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I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

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Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#91

Post by myth2018 »

badpun wrote: post #85
myth2018 wrote: post #79

Procrastination has destroyed my life. Three years ago I finally achieved my dream of working from home. I was writing my thesis and believed I could finish my masters in 8 months. I decided to fully focus on it and, afterwards, I would create my long dreamed own software company. It worked really well for some weeks. I was much more focused than I used to be working in regular offices, with bosses. But soon I starte…

Hey, maybe what actually „destroyed your life” was the dream to have your own company? Seems like you may not be built for it, it is definitely not for everyone.

I had to make the story shorter, but the company now exists and is running. It's just not the way I initially imagined: I'm making some money building products for other companies while I try hard to improve and sell my own.

It seems to me that what ruined my life was my inability to deal with the anxiety of undertaking a very large project totally on my own, having to deal with emotional highs and lows being patient enough to wait for the results -- very large projects take time especially when you are working alone.

I feel confident that things will improve, specially now that I think I understand better what I've gone through, but it costed me a lot.

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#92

Post by Iamhisalt »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #82

I hate this trend in management so much. I'm a combat vet with ptsd, and I've noticed companies more and more trying to do stupid open office layouts to save money and achieve this same result, but there are those of us it majorly negatively impacts our productivity in the medium to long term. Add on top that now instead of being able to think about a problem deeply, I get interrupted every 3 minutes by some adhoc qu…

I hear you. I have generalized and social anxiety. This type of situation or an open office shoots it through the roof. End up getting barely anything done because I am so wound up. Refuse to work in an open office setting.

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#93

Post by myth2018 »

emerongi wrote: post #84
myth2018 wrote: post #79

Procrastination has destroyed my life. Three years ago I finally achieved my dream of working from home. I was writing my thesis and believed I could finish my masters in 8 months. I decided to fully focus on it and, afterwards, I would create my long dreamed own software company. It worked really well for some weeks. I was much more focused than I used to be working in regular offices, with bosses. But soon I starte…

Working from home changed my life in the opposite direction. Being able to fully manage my own time and not have someone breathing down my neck has enabled me to actually not procrastinate. I used to suffer from a lot of stress and anxiety and I think that fueled my procrastination. Now that I no longer suffer from those, I can just focus on work. For a while I've wondered how I even started procrastinating as hard a…

Thanks for sharing this. I used to be like what you said too, and things also flipped to me at some point, and I find it weird as well.

I used to be hugely self-driven and get a lot done but it seems that I get lost when working on really big projects. Some room for improvement in this field.

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#94

Post by fukbezos »

BurningFrog wrote: post #39

My first month of pair programming was utterly exhausting, but once I got into the pace, it was the best thing I've ever done. The mutual focus is definitely a big part. You're in a social context, and there is no place to stray from the mutual task, and that discipline is very liberating, weird as it may sound, for someone prone to procrastinating like myself.

Lol no thanks. Hire a robot

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#95

Post by myth2018 »

ww520 wrote: post #89
myth2018 wrote: post #79

Procrastination has destroyed my life. Three years ago I finally achieved my dream of working from home. I was writing my thesis and believed I could finish my masters in 8 months. I decided to fully focus on it and, afterwards, I would create my long dreamed own software company. It worked really well for some weeks. I was much more focused than I used to be working in regular offices, with bosses. But soon I starte…

To be blunt, I think it's the wrong kind of attitude toward school. You focused too much on the end result, getting the degree, rather than enjoying the journey, the learning and the obtaining of knowledge. It shouldn't matter whether it's 8 months or 14 months, as long as you learned during those time. As far as creating your own software company, it sounds like you are looking for the fantasy of entrepreneurship th…

Thanks for sharing this. I agree with you and wish I were aware of that three years ago.

I think that the biggest lesson I can draw from all of this storm is not to focus too much on the end result, specially when working on long-term projects.

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#96

Post by systemizer »

jasode wrote: post #72
systemizer wrote: post #8

Anybody else get an immediately negative visceral reaction from this? If I'm understanding this correctly, the aim is to manipulate our sense of shame/guilt to boost productivity. After sitting with the feeling for a bit, here are some ideas that come to mind: 1. Maybe we should ask why we feel shame/guilt in the first place. Is it "normal" to feel this? If it isn't we should not rely on it for our happiness (or prod…

>What is the value of productivity? Why does it make us happy? [...] And the value of productivity is something that has been handed down to us by a culture which we've been thrown into. I think it's more that the business-speak label of "productivity" bothers you rather than its underlying idea of efficiency of input effort in relation to desirable output . The concept of "productivity" doesn't have to be a Peter Dr…

Good point. I agree the word "productivity" is bundled up with many meanings, and it could be a whole study in-itself to unpack it. Preliminarily, I'd say productivity is pragmatic towards-which one identifies oneself (a hunter hunts, a writer writes, etc).

I've been reading Being and Time recently, and Heidegger makes an interesting distinction between what is "ontic" (a writer writing, for example) and "ontological" (a writer investigating the state of being behind writing). In this context, productivity interestingly can be in both the following ideas:

Ontically, productivity writing a book. Ontologically, productivity is understanding of the way of being a writer comports oneself to be a writer.

I think both ideas are equally important. I'm not sure why I'm writing this; maybe to address the difficulty with pinning down a consensus of what productivity means. but happy saturday!

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#97

Post by myth2018 »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #80
myth2018 wrote: post #79

Procrastination has destroyed my life. Three years ago I finally achieved my dream of working from home. I was writing my thesis and believed I could finish my masters in 8 months. I decided to fully focus on it and, afterwards, I would create my long dreamed own software company. It worked really well for some weeks. I was much more focused than I used to be working in regular offices, with bosses. But soon I starte…

If you need a place to work among other people in quiet without having to pay, try the local library or university. Could help you save some money.

I considered this and even tried them. In my particular case they weren't good options.

Local libraries and universities over here are not quiet places, unfortunately.

And I saw some advantage in having an office with a fixed position, so that I can take there my monitor, keyboard and stuff, avoiding working from home and forcing me to follow a stricter routine.

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#98

Post by ergothus »

catwind7 wrote: post #73
sh87 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some pre-requisites to Pair programming. That you need to have a well defined task, that you need not be bogged down by insane deadlines and can afford to have 2 people work on the same thing and both need to be well versed at the task at hand to live up to the promise of productivity. My experience pair programming for a year was sh*tty enough to never consider it again unless I have these pre-reqs met. I'…

a lot of this depends on the dynamics of the team. i don't think pair programming necessarily means typing 100% of the time. I get a ton of value in tackling a very ill-defined task with another member of my team, especially in the design / architecture phase where I find that a lot of engineers tend to over-think and over-engineer a task. i don't want to discount your experience tho - i def. have moments where i abs…

If that is how you define pair programming, how is pair programming different than just working with someone on a problem? Legit question.

Re: I let a stranger watch me work for a day and I've never been more productive

#99

Post by csytan »

myth2018 wrote: post #79

Procrastination has destroyed my life. Three years ago I finally achieved my dream of working from home. I was writing my thesis and believed I could finish my masters in 8 months. I decided to fully focus on it and, afterwards, I would create my long dreamed own software company. It worked really well for some weeks. I was much more focused than I used to be working in regular offices, with bosses. But soon I starte…

I think this is a common problem.

It's easy to start a project to satisfy a creative itch, however, once committed full-time, passion may not be enough to keep you going. Then it becomes difficult to maintain productivity and focus.

Many folks don't realize that growing a business is a continuous cycle of iteration, and that they themselves must be included in this process. For me, motivation has shifted from satisfying a creative itch, to the joy of getting a new customer.

I also think that school (especially grad level studies) may be in some ways detrimental to an entrepreneur, in the same way that an athlete struggles to correct a flawed technique burned into their muscle memory from their youth.

If school has trained you to satisfy an external stimulus (e.g. your thesis advisor), then you may be looking for the same thing in someone telling you what to do. At the end of the day, a business is about customers. I'd heartily recommend you tie that into your own iteration cycle of how you work.

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