Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?
Lately I've realized that I consume way too much. Be it Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, HackerNews, Youtube, etc. Even though I have a job and I deliver value to society on a dialy basis, I feel like I could contribute more.
Another thing that is holding me back I think is the fear of commitement. I have a partially ready youtube channel, with two videos, not listed. I tell myself that I'll open the videos to the public and then start realising videos on a weekly schedule but the commitement seems like a such a burden on me that I don't think I'll be able to keep up.
I also would like to contribute to open source software projects, or write more for my blog, but I just can't force myself to do it. This is kinda a mix of fear (of what?!) and procrastination habits.
Am I pressuring myself too much to make the switch? How did you do it?
281 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 243 ms ] threadImagine starting work on these things right now and notice how you feel. Investigate from there.
Or, ignore the feeling, and go work on your dreams anyway :)
Best wishes
Also, an important thing to realize is that everyone is bad at stuff in the beginning. In the words of Jake the Dog, "Suckin at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something!"
Or (can't remember where i got this) "Every artist has 10,000 shitty drawings in them, it's best to get them out as quickly as possible."
Deliberately making something bad (because it will probably end up sorta bad at first, whether you want it or not) can help you overcome the delusion of "it has to be perfect or people will judge me!"
Aim to fail because failure is an essential part to success. You keep sucking until one day you wake up and realize things are going really well. You have to make it to that day though. The only real failure is giving up.
> "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."
(ofc: Replace PAINT with anything you like!)
“Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring at you like some imbecile. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. […] Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, disheartening, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.”
Eg. instead of "how can I make a million dollars" ask "how can I provide a million dollars in value?"
Thinking in terms of people's needs is also beneficial to relationships and mental health, ie. noticing the needs of those around you, how you are / aren't meeting those needs, as well as your own.
This way of thinking helps me make decisions in my life.
Having deadline helps a lot to start and finish projects. Procrastination can also be change in productive procrastination: instead of making you video you can write a blog post. For example, I'm right know programming a game I wanted to start for a long time instead of writing a research paper (and oh, commenting on HN).
Finally I use visualisation before starting something. Instead of just thinking or writing down "write the blog post about XXX" I envision the final product for some time and how it will affect positively my life. Then I have more motivation to actually start it!
Start small. Put online what you learn. If you learned something today, you might teach someone else tomorrow.
The commitment is a big deal too. I don't want to start a blog, write two posts, and then abandon it, and I know that's more likely than not. I even struggle a bit with what the voice would be of the blog: would I write about work-related things? Just whatever comes to mind?
I don't have a great answer for you, but accountability and not breaking the chain are the two biggest things I hear: creating something every day, and having a couple of friends checking in on you, for instance.
Oh, and in my case, having just had a newborn doesn't help the situation. My brain is just too tired with the down time I have, frequently, so here I am, writing in an HN comment instead of the course I should be writing, or the other ideas I have kicking around. :-/
Trust me on this one, you're not going to look back in a few years time and regret spending too much time watching your child growing up into an independent person.
Some epiphanies I have encountered on my path:
- Terminal value - do things you want to do for the sake of themselves. Not to achieve some purpose, or benefit the society, or whatever, understand what YOU value and want to make.
- You don't "find your passion", you choose it. Make a decision on what you want to do with the following years of your life, and then figure out a way to make it work.
- Enjoying the process of creating things is a combination of skillset and value. When it works - programming or writing is supposed to feel like playing minecraft(or whatever is the most engaging computer game you can imagine). You do not force yourself to do it, you do it for the sake of the game. You are driven to make fun stuff, and then you do it because you can.
- Read the book about Flow, and about gamification - understand how your mind works and what drives it. It's all about the reward loop, your brain craves dopamine, and you satisfy this craving by setting clear, small goals and accomplishing them.
- If you feel "fear" I would guess that it's either because of the lack of skill(you dont want to waste time and hard work when you're not sure that you can successfully create something valuable), or because of the "ego" - you care too much about your self image, about what others will think of you or about what you think of youself, you tie your sense of self-worth to the quality of work you produce. To fix the first one you develop more skill, to fix the second you realize that this shit doesn't matter. The only thing within your control is how much understanding/practice you put into your craft, so you learn to only care about that and none of the irrelevant stuff.
To summarize:
1. Find the terminal value your brain craves. What do you want to do with your life, what do you want to make?
2. Follow the path to mastery, give all of your attention to getting good at what you do. That's the only thing within your control, and everything else doesn't matter.
3. Focus on practicing your craft, for the sake of the process. Design a rewarding process by understanding the idea of flow state, and your brain's core drives, and turn it into a habit. Set clear, valuable, attainable goals, break them down into simple steps, and accomplish them. Make this your lifestyle.
And creating cool stuff will simply be a side-effect of this process.
Also don't feel too guilty for "consuming" stuff, it's okay to relax and have fun and watch comedy and be inspired by the creativity of others. Focus your energy on creating more, not on consuming less.
Also, don't worry about following the schedule - it's an unnecessary arbitrary constraint you've made up that will just make things more difficult and add pressure. Moving further matters, following a plan does not. Use it as a tool if it helps, throw it out if it stands in your way.
If you want to run a marathon, the most important thing is to run 1k per day. Once you're out in the road, the distance will take care of itself.
I block these websites because habit takes you there when you're bored. The dns failure is simply a reminder that you were about to waste time, and you can put it to better use.
There is nothing wrong with consuming information, what you put into your mind eventually comes out in creative expression. In my case I can't force myself to be creative when I don't feel like it, but when the creative impulse is felt, my raw materials (the contents of my mind) are better ingredients.
I ask because you need to:
A. build an environment conducive to producing.
B. practice discipline.
Like you, I had some half-baked blogs and projects that were doomed for failure. After way too much wasted time it was obvious that I wasn't living a lifestyle congruent with my goals. No successful person ever prioritized Facebook over their project. I was lying to myself and had to snap out of it.
So I began applying a version of the Broken windows theory* - which argues that if you prevent small crimes it discourages large crimes - to my life. (In this case the smaller crimes were procrastination and the larger crime was not getting my shit together like I know I ought to).
The rules were simple:
1. Everything I did had to align with my goal to produce. I got a faster laptop, dual screens (this makes a difference, trust me), began sleeping well and eating well, rationed consuming to 2 hours a day, stopped drinking (hangovers are dumb...for now at least).
2. Apply discipline everywhere. I made my bed first thing each morning, the apartment was always spotless, I worked out every day. Even began doing stuff like not using auto-correct on Chrome - fight your lazy brain and spell the word correctly dammit. The idea was to practice discipline as much as possible so as to train it like a muscle.
End result: I learned how to code, built a product, quit my job and am now at 500 customers.
So you can do it. It's just going to cost you - dates, meetups with friends, a slight drop in Facebook-notification-induced-dopamine. But, I assure you, the joy from creating something that people enjoy eclipses all of that.
This approach is geared more for an all in lifestyle change. If you just want to be a better blogger, even a fraction of the above will do.
Worse than the fear of commitment is the tinge of regret. Took almost a decade to figure that one out.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
For long-term goals, the most important section -- base conditioning -- aims at slowly building up your body's training capacity. If your body can withstand one more hour of workout without injury or sickness, then over time these gains will accumulate. As opposed to strength training though, it can take many months before there is a tangible difference.
I feel as though for the brain, and creative work in general, the situation is very similar. With months and years of "training", it too can withstand to work for longer hours. The parent's comment on creating the proper environment is certainly key.
Fantastic! Congratulations :)
What can you share about the product?
The War of Art [1] and Do the Work [2] both are excellent books about making things and why it's hard. I found them motivating not only because of the solutions in the books but also just because someone describing the problems I have with creating, so clearly, is helpful to read. It's nice knowing you're not a crazy person and that these are problems a lot of people go through. They're also very short and easy to read. So give them a shot.
[1] http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/
[2] http://www.stevenpressfield.com/do-the-work/
This is what helps me:
- Think backwards. How many years do you have left? How many days? Time is running, we only get to live once
- Stop consuming in the morning. Instead of checking emails, news etc on your smartphone, I get up and write down all the things I want to do the day. Then I start working on the top items
- Enjoy traction. Once you release something you'll get hooked on the data. How many people like my post? What's the feedback I receive. When I see that there is traction, I get excited and I enjoy interacting with the community
Btw: You are already contributing :) Look at the feedback here.
I'd also highly recommend a book called "The War of Art"[2] which was written by a procrastinator who eventually made good.
I'm still struggling with procrastination, but my personal feeling is that the key is probably to create a routine where you just execute your productive work during a set block of time everyday, much like a job. This is just so you don't have to decide whether or not to do the work "now" which will break the procrastination doom loop. Good luck!
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/the-pro...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1...
My most unproductive period was when I was trying to do too much, all sorts of things, with insane deadlines. It really had an opposite effect on me wherein I started procrastinating a lot and then felt guilty for wasting another day. Weird part was that I wasn't even having fun with my time. It was just a weird state where I was working without actually accomplishing anything.
Anyway, I got my mojo back when I just said fuck it and said goodbye to those imaginary deadlines and started doing the so called time wasters like watching Netflix, reddit, hn, etc 100% guilt free. Instantly without the pressure and guilt, the quality of work and more importantly stuff started getting done again. It may be a unique case but try it for a few days. Maybe it'll work for you too!
For instance, Wednesday and Friday are dedicated to nothing but writing blog posts. I tend to spend half the time researching and the other half writing.
By the time Wednesday rolls along, I'm pretty eager to start writing. I usually keep a buffer of a month's worth of posts.
Then the rest of my time is spent producing content of other types (courses, etc.) and consulting.
Luckily I don't use FB, IG and barely use Twitter. HN and Youtube still soak up a pretty decent amount of time, but I use various browser extensions and other tactics to keep myself in check. In fact, I blogged about that[0] a few months ago and this combo works better than anything I've ever tried.
[0]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati...
For most people, the premise of this question is wrong. Procrastination, when you don't obviously have a lot of available time and effort, is a symptom that most of your creative energies are already spent elsewhere and are unavailable for other high-energy pursuits. I commend the effort to organizing your remaining free time to produce something of societal value, but for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.
I know some people who have energy levels that allow them to sustainably burn the candle at both ends, but they are a small minority. I am quite envious of this group; they appear to have a big leg up in accomplishing great things, but there appears to be a component of either genetics or upbringing that leaves only a small portion of people with this capability.
If you are not in this minority and you strongly desire to produce more creative output outside of your full-time job, there are two options: You can set small goals, e.g. spending 3-5 hours a week of dedicated time towards your pursuit, or putting everything else in your life on pause for a year or two while you go at it with all your effort. The latter course of action will likely not be sustainable, and you have to listen to your mind and body when it's had enough of it.
My preferred choice would be to get a job that pays enough to sustain your lifestyle but has much smaller hours (e.g. 60% or 40% of a full-time position), if this is at all possible. Most places, sadly, it isn't an option. If you can organize this, you free up a significant portion of your creative energy, which can then be used for other ambitious goals.
I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic.
I met a few devs with family and children, and they were blown away by my commitment.
I'm so jealous! :)
I publish a new post once every couple of months. Some posts take really long to prepare, like 40 hours (and more) of work long. The biggest problem is that it doesn't really show - for that much time my posts should be each as long as "Steve Yegge's Best Of" anthology.
I'm not even sure it's worth it as a learning experience, but at least it's still fun. I'm being told that my writing quality improves, too, so it's not that bad overall. It's still irritating that every time I try to write a post in a short amount of time it somehow spirals out of control and becomes 3 full days of work...
Writing, especially when you want it to be good writing backed by solid evidence (or a solid plot), is not an easy thing. I liken it to programming: the language is rather poorly specified in comparison, but the planning and researched required to do it properly is at least as arduous.
If it's Sunday and you need to write your post, you aren't picky with topics, haha
As an analogy, think of those radio talk show personalities that can go on for hours every day just running their mouths. It's impressive, but what they're doing is glib entertainment, a way for people to fill the hours while driving.
These days the world is filled with quickly-made, quickly written stuff. Nothing wrong with that, really. But I love it when I come across people who are doing something different.
No coding aka brain burning required and I get to create something super quick with minimal brain power and potentially profit which if I do could buy me more time to spend in it.
But I do think there are people who just feel the need to make things, they just get on and do it.
People who question how makers find the time.... hm, it's like I question how people have the time to watch endless Netflix shows. Where do you fit that time in? Oh, you aren't making a hydrofoil in your back room? OK, that's currently what's taking up a lot of my spare time.
I think humans were designed to enjoy making things. As soon as you start using your hands and brain and try to make something that no one else has -- enjoyment happens.
The other day I had the option of buying some rope on eBay and getting free splicing. Wow. Challenge accepted! I purchased the more expensive non-spliced rope and spent a week learning all about splicing. It's amazing how many new places around my house a bit of spliced rope came in handy.
Don't get me started on how many hours of YouTube videos I watched on rope making. I spent many a happy hour at a friends garden making string and rope out of nettles. He thought I was a bit nutty, but he used the string to tie up his beans. His kid used some of it to make a den.
I'm getting distracted. Everyone enjoys making (kids love lego) you just have to accept that you are re-inventing the wheel and not to worry about it. You won't get famous. You'll just enjoy life more.
My feeling has always been that the time component isn't the deciding factor. Of course you spend a significant number of hours every week doing non-work-related activities, but although the number of hours spent is identical, watching an enjoyable Netflix show isn't nearly as demanding as building a hydrofoil in your garage. At least that's the case for most people; maybe you are one of the few for whom building boats is a great passion and naturally spend your effort doing that.
I've always found that there are only a few weeks a year that I'll naturally be able to spend doing demanding creative labor outside of work. And at those times it'll be pretty specific, e.g. some programming project that for some reason seems unusually interesting. Apart from that, I can certainly turn off my other natural energy-replenishing interests for a while (reading, computer games, movies, conversations with friends, biking/working out), but it is not sustainable and will lead to burnout and depression if I ignore my body's signals and don't stop in time.
Eventually I've found that it's healthier to just acknowledge and be proud of my significant contributions in my full time-job, and consider this a human limitation. I don't think it's healthy or constructive to feel guilty about not being as energetic and capable as (a small number of famous) other people.
There are positions where it is ok (slow company) and there are situations where you have to do it (when you need to learn something new).
So basically, my advice would be to find company that is not much demanding and then produce whatever you envoy producing.
I notice a hive-mind of looking-down on "ordinary work" even if it's not really challenging, and is actually isn't less purposeful than open source projects that get to the HN front-page.
'Coolness' is an unmeasured and a dangerous motivation.
As is curiosity, but we have little problems with people motivated by it in tech?
Let's be honest: less than 10% of software jobs are producing something meaningful.
Meaningful | interesting | paid.
Pick one. Pick two if you are both very talented and lucky. Pick three if you are Torvalds.
Or are you saying you know which companies will grow and change the world?
AirBnb was for couch surfing... stupid and "useless" idea that allows my Mother to earn extra income from her suite in her older age.
Maybe Snapchat or Whatsapp are toys.... toys that let me keep in touch with family overseas more.
And a typical programming job is not really doing anything useful for the society except maybe extremely indirectly. At best, it's not actually harmful.
Personally, I've been through plenty of webdev jobs, and almost always, it was building a copy of something that already exists and is better, so that our company (or our customers) could compete in the same space. If I ever met a potential user of such service and my bosses weren't looking, I'd actually direct them to the original competitors. It would be dishonest to do otherwise. It's jobs like these that can make one feel they don't contribute anything useful to society (making your boss richer by building a copycat product in a global market is hardly useful for people other than your boss).
IMHO, it's very rare to be working on something truly unseen; and if you are, the chances are numerous people are working on the same thing at very this moment, just in a different flavor. Aren't these incremental improvements part of the natural selection?
IMHO, you should strive to find meaning not in the external, but internally; you should start somewhere, however basic it is (fixing your bed and cleaning your room, before trying to change and help the world). Jordan Peterson talks about that in great detail - highly recommend his lectures (they're available online).
As for finding meaning within, I see this as a cop out. If you extend it to the limit, the most meaningful life is that of doing nothing and enjoying your inner self. It's not the kind of life I'd personally find meaningful.
A day for me does not stop from the moment I wake up (7am) to the moment I get into bed (11pm) and weekends are no different. Sometimes I feel like the entire world is crushing in around me, sometimes I wonder if it's all too much, but then I get back to it and I keep moving forward.
I've been doing this for about two years now. There are definite ups and downs, where my energy and ability to produce (code, or business related output) is greater, and lesser. Sometimes I feel really shitty for not doing more than a few hours side work in a week. Sometimes, when I have taken a weekend off, I have felt guilt.
It's tough. You find you are doing essentially 2 full time jobs, 7 days a week, almost 52 weeks a year, but I was raised to work and to work hard, while I am young, while I can.
I think if you want to do something like this, you have to have a solid reason. If you have a family, even more so, you have to make sure it's fair to them too.
I wish I knew why I feel the urge to work 24/7, why I feel guilt if I don't work, and whether this is actually a problem?
Alas, it's time for me to get back to it.
Yes it is. Volunteering out of enthusiasm != volunteering out of guilt/shame.
Obviously it depends on how demanding/time consuming the daily job is, but that's a standard observation with millennia of empirical evidence.
I swear, it's like people can't even tie their shoes anymore unless there's a long-term study (and preferably, meta studies) to prove them that tying one's shoelaces is good.
I guess people get defensive because of this very frustration of being wrong and unable to correct themselves at the same time.
> for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.
I want to point out that this is one of the reasons why people never start things. Let me share my experience as someone who has started, AND burned out, multiple times. Hopefully this helps people change their beliefs.
1. Yes you are right that you will burn out if you push yourself too hard, but this only happens if the result is not satisfying enough compared to the effort you pour in. From my multiple experiences where some I succeeded and some failed, I only burned out enough to give up when things weren't going well despite the effort I put in. I guarantee you you WILL NOT burn out if your thing goes well.
2. Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover. This is why people want to "save it for the best" and don't commit 100%, because they "want to be able to commit 100% only when they truly really come across the perfect opportunity". But the thing is, these people NEVER end up doing anything because of the law of inertia. "The perfect opportunity" is an elusive thing, and the more you wait, the higher the bar goes up, which means you will never meet that perfect moment.
3. Burning out is a phase, not the end. I've burned out multiple times, and stopped working for a couple of months to several months (and did nothing but entertain myself). But eventually you recover and can't wait to start a new thing. This never happens to people who wait for the perfect moment because they don't even know what it feels like. They think there's only one chance.
4. Don't try to bend the spoon. It's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is yourself.
That said, OP is looking for advice on how to do things, not a pat on the back for living a stress-free life, which is why I provided one.
I hear this a lot. But I'm not sure if this is always true. I chose an education path that required a much greater amount of work than other paths I could have taken. I would spend weekends working on homework and projects when others were out having fun. But as I start my career, it seems to have paid off (so far). I have a better work/life balance than many of my friends due to sacrificing some free time earlier in life.
Now I wonder: if I work hard in my 20s, can I retire a decade earlier that I otherwise might have? Or (more likely) can I save up enough that I can start spending my time working on projects that are entirely self-driven? Saving and working hard early in life can also result in a lot more time to spend with family later on. In other words, there is a tradeoff between voluntarily working harder earlier in life and effectively being forced to work hard later in life. Sure, you could be struck by a meteorite today, and you would never reap the reward from all of the work that you put in, but the much more likely scenario is that if you don't put in enough work in the front end, you will end up working 9-5 at 70 years old. So I can see many possible situations arising later in life where I think "I wish I spent more time working".
The "working a lot" was mostly the last couple years of my Ph.D. where I would frequently pull all-nighters to finish everything I needed to, but I'm glad I did that now. It's not nearly the optimal path for rapid wealth accumulation, but it's a good balance between having work that I enjoy and having enough leftover time to work on startup projects and hang out with my family.
Sure you could argue that you get more free time later if you give up free time now but then you enter into the difficulty of quantifying the quality of the free time. When you are young, active and healthy you might be able to enjoy your free time more or perhaps having more money later in life allows you to do things you enjoy more, either way I feel balance is the key.
Do you really want to spend your most productive, healthy and free/uncommitted years working too much just to have more time when your body is starting to weaken and many of your dreams start to become impossible?
Do you want to spend less time with your children for the chance to have more time for your grandchildren?
Early in life, I had a small amount of artistic success (music). Though I probably couldn't have gone big with it, I did enjoy some amount of regional fame. Hard work, definitely an accomplishment, and I built several friendships out of it that have lasted over two decades (as well as lots that did fade away in time).
Similar thing with a startup I cofounded several years ago--the problem we were solving had me out in the public eye for a while, and I ended up building friendships with lots more people...people I'm still friends with.
And you know, if not for the relationships I build, some of which turned into lasting friendships, I wouldn't have had the success in the first place.
Nothing goes anywhere in life without people around you, helping you out. If you don't treat those people as the most important part of whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong.
This is one of the fundamentals of leadership, and leadership starts with leading your own life. One of the other fundamentals is awareness -- self-awareness and awareness of others, which these comments seem to be touching on.
The issue here is we do not know the true spectrum of outcomes with and without working. I assume many people who say "I wish i worked less" on their deathbeds presume that all the trappings of their work would come with.
I would trust it more if people paired what they'd give up with what they want to gain. ie if they said "Putting my daughter through college wasnt worth it, I wish i worked less". Or (more realistically) "I wish I spent less money on luxury, so I would have had more time with people".
Also a note of caution, any time you're wasting time thats marginal time you will be begging for on your deathbed. "I wish I had one more day with my wife (or kids)" -- today could be that day, instead of wasting it, use it up fully.
I strongly disagree with this. I'm a compulsive person, I used to say yes to everything, I enjoy everything. I don't think I ever spent effort towards something that wasn't rewarding in some way or other.
However. Stress is stress and it can be negative or positive. Stress makes you perform better, adrenaline pumping, your senses sharpen. It can all be in a positive loop with great feedback, everyone loving what you do, amazing results, and still you end up burnt out.
My stress manifests physically, "skipped" heartbeats, adrenaline rushes when waking up in the night, I even got atricular fibrilation (AF) and was hospitalised to be "reset" through one of those heart machines you see in ER. I was convinced there was something very wrong with me. Heart problem? Doctors did test after test, and nothing.
I learnt my lesson, I know how to recognise the signs now. I can manage it by just taking care of myself.
But guess what, every single thing I do is fun, positive, great feedback.
Sounds like you have a medical condition for dealing with stress, but most people don't have that kind of condition, so obviously if you have that kind of condition you should watch out for yourself, health is everything.
Also. The fact that I can control it by observing the signs my body gives me...
Just some thoughts on caffeine, since I think stress in programmers is often caused by it, or covered up: I only very rarely have caffeine, and rather do vitamins if I need to be more stress resistant (Vit C, D, K2, Pantethine and sometimes B vitamins). That way I'm not fooled by the motivation that comes with caffeine, which somehow covers up what I really want to do. If I have caffeine I get giddy about the thought of writing this and that tool, while I couldn't care less when off caffeine.
It's hard to describe, but I can quite easily get "into the flow". This is where I focus on a single project, time cease to exist and I just become one with the code. I can focus on coding for hours and hours without break. In fact, lunch and toilet breaks are irritating distractions. I can go to sleep at night uneasy about something I'm not exactly sure about and suddenly the solution strikes me when I'm half awake in the shower next morning.
I don't use much caffeine, a bit of coffee in the morning, rarely in the afternoon – however I do know that coffee and alcohol makes my condition worse.
It's totally engulfing and extremely productive. This _is_ the mythical man month that people talk about. Only. For me it takes a toll. It's not about any underlying stress like "I won't make it in time". My work is luckily such that I don't have much pressure. It's being "in the zone" that is the problem.
The "flow state". I love it yet mustn't overdo it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania
I probably would be able to get back into that state if I somehow managed to get all my responsibilities squared away for large periods of time-or alternately, convince myself thoroughly enough to ignore them.
For anyone interested in a (potentially) helpful framework for how to evaluate opportunities and avoid burnout, you can watch my talk here - https://vimeo.com/202061452
Speak for yourself, buddy. I'm still trying to overcome medical issues from my last bout with burnout, including sleep disturbances and stress-related gastritis, and so far the medical profession hasn't had much luck in dealing with any of them.
Burnout and the stress that goes along with it can absolutely do lasting damage to your body.
When I say "burnout", I don't just mean mental burnout. I've even been in situations where I went completely broke, lived homeless, and much more sensitive details I can't talk about on a public forum.
Of course it doesn't have to be all life threatening to qualify as a "burnout". I've been through more moderate burnouts where I just couldn't keep up mentally. I started doubting humanity (I still haven't fully recovered from this and don't think I ever will).
But overall, these are things you can't just describe. Even if I did, people who've never been through one will never understand.
I have been close to burnout before, so I have some idea what it's like, I was just curious what it was like for you.
I can't quite figure out something you said earlier...
"But eventually you recover and can't wait to start a new thing."
...when compared to...
"I still haven't fully recovered from this and don't think I ever will"
Do you find some value in lessons you've learned from burnout? That's the only way I can think of to understand both statements together.
What I meant was I got to know more about how the world works, and the world is a messy place the more you know about it. So basically what i meant was the world let me down a little. It is impossible to "unknow" what you already know, so that's what i meant when i can't recover, which is a good thing (although some people may decide to take it negatively)
So in my case there have been no downside and only upsides. I regret 0% of the decisions I made and the "burnouts" have been just part of the experience. Just like how when you date someone and you go through all the fights and perils, and it feels like hell when you're living it, but in a couple of years it's all good memory (not talking about weird cases like an abusive partner)
About four years now.
That is more common, and that you can recover from
Why don't we just tell him what he wants to hear instead of actually giving him good advice? Give me a break.
That allows others who may be doing something more directly for society to continue doing so.
Why isn't there more research on this? A huge number of people would like to be this way—consistently delivering Musk-ian type efforts week after week. But how do you do it? The "feel good" self-help articles about waking up early and other nonsense are clearly wrong, otherwise everyone would be super productive by now (I think these articles mistake correlation for causation). But I'm not convinced it is entirely genetic—I know people who have gone from extremely lazy to extremely hard working. What caused the change? Can it be replicated? I'd love to be able to push myself for 16 hours a day, every day, and while I keep finding little techniques that help me achieve more productivity over time, I wonder if there exists some technique that provides a huge boost in productivity. I just don't know what it is.
If I had to guess, I would think that increasing hours of productivity is a skill like any other, and it requires ramping up slowly over time. If you've never run before and go out and run 20 miles one day, you'll burn out and injury yourself. But if you add a few miles every week, eventually 100 mile weeks become normal and you don't really become tired from them (speaking as a former runner). I wouldn't be surprised if productivity works the same way.
I think side projects are good, particularly if you're passionate about said project. But don't ruin yourself for the sake of them! You can't experience the benefits of your labor if you're dead.
I hope that younger people can learn from my example. When I was young, I felt invincible: I wasn't seeing how the things I was consuming to keep going were harming me in real, material, and permanent ways.
I'm not saying don't work on side projects, but if you have to abuse a substance (even legal ones) to burn that candle, please think about your future and give yourself a more sustainable timeline.
Thanks for sharing. Would you mind going into a little more detail for the curious? For example, how many (and what type of) energy drinks would you typically drink per day, and what harmful effects did they cause?
I was a 2 cans of soda a day drinker, and any given day if I felt like I didn't have enough energy one or both of them would be replaced with an energy drink (usually red bull). There was also a ~6 month period in my life that really did a number on me, where I was working a day job and continuing that aforementioned standard, but then I went to work at night on a project a friend of mine was starting up. In that night shift, I'd drink probably 2-3 large cans of this terrible stuff called "Unbound" to keep me awake. I don't know if they even make it anymore. I'd sleep for about 3 hours a night, and get up and repeat it.
Just before I turned 30, I found that I couldn't keep my eyes open, I'd fall asleep sporadically. In retrospect, I believe it was some pretty intense adrenal/caffeine tolerance combined with other health issues that were starting to develop. One day shortly after I turned 30, I woke up and my vision was so blurry that I couldn't see street signs from across the street. I went to a doctor, and it turns out I had developed diabetes. I was 313 pounds by that point, inflated by my long nights spent focusing on work instead of my health and very poor eating/drinking habits. Before that sudden exhaustion just before I turned 30, I felt like I could go at that pace forever. But it was like my body pushed the brakes hard.
The slightly good news is that I've turned my life around a bit. I quit both soda and energy drinks, switched to black coffee, I'm down to about 225 pounds and my blood sugar levels are normal - but only because of quitting both energy drinks/soda and almost abstaining entirely from carbohydrates. It's something that I'll have to watch for the rest of my life now.
Anyways, yeah. Don't do what I did. You'll feel invincible until you suddenly wake up one day and don't feel invincible anymore.
But... it's also only 5-10 days a year, and seems to hit more-or-less at random (though sunny, long, not-too-humid days seem to make it a lot more likely).
I imagine the people who seem to have an easy time doing lots and lots of productive stuff have a lot more days like this per year than I do. So figure out how to feel that way, say, 50-100 days a year and you're on the right track, I'd say (for a shortcut, see the other post about drugs). Unfortunately, I'd guess there's a strong genetic component to it.
Contrary to popular belief, people with ADHD can be very smart and successful without even realizing they have it. Check out the ADHD subreddit and TotallyADD.com.
Thankfully my "best" has, I hope, outweighed my "worst".
I bet Elon Musk has a number of advantages, such as: not doing laundry, not preparing meals, not washing the dishes, not going to the grocery store, avoid driving to work (either have a chauffeur or a very short commute)… Basically, not doing any work but "work".
He's rich enough that he can pay somebody else to do everything he can't be bothered with. That frees him to take care of his companies and have other creative ideas.
On the other hand, think of the work of the average housewife. She would do most of the house chores and taking care of the children, and would plan all of it. All that on top of a 40 hour work week, plus commute. Let's see: 8 hours at work times 5 days, 2 hours of house work per work day, then 8 more during the week-end. Add, say, 30 minutes of driving to work (and 30 minutes back), and we get 63 hours of work per week. And that's a conservative estimate.
Just try asking her to do personal projects on top of that.
I think the solution to this is the 20% time rule, but Google only really does this.
Google doesn't really do this either anymore.
1) Do non-amazing things that can build up to amazing things. E.g. help other projects with simple maintenance jobs like triaging tickets, reviewing pull requests, writing docs for things you know, discussing with people in IRC and mailing lists. By this you will learn things automatically that make other tasks later on easier. Another way to build up is to learn simple tools like linux, vim, git, etc better and more indepth. That enables you to handle more complex tasks with less effort and produces value in itself when combined with teaching others. The last example I can think off immediately is pg's doing non-scaling tasks. Really work with people and treat them very individually. Thereby you don't just build a following that can give more impact to what you are doing, you also really learn what other people need.
2) Don't build alone. We programmers hate all these meetings, but truth is, that few people are that good that they can do "amazing" things alone. Usually this is achieved by having a group off slightly above average people, and letting them cooperate. Organize non-meeting things that brings people together, like a lunch with your local docker group. Then use these opportunities to make small progress in complex tasks. Send everybody home with a small thing they need to do that together will be a huge step, but trust everybody to figure out what that thing is by talking not by commanding. Doing that a few times will lead to amazing results automatically.
PS: AFAIK google also doesn't do the friday projects rule anymore.
I even found that the pay cut wasn't a 25% pay cut, but more like a 10% pay cut, because with the extra time I had, I did more shopping and meal planning, and spent less money overall on conveniences. I could afford to do things the "inconvenient" way.
I wish more companies in tech considered offering part time jobs. I know there would be a lot of people interested in those jobs, and they would be super loyal employees because they would be psyched to have the chance to have a real life.
I agree with the points others made about how to avoid burnout, find things you're passionate about etc... but I hope the question asker understands that what they're doing does have value. The value may be labor - which, indeed, is undervalued in society compared to actually being the controller/owner of the product on which work is being performed - but it is creating value just the same.
Now, if you reach a point where you want all of that value to be creating to be yours and not mostly someone else's, or if you find you have energy to spare to start working on side projects, then you may be ready to move from putting labor into other people's products to putting labor into your own. But there's no shame in working hard and earning a paycheck, and devoting the other time in your life to doing whatever it is that makes you happy. (and if what makes you happy ends up being creating a side project that turns into something where you control your own product, that's great!)
At my last career change, I applied for a full time position, but asked if the employer would consider hiring me at 75%, with a matching reduction in salary. I work full time days, but am not paid to work Fridays plus a full week each quarter.
Pros: the time off itself has been brilliant; I spend that extra time learning computer vision programming in Go, and took a part time class to become a certified master gardener (massively recommended, best $150 I ever spent(1)); it also leaves time for recreational fishing, hiking and hunting.
Cons: It's a strain on my career, it's not just that I work less, but the fact that I'm gone as much as I am has somewhat limited which tasks I'm able to take on properly; it's also, at least for myself, psychologically problematic since I lead a team and the rest of the team is full time.
All-in-all, I think the career drawback is by far outweighed by both the quality of life and skills I've gained; I'm not sure if it's sustainable as the company grows from a small startup to a more regular company. For now, I'm very much enjoying working part time.
(1) http://mg.missouri.edu/
When I took time off to work on interesting stuff I found I was more practical and sensible in my main job. When I designed solutions I was very business focused. I didn't need to use the latest tech or do novel work, since I could do that in my own time. The day off each week kept me fresh and interested without needing to get that from my main job.
Of course I then feel bad that I'm not getting things done that I want to do, but have lately been more inclined to think that I'm already at capacity and it just isn't going to happen unless I trade off something else. So now I'm evaluating whether I would really get more reward out of pursuing these extra activities at the expense of something else, or if I should stop even thinking about it and just enjoy what is already happening in my life.
One thing I'd suggest is speaking to your employer and saying you'd like to take some time off to travel (preferably if you can spin this as needing to see family or something that would make them look like a dick for saying no to) but that you'd like to continue working while you're doing so and can commit to keeping all your current tasks going and bill say 40 hours per month.
I think many employers are paying full time salaries but only really need like 40-80 hours of work per month but they can't just pay for those hours so they pay a full time salary and the remaining time gets filled. Suggesting they can get 40 good, accountable hours per month can be a win win.
Worked for me at least.
We have a glut of online content. For every tweet that illuminates, there are 9 that constitute meaningless chatter, background noise that serves only to obfuscate the good stuff.
The freedom that the internet has given people to communicate is a wonderful and empowering thing, but the idea that we must 'produce' something to be contributing to our world is just wrong, in my opinion.
If you have free time, why not do some volunteer work in your community? Most countries have, for example, charities that help connect lonely elderly people with others to meet, say, for coffee once a week. I would say that represents a contribution of significant value.
And even if he wants to contribute in a field he's good at, like programming - creating your own project is often just an exercise in vanity, when you could do a lot more good, behind the scenes, as part of a larger group working on something more of value.
Anyone who's really locked into the nasty treadmill of staying creatively relevant, truly loves a good fan or good consumer. Somebody's gotta do the experiencing, sift through the chaff, find the gold. If you're working in the creative sphere, odds are you can't even do that because keeping up a genuine creative output is too heavy of a commitment.
I think this is the future knocking at our doors. One day energy and goods will be all produced by robots and machines, and we will all be consumers by vocation, whose job it is to sift through the noise and find the signal. As we can see in this post, as soon as we're comfortable with that we're already unsatisfied, and want the celebrity of being informationally significant.
And that becomes the equivalent of a struggle for survival. Once survival is taken care of, it's beneath notice, and importance becomes everything. (or if you like, expressing informational generosity)
And if you're good at that, you can put the gold you found together, and become a content producer too...
Isn't that the definition of contributing?
It's only true in the very narrow sense -- you're contributing to the economy by producing taxes and buying things. But the entire point of the question was that they wanted to avoid being just that.
I get that it probably makes people uncomfortable to be classified this way, but it's better to just embrace it. I haven't produced or contributed much myself. I'd like to, but I haven't, and I'm fine with that. But it'd be mistaken to pretend I have.
Reason being that I think we are already far far beyond a point where decreasing output would do any meaningful impact. Therefore I think we need more, better filtering, to get rid of all the spam. The same way as with email.
~~Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love
Do it :)
Is this actually true? I am fairly certain I fear inadequacy more than power. I've talked to and read people, including artists, writers, and programmers, who expressed fear of not measuring up to standards -- others' or their own. It seems very common. I have rarely heard someone express fear of becoming too powerful, too influential, etc. Moreover, when I did, it was by people who were already successful and, crucially, their primary worry was that they wouldn't be able to use the power or influence well (i.e., inadequacy again).
1. have a fixed amount of time to read HN, Reddit, Twitter, Email
2. have a release schedule
The first rule helps me to keep the consuming time to a minimum. Only once in the morning, after lunch and after work I check the recent (!) updates on all necessary platforms. It can be hard in the beginning, but at some point it becomes a habit.
The second rule helps me to stick to producing. I blog about web development and self-growth and therefore I have a backlog of ideas to write about. Once a week I post an article.
I'd say, if you want to do YouTube, you should at least do the 1 per week thing. If you are short on time, you can do Q&A/livestream episodes. I'm sure you'd be are aware of Casey Neistat [2], who has said multiple times he wished he'd done daily vlogging sooner.
[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/richardcunningham/albums/72157... [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat