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How to Work Hard

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Work Hard

#991

Post by wyclif »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #927
WalterSear wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me. Though I didn't just learn this in my upbringing - I feel like my entire working life has been one of false promises and dehumanization, that has left me unable to enjoy anything. I'm 47 now, have worked at 6 failed startups in a row, and can't face work, or looking for a job. I used to blame social media and hacker news, but I now recognize that too much delayed gratification and overwork have had a much…

in my early 50's, and I think 5 failed startups now. I kinda lost count. Just closing off the latest failure this month. I'm taking July off completely, finishing some creative coding projects that I haven't been able to work on while coding for the startup. Then I'm going to work out what's next. I sleep a lot. There's no motivation to work. But I've been through this before, and it changes. I went through a serious…

"Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you a zone of silence, a habit of recollection, a will to renunciation and detachment which puts you entirely at the disposal of the work; acquire that state of soul unburdened by desire and self-will which is the state of grace of the intellectual worker. Without that you will do nothing, at least nothing worth while." ~ A.G. Sertillanges, O.P.

Re: How to Work Hard

#992

Post by nagydictator »

fogetti wrote: post #783
ceilingcorner wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment about VCs makes no sense. If a VC wants you to work hard because that’s how a VC gets rich, that means that working hard leads to building a successful company. If it were purely luck, why would the VC care if you worked hard or not?

Because most VC founded companies are not about results. They are about virtue signaling to attract even more capital. Profitability has been thrown out of the window long time ago. Success is measured in the stupidest KPIs you can imagine. That's why 9 out of 10 VC founded companies fail. So you need to indoctrinate your minions to make them act accordingly.

Hi fogetti,

It’s been a long time. You are only saying this because you got fired from our start up for power harassing our engineers while in a managerial position and getting a little “touchy & creepy” with some of the female staff. The KPIs we had implemented were not stupid. You just refused to do them. Also calling our CEO an idiot using your HN profile was probably not a great idea.

We have also spoke with your previous employers and the feedback was very consistent. Narcissistic and lazy. Please don’t blame our company that you ruined your entire career in Japan.

Re: How to Work Hard

#993

Post by bloqs »

bobobob420 wrote: post #959
bloqs wrote: post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your childhood can be key. Your username makes me think you like to play with mind bending drugs that directly interfere with prefrontal cortical motivation.

Awesome thanks for sharing. I think for myself, it might be childhood since I was young I hated being forced to study and do work. Funnily enough I do all my day job while toasted cause its super fun, coding while sober seems so boring. I am trying to train myself to be more conscientious, I don't know why I did not pick it up as a child. My parents tried a lot with tutoring and studying.

Many in the same boat as you - its probably why you ended up a programmer as well, as conscienciousness has less impact the more complex the job.

Re: How to Work Hard

#994

Post by rasen58 »

helen___keller wrote: post #162

When I was an undergrad at CMU, I learned how to work hard. Really hard. After having coasted through too-easy high school, I spent all day every day at CMU either programming, doing mathematics, or thinking about one of those things (to great effect: often the trick to prove a theorem would pop into my head while showering or while taking a walk). I would fall asleep while programming in the middle of the night, dre…

How do you motivate yourself to work hard if you feel like you're distracted and want to be lazy all the time?

Re: How to Work Hard

#995

Post by jelsisi »

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…

I feel incredibly grateful that as a 20 year old I get to read these comments.

Re: How to Work Hard

#997

Post by amai »

Professional athletes often train 30 hours a week. They cycle between easy and hard training days.

If they would workout hard every day their performance would stall or even plummet.Nutrition and sleep is also very important for them . I don't understand why the lessons from pro sports are not taken into account also for work. In both cases it is about performance after all.

Re: How to Work Hard

#998

Post by simonebrunozzi »

Any discussion about hard work should have a mention of "in praise of idleness" [0].

In addition to that, let me tell you this.

The famous writer Andrea Camilleri [1] (author of Inspector Montalbano, an Italian TV series which became an international success [2]), in an interview years ago recalled when as a kid, spending Summers in his native Sicily would entail things like spitting on a coin and waiting for hours until a fly would get stuck in the saliva - essentially, being idle.

And this idleness, in his view, had a tremendous value.

Praise hard work, sure. But don't think that you can escape the big questions about life, or that hard work is the only way to achieve greatness.

[0]: https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Camilleri

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Montalbano_(TV_serie...

Re: How to Work Hard

#999

Post by richardwhiuk »

antiterra wrote: post #277
richardwhiuk wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just think that quote is a complete fabrication.

Are you saying you think the interview Time magazine had with Gates was a complete fabrication, or that the author just randomly made up that bit? http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,137132,... Or do you mean you think Gates actually took days off and the suggestion he didn’t is a fabrication?

The quote might have been genuine, but Gates said it an joking manor - e.g. "it was like I didn't have a day off in 40 years".

Or Gates wanted to be viewed as a work-a-holic and lied.

I'm fairly sure it's not literally true.

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