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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#451

Post by freelance-ta »

gentleman11 wrote: post #382
danlugo92 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freelance

Any tips for getting started with that? I found out about the up work etc sites but heard you should avoid them. Is that true?

Up work sucks, don't waste your time. Start by moonlighting.

I started by creating a one person llc and a business account, and moving over my expenses. Even before making money the fees are offset by tax writeoffs. My first client was a friend that wanted some help w/ his startup, then my first big client was a former employer. The first quarter you make money you start filing a 1040.

Re: How to Work Hard

#452

Post by dang »

pornel wrote: post #376
fchu wrote: post #272

There is something fascinating about this article, and it's not the tips about how to properly work hard, which aren't new or particularly insightful (otherwise reasonable and well summarized). It's the fact that throughout the article, hard work is an implied imperative in life, the main thing to do (otherwise it brings a "feeling of disgust"), without questioning if that's healthy, right, or so absolute. Maybe inst…

pg runs a business that depends on young people wanting to work their asses off for startups. IMHO the real "why" of this article is attracting the right people for Y Combinator.

pg hasn't been running Y Combinator for over 7 years!

You've got your causality reversed. It's not that this essay exists because of YC, it's that YC exists because PG is obsessed with the idea of doing great work. (There are other reasons too, of course, but that was one vector.) He was that way long before YC.

Re: How to Work Hard

#453

Post by _xnmw »

jedberg wrote: post #292

> The one precisely dateable landmark I have is when I stopped watching TV, at age 13. It frustrates me when people brag about this like it's a universally good thing. Imagine 100 years ago someone bragging that they stopped wasting time reading books. It's especially frustrating to see PG do it given that he's an artist (or at least used to be), basically putting down another art form. TV has good and bad things. TV…

It frustrates me when people bring out the "it depends" card and because then you can't condemn anything. I condemn TV, as it is a waste of time for most people. More importantly, it is a waste of headspace and mental energy. Obviously this doesn't apply if your work is to be a filmmaker. But PG addresses this point well: if that is not your deep interest, then it's a waste of time. Most people don't watch TV out of deep interest and high motivation, except perhaps people like Christopher Nolan.

Re: How to Work Hard

#454

Post by edderly »

renewiltord wrote: post #331
edderly wrote: post #302

I find the mentions of Messi, Newton, Mozart and Wodehouse bizarre. The essay is similar to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour theory, whether you agree or not, at worst Gladwell is writing a journalistic think piece. Here though, is Graham credibly putting himself in the same category as Mozart? Dropping a reference to Patrick Collison, who no one outside of tech would have a clue who that is in the same breath as you n…

The better interpretation is: “I’m a successful businessman. This is how I acted. So did these other successful business people. And as a matter of fact, some of the greats of history in other fields also acted like this. Put together, I think that this behavior is conducive to success (in the way I define it).” Personally, I find it much more useful to go into each of these reads to find some piece of something I ca…

Unfortunately Graham provides no data or references to back up his claims that the iconic figures I mentioned worked hard or whether that was a factor.

My criticism is that there is a risk about putting yourself or your buddies (I assume Collison is one) in the same frame as people who are exceptionally notable. Hence I will give Gladwell a break as a journalist just bombastically making claims to entertain people because he is talking about other people.

Re: How to Work Hard

#455

Post by bhouser »

nineplay wrote: post #377
DantesKite wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you mean by health problems, because I too have health problems that limit my ability to work and play the way I dreamed of. But Paul Graham never recommends mindlessly working on things that don't interest you for the sake of some imagined tomorrow. He even recommends not to do it: "...if you think there's something admirable about working too hard, get that idea out of your head. You're not merely…

FTA > One thing I know is that if you want to do great things, you'll have to work very hard This is such a narrow definition of "great things" that it is useless. Great things in PG's eyes maybe, but I hope no one's life goal is to impress him. > "I never took a day off in my twenties," he said. "Not one." That quote makes me sick to my stomach.

I still think you're strawmanning the essay (and I'm sorry you didn't figure out sooner what you wanted to do with your life - that really sucks!).

Bill Gates knew what he really wanted to do and what interested him so not taking a day off was probably a no-brainer.

If you had been able to realize earlier that travelling the world was what you wanted to do, then you could have put all your efforts into making that happen.

I think the essay is suggesting that merely working hard without enough of that effort spent on the directional problem won't yield the results you want, ultimately. So I think the suggestions here taken holistically are useful to a theoretical-younger version of you.

Re: How to Work Hard

#456

Post by janj »

I took extra classes and worked hard in college to get a CS degree because I loved it. I was so excited to start a career because the internships were fun and exciting. I graduated in 2001 right after everything dried up. The only place hiring was Raytheon, there was no way I'd step foot back in that place to work on weapons. I asked a friend what to do, "Why don't you move to MT and snowboard", so I did. Seven years of my 20's in MT, the first five snowboarding and climbing, the last two figuring out how to get back into tech while snowboarding and climbing. I'm now in my 40's married to someone I met in MT with two beautiful kids and good career in tech. I don't spend much time thinking about what I might've been able to achieve had I spent those years in my 20's working hard in tech. I'm just very grateful things ended up the way they did. We need people who want to achieve great things, especially now with the urgent problems we've created for ourselves. But it's just fine to not be one of those people.

Re: How to Work Hard

#457

Post by bradlys »

csomar wrote: post #405
nineplay wrote: post #317

One of my greatest regrets is how much time I wasted on 'work' in my 20s and 30s. I was an engineer, I made a comfortable salary, but I rarely took a vacation, I never traveled outside the UI, I took days off reluctantly with a vague feeling that I was letting someone down. "Later", I told myself. When I'm successful, when I'm stable, when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostel…

> when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostels I think that's where you went wrong. The backpacking at hostels is the best (as long as you pick hostels and fellow travelers that do not look like your typical backpacker haha). The thing is, now that I'm 30, I feel it's probably out of fashion. But these nights I spent in big-city hostels had the most fun, stories and affairs. >…

> You can do both. The thing is, you can backpack 1 month per year and still work really HARD for 11 months of the year. 1 month is enough to visit 3-4 countries, and have 20 something night out. Over 15 years, that's over 300 night out. Way too much. And you still worked very hard for most of your youth.

Wat. 300 nights over 15 years is way too much? That is utterly insane to me. That means on average, you only went out 1 night every 2 weeks. If you had kids, I'd understand but for someone in their youth - that is nearly shut-in status.

What you're thinking about doing over the period of 15 years, I've done in about the span of a year. Life is too short to spend it inside working. You won't get your youth back - once it's gone, it's gone.

Re: How to Work Hard

#458

Post by throwaway123qq »

What ability is required at a factory, you know, these useless workers producing means of subsistence, like food, homes, equipment? I think these workers make awesome things, well, because I need food, etc for living. It is only thanks to them you able to do what you want - what you call work, while they work 12 hours a day for very little. There is huge difference between their work and what you do. With all respect, but I will recommend you changing the subject to something else, but not "hard work". May be "making profit hardcore XXX.".

Re: How to Work Hard

#459

Post by romanhn »

watwut wrote: post #314
romanhn wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with class, similar to how declining a junior engineer for an architect role is not classist. A VP Engineering role is a senior management position, and being a fantastic programmer is not a reasonable transition point. It's a lot more reasonable to either make a lateral hire or promote internally from a lower level (say, Director). Tiny startups take more chances with whom they place into thes…

But that is not argument against what he said. All software engineers cant be VPs. It is not possible - there are not enough positions and many people are not suitable for that role. If everyone worked super hard, still only minority would got these positions.

That was not the main argument of the parent comment, this was:

> There's a class ceiling where only a certain type of person gains entry

It is true that working hard alone is not going to get you into a VP role, but working hard on the right things has a much higher likelihood of accomplishing that. Impact != hours put in, and vice versa, and frankly this is where a lot of the hard working people find themselves. Doing a difficult, but low leverage activity (relatively speaking) really well does not automatically entitle one to a role that is intended to be high leverage, all the time.

Re: How to Work Hard

#460

Post by sethammons »

nineplay wrote: post #317

One of my greatest regrets is how much time I wasted on 'work' in my 20s and 30s. I was an engineer, I made a comfortable salary, but I rarely took a vacation, I never traveled outside the UI, I took days off reluctantly with a vague feeling that I was letting someone down. "Later", I told myself. When I'm successful, when I'm stable, when I have the money to travel in style and not backpack around and stay at hostel…

My brother in law said: I have two feet and they are working now, not sure about later. Quit his job, and my sister did the same. They sold their house and staring working at a wildlife refuge in Alaska in summers and traveling by camper in the lower 48 in winter.
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