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Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

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Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#61

Post by magneticnorth »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #41
magneticnorth wrote: post #7

Interesting that this is currently #1 on HN, but (as of right now) 100% of the comments are dismissive & derogatory. How does this happen? Is it just easier to leave a negative comment than to say something meaningful if you enjoyed the article?

Mine[0] wasn't "dismissive or derogatory." In fact, I clearly complimented the author. I just mentioned that I have a personal aspect (not actually an advantage, at times), that sort of gives me the same thing. I realize that people that are heavily invested in orthodoxies can sometimes consider all "non-positive" feedback to be "derogatory," but that's on them. There's a lot of really good, decent, intelligent, skil…

Yes, there are a lot more neutral to positive comments now (including yours, which wasn't posted yet when I made my original observation). I am glad to see a more balanced discussion on what seems to be a well-liked article, as judged by votes.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#62

Post by curious_fella1 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

It's easy to dismiss "Deep Work" articles for their use of buzzwords and pop-psychology, but this sort of structured language really does help drive the point home for some people. The core concept of Deep Work isn't really controversial. Everyone knows that hard problems require focus, but that doesn't seem to stop people from surrounding themselves with notifications and distractions. It also doesn't stop many comp…

This is great.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#63

Post by sokoloff »

trentnix wrote: post #37
commandlinefan wrote: post #22

"The importance of deep work" seems so fundamental that you'd think everybody would be aware of it by now - yet open offices are nearly universal (or at least were before this corona virus panic started). Is it that the people making the decisions genuinely don't understand "deep work", or that they think everybody can do their "deep work" for four years in college and be done with deep work for the rest of their liv…

Open office plans were a reaction to teams that didn't communicate effectively (or at all). The idea was that putting everyone in the same area encouraged communication and cohesion. It also allowed for spaces that were chic and 'creative', because somehow creativity is impossible in offices that have the aesthetic appeal of a solitary confinement cell. Honestly, I believe most of the value derived from open office p…

While I'm sure there were elements of communications and observation in the widespread move towards open plan offices, I think it's very likely that real estate costs were at least an equally significant driver.

I had the pleasure to work in a genuine had-a-door office environment from 1997 through 2002. It was amazing for focus, productivity, and I found our employee communications to be generally excellent as well. I'm sure it was also stratospherically expensive on a per-dev basis, but probably still a rounding error relative to our compensation.

I hate open-plan offices. Deeply. I also see my overall "building occupancy charges" every month and am acutely aware of the pressures to be frugal. (I think real-estate is the wrong place to do it, but I understand the bean-counting view which is very apparent and productivity of expensive employees is not readily apparent [in a dollars/cents way].)

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#64

Post by ativzzz »

vp8989 wrote: post #31

The sad thing is that the way the software industry is structured, it creates environments where juniors are doing the deep work and people with more experience are doing shallow logistical work. We have it totally backwards.

Every industry has this where the juniors are doing the deep grunt work that required focus and hours of manual work, while the seniors manage the overall strategy, deal with business relationships, and oversee/mentor the juniors.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#66

Post by andrepd »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

It's easy to dismiss "Deep Work" articles for their use of buzzwords and pop-psychology, but this sort of structured language really does help drive the point home for some people. The core concept of Deep Work isn't really controversial. Everyone knows that hard problems require focus, but that doesn't seem to stop people from surrounding themselves with notifications and distractions. It also doesn't stop many comp…

Gotta say, to me it has exactly the opposite effect. I immediately dislike approaches based on buzzwords like this, as my bullshit alert instinctively goes off.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#67

Post by panzagl »

vp8989 wrote: post #31

The sad thing is that the way the software industry is structured, it creates environments where juniors are doing the deep work and people with more experience are doing shallow logistical work. We have it totally backwards.

Upper management should also be doing deep work. Middle management should be doing the logistics of translating the results of upper management's deep work into something that guides their team's deep work.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#68

Post by PragmaticPulp »

andrepd wrote: post #66
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

It's easy to dismiss "Deep Work" articles for their use of buzzwords and pop-psychology, but this sort of structured language really does help drive the point home for some people. The core concept of Deep Work isn't really controversial. Everyone knows that hard problems require focus, but that doesn't seem to stop people from surrounding themselves with notifications and distractions. It also doesn't stop many comp…

Gotta say, to me it has exactly the opposite effect. I immediately dislike approaches based on buzzwords like this, as my bullshit alert instinctively goes off.

That's fine. If you have your own system or motivations for focusing, you don't really need any of these blog posts anyway.

My point was that it's important to recognize that "This doesn't work for me" isn't equivalent to "This doesn't work for anyone."

In this case, the Deep Work concept and associated writings really do work for a lot of people. If they don't work for individuals, that's fine too, but it's not really productive to try to detract from the material without proposing a better alternative.

Also, no one will dispute that there is a lot of questionable or bad self-help material out there, but that doesn't mean that you should immediately discredit and disregard 100% of it. If your skepticism heuristic is so sensitive that everything gets dismissed before you even get into reading it, you're going to throw the good out with the bad.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#69

Post by circlefavshape »

futureproofd wrote: post #56

Ah, I thought we were just about due for a revisit on the importance of Deep Work. I'll take this an an opportunity to paste one of the highlights from the book I found to be interesting: "As the journalist Daniel Coyle surveys in his 2009 book, The Talent Code , these scientists increasingly believe the answer includes myelin—a layer of fatty tissue that grows around neurons, acting like an insulator that allows the…

Science-y explanations like this, especially anything involving brain structure or imaging, totally put me off. Almost always they're simply plucked from the research by someone who has no deep knowledge of the subject in order to provide an argument from authority.

Re: Deep Work and the 30-Hour Method for Learning a New Skill (2018)

#70

Post by sokoloff »

known wrote: post #48

20+ year old is a wage slave. 30+ year old is an employee. 40+ year old is the partner https://archive.vn/K8DpI

"Compound growth" is one of the main reasons many of us have settled around the "start working full time early in the 2nd quarter of your life" approach.
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