
Work at the edge of your range - ohjeez
http://blog.ayjay.org/at-the-edge-of-your-range/
======
blahman2
"Unless, of course you ruin your voice, but let's not think about that
possibility."

Yeah, of course. Let's not think about it. Except for we should.

Here is my view. Introduce balance in your life - push yourself for a limited
amount of time per day, pursuing a specific goal, and do it intelligently.
Like when you are in the gym - lift more than you should for longer than you
should and get to enjoy 6 months of tendonitis.

It is not because you are weak/dumb. It's because your approach is weak and
dumb.

~~~
tomsthumb
Burnout is basically the result of a lack of mental and intellectual deload
periods.

Anyone with any familiarity of physical training knows why deload is
important, but culturally so many people feel like they're slacking off if
they take it easy for a couple days, much less a week.

------
thetrumanshow
"Resource Limit Is Reached"... Wow, this guy really practices what he
preaches.

But, seriously, why not use Blogger. Operates at Google scale, absolutely
free.

~~~
komali2
Ew blogger is so gross and hard to customize, though. I say this as someone
who used it extensively for _years_ , and tried to go full Tim Ferriss mode on
it.

Found wordpress better for that. Now I feel like I should just set up a
database and some sort of blogging app on my own. Ugh, so many sideprojects,
so little time / focus.

Anyway just look how ugly - ablate.blogspot.com I never could figure out how
to just make it less... shit.

PS if anybody knows a good way to set up mass-redirect for all my blogspot
posts so I can finally get them off blogspot, I'm open ears.

~~~
mistermann
If a person wanted a no fuss, no thinking required, place to quickly set up a
reasonably attractive blog, where could one do it? medium, is that what it is?

~~~
komali2
Hmm, I would say wordpress hosted via their website (so not wordpress.org
where you download a big php thing and self-host), or one of the many website
builder tools like squarespace or whatever. Blogger is free, but I'd argue
it's far from "reasonably attractive" by 2017 standards. I don't think it's
seen an update in years.

I don't think on medium you can do something like have blog.yourname.com point
to your blog, such that you can do blog.yourname.com/writing/how-to-blahblah
be one article, etc. Maybe you can't even do that on wordpress.com, now that I
think about it.

~~~
0xCMP
You can on medium, but it's a $75 one-time fee now. They can do top-level or
sub domain mappings.

------
twiss
Google Cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BQuOzx7...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BQuOzx7WWtsJ:blog.ayjay.org/at-
the-edge-of-your-range/)

------
jancsika
Just want to point out there is a difference between you pushing yourself to
the edge of what you're comfortable with and someone trying to concoct a way
to get others to push themselves to the edge of what they are comfortable
with.

If you try to do what Gordy did with experienced musicians they'll probably
permanently blacklist you.

~~~
npsimons
There's this thing called overtraining
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining))
and I've found it's very hard to find that sweet spot between "not pushing
hard enough" and "pushing too hard". I've a climbing partner who pushes me
hard (and I'm thankful for that), but recently I've started to wonder if it's
_too_ hard, at least in the mental space. It's one thing to be a little
outside your mental comfort zone, it's an entirely different thing to be
constantly scared out of your wits, even when you're on top rope.

~~~
marzipan
W/R to strength training, I've had a lot of success combating overtraining by
following the science recommendations more carefully and logging my progress
against a target volume which I can gradually bump up and reset with higher
weight, and using exact rest intervals. Smartphone apps are a lifesaver for
this stuff because they can do all the recordkeeping.

In the mental/emotional arena I don't have as easy a time. I started with judo
recently and encountered a phenomenon I remember from other sports back in
school, which is the other beginners being extremely hyped up and trying to
backseat coach, telling you to do a thing NOW without allowing time or space
to take a careful or exploratory stance (also they aren't necessarily doing it
right themselves). I'm a lot more resilient in putting up with that stuff than
when I was a kid but it still bothers me - fortunately, with the class being
just once a week, there's plenty of time to recover.

And with programming, I definitely have a cycle but it's extremely hard to
schedule it like I can with the gym. I don't get to pick exactly what I'm
working on so it might be too easy(boring) or too hard(can't pick it back up)
that day. Sometimes my attention gets torn by other stuff during the day, too,
which cuts into coding.

------
nthcolumn
This is, for programmers at any rate, terrible advice and something many noob
programmers do. If some code is right at the edge of your range then you are
not bright enough to refactor it later. I can't say it is a good idea for
singers either although I wouldn't know really. Even the best professional
sports persons play 'within themselves' only rarely having to super-extend.

~~~
groby_b
Having been in professional sports: You always _work_ at the edge of your
range. You compete relying on the work you've done all those times before.

You cannot develop when you're within your comfort zone.

And the same goes for programming. You must go outside your comfort zone, or
you'll stagnate. One of the poor souls who have 20 years experience, but alas
the same year 20 times over. You grow because you failed. Over, and over, and
over.

If you code at the edge of your range? More senior people will help you get
things into a better shape. You don't have more senior people? Don't worry,
you'll learn to refactor what you created. You'll curse your past self, but
you'll learn :)

If you play it safe, you'll burn out from pure boredom.

~~~
nthcolumn
I'm not sure about competing in track and field but played professional team
sport at the highest level, agree maybe in the gym or on the road you push
yourself to the edge and beyond but on the field it is the repetition, the
drills and the routines which allow you to express yourself - certainly not
running around headless, constantly forcing the pace, will just cause
unacceptable mistakes - there is no margin for error at all, you do not want
to be 'it'. I'm not sure working at the very edge of your range is the correct
expression - speed of thought rather than limb counts and though you are very
close to max just to stay alive we were always told to 'play within'
ourselves.

As for programming - I've seen countless noobs make things that were far too
complicated for them to understand later - let alone anybody else. If I had
only one piece of advice to any intern it would be 'keep it simple'. I don't
agree with learning everything the hard way, by trial and error because maybe
you'll never get the chance to fix that crap you made because y'know there
will always be people who can do it to an acceptable standard first time. Life
does not always give you do-overs.

------
thecolorblue
I would argue that writing a book about what you know, or summarizing your
knowledge so that it is useful for other people, is working outside of your
comfort zone. If you can explain something to a 5th grader, you probably know
it pretty well. The fact that they said they could never do it indicates that
they should probably focus on that.

------
rnprince
I'm not really sure about this metaphor, but I love what Schoenberg had to say
in Harmonielehre about choosing voice registers in the parts you write. It
never occurred to me how much art went into something seemingly subtle until I
read this from him in a section about four-part vocal writing.

"Obviously the range of solo voices, yes, even of choral voices, is in reality
larger than, perhaps different from, that indicated here, which only aims at a
fairly correct average. The middle register, which should be the one chiefly
used, lies a fourth or a fifth from the highest and lowest tones, so that we
have:"

<image of vocal ranges>

"Of course the pupil cannot get along with just the tones of the middle
register and will have to use some from the higher or lower registers-
naturally, at first only the adjacent tones, but then also on occasion the
highest or lowest, if there is no other way. In general, however, he should
seldom overstep to any significant degree the bounds of an octave whoever
wants to write parts comfortable for the voice will avoid, even in actual
composition, extended passages exclusively in one of the outer registers. The
pupil should therefore enter these registers only for a short time and leave
them as soon as possible. Whenever the treatment of solo or choral voices in
practice indicates otherwise, it is because the composer sought some
compositional or acoustical effects irrelevant to our present aims."

"The characteristics of the voices indicate the requirements, supported by
experience for their combination in choral writing. If no voice is to stand
out, then all voices will seek out registers whose acoustical potential is
approximately the same. For, were a voice to sing in a more brilliant
register, while the others move in a duller register, that voice would
naturally be quite noticeable. If this voice is intended to stand out (for
example, when an inner voice has the melody), then it is well that it sing in
a more expressive register. But if it is inadvertently conspicuous, then the
director would have to rely on shading, he would have to create equilibrium by
subduing the prominent voice or by strengthening the weaker ones."

------
itsmemattchung
In summary, work just a notch above your comfort level.

~~~
maxxxxx
From my experience most employers want you to work below your comfort level in
terms of quality of work but above it in terms of work quantity.

------
manaskarekar
Haven't checked out the link but it reminded me of 'Lean in to the pain.'

[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dalio](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dalio)
(September 01 2012)

------
johnnyo
Apparently the site is working beyond its range.

> Resource Limit Is Reached

> The website is temporarily unable to service your request as it exceeded
> resource limit. Please try again later.

~~~
andai
mirror
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BQuOzx7...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BQuOzx7WWtsJ:blog.ayjay.org/at-
the-edge-of-your-range/)

