

Why I eat alone and probably you should too - HackyGeeky
http://planetunknown.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-i-eat-alone-and-probably-you-should.html

======
maukdaddy
This is absolutely terrible advice. Lunch is the ideal opportunity to expand
your social network, make connections, learn from others, etc. It is by
definition a small-ish block of time and if you're not feeling particularly
talkative you can just concentrate on your food.

Getting to know colleagues from different parts of the business will greatly
expand future career opportunities. Lunch is the best way to do this, followed
by happy hours and other after work activities.

~~~
TGJ
On the other hand, if you are not worried about social connections and want to
find extra time in the day to do what you want after your job, then this
advice is good.

You want to connect with people so you are finding the extra time. This guy
wants to do his projects so he wants to minimize social hours.

You are completely ignoring his objective because you are so focused on yours.

~~~
maukdaddy
One day that guy is going to get laid off, and if his side projects aren't
successful, he's going to really wish he had a bigger professional network for
job opportunities.

~~~
djb_hackernews
One day that guy is going to get laid off, and if his professional social
network fails him, he's going to to really wish he spent more time turning his
side projects in to successes.

~~~
whyenot
If he built his side project while at work, his old employer can claim
ownership of it if it takes off. Then, not only is he unemployed, but all that
hard work has gone down the drain. Bummer!

~~~
evilduck
I'd bet most people's lunches aren't "on the clock". Doing personal work at
the physical location of your day job and doing personal work when you're on
the clock are two different things.

If you're really worried about them claiming ownership, haul your things to an
outdoor seating area or sit in your car and do it there.

~~~
whyenot
If you do personal work while "on the clock," not only could your employer
claim ownership, they might also fire you ;) If you are using their computers,
their office space, their internet connection... IANAL, but it seems to me
like a risky situation if your side project takes off.

~~~
evilduck
I quoted "on the clock" for a reason. Some of us are salaried or contracted in
such a way that there's no "off the clock" when present. I would expect anyone
here to know the rules that apply to them.

------
tcskeptic
_"We are social beings, and I think once in a while a lunch like above is
healthy to keep us sane. But, doing this everyday for years at a stretch, is
insanity !"_

This is just bizarre to me. I'm not the worlds most extroverted person, but
creating and maintaining social relationships at work has been the single most
powerful thing I have ever done to: Learn new things, advance my career, form
mentoring relationships (both as a mentor or mentee), try new foods (one of
the great joys in my life)etc....

If you aren't getting anything valuable from lunch with other people, you are
doing it wrong.

~~~
Holeinthewall
How to identify people in your company who might have good ideas ?

~~~
simonsarris
The same way you identify good food.

Trial and error + filtering other people's opinions.

~~~
Holeinthewall
Sounds like lot of food to me :) any other ideas ?

~~~
simonsarris
Well, when I was at Cisco there were a lot of ways of meeting new (and
interesting?) employees.

Many employees kept internal blogs on things they were working on (including
CEO Chambers). Employees also had keywords for things they liked to do or were
good at (C#, starcraft, hiking, investing, etc would be someone's keywords).
There were also a lot of mailing lists to search to find people who liked to
do things together (pythonistas, bxb-cycling, bikers, etc)

Other than that there was simply reputation (this is the 'filtering other
people's opinions' bit). J.C., for instance, was known around the office as
being a hilarious guy and just great to talk to. S.D. knew everything in the
world about firewalls. D.C. was a great artist, yada yada...

I guess it really depends on how your company is set up and how comfortable
you are approaching people.

~~~
HackyGeeky
Thanks ! you just gave me a great idea !!

------
superjared
This guy must have boring coworkers. Seriously, because when I go to lunch
with my colleagues we talk about work or related things and it's almost always
productive. We either walk away with a more knowledge or a decision to a hard
problem.

~~~
benwerd
I totally don't get why talking about topics beyond work isn't valuable. Okay,
maybe not in an immediate how-will-I-solve-these-problems sense, but in terms
of networking, emotional well-being, knowledge about the world and
interpersonal skills / relationships, it's vital (as well as being kind of
fun). Thinking long-term, being social is the way to go.

------
zavulon
In a few years at HN, this is close to the worst advice I have ever read.

I don't want to question the author's honesty when he's saying he's not a
anti-social geek who never talks to other people, even though sometimes we're
all oblivious to how we look to the world.

But if you follow that advice, you're going to be in real danger of turning
into one.

------
lkrubner
If the author wants to use his lunch break to work on his side projects, then,
more power to him. Personally, I like to segment my free time by month, rather
than hour, but I realize a lot of people do not have the freedom to do that. I
would rather have an 8 month contract job during which I work 60 hours a week,
and then I have 4 months to work on my own projects. It takes me days to get
my mind into a new project, and I am my most productive when I spent all of
yesterday on the project, and I know I will spend all of today and all of
tomorrow on the project.

However, whatever project I'm working on, I prefer to use the meals as
meetings. Since everyone has to stop for a meal at some point, they seem like
useful points to gather people around and regroup.

~~~
HackyGeeky
"I would rather have an 8 month contract job during which I work 60 hours a
week, and then I have 4 months to work on my own projects." That sounds
interesting, is this kind of schedule widely prevalent among contractors ?
Maybe I've been working at a job for too long to know this...

~~~
lkrubner
Partly it depends on the business cycle. From 2003 to late 2008 I was offered
far more work than I could accept, so I felt free to turn down whatever I
wanted to, confident there would be more. And in that situation, I preferred
to overwork for stretches, and then claim whole months for personal projects.
That was a personal preference of mine.

Since the onset of the recession, picking up work has taken slightly more
effort, though I've been lucky in that corporations seem more interested now
in developing with some of the web frameworks that became available for PHP,
and I have a track record with frameworks like Symfony.

------
acangiano
Dear OP, it's not so much about what you know. It's about who you know. Had I
spent half of my programming hours networking with people, I'd be richer,
healthier, and happier today. And I say this as someone who really loves
programming.

~~~
HackyGeeky
Thanks acangiano.

------
Timmy_C
I feel like this article and others which mention Tim Ferris start with a
premise that isn't true for all people. They assume that 100% of our time is
our own and we are free to use it as we choose.

For myself, I find that large portions of my time belong to someone else; my
family, my job, my church. And once I carve out that time for others I am
often left with only a couple hours here or there. And it seems laborious to
fill that time with what would otherwise be considered work.

~~~
TGJ
This guy I think is coming from the angle that if the time with others is not
beneficial to you, then there are better ways to spend that time.

I think if you look at what you think is your other times, you'll find that
those times have benefits for you and as such belong to you. If you think
those times belong to someone else, you are living your life in the wrong way.
This is what I think he meant.

~~~
Timmy_C
I've heard this opinion before and it really bothers me. It starts to turn
relationships into business deals or transactions. I feel like that is a
really selfish way of looking at the world.

It shouldn't be about what you can get from others but rather what you have to
give.

~~~
TGJ
Everything is a transaction at the simplest level. You have friends because it
makes you feel good. You wouldn't keep them if it made you feel bad would you?

You give because you think it's right and when you do something right, it
makes you feel good.

I do agree with you that everything would be so much better if everyone went
around giving but in this world not everyone does. Since some cheat, the
fairest is to deal in transactions.

Or my favorite thought of the day.

If I have but one life to live, why not live for me?

~~~
Psyonic
What about children? You wouldn't keep them around if they're making you feel
bad? 8 year old's acting up, send him off to the shelter?

~~~
TGJ
In the short term, people get divorces and bail all the time do they not?

In the long term, I made a commitment to myself by procreating, that I would
take care of the resulting child. My own honor, which feels good to uphold,
keeps me with the child.

~~~
Psyonic
As for the short term, yes, people do this. No, it's not something I would
encourage. Bailing on your spouse is one thing, but bailing on your children
is worse.

As far as the long term goes, I understand where you're coming from. It's a
bit of a semantic game, as it's not too hard to argue that altruism is
impossible and everything is ultimately done for yourself. That said, I think
we differ here. I don't find the argument that everyone is equally selfish
(only with different wants) compelling.

It gets complicated from here, though. You have to ask where these wants come
from. Why does one person want the warmth of the needle, versus another
wanting to change her child's diaper. Perhaps the ultimate selfless act is
subjugating your wants in the first place, though I imagine you could argue
this is also a selfish act. It could probably go on like this forever, but at
some point you realize some people's circle of concern is bigger than
themselves, and there must be something to this.

~~~
TGJ
I think you are right that it does go on like that forever but I think the
reason for that is in the end, everything is selfish. But. It's not bad to be
selfish. The reason it loops is because you accept that being selfish is ok,
you struggle with the idea and come up with more examples. Once it's accepted,
you can simply move on and do more.

For instance, I can be selfish all I want but eventually, I cannot do
everything myself. I will need other people to help me out in life. It's not
selfish in the sense of what you learn in pre-school, it's self preservation.

~~~
Psyonic
What about self-sacrifice? Giving your life to save others?

~~~
TGJ
It's still the same. You think it's the right thing to do to see everyone else
better off and that's great. I'm glad for ya.

I think the better question would be, what about the person that does not want
to give their life for others? How will you judge them? As far as I see it, it
does no good to give my life for others if I'm not going to be around to enjoy
it. There's only one life to live right?

------
thewordpainter
a number of fair points. best point: agree with avoiding the big lunch groups
as those conversations can get carried away.

on the other hand, i am a big proponent of setting up lunch meetings with one
other individual. you can plan ahead what you want to discuss, and more than
anything, you open yourself up to their entire network. think about how
powerful that is!

i guarantee they know at least one person "you should meet..."

at the same time, don't force a lunch meeting when there's always plenty of
quality videos to watch or reading to be done during a break.

~~~
HackyGeeky
That's interesting. I agree building network is just as important as learning.
I think it depends on the stage you are at. These are more for bootstrapping
and getting started, which has a lot of inertia with it.

~~~
thewordpainter
i think it's most helpful for those that are just getting off the ground, but
from an experienced entrepreneur's perspective, consider how much they stand
to learn from a sitdown with a young gun.

especially if they operate a company that appeals to the b2c market, it's
essential for them to understand how the younger demographic perceives and
digests in an ever-changing marketplace.

------
edw519
OP brings up some good points, but even after I thought about it for a while,
it's still not for me. Let me explain...

Breakfast alone, no problem. In fact I always have breakfast at my desk while
I work. But my morning work is so intense that by 11 or 12, I _have_ to get
away from my computer. Lunch with someone else is the perfect break. We talk
about all kinds of things: everything _except_ work.

I can't imagine using my lunch break to do other work, no matter what it was.

My afternoon is usually another strong burst and by 4 or so, I'm ready for
exercise and then dinner with SO. Whether we eat at home or at a restaurant, I
can't imagine missing it. Then comes visit with family and another 3 or 4
hours after that.

Contrary to OP, I _need_ meals with others to get away and recharge. My day
(and my life) has many sprints, but it's the still a marathon that needs to be
paced.

~~~
seles
I agree with you completely, but it is still a good article because it goes on
to cover the importance of focus and utilizing your time effectively (which I
need to work on). Like you I will not eat lunch alone, but the second half of
the article was inspiring and had good time hacks which I intend to utilize.

------
aelaguiz
"How to hyper-optimize yourself into a lonely existence" - great title for a
book, which you can presumably write during all of this time you've saved!

------
wildmXranat
I'm guessing this is well and simple for a non-family life. Timing and
managing personal activities like showering, shaving, getting ready, making
breakfast and so on is quite hard when you have multiple extrinsic factors
barraging your execution. For instance, if a family is a multi-process program
and each one of the members is vying for the slice of the CPU( house ), then
you're bound to hit some spinning locks and unforeseen timeouts. Just try
schedule bathroom use time. Deadlock, my friend.

On the upside, this would've been an interesting personal experiment if I
figured out how to apply to my sprint of a day.

------
justlearning
I would think that anyone with the time constraint as the OP needs to evaluate
overall time management. As devs, we spend most of the day alone inside your
mind. Lunch/coffee/smoke breaks are the ones which gives you just enough time
for the mind to take off in non related domain.

Nobody forces us to take these breaks. It is an intuitive feeling that we use
to relax ourselves. For a week or two, this may seem to work else - this
advice would be a disaster if attempted to turn this to a habit.

Lunch topics - the worldly events do matter. I for one don't follow mainstream
news. I get an abridged snapshot of events during these breaks. Not knowing
anything makes worse at being a people person. Not Everything is about
hacking. It's about weighing wants vs needs.

Also to add, breaks are not only about eating/drinking/smoking/conversing.It
may also be a sit alone time not doing work. I usually go out to the balcony
and look at the trees or birds flying. It's my natural reset button to stuck
problems.

------
_delirium
I'm not sure most jobs work on a fixed amount of work to be done. If you're
ridiculously productive in your 8 hours at work, never take coffee breaks,
etc., a common result is that you'll just end up with more stuff to do, not
that you'll get all your responsibilities out of the way earlier and free up
time for side projects.

------
jessewmc
I have just recently given this up, it's a bad habit I've had for years. I
wasn't enjoying my food, or doing good work. If I don't need a break at lunch
I haven't been using my _other_ time effectively.

Eating alone with just my food and thoughts or socializing have both improved
my work output and mood.

------
bretpiatt
This might be good advise for somebody trying to go through a career
transition where the role they currently have and the social network attached
to it doesn't give them an opportunity to talk to people that can help them
through a lunch conversation.

For people that have lunch access to talented resources they can learn more
from that hour and can it be the best hour of your entire day.

To summarize, don't waste time on non-productive activities... everyone will
agree with that... for all of the readers lunch has the opportunity to be more
than just the latest office or industry gossip... find those good lunches and
capitalize on them.

------
KirinDave
Perhaps he could spend some of this conserved time learning to write at least
a 10th grade level. This piece is so mangled it's difficult to read. Our
strategic reserve of commas is being single-handedly depleted by this man.

------
whyenot
I'm not sure this is really good advice. Networking with your co-workers,
getting to know them, and letting them know you is so important, and thats
what happens during those lunch time discussions. Also, in my experience,
lunch discussions often actually do become very technical and work related. If
you aren't there to participate, your opinion won't be taken into
consideration. Finally, even if lunch time is your own time, if you are doing
work on your side project using computers, software, even office space at
work, your employer may be able to claim ownership of your project.

------
stevenp
The point of the article is not _only_ about eating alone. It's about
realizing that you probably have lots of small blocks of idle, wasted time
during the day: Walking around and talking to co-workers, taking too long to
get ready in the morning because you're distracted, etc.

To me, this emphasizes something that I realized at Startup School. This
difference between those who find time to make something and those who don't
is that the ones who really want it _find_ the time, even if they have a day
job, because they simply want it more.

Bravo, great post.

------
nozepas
I don't really agree on the point about lunch. It really depends on who you
have lunch with. I had lunch many times with really interesting people from
who you can learn a lot and even share ideas and think about new startup
projects. Sometimes, closing to yourself is not a good idea. Speaking to
different people broadens your mind and that is absolutely necessary.

On the other side, i really like the experiment behind the shower ;)

------
robryan
It all depends on the conversation, some of the best ideas and
discussions/learning come from random lunch topics.

But yeah if it's random fluff stuff it's not something I'd want to do every
day, when I was interning I spent quiet a few of the sunny days going for
walks alone in the surrounding parklands, was relaxing and put me in a better
fram of mind than sitting around the office like most of the people I was
working with did.

------
jimmyjazz14
Personally I have found that if I relax and enjoy life when I can, I get a lot
more done when I do decide to work on a personal (or work related) project.

------
robryan
To pickup on the don't waste time point, sometimes I think ambling along can
produce a better results than just heads down pushing towards a goal.

Writing my thesis recently, I spend plenty of time going off on tangents,
sometimes related, sometimes not. Or going for a walk or a ride just to let
ideas sit in my unconscious mind.

------
kristiandupont
I thought this was going to be a rebuttal to Never Eat Alone
(<http://www.keithferrazzi.com/products/never-eat-alone/>) but it wasn't.
However, the book would serve as a rebuttal to this post.

------
moolave
I respect this guy's idea, but some transactions and ideas happen when you eat
lunch with awesome folks. Great ideas could be incepted by one person, but
molded into better iterations by other contributors of the conversation.

------
persona
if the topics are constrained to the examples the author presented, then it
might be better to save the 30min. At the same time, a big part of innovation
relates on communicating ideas and comes from day-to-day interactions
especially with people from different background/experiences. That is a block
the author is imposing on himself by isolating - if there are others great
minds at his/her workplace. perhaps finding a different group of people to
have lunch with would increase the learning process and also giving space for
cross-pollination of ideas.

------
satishf
Even if it is more productive, I just don't feel like eating alone.

------
theprodigy
Lunch and Dinner with friends just keeps me sane. I work so hard and intense
during the work day that meals with friends is a great change of pace and
keeps me from burning out.

------
pcestrada
Some of my best ideas come to me when I am in the shower. The last thing I
would do is to reduce that precious thinking time to gain 5 extra minutes in
the morning.

~~~
Xurinos
His point was more that during that time, he had an opportunity to practice
focus/concentration, and this helped him to reduce distractions throughout the
rest of his day. You should be able to practice focusing in any situation
where you are doing something rote and physical for more than five minutes,
where your mind has a chance to wander towards more exciting or random things.
Try it during handwashing dishes, washing your car, mowing the lawn, and other
chores that do not require a significant amount of your attention.

Also, please focus on the task at hand when you are driving. :)

------
arnoooooo
Listening to podcasts or thinking about projects when eating seems rather
opposed to being mindful of the moment and not multitasking.

------
libpcap
So what do you do after 6pm (after work) if you have two young kids? :-)

~~~
Psyonic
If your kids don't understand why you need to ignore them and focus on
yourself, it's probably time to get new ones.

