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Ask HN: Splitting your time between reading, writing, and programming

3 points by ColinWright ↗ HN
I've been looking to write a series of posts for some time now on a specific subject and I realise I've been seduced by that all-to-alluring siren call of reading widely under the guise/excuse of "doing my research".

Yes, to write well you need to read widely, but there comes a point when you have to do the writing. Indeed, some might say that reading widely simply pollutes your thoughts, so you add less and regurgitate more. (You might catch a sense of "Unaccompanied Sonata" by Orson Scott Card).

So I'm setting aside my reading for a while and getting down to writing. When I come back, though, I'd love to see people's experiences in how they split their time between reading (for research or otherwise), writing (documentation, fiction, blog posts), and programming (for themselves and for others).

I can't remember who is was, but some time ago a read an article in which someone said that it's impossible to say what proportion of time they spend on each, because they have so much to do that they only now engage in activities that count in more that one category. If you know of that, I'd appreciate a link.

So - what do you do?

1 comment

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easycheezy
panic. if i don't get around to reading a book, like maybe if it's too boring or something, my dog will eventually chew it up. saves a lot of time.

If i were god and i were to make intelligent life in my image, i would give it the ability to forget things that it has been told. this seems like a weakness, but I think the ability to forget unimportant sayings is more useful than the ability to remember important sayings.

it's rather convenient then that books will eventually break down and have to be rewritten by the next generation of writers, who decide what is and isn't important. our ideas evolve and change with us, and the act of preserving them kills this evolution.

however the nature of books has changed: books distributed between many hard drives last longer than books on paper. obviously, everyone now realizes that there are way too many books around and not enough time in the world for anyone to read even a tiny fraction of them. this problem worsens for future generations as technology improves.

so there's this robot in asimov's the last question who will eventually read all the books for you and understand everything, and that's supposed to be god or whatever. but it doesn't exist, so do not read for the sake of relieving stress about "things that will never be known", "things that will be lost to the winds of time" or "things I would enjoy to know, but I just don't have enough TIME!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAxARJyaTEA". read what you have to and nothing more.