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There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

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Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#171

Post by copperx »

slight wrote: post #163
iak8god wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ctrl-f procrast > You, my friend, are suffering from Procrastination. 1000X this. I recognized this immediately because I see the same pattern in my own behavior. OP starts out doing a bunch of things that will need to be done eventually for the project to succeed, but that are essentially a waste of time and other resources at the initial stage. OP does this (I do too!) because those steps are familiar, easy, and ve…

Also try grabbing what you think you'll need then taking your laptop if you have one and go and work somewhere without internet. If your laptop has a 3g modem leave the sim at home, leave your smartphone at home. You don't need the internet all the time.

Not when using tools that are unfamiliar. It's really really hard to fight the urge to Google "how do I XXX in YYY". Even though I have an online documentation browser (Dash), I still Google first; it's much faster.

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#172

Post by sasas »

lllllll wrote: post #100
inDigiNeous wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morning yoga is the thing that enables me to work as a coder. And swims also. If my body is stiff, so is my brain and my ability to code properly. Also daily meditation. 20 minutes a day does wonders to shutting down the mind and seeing things from a completely new angle. I would say taking care of your health is the number one priority any coder (or human) should have. The amount of hours sitting in front of the com…

Swimming + sauna almost daily accounts for 50% of my productivity. I'd be so lost without that. Also sports in general. Any recommendations for yoga/meditation resources to learn the techniques/methodologies? I've been thinking about trying that for a long time now.

Myself and other technie friends (some who have had zero interest in meditation) have found success with Headspace [1] It's approachable and encourages consistency which is the pathway to success in this area from what I have been told :) Good luck!

[1] http://headspace.com/

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#173

Post by RyanMcGreal »

javajosh wrote: post #97
chipsy wrote: post #22

Simply put: You're shopping, not creating. I went through a phase like this, too. It also had some relation to being stressed, or not socializing enough, in my case. The healthy thing you want to be doing is practicing. Ground the big idea within the question, "what part of this can I start implementing now?" It doesn't matter how tiny or trivial that part is, as long as it has a clear link to the big project - the m…

>You're shopping, not creating. It's very hard to stop shopping, and if you don't stop, you lose. There's a fantastic SF story that is the perfect allegory (Arthur C. Clarke, Superiority ): http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html EDIT: It angers me that this comment was down-voted. That story was difficult to find, and it really is the perfect allegory to the OP's problem, and the more general "wors…

I have loved that story ever since I read it as a teenager. Incidentally, it is an almost perfect metaphor for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the "jet that ate the Pentagon".

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#175

Post by Dowwie »

javajosh wrote: post #97
chipsy wrote: post #22

Simply put: You're shopping, not creating. I went through a phase like this, too. It also had some relation to being stressed, or not socializing enough, in my case. The healthy thing you want to be doing is practicing. Ground the big idea within the question, "what part of this can I start implementing now?" It doesn't matter how tiny or trivial that part is, as long as it has a clear link to the big project - the m…

>You're shopping, not creating. It's very hard to stop shopping, and if you don't stop, you lose. There's a fantastic SF story that is the perfect allegory (Arthur C. Clarke, Superiority ): http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html EDIT: It angers me that this comment was down-voted. That story was difficult to find, and it really is the perfect allegory to the OP's problem, and the more general "wors…

Thanks for sharing that story

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#176

Post by kesor »

ctrl-f "Yak" ... couldn't find any, so I'll just note that this is very much related to Yak Shaving and everything that has been said about it throughout the years.

http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gs...

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#177

Post by Dowwie »

Magpies wrote: post #15
smacktoward wrote: post #4

This sounds like the tech equivalent of FOMO, "fear of missing out": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out > If I am going to build this in React.js (which I totally should do) then I’ll spend less time in Visual Studio and more time in Sublime Text. Before I can start, I should first verify that my Sublime color scheme is up to par. The problem is the leap from "I'm going to be spending time in Sublime Te…

Thank you for giving it a name. I do believe you nailed it with FOMO. Interesting.

this entire thread has been very informative

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#178

Post by Dowwie »

blip_ wrote: post #41

We are the spoiled children of 21st century programming. There's so much potential, so many great tools and languages and it's all within our reach. I sometimes feel like the ungrateful child stood in the sweetshop, who is cross because choosing one bag of sweets would mean missing out on another. The internet has made it trivial to share knowledge and experience and we can all use cutting edge, industry standard too…

time and money are two major limitations for me and I envy anyone who doesn't share those limitations

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#179

Post by Dowwie »

computerjunkie wrote: post #51

"Tot Facienda Parum Factum" - "So much to do, so little done" This article resonates with me so much. I don't know if every other self taught developer goes/went through this, but its truly annoying. Its so easy to get caught up in a another_new_JavaScript_framework.js or front end framework, but if you look back you begin to see that you wasted time focusing on the trendy things (author mentions he does this).HN, Te…

The article and especially the thread of comments resonates!

My hypothesis is that the path of learning for the autodidact is non-linear. As problem solvers who adopt optimization as a core value, we beat ourselves up about how unproductive we are, not understanding the intrinsic nature of self-teaching.

Re: There are too many shiny objects and it is killing me

#180

Post by slvr77 »

bstrand wrote: post #160
slvr77 wrote: post #88

Lots of good advice in this thread but it seems you may have pushed your dopaminergic system into a bit of overdrive. Lots of novelty can leave lots of dopamine floating around your pre-frontal cortex which puts things on a hair trigger. It primes the brain for learning and has the side effects of making reaction times faster and unfortunately more spastic, which destroys fine motor skills like handwriting. It also l…

Have you any references you can share for further info / to back this up?

I have a genetic tweak to that allows me to raise and lower tonic dopamine levels using betaine. It was something that I stumbled on and then spent a few years understanding the impact. While there is a lot of research very little of it is easily translated into human behavior or comprehensive so no good links.
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