

Just Finish Everything - npguy
http://statspotting.com/2012/12/just-finish-everything/

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zinssmeister
"if you are less than 40 and aren’t working at least 15-18 hours a day you are
not working enough" I find this to be very bad advise. Nobody should work 18
hrs every day.

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bcbrown
What I have learned from individual athletic competition is that the person
who wins is usually the person who is willing to sacrifice the most in order
to win - free time, hobbies, family and social relationships, health. I think
that's probably true for anything. This is only possible for something that is
a deeply held passion.

At the same time, by making an inviolable commitment to myself that I was
going to enter a certain competition, and accepting as a given that I would be
making certain sacrifices in my social and personal life from the training
effort required, it made that commitment into something that I just did,
without thinking about whether it was something I wanted to do at that moment.
And removing that decision, that "do I really want to do this chore?", it's
possible to have the consistency of effort necessary for performance at an
elite level.

So I think it's valuable advice, to say start small, attempt surmountable
obstacles, and develop the habit of consistent practice. And I think it's
valuable to let people know that if they have an ambition to be an "iconic
computer person", they will have to make large sacrifices.

I know that I'm not willing to sacrifice everything else in my life for
programming. And I'm alright with that. But I don't criticize the people who
have the drive to spend 15-18 on their passion. It's certainly not advice
that's widely applicable, though.

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diminish
"Working hard and more than your peers" is shown by many great people as the
keys for their success. For example, the German singer Dieter Bohlen of Modern
Talking, in his classical first book (best-seller) says also that, his secret
for success is, working when others are not.

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nakedrobot2
I decided, 6 years, ago, that to succeed in my field, above everyone else, it
would be necessary work 4x harder to get 2x ahead (not "work 4x more" - "work
4x harder"). That's what I told myself. And I think this is the case in most
lines of work. If you want to get ahead, you have to work _a great deal_
harder than everyone else around you. Unless you happen to be exceptionally
gifted and able to accomplish more than anyone else simply by showing up, it
means that you really have to bust your ass continuously.

Generally this strategy and form of motivation has worked. I may not be the
best at anything I'm doing, but I have accomplished a lot.

~~~
thirdtruck
The research in "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport factors into
this observation.

If we want to get ahead in a field, we have to seek out the _hard_ problems,
those that put us great mental strain to tease apart and comprehend. This
might not require 80 hours of effort a month, but even 20 hours of such deep
effort will feel like 80.

In other words, we have to do the weight-lifting equivalent of several reps
every day that go just beyond our weight limit. Many others exhaust themselves
on a hundred reps of a comfortable weight, but that will never increase their
strength.

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Jach
I've observed a correlation between people who say things like "I could do X
if I wanted to", motivation problems, and confusion about free will. I'm glad
he calls that phrase out as crap. Unfortunately:

> If you aren’t 10x smarter than everyone now, how will you compete in 10-20
> years? Imagine the math, physics, computer science, nanotech, biotech, etc.
> that will be common then — thus, you better get crackin! ... if you are less
> than 40 and aren’t working at least 15-18 hours a day you are not working
> enough, you simply can’t compete with the best in the world unless you are
> willing to throttle it that much

is also crap. (I think it's obviously so.) Some ways in which it's crap,
without really elaborating further: you don't need to compete with the best,
the best work smarter not harder, the best aren't necessarily working on
problems where competition is needed for financial success, there are more
domains to work in than those mentioned plus at least math and CS (I lack
experience to say the same about the others) have so many branches either
unexplored or lightly tread that you can pretty easily get into a niche
without competition, the fundamentals in CS 20 years ago aren't that different
from now, the Singularity might happen in 20 years and make all your effort
moot (unless you're working on making the Singularity happen!), humanity's
progress might stall for the next 20 years, it might grow linearly instead of
the usual exponentially, even with exponential growth it may not look
radically different under the surface anyway, what does "10x smarter" even
mean, why not recommend the Uberman sleeping schedule that gives 22 hours of
conscious work a day?

Here's a quote from the late Erik Naggum (from
[http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3141310154691952@naggum....](http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3141310154691952@naggum.no.html)):

> ... if you think in terms of the imminent end of the world, _everything_ is
> soon food for the great garbage collector in the sky and whoever is not
> scrambling in panic looks like they aren't moving and have been passed by or
> are dying.

> the problem I see is not that Bill Gates has shaped the world of useless
> trinkets in software, but has also managed to spread his competitiveness and
> his personal fear of losing to imaginary competitors to businesses and homes
> everywhere, so now everybody is _afraid_ of losing some battle which isn't
> happening, instead of getting about their own lives. like, if you aren't
> using today's fad language in the very latest version of the IDE, you'll be
> left behind. aaaugh! but it's good that some people run like they are scared
> out of their wits. if they suddenly disappear over the edge of a cliff, a
> good number of people will notice in time and _not_ follow them. those are
> the ones that matter.

It's amusing to me that the author has replaced the fear of not being able to
finish with the fear of losing. Fear is the mindkiller.

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chimpinee
No no no. This is unkind.

'Finish everything.' Everything? No way. Abandon stuff which is unfruitful or
superseded or published. Just don't abandon stuff lightly: have a good
explanation why (which is not a personal excuse).

Make progress with things that have meaning to you. Go slowly and keep
returning to them. This is the fastest way. Don't force yourself to work when
you're sick or bored or have other commitments. Your mind would not be engaged
anyway.

Two more points. Valuable works are never truly finished. They are abandoned.
Things can always be improved!

Also, don't worry about being competitive. Life is not a competition. There's
infinite room for everyone to form a niche. Read up on _comparative
advantage_.

Competition engenders a false sense of lack and zero-sumness which causes much
harm to the world. It fosters greed.

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andrepena
I didn't finish to read this article

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daemon13
Excellent advice - of course everyone is sifting it through their own personal
lences hence everyone perceives this advice differently.

Rather then debate the merits of working long hours, what I really liked is
this

>> Lack of motivation fundamentally comes from fear — you are afraid to do
things since you don’t think you can do them internally — which is 99% true.

I think that using this as starting point everyone shall ask thyself what
projects has he started but not finished/abandoned and why - and look into the
mirror...

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ww520
Finishing something is definitely a huge competitive advantage. Anyone can
have an idea and start a project. Only some are able to finish them.

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szany
This is stupid. Perseverance ≠ finishing everything. Not every project is
worthy of being finished.

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ajpatel
Oh, the grammar...it hurts...

~~~
npguy
Thanks, fixed where we could, except the actual quote.

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gte910h
This is horrible. Flagging it

