Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#1

Post by goralph » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 9:33 AM UTC

I've had a problem for more than a year now and I seem to be coming to grips with it as of late.

As a CS student / junior engineer there is an absolute abundance of subjects that I either a) need to cover or b) want to cover. Ranging from the theoretical, say discrete mathematics, to the practical, starting a business.

All of these different topics, when made accessible immediately and in most cases for free or at a little cost (libraries, MOOCs, youtube videos, books, etc), result in a sort of "information paralysis". There's too much to do, too easily, and I end up doing nothing.

This really got my attention yesterday morning when I was watching an Algorithms lecture, and my girlfriend pointed out that the lecturer looked familiar. That's because I had watched the same lecture 12 months ago and she caught a glimpse then also.

I could have done the course twice over, if I had stuck with it and not gotten distracted. But I didn't, and 12 months later I know nothing more than I did back then about this subject. This scares me.

This scares me especially because I'm at the start of a 4-5 month stretch where I absolutely need to cover 4 highly technical subjects, on my own and unguided, to continue my studies. (Details omitted for brevity)

I've faced this dilemma before and tried to tackle it on my own, and failed. So I'm posting here in the hops that some other students / professionals have encountered a similar problem and found a solution. It may not be perfect, but it might give me a step in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Michael

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#2

Post by fiatjaf » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:24 AM UTC

Here's one solution for "information paralysis": instead of watching and reading everything that seems interesting, just put that on a list and go back to work. After a week (or more, better more) go to your list and start watching things. You will naturally identify some of those things as not-so-interesting-as-they-seemed-at-first-glance.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#3

Post by kersten » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

Hi Michael,

your kind of distraction is totally normal working and studying in a field where so much exciting stuff is going on every day. So first of all: Don't worry!

From my experience what you can do is prioritize the stuff you have to do in chunks. Use something like the Promodoro-technique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) to focus on the things you are doing. Don't do anything else but exactly what you want to learn in that moment. Try to track your progress by making little tutorials, summaries, videos for yourself and others.

From my experience more than anything else it takes discipline with yourself and also the understanding that you don't have to know everything in the world right here and right know. You can be rest assured that nobody does.

So just relax and take things one after another and enjoy the progress by connecting dots with each other.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#4

Post by rocketbop » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

A thought would be, could this be a more general issue in your life, and not just a programming / project problem?

There are many reasons why someone finds it hard to get things done that are not to do with laziness, etc. A tendency towards perfectionism, for instance, can actually be detrimental. You mention feeling scared. Fear is often associated with general anxiety, which is common and often very treatable but has the effect of making work hard.

I don't wish to make any assumptions about you, and what I am saying may not apply in your case at all, but perhaps one thing you could consider here would be some general counselling.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#5

Post by ronyeh » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:27 AM UTC

No one can be an expert at everything. Pick exactly one topic to get good at. Learn to ignore other topics, or just dabble in them for fun. It's very rewarding to learn one thing well.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#6

Post by riffraff » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:29 AM UTC

I'd think you have an issue with your own time management (I do too).

One suggestion that kinda worked for me: try to set a specific time (i.e. 1 hour every day at 9AM) to do X (i.e. watch the MOOC lectures and do the exercises), put an alarm clock, setup your computer to forbid browsing facebook/hn/reddit/youtube in the time period etc.

This way you might be able to make it a habit, which helps you avoiding the procrastinate/procrastinate/forget/ah-crap-too-late trap.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#7

Post by srinathsmn » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:30 AM UTC

I'm a victim of "Information Paralysis" as well. One thing that has helped me was to join a meetup or group or even discussion forums related to a particular field that i want to spend time on for the next few months and frequently catchup with them so that you're always motivated and there's a win-win kind of situation for the group as well.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#8

Post by realrocker » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:31 AM UTC

I struggled with similar problems. So I have three fixed buckets of time now. First bucket is the job. Second bucket is for one side project. Third bucket is for anything under the sun: Linux kernel, Reactjs, Rust, Android, ML... I call the third bucket as the "fish bucket".

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#9

Post by mjklin » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:33 AM UTC

Recommended book: "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was" by Barbara Sher.

Not that it will solve your problem but it will give you some perspective on it.

Re: Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma

#10

Post by karmacondon » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 10:35 AM UTC

"Whom the gods wish to destroy, they give unlimited resources."

In your case, educational resources. It's difficult to say because of the details you omitted, but whatever it is you're trying to do is probably the wrong thing. If you need to cover 4 highly technical subjects in 4 months, then you've made a wrong turn somewhere and you need to stop and re-evaluate things. No matter how important it seems, no matter how alluring the opportunity. It just isn't going to happen. If this is a life or death situation then get your affairs in order, because the odds of anyone being able to learn effectively in that context are extremely low.

If you want to learn one or maybe two of those things then pick a practical project. Learning Algorithms from a MOOC is a good start, but you might want to augment that by implementing some of them in an open source library using a language of your choice and putting it on github. You'll learn by doing, you'll hopefully get feedback and you'll have the pressure of doing it publicly. Practical experience is one of the best ways to learn, if not the best. Then repeat some variant of that process for the other things that you feel you need to know. Find a public and real world application and let it light a fire under you.

Best of luck, Michael.