
If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011) - unpredict
http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/
======
caseymarquis
Seems like a bit of a tail wagging the dog situation. How do we know the more
relaxed/organized schedule leads to success, and not that success leads to a
more relaxed/organized schedule?

This reminds me of some other advice I remember reading: No level of hard work
or organization will substitute for talent and opportunity, and nearly all
success stories to the contrary are missing key facts. ie Myth: Michael Jordan
was cut from his high school basketball team. Reality: Michael Jordan was put
onto the junior team with players his own age/size so he could get more play
time, instead of being prematurely promoted to the highest level of play.
Myth: Bill Gates is a college drop out who found success in a technical field
purely based on personal merit. Reality: Gates' private high school gave him
more access to computers than Harvard, and continuing at Harvard would have
been a waste of time given his level of experience in the field.

The lesson is that you need to figure out what you're good at and where you
have opportunity, and then work hard in those areas. Just working hard is a
recipe for failure for most people.

~~~
darawk
> Myth: Bill Gates is a college drop out who found success in a technical
> field purely based on personal merit. Reality: Gates' private high school
> gave him more access to computers than Harvard, and continuing at Harvard
> would have been a waste of time given his level of experience in the field.

In what sense is that a myth? He is a college dropout. Lots of people had
access to computers at that time. True, not everyone, but extraordinarily few
of the people that had access to computers at that time went on to found
multibillion dollar companies. The idea that the fact that he had access to
computers somehow debunks the story of his merit is absurd to me.

~~~
badlucklottery
>Lots of people had access to computers at that time.

More or less unfettered access during middle school in the late 60s?:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/bill-gates-got-what-he-
neede...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/bill-gates-got-what-he-needed-to-
start-microsoft-in-high-school.html)

"Lots" isn't a scientific term but I still don't think it fits here. He was
probably one of a few people at the time to have a few _years_ of in-depth
experience before leaving high school.

I'd call it a "myth of omission". It's technically true but the missing
details are very, very important to the whole picture. That doesn't mean he
didn't work hard or have a knack for it though.

~~~
darawk
Certainly everyone else at his high school could have been doing what he was
doing. I'm sure this wasn't the only high school like this, though the number
may have been small.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I don't think people are arguing Gates didn't do anything to warrant his
success, but they are saying that if he hadn't been afforded early
opportunities significantly more advanced than perhaps 99% of other high
schoolers in the US, or 99.999% of other high schoolers in the world (and I
don't think that's an exaggeration - seriously, search for articles about how
his HS computer system was networked in with U of Washington ... in the early
70s), that he wouldn't have been nearly as successful.

------
qzx_pierri
This article spoke directly to me! I’m in college right now completing a
fairly difficult class, or so I was told.. A lot of my classmates tell me the
class is so hard, but I think it’s easy so far. I asked most of them how they
study, and they all tell me the same thing: They skim through the textbook
AFTER hearing the lecture, and cram hard before the test.

I do the opposite. As soon as I wake up in the morning I read the book for one
hour, then I stop. I do this every day, weekends included. I also read the
chapter before the lecture so it’s still interesting, and any questions I
have, I can ask the professor during the lecture. Once I finish the chapter
assigned for the week, I split this session into 30 minutes of creating Anki
flashcards, and 30 minutes studying those Anki flashcards. I score
significantly higher than the rest of the class.

I just learned how to do this at the start of the semester thanks to
commenters on HN, and it has changed my life. This also deals with my
attention lowering after about the 1 hour mark of reading, but the concept is
still the same. Before, I would procrastinate on reading, and spend most of my
days playing video games. Now, I spend most of my day playing video games, but
it’s always a very relaxed, guilt free gaming session because I already know I
read for an hour. I hope I’m not rambling here.

~~~
bvinc
I did this for a few classes because my teachers had such a thick accent that
I could barely understand them. I figured out that if I read the book
beforehand, I basically knew what they were going to say and I could follow
along much easier.

~~~
arve0
Same experience. I use to joke about it; “The more crappy lecturer you have,
the more you perform.” Understanding that you don’t understand is powerful.

------
piazz
It does indeed seem like the arrow of causality may be backwards here. Many
people I know who are truly naturally talented are relaxed because their work
does not subjectively feel difficult to them.

Yes, they push themselves hard and strive constantly to improve. But when the
nature of your work matches the contours of your mind perfectly, it's not
really work – it's purpose. In this zone you can feel yourself excelling and
striving with a sort of effortless ease. You needn't force yourself to study -
on some level you _want_ to sit down and practice. The feeling of being truly
excellent is addicting and propels a virtuous cycle of growth and achievement.
So yeah, of course you're relaxed. Winning feels great.

~~~
csallen
This doesn't seem to match what the article says. It's not saying that the
elite players _feel_ relaxed, nor is it saying that they don't need to force
themselves to study.

Rather, it's saying that they studied exactly as much as the lesser players,
and that they did so with more discipline, both by spending more time on
deliberate/hard practice, and by strictly scheduling their practice sessions.

~~~
bigred100
I’m not sure thatvthe same principal doesn’t apply. For example, by the time I
take advanced calculus in college, if I already know a huge chunk of the
material and have strong mathematical maturity, I can spend more of my time on
“the hard parts” without it stressing me as much as if they were harder for
me.

~~~
csallen
That's true, but I'm not sure it's analogous. In sounds like in the study, by
"hard parts" they meant the parts that were hard _for the students_. So it's
relative. There were no universal "hard parts" that were actually easy for
some.

------
WhompingWindows
Cal honestly looks at a study of 6 violinists and makes sweeping
generalizations to outside the musical realm?

1\. Music is inherently a technical, movement exercise, especially violin with
the bowing. If you are not relaxed, if you are not muscularly efficient, if
you're tense from overwork, you're going to play less well. So, those who are
busy may simply be less good due to that residual tension and stress....and
this is much less relevant to coding or purely intellectual work, which simply
requires typing and not muscular fluidity.

2\. Deliberate practice is extremely hard to measure by looking at someone's
time journal...it's a modality of practice, a time journal is not going to
gather that information. Just because the talented ones practiced in huge
chunks of time, versus spaced out shorter chunks, how do we know they were
drilling the hardest skills and analyzing their weaknesses?

3\. Looking at students who have promise (according to their professors) is
vastly different than looking at actual professionals. Many pupils were not
esteemed or had mixed reviews from their professors, and then went on to great
things. I'm thinking Debussy and Valentina Lisistsa, both of who did not
succeed initially but whose great talent was revealed later on.

------
war1025
I think this might be somewhat tangential to what the article has to say, but
I think there is a fair amount of mindset to the "busyness" thing.

Some people seem to think that "busyness is next to godliness", so they make
sure never to let anyone see them idle. They don't so much focus on what they
are doing, just that they are doing _something_.

I've always taken the opposite approach. I go out of my way to make it look
like I'm never busy. "Make it look easy." It's just a different sort of
personality quirk.

It's fun to come across people from the other camp. We find each other very
peculiar... :)

~~~
ianmcgowan
You are the embodiment of one of my favorite words. Sprezzatura "a certain
nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says
appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it" and also
more briefly "studied carelessness".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura)

~~~
3minus1
> Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens
> underneath.

\--Michael Caine

------
hjkl
Not sure how how legit it is, but I saw there was a follow up study where
researchers couldn’t reproduce the deliberate practice finding to the degree
the original researchers did:
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190327](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190327)

~~~
ricklamers
Thanks for sharing this, with reproducibility being an important topic in
science I think this is an excellent contribution.

I think we should all try a bit harder to disprove our conclusions as
advocated by Karl Popper.

------
hanoz
Good job the violinist works in the music industry not the software industry,
or he might find after all his sessions of focused deliberate practice that
now no-one wants to hear the violin anymore, and he must in future focus his
efforts on the upcoming disciplines of both xylophone and clarinet.

~~~
juanuys
And then he finds that the xylophone works in hall A and not hall B, and for
the latter he has to get a slightly newer xylophone with more keys. Oh, and he
has to learn a new scale invented by the xylophone's makers.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
All the while taking instruction from someone who would struggle to knock out
a few notes on a ukulele.

------
sbilstein
My fiancé is an elite opera singer. I’m a programmer/founder.

She has spent years and years perfecting the way she practices, sleeps a ton,
and hustles hard for gigs. She’s highly systematic as to how she memorizes her
music, learns how to pronounce words in different languages, practices
technique.

Less successful singers in our network can’t be this efficient. They struggle
at sight reading despite years of practice. They take hours to learn new music
as opposed to minutes. My fiancé takes minutes to learn music and hours to
perfect. They work their ass off practicing their Italian accents but are
never quite perfect.

My fiancé works hard but all her work has compounded over the years because
she has an incredible talent for memorization, languages, and likely perfect
pitch.

I’m a good programmer, not great like John Carmack. I get stuff done but I
have to work to the point of exhaustion at times. Personally I don’t think
this sort of elite relaxation is available to everyone and may be just
specific to musicians.

------
RangerScience
People are focusing on this term "busyness", but what I see resembles more
"deliberateness".

It's like... Let's theorize that the underlying mechanism of excellence is
"strength of focus", in the same way that weight lifting is "strength of
muscles". The elite player's practice schedule then resembles HIT vs the
average player's aerobics.

It's similar to how work/life balance isn't just about leaving the office, but
about having something to _do_ that is for your life (instead of your work).

~~~
BLKNSLVR
That reminds me of this, "seemingly non-sensical but rings true upon
reflection" quote:

If you want something done, give it to the busiest person

------
DoingIsLearning
I think as usual Cal raises important points. But this feels a bit like Malcom
Gladwell's proposals were he goes out looking for data that aligns with his
initial conjecture.

As a man of science, I am sure Cal appreciates the weakness of a study with
self reported journals, collected at a single site, in a single problem domain
(Violin players).

My point is that it's ok to propose this and clarify it is your opinion or
your proposed approach to work. But I often see with a lot of life/work
advice, that we somehow try to prop up opinions under this "evidence-based"
umbrella when we know full well that the scientific strength of this evidence
does not fully support our initial claim.

~~~
dawg-
Keep in mind that this is just a blog post. I don't usually follow Cal
Newport's blog but in general, academic blogs are meant to be more informal
and just exploring different ideas without the rigor of a peer reviewed
journal. If he put this stuff in a published book I would agree completely.
Sadly it's par for the course for pop science writing.

------
timwaagh
I think what these people are doing, focussed practice sessions for hours on
end is really hard and requires exceptional willpower and concentration. These
are not common qualities. Remember that the average attention span is 15
minutes. Nothing close to four hours. Of course, the most elite students or
professionals can go on for much longer. Personally, i can't force myself to
do this and end up being average or worse. despite dedicating most of my life
to programming. such is life. i have tried methods to combat this and
eliminating distractions is key, however most of the time it is impossible. i
do know i can come up with some amazing work when i'm not distracted.

------
dsaavy
Key factors that separated the elite players from the average:

\- one morning and one night period of very deliberate practice

\- an extra hour of sleep

\- leisure time was rated as more relaxing

~~~
james_s_tayler
But but but... When I do one morning and one night period of very deliberate
practice I wind up getting one hour LESS sleep

:(

~~~
MaximumYComb
I think there's a certain degree of privilege that helps with success. Someone
born into money that gives them more time to pursue interests is going to have
certain advantages.

~~~
username90
Both groups spent the same amount of time though, the difference was how they
spent the time.

~~~
rsecora
Maybe the difference is one of the groups is talented, so the gap in time
amounts for the talent. Not the other way around as the article suggests.

The two groups are not comparable, because the talent is a non-negligible
difference, so the experiment is flawed (few samples, different groups....)

------
d--b
Er... These guys are still practicing 50 hours per week. FIFTY. That's _a_lot_
of violin.

So assuming you take one day off per week, you still need to pack 8 hours and
20 minutes of practice per day. So, we stack these hours in 2 sessions of 4
hours and 10 minutes per day. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. So
what does it look like? They work from 8am to 12.10am, then take a break until
2pm, then work from 2pm to 6.10pm and then be done with the day?

Sounds like a typical workday for a lot of people...

~~~
Pranz
The 50 hours likely include other things than just practice, like analyzing
songs, reading about music e.t.c.

------
buster
I'd think the key point here is focus. Short periods of very focused work is
much better then a whole day of unfocused work. I guess that's true. And since
you can't work hard and focused for eight hours, the elite players split it up
in two time periods with some relaxation in between.

~~~
scandinavegan
Short-term focus is why I fell in love with and still use Leo Babauta's GTD-
related idea of MITs (Most Important Tasks). See links at bottom.

Each morning I set 3 tasks (sometimes 4 or 5 if I absolutely have to and
they're small) that would make me feel good about the day if I finish. I write
them in an otherwise empty text document, order them by importance, and start
working on the first one.

These tasks can be large or small, sometimes even just "send this email" that
will take 15 minutes to write, but is really important to send off. This also
works great when working from home, because even if the environment is
different, I can still feel productive if I at least finish those 3 things.

If I finish the 3 things early, I assess my energy level and either finish the
day with organizing emails or reading up on stuff or other low-effort tasks,
or I tackle one last MIT if I feel up for it. The point is to prioritize
short-term focus of the 3 MITs instead of looking at the potentially endless
list of todos I could keep picking from all through the day.

MIT: [https://zenhabits.net/purpose-your-day-most-important-
task/](https://zenhabits.net/purpose-your-day-most-important-task/)

Zen to Done: [https://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-
pr...](https://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-
system/)

------
bsanr2
I think anxiety is the key here. Everyone is capable of deliberate practice,
but the degree to which one can sustain it for an extended, discrete session
varies a lot by how the stress people feel from outside sources or from the
process of mistake-making inherent in practice intrudes on and interrupts
their focus. It could be that some subset of average players would be better
if the stressors could be dealt with.

------
mark_l_watson
I think Cal Newport, and the study discussed in the article, are right on.

By most measures I have had a very successful career developing software and
doing research.

My deliberate practice has been learning new languages, solving very difficult
problems both on my own, and for work, and for most of my career averaged
about 30 hour part time work weeks (even when working for large companies like
SAIC).

I work very hard for a few periods during the day. The exception to this was
my last job before retiring this year where I really had three jobs in one, so
I had very few breaks in my work day except for a couple of long walks.

Deliberate practice is the way to get good at things and achieve success.

------
ryan_glass
One possible issue with this article is that its focus is on students - their
'job' being to learn as opposed to producing or delivering something, which is
the aim once their skills are learned.

Learning is often done best in small chunks e.g. when learning to rock climb
it is usually best to climb no more than 6 hours a day, every other day. But
when the skills are learned the climber may spend 15 hours a day, 3 days
straight to climb their dream route and they may well sleep hanging from the
side of their wall too.

I'd be interested to see how much time the elite players devoted to their work
when on tour as professional musicians in later life.

------
NevTux
The title is a bit misleading. In my experience, people have very different
ideas of what being "busy" means. Regardless, an interesting read to invoke an
even more interesting ponder on one's own habits.

------
rsecora
Correlation does not imply causation: Are they talented because they are
"relaxed"? or are they "relaxed" because they are talented?

The relax of the talented amounts for the gap in talent, not the other way
arround. That's the definition of talent, they can achieve more with less
effort.

There is a very big bias in the study, the reference team are average violin
players. Obviously, the try to compensate with training the gap, to achieve
the same result. On top of that, as other comments say, the sample is too
small and narrow in time.

------
wufufufu
Can't see any confounding variables here! /s

> Hard work is deliberate practice. It’s not fun while you’re doing it, but
> you don’t have to do too much of it in any one day (the elite players spent,
> on average, 3.5 hours per day engaged in deliberate practice, broken into
> two sessions)

Let's not pretend like 3.5 hours a day of practice is not a lot. I completely
agree that this is what it takes to be good, but try doing anything for 3.5
hours a day and then say that you "didn't have to do too much of it".

------
dghughes
This feels familiar.

I went back to school at age 48 and it amazed me how younger people could do
so much and so well. I'm amazed at how people can be so efficient. Those same
people some just 10 years younger than me worked full-time jobs and went to a
full schedule of classes.

I'm terrible at time management. At school I tried to start every assignment
the minute it was assigned. Yet I was still working on it five minutes before
it was due.

Eventually I figured I needed time to relax so I created a block of time only
for school. I do better when it's evening or night so I blocked off 7pm to
9pm. That also allowed me to eat first I found eating later didn't work since
my mind didn't work without food younger me could have plowed through the
hunger (I'd often go days without eating as a 20-something).

From the article the two practice-time peaks make sense. Maybe I may do just
as well in the early morning as I do in the evening. That would free up a
large part of my day. At school I found things like laundry, grocery shopping,
any small task was sacrificed to make up study time.

------
jhoechtl
What this article IMO lacks is the impetus for work?

I can imagine myself well organized and focused when I largely work according
to my schedules and according to my aims. Some else putting more goals into my
system might effectively reduce my drive to get stuff done.

In this special case the aim and reaarding system of an artost is likely to be
quite different to Hacker Average.

------
z3t4
Go into each training session with a goal. To set a goal, think about what you
need to train right now.

------
envolt
I don't believe it's related to being-busy. It's more about discipline in
their life. Elite player's life is more organized, hence they seem less busy.

e.g I work out every day from 7 to 8 pm. I may be sounding less busy. But if
the routine is the same, but I decide to go to the gym at random schedule, I
will be more unorganized, will look busier, might be less productive, and yes
I'm doing something wrong.

------
cryptozeus
I think many of us like being busy because we use it as an escape. If you are
not busy then the mind chatter will start about that side project you have
been ignoring or that career move you have been planning. There is a huge
dopamine hit in staying busy in your work and ignore more important things.

Btw if you have not read his boom “deep work” then I would really recommend
it.

------
iamgopal
I know two person, in the similar business, one is doing project after
project, and is high rich now, not big but in 5-10 million range, with life
time of hard work. The other person, did only two big projects in similar life
time. Both retired now, the other one has about 15-20 million. Waiting for the
right opportunity paid off really well, along with hard work.

------
throw1234651234
I have filled my schedule with study time, working out, cleaning time, full
sleep time, cooking time, etc. The result is that I am a super efficient,
productive employee that gets absolutely nothing done outside of work, has not
learned anything past canned employee skills, and has no life.

Looks like there is a huge benefit to leaving some waste time in the schedule.

------
bpatel576
The article brings about some really good points. I find myself sitting down
and studying without deliberate intent, which leads to countless wasted hours
in my life. I think this is in part because you need to have some fundamentals
down in order to actively learn, but mostly because it's just that much more
work to actually do the core work.

------
jharohit
Excellent counterpoint resource on Tiger-styled learning
[https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-
Specialized...](https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-
World/dp/0735214484)

------
DrScientist
Hard work is essential to success - the question is it _your_ success? ie who
is your hard work benefiting!

For example, working stupidly hard in a startup where you're stake/potential
upside is either very limited or unlikely is working hard for _other_ people.

------
ip26
_If you’re chronically stressed and up late working, you’re doing something
wrong._

Or you have an infant.

------
fireattack
>but they’re not dedicating these hours to the right type of work (spending
almost 3 times less hours than the elites on crucial deliberate practice)

What are these "average players" doing in their 50 working hours, then?

------
miganga
I don't get the title. How is 50 hours a week is not busy?

------
suzzer99
Maybe the elite players were able to get into flow state easier/more often
than the non-elite. This would explain the longer chunks of time.

------
numlock86
Unpopular counter opinion: If you are not busy, you (or the ones orchestrating
you) are doing something wrong.

~~~
fyfy18
I'd say it depends on the type of work. A builder who is doing manual labour
laying bricks? Sure. A designer following a creative brief to produce a new
full page ad? I don't think you can force that type of work, so putting
pressure on them to feel busy may actually have a detremental effect.

------
rullopat
So my question now is: what would be "deliberate practice" in the field of
computer programming?

~~~
pjmorris
It's an old topic, see, e.g. 'Etudes for Programmers', Charles Wetherell. Code
dojos, code katas, code retreats, I suppose I should put together a list.

~~~
silveroriole
But I highly doubt that the best programmers we can think of got good by doing
code katas and code retreats. They seem more like things mediocre programmers
do, or people only do to prepare for interviews. I could be wrong though -
have any great programmers expressed their love of katas?

------
pietherr
"... which divided each 24-hour period into 50 minute chunks"

28.8 chunks. Nice.

------
HNLurker2
my only regret is not reading his books before loss of opportunities.Based
author,

------
miguelmota
TLDR; don’t burn yourself out

~~~
newnewpdro
It's more about not dispersing your focus and attention throughout the day,
instead concentrate your efforts in deliberate and focused sessions.

Either of these approaches can result in burnout.

