 6:00 PM UTC

Starting, every day, is a skill worth mastering.... And when you start everyday you will eventually become a master: "Quality is a Habit not an Act."

The best sentence in this post happens to also be the last one.

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#25

Post by iancackett » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 10:27 PM UTC

durkie wrote: post #19

Yes, thanks so much for this post. The advice is good, but I feel like the best part is just seeing that other people are going through the same things you're going through. 2 months out of my full time job and definitely going it alone off in to the wild unknown here... If I may add something: don't let going it alone fuck up your relationships. You're wearing all the hats all the time. Something will always be on y…

I suspect it's the reason that I'm single at the moment - lol. Seriously, I live and breathe work, and need to get the balance a bit more, err... balanced :-)

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#26

Post by iancackett » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 10:30 PM UTC

sturadnidge wrote: post #8

Really useful post, thankyou. Specifically for me, the part about wrestling with focus... I tried Pomodoro a while back but assumed it was something you just either 'got' or didn't - it didn't seem like something anyone without ADD would have to work for. So when it didn't quickly work for me, i just threw in the towel. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

Pomodoro happened to work for me, but other tools may have been as effective. I've tried a few and, at the worst point, I couldn't focus for more than 15 minutes before becoming distracted. It may also have been due to my massive fear of starting this huge project and, finally, having a chance to prove myself... or not, as my fear said. Pomodoro may just have been the tool I was using at the point the fear finally began to lift, and my productivity took over.

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#27

Post by iancackett » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

rokhayakebe wrote: post #24

Starting, every day, is a skill worth mastering. ... And when you start everyday you will eventually become a master: "Quality is a Habit not an Act." The best sentence in this post happens to also be the last one.

Thanks... I think it has also been the most important point for me: Just remembering to sit down, and start. And to repeat that whenever the fear of the amount of work becomes too much.

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#28

Post by iancackett » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

jackschultz wrote: post #11

I like it when some of my own thoughts are validated by others. I've been working on a few projects now for the last few months and it amazes me how much better the next on is than the first, like he mentioned in the first point. The other thing I'll add is that you shouldn't get caught up on having your favorite idea be "the one" and waiting until you're better. Odds are it won't be, and even if it is, you're not go…

Great point, Jack. I suspect my current app isn't "the one", and yet I felt I had learned enough from my time building it that I wanted to share. I'm at the "what next?" stage now, whilst still having one foot in the old project, keeping it going, exploring the possibility that it might still be a good bet, etc. But getting rid of the massive expectation that this will be "the one" certainly helps.

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#29

Post by iancackett » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 10:35 PM UTC

speg wrote: post #7

karterk wrote: post #3

Be Persistent and Keep On Starting From personal experience, this is the most important thing. There will be days you will keep asking yourself what significance a little thing that you're doing that particular moment has on the grand scheme of things. The reality is that such little things compound over time. The most important thing is to keep persisting. Early on, you will feel like quitting and jumping onto the n…

Here, here. Last night I checked my commit history for my side-project and noticed I started it over six months ago. There were frequent gaps of up to three weeks with no commits. It was my New Year's resolution to ship stuff, instead of jumping into learning something new every two weeks. Each of those long periods of time could've been a great time to start something new. I can finally see the light at the end of t…

I discovered my app involves 15,000 lines of JavaScript that I hand-wrote, and another 15,000 generated from templates. The moment I saw that, I began to realise just how much work I had done. It soon adds up. The light at the end of the tunnel is certainly there, so keep pushing, don't let the fear of how much work it seems daunt you... you'll get there :-)

Re: What I Learned by Going It Alone

#30

Post by lifeisstillgood » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 10:42 PM UTC

dominostars wrote: post #4

Has anyone else had experience with the Pomodoro Technique? It feels like a way for the website to just sell you books/timers/etc.

I think writing (words, code) is orthogonal to time management as a whole. It's task orientated - if you have found a flow or a solution you need to crack it there and then not stop because 25 mins are up.

I can see it working really well for the admin I completely fail to do at work - just 25 mins of focused doing little bits of crap each day would really help - so in fact I might just set aside that time - I will happily down tools halfway through bank reconciliations and it won't break my flow :-)