
Wasting time on things that really don't matter - Sam_Odio
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/06/wasting-time-on-things-that-really-dont.html
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dpapathanasiou
So tempting to comment on the irony that this is posted by someone who seems
to spend every waking hour on news.yc ;)

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juwo
yes!

my comment on the blog post:

well, most of the comments at news.YC and other 'non-technical' newsgroups
debate things that "dont really matter";

However, it's the process of debating the silly stuff that creates social
friction, so that our gears may slough off grit, interlock and start working
together. Now THAT's important!

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ced
"Maybe that's fun if you don't have anything better to do, but when you're
actually trying to accomplish something it can be deadly."

Doesn't that also apply to, eg.: reading Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs? Surely, when you're doing a startup, it's a waste of time,
but at any other moment, it is worthwhile.

I find that reading arguments about these simple problems is _not_ fun, but
it's sometimes highly enligthening. If there are hard technical reasons for
preferring A over B, I would like to know.

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aston
The tricky part is figuring out when you're wasting time on things that really
don't matter. The string comparison deal is an obviously easy example, but
there's a lot of gray area out there.

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abstractbill
Definitely true. See also <http://www.bikeshed.com>

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mynameishere
This is best:

Utility.isEmpty(s);

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awt
The tactic paul mentioned for avoiding time-wasting seems like a good
approach. I tried a similar approach yesterday, however, and failed. It helps
to have a very clear conception of what your top problems are.

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chwolfe
Amen.

For a much broader view on things that don't really matter, check out:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

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brlewis
PG's essay is an interesting, broader view, but I like Buchheit's focus on
what the next action is to kill the problem. Having a prioritized list of
issues and keeping it prominent is key. It's different from the to-do list PG
says to avoid, in that to-do lists don't have to be aggressively prioritized.
They get filled with random schleps.

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staunch
It's only wasting time if the time would have otherwise been spent doing
useful work. I also think there _can_ be value in debating minor details. A
lot of thinking goes on when you're forced to defend your decision and
rational in debate form.

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lkozma
This problem of wasting time on things is not important either :)

