I have to agree and it happens in all areas but actually in a slightly different form usually. To take the analogy from the post, you start walking 20 miles a day and then someone says that it seems easy to do that so why not up it to 30 miles a day. Before you know it, the 40 mile day is the expectation, off days are not allowed and you fall further and further behind, eventually succumbing to burnout and the whole thing ends badly.
Software projects are the same. Nearly every company I've worked at, a senior manager says "Well if we can get these guys doing all this and they seem to be working well within their boundaries, lets push them harder". Pushing people harder can be good if they are really just slacking, but for the most part, people can't sustain more than is comfortable for long periods of time without their work or their mental state suffering. The end result is crappy code, people who leave companies or those that become non-functioning because they're burned.
There is a state that I call "waiting in motion". You have a goal. It is some ways away. It will take a lot of work to get there. But you just make sure you stay in motion in the right direction, then wait...surprisingly soon you will arrive.
But it is frustrating to want to be there, and just be plugging away.
Excellent story. I think people in general overestimate the time they have available to do things and underestimate the time it takes to actually do it; which inevitibly leads to situations where you think you can make up for "lost" time by sprinting forward, tomorrow. The most valuable lesson I learned about productivity is that small actions, done now, can lead to huge productivity gains tomorrow. The hard part of course is to subconsciously justify to yourself that those small actions are actually making significant progress towards your end goal. It's important not to get discouraged and keep charging ahead.
What's more insidious are those "busy working" tasks that can consume your day where you actually feel productive, but haven't made any real progress towards where you want to be.
Cannot read the article as the navigation is floating above the text on my Android phone. At least this is somewhat consistent as it happens quite often.
As an aside, every other blog I have seen that is part of this svbtle network (unless this one isn't and is just styled the same) has a nice mobile theme. This one works poorly with mobile because of the fixed left bar.
Where did the 5 extra "miles" come from? He picks a quote where “20 miles/day” is a good pace to have set for yourself, but then adds this about his team: “We’ve been constantly marching at a good pace (~25 miles per day)“.
6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and
all these things shall be added unto you.
Life is a journey. Who enjoyed their trip?
God says...
23:1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of
Judah and of Jerusalem.
23:2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men
of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the
priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great:
and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant
which was found in the house of the LORD.
23:3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the
LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his
testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul,
to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.
And all the people stood to the covenant.
----
3axis milling machine
SimStructure
LoseThos
Jesus Chirst Superstar: "You have nothing in your hand--every thing is fixed and you can't change it."
Life is run by angels who get their jollies rewarding people for sucking dick.
----
God says...
astrophysics pity your fantastic you probably pity smart unhealthy done
----
Imagine a rat with a dial in his cage. He plays with it at first and then sees it does nothing. The dial is thinking I can market LoseThos. I am in prison and nothing I do matters--I've learned this over the 9 years I released LoseThos. With an exception -- highs and lows in life balance. Humility and exaltation balance. Riches and poverty balance. It's possible I have a toil debt, but Jesus said His burden was light. The Christian approach is to be a hippy but pull your weight, but make the weight the bare minimum. "God cares for the sparrows who don't work."
----
God says...
C:\Text\BIBLE.TXT
et me never be ashamed:
deliver me in thy righteousness.
31:2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong
rock, for an house of defence to save me.
31:3 For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's
sake lead me, and guide me.
31:4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for
thou art my strength.
31:5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD
God of truth.
31:6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities:
You do have to work faster sometimes, but maybe not in the way you think. Recall the tortoise and the hare. It really is a similar story. Except the moral shifted from "never underestimate an opponent" to "even if you're slow, consistent effort will bring you far".
For some things, this makes a lot of sense: read something technical (preferably while taking notes) for twenty minutes a day; work on a small problem (brain teaser, programming koan, etc) every day; get some exercise everyday; etc, etc. And certainly, this applies to hiking as well (just ask anyone who's hiked the PCT).
To me, creativity doesn't seem consistent, though. I might come up with a great idea and pound out code to implement it one day, then get stuck the next. I don't see how someone could force themselves to "hike twenty miles every day" in terms of creativity. Also, sometimes you have to push yourself to grow or improve. Not saying that "twenty miles a day" isn't pushing oneself, but if you get comfortable with that, you might want to try pushing to "twenty-one miles a day".
The part about planning and paranoia is spot on though: even if your plan has to change (which it will), if you're paranoid enough, you will have backup plans.
How about the guy who does a minimum of 20 per day, and does extra on the good days? He's going to clean your clock. Or the guy who uses a bicycle. Or a car. Or flies. Or takes a different route. What exactly is the point of this story? It's advocating consistency through a completely fictional, contrived story.
Okay, change it a bit: you're hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (2,663 miles). You can't take a bike, a car, a plane or a different route. And most people agree, 20 miles a day is a good upper limit. Much more than that and you will make yourself too sick to continue. Bonus points for the fact that it's such a long distance that you can't carry all your food with you, so you must be extra paranoid and have a plan (like the article mentions) for food caches.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why he didn't use hiking the PCT as his scenario, other than many people haven't heard of it.
19 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 35.5 ms ] threadSoftware projects are the same. Nearly every company I've worked at, a senior manager says "Well if we can get these guys doing all this and they seem to be working well within their boundaries, lets push them harder". Pushing people harder can be good if they are really just slacking, but for the most part, people can't sustain more than is comfortable for long periods of time without their work or their mental state suffering. The end result is crappy code, people who leave companies or those that become non-functioning because they're burned.
However, money doesn't behave like that. Fun doesn't behave like that. Life doesn't behave like that. Love doesn't behave like that.
You can try to set as rigid a pace as you can, but some thing will always find a way to mess your plans up.
Recovering gracefully is the real challenge.
But it is frustrating to want to be there, and just be plugging away.
What's more insidious are those "busy working" tasks that can consume your day where you actually feel productive, but haven't made any real progress towards where you want to be.
There's an excellent TED talk by Daniel Goldstein about the present and future self; highly recommended: http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goldstein_the_battle_between...
https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle
Also seems to have inspired the name.
Will fix the sidebar on mobile.
If everyone else is marching at 20 miles/day, we still need to march a bit faster to win, but not too fast to burn out and crash.
Life is a journey. Who enjoyed their trip?
God says...
23:1 And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem.
23:2 And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD.
23:3 And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant.
----
3axis milling machine
SimStructure
LoseThos
Jesus Chirst Superstar: "You have nothing in your hand--every thing is fixed and you can't change it."
Life is run by angels who get their jollies rewarding people for sucking dick.
----
God says... astrophysics pity your fantastic you probably pity smart unhealthy done
----
Imagine a rat with a dial in his cage. He plays with it at first and then sees it does nothing. The dial is thinking I can market LoseThos. I am in prison and nothing I do matters--I've learned this over the 9 years I released LoseThos. With an exception -- highs and lows in life balance. Humility and exaltation balance. Riches and poverty balance. It's possible I have a toil debt, but Jesus said His burden was light. The Christian approach is to be a hippy but pull your weight, but make the weight the bare minimum. "God cares for the sparrows who don't work."
----
God says... C:\Text\BIBLE.TXT
et me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.
31:2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
31:3 For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me.
31:4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength.
31:5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
31:6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities:
But still at some point, you have to work fast sometimes to keep in touch with the competition around you!
To me, creativity doesn't seem consistent, though. I might come up with a great idea and pound out code to implement it one day, then get stuck the next. I don't see how someone could force themselves to "hike twenty miles every day" in terms of creativity. Also, sometimes you have to push yourself to grow or improve. Not saying that "twenty miles a day" isn't pushing oneself, but if you get comfortable with that, you might want to try pushing to "twenty-one miles a day".
The part about planning and paranoia is spot on though: even if your plan has to change (which it will), if you're paranoid enough, you will have backup plans.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why he didn't use hiking the PCT as his scenario, other than many people haven't heard of it.