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I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

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Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#51

Post by jth1 »

dgan wrote: post #5
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #4

Context shifts are actually great for changing your perspective and reinvigorating your ability to work around road blocks. Switching from screen to paper is one way of context shifting. You could also switch a whiteboard. You could switch to talking through the problem verbally with a colleague or, lacking that, a rubber duck. You could just get up and go for a walk to think about that problem. Context shifting from…

I think you are right to generalise it to "context switch". Countless times I deleted my yet-to-be-posted, detailed Stackoverflow question, when after typing (ha!) it, i would realize my mistake. I never tried duck - debugging, maybe should give it a go too

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Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#52

Post by dgan »

Tarsul wrote: post #43

I just read an interview in the guardian with author George Saunders that has 7 tips for writing (and reviewing what is written). One fits here especially: " Print - Revision is “not meaningful unless I print,” he says. “There’s a visual difference in reading on the page versus the computer. I don’t trust it unless I’m reading a hard copy.”" So, basically if an award winning writer thinks like you do, there's nothing…

Yes, I have noticed that too, but it's less pronounced in my experience. Just the fact that I can turn the page, look forward, come back and underline in color, feels much more engaging

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#53

Post by wrp »

My problem solving ability is noticeably much stronger when working on paper versus at the screen. This is true for both mathematical reasoning and narrative writing. The effect is so great for me that I don't even try to do serious editing or study of a text on screen.

I have just a tentative explanation for this, that it is related to the apprehension and distraction of having a machine staring you in the face, waiting for you to do something. I had exactly the same issue in the days before personal computers, when I would sit facing an electric typewriter.

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#55

Post by randomluck040 »

lambdaba wrote: post #20
thenerdhead wrote: post #14

Writing in my opinion is the best way to think through problems. It takes concentration and effort. Jeff Bezos says the "smartest thing" they did at Amazon was to ban low effort presentations and embrace writing long-form briefs for each meeting. That made sure the problem was thoroughly thought out by the meeting owner and is read by the group in detail for the first 30 minutes of the meeting. In open source, many p…

Actual writing is the best form of pseudocode :) I like the anecdote, this and the two-pizza rule are some nice bits of Amazon "management lore".

For those who are interested in the „two-pizza-rule“:

Bezos believes that no matter how large your company gets, individual teams shouldn’t be larger than what two pizzas can feed.

http://blog.idonethis.com/two-pizza-team/

Re: I feel dumb(er) when typing, and smart(er) when writing

#57

Post by the_only_law »

> writing down a problem and work on it on a paper is much more productive than staring at my screen and/or jumping right to code.

I’ve noticed similar, although I don’t write much. I do tend to do a lot of drawing or annotating printouts of text or graphics.

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