another one i have been really getting mileage out of: "do it (whatever you are trying to get done / get better at) every day", aka the "seinfeld method"
> worked harder than any other human alive at being funny.
I don't think that's true, but I also don't think it matters, and the reason why is a very important point about the value of hard work:
Hard work, misapplied, is useless. You need to intelligently apply it to be successful. Hard work intelligently applied in a vacuum is nearly useless compared to its effect in the company of accessible mentors. And very hard work for a single instant is worth nothing compared to easy work, done every day, for years on end.
Hard work, intelligently applied, with the aid of mentors, over a long period of time maximizes your chances of finding something, doing something, or meeting someone that can lead to wild success. Every one of those factors comes into it, and there are likely plenty more, too. It's complex.
Jerry Seinfeld is probably an extremely hard working guy. Is he the hardest-working living human being at being funny?
That doesn't matter.
He worked hard, he worked smart, he got help, he kept at it, and he got very damn lucky more than once. And more. Hard work was necessary, not sufficient. Just because someone else is working harder doesn't mean you've lost.
I only care about the best practices for making the RIGHT things happen. The cat can push the vase on the floor and make things happen, that doesn't mean it was the right thing.
Seriously? You didn't pick up that NO, this is a worthless post. The cat understands action reaction. That is making a thing happen. The right things are about knowing when to stop and do nothing to let things work out. It is about not just having a list of "if then" statements to run your life.
This is a bunch of half-thought through "pearls of wisdom" in the form of "if then" statements none of which will make the right things happen. I might as well pick up a Self Help book written by the founder of an MLM.
>Seriously? You didn't pick up that NO, this is a worthless post.
It might be a "worthless post" but for totally different reason than not telling you what the "right things" are and how to "make them happen".
It (rightly) assumes you can figure something such encompassing as your targets by yourself -- and only concerns itself with some of the technical details.
Heck, it even gets down to making some "right things happen", like when advising: "Tell people when their behavior is undermining the success of a shared outcome".
You'd be surprised how many people DON'T do that. Or this:
"If it is 80% done, and getting it to perfect is going to take a lot more effort, ship it, and fix it later."
No substance.
Just like any other blog that teaches you how to make incredible things happen, offering way too general advice.
Just because you can start a blog and write doesn't mean you should.
The making things happen attitude is very unsubstantial. If it was substantial, then everybody could apply it the same way and the world would be an easy place.
I find way more difficult to hack attitude than to hack code.
The idea that, at this point in every single reader's life they need "substance" along with ideas, is just a bit much. You, at this point in your life, would want/need more substance but you are just one person. There is a lot of value for other people in reading bullet point lists of these types of things. For example, if these are all things I've known and learned in my 42 years on the earth, a bullet point list serves as a nice, general reminder on a lot of levels. The "I've forgotten more about productivity hacking than most 20 year olds have learned" adage is true here for 40yos. Maybe you are at the point where some of these are recent topics for you - things you've recently learned in much longer format. So you reject it as "Everyone knows this - silly".
We all have biases - we just have to view things from others' perspectives sometimes to avoid those biases coloring our outlook.
OP here. Thanks for reading my post and providing feedback.
This post wasn't meant to be a deep dive but more a list of activities ("ship before you feel totally done") and ways of thinking ("the best ideas are usually not universally embraced") that have served me. I have other posts that get very specific - like this one about making email introductions - http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/the-anatomy-of-a-great-email-i...
You are entitled to your opinion about the value of my blog but as I mention in BP #5, people struggle to put themselves in the minds of others. Your logic appears to be "I don't find this valuable, therefore this person and everyone like him should not blog." Based on the number of tweets, upvotes, and personal messages I've received about this post, it has provided tremendous value to lots of people who happen to be different from you.
I think the main issue with your post is offering the perspective from an employee/freelancer viewpoint only. If you are the owner of your own company the issues with making things happen are totally different.
I disagree. I see a number of hard-won lessons here.
I just spent the weekend volunteering as a mentor for an entrepreneurship event, and first-time entrepreneurs really need a lot of education in basics. I can see this being useful as a checklist of common anti-patterns. In particular, I've recently seen people getting 6, 9, 10, 11, and 13 wrong.
I do strongly dislike the title of the blog, and the hype-filled headlines make me twitch. It has so much marketing and glibness to it that yes, it's the kind of thing that makes programmers insane.
But I think it's worth listening respectfully to people who have accomplished things, even if they're very different than you. Take what you find useful, and leave the rest.
I've always been amused/bothered/interested/concerned by how these things always look and feel so intuitive, and it's always "easy" to talk about them, to make a list- the following through is always the hard bit.
I think rather than focusing on these principles (which are valid, and true), maybe we ought to get meta and focus on what helps us focus on these principles- modifying our environment, surrounding ourselves with peers and influences that reinforce such reflection, etc.
I like Scott Adams "Systems, not Goals" theory. What he calls "systems" is probably similar to your "principles" and I would rather call it "process". :)
OP here. I think getting meta is often a good idea - but sometimes learning tactics is useful. Not everyone does well with abstract ideas and focusing on a specific action which leads to a better outcome can encourage people to think more deeply about it in the future.
None of this stuff is easy and I never try to make it seem that way. Talking is not doing but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever talk and only ever do.
28 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 70.3 ms ] threadEveryone thinks Seinfeld was just a funny guy, but he worked harder than any other human alive at being funny.
Worked out pretty well for him.
No, I merely think of him as an untalented unfunny hack.
And Lenny Bruce died quite poor.
I don't think that's true, but I also don't think it matters, and the reason why is a very important point about the value of hard work:
Hard work, misapplied, is useless. You need to intelligently apply it to be successful. Hard work intelligently applied in a vacuum is nearly useless compared to its effect in the company of accessible mentors. And very hard work for a single instant is worth nothing compared to easy work, done every day, for years on end.
Hard work, intelligently applied, with the aid of mentors, over a long period of time maximizes your chances of finding something, doing something, or meeting someone that can lead to wild success. Every one of those factors comes into it, and there are likely plenty more, too. It's complex.
Jerry Seinfeld is probably an extremely hard working guy. Is he the hardest-working living human being at being funny?
That doesn't matter.
He worked hard, he worked smart, he got help, he kept at it, and he got very damn lucky more than once. And more. Hard work was necessary, not sufficient. Just because someone else is working harder doesn't mean you've lost.
Were you just ranting about the title? Seriously?
This is a bunch of half-thought through "pearls of wisdom" in the form of "if then" statements none of which will make the right things happen. I might as well pick up a Self Help book written by the founder of an MLM.
It might be a "worthless post" but for totally different reason than not telling you what the "right things" are and how to "make them happen".
It (rightly) assumes you can figure something such encompassing as your targets by yourself -- and only concerns itself with some of the technical details.
Heck, it even gets down to making some "right things happen", like when advising: "Tell people when their behavior is undermining the success of a shared outcome".
You'd be surprised how many people DON'T do that. Or this:
"If it is 80% done, and getting it to perfect is going to take a lot more effort, ship it, and fix it later."
Internet has at last provided a platform where literally anyone can get up to writing and publishing and that only provides it its awesomeness.
If I could, I'd make everybody blog, every day. (Unless they have better things to do.)
I find way more difficult to hack attitude than to hack code.
We all have biases - we just have to view things from others' perspectives sometimes to avoid those biases coloring our outlook.
This post wasn't meant to be a deep dive but more a list of activities ("ship before you feel totally done") and ways of thinking ("the best ideas are usually not universally embraced") that have served me. I have other posts that get very specific - like this one about making email introductions - http://www.jasonshen.com/2011/the-anatomy-of-a-great-email-i...
You are entitled to your opinion about the value of my blog but as I mention in BP #5, people struggle to put themselves in the minds of others. Your logic appears to be "I don't find this valuable, therefore this person and everyone like him should not blog." Based on the number of tweets, upvotes, and personal messages I've received about this post, it has provided tremendous value to lots of people who happen to be different from you.
I just spent the weekend volunteering as a mentor for an entrepreneurship event, and first-time entrepreneurs really need a lot of education in basics. I can see this being useful as a checklist of common anti-patterns. In particular, I've recently seen people getting 6, 9, 10, 11, and 13 wrong.
I do strongly dislike the title of the blog, and the hype-filled headlines make me twitch. It has so much marketing and glibness to it that yes, it's the kind of thing that makes programmers insane.
But I think it's worth listening respectfully to people who have accomplished things, even if they're very different than you. Take what you find useful, and leave the rest.
I think rather than focusing on these principles (which are valid, and true), maybe we ought to get meta and focus on what helps us focus on these principles- modifying our environment, surrounding ourselves with peers and influences that reinforce such reflection, etc.
http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/goals_vs_systems/
None of this stuff is easy and I never try to make it seem that way. Talking is not doing but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever talk and only ever do.