Ask HN: I'm motivated to do my 10,000+ hours, but...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3591832

by mel_kaye • 14 years ago

10 6 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I need help!

I'm 24 years old and, FWIW, I've earned a BS with Honors in Computer Science (Summa cum Laude) from a large public US university. Software Engineering is my career, FOSS is my hobby, and -- as my wife painstakingly exclaims -- something computer-related seems to be on my mind at all times. I've approximately 3 hours per weekday to myself, but I haven't yet produced anything of which to be proud. When I try to take advantage of my free time, I often feel what I can best describe as "hacker's paralysis": a hacker's inability to decide if his/her free time is best spent hacking or learning; e.g., hacking Chicken Scheme vs. reading SICP. (This problem is compounded by personal issues I'm working through[1], but that's off-topic for HN.) It kills my productivity and causes me to waste ridiculous amounts of time.

How do I break through this "hacker's paralysis"?

[1] ADHD and OCD (which, surprisingly, have a comorbidity rate higher than what one would expect).

46Bit• 14 years ago

Having been through very similar (although undiagnosed) issues quite recently myself I'd merely suggest you stop feeling guilty and assume you'll have time to do the other next week. It's not easy to do but I just got the will together to start randomly picking something. The question still comes up but I simply ignore it by habit rather than leaving it as a decision to be made.

nantes• 14 years ago

One thing that has worked for me in the past is to make a list of the things I want to accomplish and/or learn. Having a concrete list allows me to prioritize and make a reasonable schedule.

Making that schedule forces me to chunk the topic at hand. It's not a hard and fast schedule, but more 'I only need to do this today' rather than 'Holy crap, I never get anything done.'

My thoughts anyway. Best of luck.

blakdawg• 14 years ago

Stop worrying about achievement and have fun. Build omething you enjoy building. Learn what you need in order to build it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

ISeemToBeAVerb• 14 years ago

I fully understand your pain.

One thing that helped me overcome my paralysis was being more specific about what I was hoping to achieve in certain areas of my life. By intentionally limiting my scope, I found it much easier to make the right decisions.

For example, learning to cook is a pretty general goal. You could spend a lot of time learning about baking ratios, classical French technique, molecular gastronomy, etc...

Contrast that goal with a more specific one like learning to cook Chinese food in the Sichuan tradition. By limiting our scope, it becomes far more clear to us what we need to focus on to achieve our desired result.

The realization that we cannot be/do/know everything is a seriously underrated epiphany. In order to excel at one thing we have to cut off other things, which isn't always easy to do.

The really amazing thing about being specific with yourself is that the cloud of ambivalence suddenly becomes far less foggy. Once you understand your intentions and your destination, the question ceases to be "what do I feel like doing today?" and becomes "does this activity get me closer to my goal? Yes or no."

The more specific you become in your goals, the clearer the path becomes to achieving them. An added bonus is that it generally takes less time to get there as well.

mohene1• 14 years ago

Mel, read Peter Drucker.

I don't have a successful product, but I have completed projects and even have a business meeting this Friday.

What I can say is do not learn. Focus on using people who already have technical knowledge. As a businessman you should not be in the business of learning technical skills as part of a development process.

ADHD and OCD, not sure how this would hinder you. Ted Henter who creator the JAWS screen reading program, was a motorcycle racer and taught himself C++, btw he learned it after being blinded in a motorcycle crash. This is inspiration not blame.

helveticaman• 14 years ago

23, ADD, coder here.

Two things: first, by all means put in the work to find an ADD regimen that works. It makes a huge difference. I now take Strattera (60 mg) and Ritalin (80 mg), but had to slough through a lot of duds (maybe 5 different ones) to get there. I experienced a huge difference between amphetamine and non-amphetamine stimulants.

More pertin made a gigantic difference for me was fish oil (the kind you buy in softgels). I talked to my psych about using a lot of fish oil (10+ pills a day) and he said, sure. I started learning all kinds of skills much, much faster. Like 5x faster.

So, one really easy thing you can do is talk about different stimulant and fish oil with your psychiatrist.

Ask HN: I'm motivated to do my 10,000+ hours, but...

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