
Smart Guy Productivity Pitfalls - psykotic
http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html
======
cyanoacry
Last summer, I finished a 3-month internship in Japan, and it was the most
productive 3 months of my life.

I'm currently a college student, so my work ethic is a little poor.
Procrastination and "seeming busy" is standard fare for my day. It's far too
easy for me to get distracted by checking Facebook, Twitter, or even
tangential data sheets.

Yet, despite my bad habits, the environment at my job _forced_ me to get down
and churn through code. Some of my officemates could fit the salaryman
stereotype[1], but _all_ of them posessed a capability for relentless focus. I
initially tried to settle in by "shooting the breeze" and making smalltalk,
but they seemed to prefer communicating through their work: some code, but
more importantly, well-done demos.

In the span of those 3 months, while I always brought headphones with me, I
never ended up using them: the silence of the office carried a note of
tension, the sound of concentration. Listening to this proved to make me more
productive than I'd normally be, if I were listening to (even quiet) music.

I came in expecting to be maybe 20% efficient, as the OP mentions: a few
minutes here, a half hour there. At the end, it was nearer to 75-80%: instead
of procrastinating, I set goals for myself to get things done, because that
was really the best way to get through to my neighbors.

While I don't think that this sort of pressure cooker environment is well-
suited for all people, I think it speaks volumes to how positive peer
pressure, in more ways than one, can force people to shape up. I'm not sure I
would've survived for a 6 months or a year, but it very quickly eliminated my
excuses. If everyone around you is working their best, it's hard not to get
dragged along.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman>

~~~
ky3
_I think it speaks volumes to how positive peer pressure, in more ways than
one, can force people to shape up._

So the key takeaway is the positive peer influence, not so much Japan and its
whatever-ness.

There's a certain dream about playing hard, working hard, and getting swept
along with it. Smalltalk included.

~~~
cyanoacry
This is definitely true, but I've been hard-pressed to find a similar
environment in the States, even in labs and hackathons. There's an almost
oppressive social pressure to getting the job done in Japan, because you
_must_ work as hard as your boss, who is working as hard as their boss, etc.

A lot of people fight back against the sort of no-frills culture I saw (Google
perks, work-at-home attitudes, etc.), so it surprised me that it was so
efficient. A part of me expected cubicles and quiet work environments to force
an Office Space result.

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pcestrada
This reminds me of a quote from Richard Hamming's talk "You and your research"

``Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of
approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than
the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you
know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more
you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.
I don't want to give you a rate, but it is a very high rate. Given two people
with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out
to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over
a lifetime.

<http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
My favorite part of that talk is where he highlights the value of creating to
solve a class of problems vs. a unique instance. Build in a way that others
can build off of your work.

Recently, I built an automated Skinner box that has the ability to run most of
the protocols of classical behavioral research. It allows the mouse to be head
fixed, enabling brain readings while the experiment is running^. We could have
built just what we needed, but instead, we are going to open source this
general solution in a methods paper soon. I am unsure if this would have
happened if I had not read Hamming's talk.

^The hope is that this will reduce the amount of this type of research done
with monkeys, enable reductions of costs/time, and enhancing the ability to
learn more due to the huge genetic catalogs for mice.

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polemic
> _"Accept that "the grind" is part of the job"_

Of all the pieces that struck home for me, this. Especially doing what I'd
call my 'dream job', it's 'the grind' that I most struggle with, even if it's
ultimately what ends up being the most valuable output.

I'd add a line to the effect of: the grind is easier to handle when you keep
focused on the outcome of what you're trying to achieve (cool new feature,
happier customers, company success). It's easy, as a programmer, to lose sight
of the big picture when you're at the never-ending 80% phase of a big
development effort.

~~~
pjungwir
As a friend's dad says, "That's why they call it work."

~~~
alex_doom
Also, "There's a reason they don't call work, fun."

~~~
TeMPOraL
On the other hand, problems are to be solved, not suffered through.

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gingerlime
Great post. I would generally consider myself reasonably hard working, and not
a huge procrastinator. However, there's one trap I always find hard not to
fall into.

I remember many occasions when I finish a task earlier than expected, and then
always struggle whether I should stretch it and pretend it took me longer, so
I can still do it faster than expected, but not disproportionally so.

The somewhat flawed logic is that if I do things too fast, I'll just get more
work assigned, and expectations will rise, which will make it progressively
harder for me to achieve.

I'm not entirely sure where the flaw lies exactly, but the most impressive
people I worked with always seemed to be those who finished things quickly,
and somehow it didn't bite them back. Others would just learn to trust their
assessments, or if they are stuck would know it's not for lack of focus or
trying, but that it's a genuinely tough problem.

~~~
davidlumley
> The somewhat flawed logic is that if I do things too fast, I'll just get
> more work assigned, and expectations will rise, which will make it
> progressively harder for me to achieve.

For what it's worth, I'm in this situation at the moment. Was working on a
project where I found it simple to finish things quickly. Am now on a project
where things are considerably more complex but it's expected I finish them at
the speed I was previously.

Not sure how to crawl out of this hole, other than to continually get faster
at everything.

~~~
gingerlime
this reminds me of a joke I've heard (poorly translated):

"How do you win a 100m swimming race? You start at your absolute top speed,
and slowly slowly increase the pace"

~~~
TeMPOraL
And there's also this saying: "the better you get, the better you'd better
get."

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eksith
This could alternatively be titled the _Thinks-they're-Smart Guy Productivity
Pitfalls_. The "smarter, not harder" mantra being misapplied can be a classic
case of a lack of intelligence (which is bad) and a lack of foresight (which
is worse). And no, you don't need a super intelligence to have foresight; just
some experience and a willingness to listen to people who are smarter than you
without your pride getting in the way.

If I knew what I know now when I was 18-19, I would have slapped myself upside
the head and say, "You idiot! You know nothing! Stop pretending that you do
and you'll actually get something done!"

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halcyondaze
One thing I really like for productivity is getting deep into the mindset of
anyone that excels.

I skateboard for exercise and one of my favorite skaters is Andrew Reynolds.
His mentality when skating is second to none. He'll land an absolutely insane
trick (at age 33), and then do it over..and over..and over again until it is
absolutely _perfect_.

Toe touches the ground slightly? Do over. Arms were kind of weird? Do over.
Hammering it into the ground until it's a thing of beauty.

This is what I take into my approach to productivity. Being effective is
difficult, especially if the task you're doing is difficult. You have to just
hammer away at it and iteratively get 1% better every time you take a swing.

In productivity, it's constantly holding yourself to a higher standard than
you previously did. Great, pomodoro technique is working for you and you can
go 4x25 blocks? Trend towards the positive always, and you'll eventually end
up far, far ahead of other's around you...even other "productive" people.

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shurcooL
I really wish I were surrounded (or perceived myself to be surrounded) by more
productive people. Seeing someone better than yourself can be a great
motivator. But when most people you see set low standards for themselves
(relatively speaking), it's easy to slip and forget to work hard.

Every minute is precious if you have a goal to reach.

~~~
inerte
And why are you not surrounded by more productive people?

~~~
shurcooL
I don't know, perhaps I'm doing something wrong, or it hasn't happened yet but
will happen soon. The latter is less likely because I'm 26 yo already.

~~~
obstacle1
You are 26 years old. You have, what, 30, 35 years of working life ahead of
you? Sure, resign to mediocrity for literally 5/6ths of your career, if you
want. But there's plenty of room and time for you to develop how you want. Age
is not your main obstacle.

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mtrimpe
I just want to say in case nobody else comments here, that this is an awesome
blog post. It was very valuable to me.

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sukuriant
So, my big question is: "Where does 100% completing everything you start doing
during a day fit in with two other well-repeated arguments?" in particular,

    
    
       * 40 hours a week is the max sustainable work week length
       * To help get started work the next day so you're not
         wasting time as the day starts and so your subconscious
         can work on it, start your last task of the day and get
         through working on a good part of it; and then stop
         before finishing it.

~~~
psweber
Seems like the goal for addressing the first point is to get better at
planning and estimating. Learn what you are capable of and then get better.

The second point is based on that Hemingway quote right? “The best way [to
write] is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will
happen next. If you do that every day…you will never be stuck.”

I've tried it a few times. I didn't notice much improvement. Maybe it makes
most sense when you are working on a problem that excedes your comfort zone.

~~~
andrewflnr
I'm sure it's been rediscovered by lots of people who hadn't heard it from
Hemingway. Notice he didn't say (IIRC) "finish everything you start" but
rather "finish everything you decide to finish". If you, for example, finish
all the features you wanted to, and then leave a failing test case for the
next day, that is consistent with the feature article's thesis as I understand
it.

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mrpickles
Holy shit. My brain just exploded from reading this.

This is the advice that I wish someone sat down and gave me when I first
started my career.

~~~
whage
I honestly hope i can keep this advice in mind for the rest of my life

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tehwalrus
I'm a PhD student, so apart from once-a-week conversations with my supervisor,
I'm on my own when it comes to picking what to do today.

For the objective metric of productivity, I've found Rescue Time [1] very
helpful.

It is literally a little virus that sits there watching everything you do
(including what websites you visit, what programs have focus, and so on,) and
uploading it all to the cloud. Then, the kicker; a weekly email saying what
fraction of your time was spent productively, and the total hours spent on
productive stuff (you can configure what's productive pretty finely.) you can
view all the graphs and charts you want, but ultimately I find total hours
logged, and % productive, to be the only two numbers I need.

(it also sets you goals; N productive hours a day, less than M distracting
hours per day, and so on, and reports your success or failure in the email
too.)

[1] <https://www.rescuetime.com/>

~~~
delian66
You are right - RescueTime is very helpful indeed for overcoming some kinds of
procrastination.

>>It is literally a little virus

Just a little nitpicking ... it is not a "virus", neither literally nor
figuratively - it does not replicate nor infects anything. You can call it a
"trojan" at worst, but certainly NOT a virus.

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paulnechifor
Really offtopic: This[1] is why you don't use &nbsp; to fake double spacing.
It should be done in CSS or by using one of the longer space characters[2].

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/22vFOLO.png>

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_character#Spaces_in_Unico...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_character#Spaces_in_Unicode)

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rluhar
The OP talks about the trap of the small task, where he put off doing
something that should have been menial for so long, that when something small
went wrong, it's effect was disproportionate. There is also the danger of
focusing only on the small tasks, and take much pride in ticking off a huge
to-do list. Perhaps it could be better to step back and think of a more
efficient way that would reduce the amount of work required. It may not feel
like it, but you are being more productive.

This is a great post, and I (like many others here) wish I had considered this
when I first started off. I think improving personal productivity is a force
multiplier. If you are more productive, you can help your team members to be
more productive. You could roll your sleeves up and tackle the "grinding" task
that is stopping everybody else from progressing.

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b1daly
As I've gotten older, I'm struggling with my productivity because I get more
tired from being in that intense "grind" mode. If I am real focused for
several days,I hit a wall and then I'll need more time to recover. Forcing it
doesn't seem to help as fatigue gets worse.

A big part of it is the physical feeling of working at the computer, it starts
to hurt after a few intense days, which adds stress.

It's been making me mad as i would like to get more done, but I have to rest.

I never know how to apply advice like that of the original poster. It seems to
be, to excel be smart and work diligently. How is this helpful to anyone?

~~~
kps
First, fix what is making your body hurt. Presumably the problems are with
your back or hands or both (and if not both, the other will come along soon
enough). For your back, the solution is pretty well documented: chair that
fits you, displays at eye level, keyboard at elbow level. For your hands, the
solutions may be more personal, but likely involve (a) keeping your wrists
straight and (b) kinesthetic feedback on your fingers.

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seivan
Eye opener, really.

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tjoff
Nice try, but I'm not falling for that one.

(although I'll keep this tab open (among hundreds of others) so that I can get
to it "later"...)

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jcroll
micromanaging your productivity sure seems like a good way to increase your
productivity :\

