How one extremely successful entrepreneur manages his time. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8574978
Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
151–160 of 175 posts
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#152Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…
This is the sort of sentimentality that has no place in modern capitalism. Why would you need to cook dinner or water a garden (who even has a garden) or even have children in the first place? People have been doing that for thousands of years. If you want to scratch dirt you can move to Kansas and be a dirt farmer. Plenty of time with your kids with that career track. If you're building a company, you have almost no…
I wish I had the permissions to downvote your comment.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#153I'm reading this while sitting in a restaurant in Nepal. My wife and I are here for around three weeks for hiking to Everest Base Camp. After this, we are headed to China for 11 days. In total, I'm going to be out from work for 5 weeks. Almost three years ago we quit our jobs, sold our house and travelled for 9 months through South America, Antarctica, and Europe. I work at a startup. I'm the product manager and we a…
I would love to read about your trip to everest base camp - the website link in your profile doesn't appear to work, do you have a blog?
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#154Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…
Startups thinking they are "going to make peoples lives better" or "make the world a better place"... no you're really not. At least not very much. The vast vast majority of people in the world will never ever know about you. It's even quite easy to make the argument that services like Google, Facebook, and Twitter that people have heard of have create at least as many if not more problems than they've solved. Don't get too conceited.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#155I'm reading this while sitting in a restaurant in Nepal. My wife and I are here for around three weeks for hiking to Everest Base Camp. After this, we are headed to China for 11 days. In total, I'm going to be out from work for 5 weeks. Almost three years ago we quit our jobs, sold our house and travelled for 9 months through South America, Antarctica, and Europe. I work at a startup. I'm the product manager and we a…
Hey, I'm on the eastern edge of the Himalayas near Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, China. While 11 days isn't much so I doubt it, if you guys are planning to visit Yunnan you are welcome to come sailing on our huge alpine lake. :)
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#156A start-up is a sprint to profitability ... except it's a distance run that tests your endurance. I did this for a long time and managed a reasonable balance by paying very close attention to my pace.
When I was sprinting at full pace, I learned that I could only reasonably expect about 5-6 weeks before I crashed (hard). I always planned for a much more relaxed pace for a couple months afterwards.
On the other hand, if we had a long-term project I could plan about 55-60 hours per week maximum, but I could sustain that pace almost indefinitely while still maintaining a life.
If you're doing continuous 80+ hour weeks you need to stop now ... if you don't, your body will fail you and other parts of your life will degrade (relationships). It's simply not worth it ... a few extra bills in your pocket is not going to compensate for missing life.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Something is going wrong (organically, culturally, or both) that depression is the default state for so many. I'm not convinced that this is any different from the "natural state" of humans (which granted is not completely well-defined). I do not see any reason to expect people to be generally happy. While it's overly reductionist to think of evolution in terms of individual "fitness", it is not clear to me that a…
From a strict evolutionary fitness perspective, depression is very nearly catastrophic. But, that framing doesn't make sense in the first place, nor is it necessary in order to assess the "natural state" of humans. Depression is a mental health issue. Unhealthiness is not a natural state. You are also profoundly misguided in your understanding that depression is the opposite of happiness. Most of your argument seems…
Perhaps I was unclear. I'm not arguing that depression is "naturally" common. Only that reliable happiness is perhaps not naturally common. I'm not arguing that depression is the opposite of happiness; however, I do not think it's unreasonable that if people are overall less happy, this will increase the incidence of depression.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#158Life is now. If you‘re doing something for money so that you can live your life the way you want later, that doesn‘t work because it takes time to learn to live your life the way you want. Typically it takes a lifetime to do that, so you must start early: you must start now if you wish to make it. Otherwise you‘ll end up with a lot of cash and no idea of what kind of life makes you fulfilled. If you‘re doing somethin…
This is the sort of sentimentality that has no place in modern capitalism. Why would you need to cook dinner or water a garden (who even has a garden) or even have children in the first place? People have been doing that for thousands of years. If you want to scratch dirt you can move to Kansas and be a dirt farmer. Plenty of time with your kids with that career track. If you're building a company, you have almost no…
I would bet that in 10 years your speech will be different.
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great Things require dedication, passion, and vision. Working yourself to death is not on the list of requirements, and in fact can often be counter-productive. If you're passionate about your job, you're likely to work hard. But there's a line between "working hard", and overworking. Beyond a certain point, more hours may (or may not) mean more things done, but almost certainly doesn't mean more of the right things…
Great point. No matter how engrossing or important the work I'm doing is, I've never been able to push myself to work past midnight. Something biological tells me I am done, my brain turns to soup, and I know I've gone past the point of diminishing returns. I've never been able to fool myself into believing that there is any point in doing any more. I look at these guys pushing themselves beyond the point of physical…
and whatever it is... is it legal?
Re: Sometimes, it’s just time to go home
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
From a strict evolutionary fitness perspective, depression is very nearly catastrophic. But, that framing doesn't make sense in the first place, nor is it necessary in order to assess the "natural state" of humans. Depression is a mental health issue. Unhealthiness is not a natural state. You are also profoundly misguided in your understanding that depression is the opposite of happiness. Most of your argument seems…
Perhaps I was unclear. I'm not arguing that depression is "naturally" common. Only that reliable happiness is perhaps not naturally common. I'm not arguing that depression is the opposite of happiness; however, I do not think it's unreasonable that if people are overall less happy, this will increase the incidence of depression.
>Perhaps I was unclear.
Well, it seems that you said what you meant to say, because your clarification still leans pretty heavily on the notion of happiness vs. depression.
>I'm not arguing that depression is "naturally" common. Only that reliable happiness is perhaps not naturally common.
Here's the problem. Statements about "reliable" or "unreliable" happiness in response to a discussion about depression reduce depression to, essentially, a period of unhappiness. Your suggestion is that consistent happiness may not be naturally common. The corollary (in this context) is that the intermittent periods of unhappiness represent depression.
So, I'm really not sure how the response that you're repeating here about "reliable happiness" can be construed than anything other than an erroneous framing of what depression is.
This is not to pick nits, but I think it's a common misconception that reduces depression to a mental state or emotion on par with "happiness" or "sadness". That characterization does a disservice to sufferers, even if unintentional.
Depression is an ugly, dark beast that attaches itself to the depressed person and refuses to let go. In situations that should generate "happiness", the depressed person is often unable to feel it. Depression can be wholly orthogonal to "regular" emotions.