Steady yourself, those world-changing thoughts are not productive | Hacker News Reader

Steady yourself, those world-changing thoughts are not productive

joel.is

28 pointsjoelg877 comments

This is the one thing that I constantly struggle with. I'm glad it's not just me.

One of the most difficult things I faced when moving from commercial programmer to startup guy was the completely different attitude. In the commercial world, it's caffeine-fueled, high-impact, change-the-world, deadline-driven coding.

In the startup world, it's slow-and-easy, strip out everything you possibly can. stop thinking about changing-the-world, little baby steps, and you are never done. The work is just as hard, but it's a different kind of work.

It's just a totally different frame of mind. As much as I read about startups, I never really got that part. I don't know why.

I'm also interested in what people do to fight this, as I find myself constantly drifting off thinking about how such-and-such a product might change everything. Such thoughts haven't done a damn thing for me but distract me from what I need to do right now. They also make me think of each little step as some huge thing that it probably isn't. Maybe after this big blog article the product will finally get huge traffic! Maybe this next feature will finally spin the product up into the stratosphere! Maybe I'll get accepted by YC and that will be the game-changer!

Then when the next big even happens (or not) and nothing huge really changes? It's this huge build up and let down. Makes for a very bad emotional roller-coaster ride.

Thanks for the article.

This guy is talking about thinking about further down the line for a current project/business, but sometimes my productivity is cramped by these really annoying 'meta' thoughts that aren't even remotely helpful. Like I'll be trying to concentrate, then I'll start analysing how well I'm concentrating, then thinking about things that would affect my brain, and then before you know it I'll be toying with ideas of how consciousness could be manifested in an AI. Totally ridiculous but happens quite a lot.

AI is extremely distracting for me. I can't wait until it can handle my drudge work, so I don't take those tasks very seriously. And believing progress in that field will be very noticeable in 10-20 years can influence a lot of plans and priorities.

Interesting post. I'm very ambitious, it's in my nature and I think most of the time it feels like an advantage as it gives me motivation through the rougher times. I feel that maybe having a set ideal to what success you want to achieve may push you off course, sometimes you ignore important opportunities which may not fit perfectly into your plan even though they could be very rewarding. I've had this before and realised afterwards. It can also stop you from taking on the little opportunities which could be more powerful to you than the big goals you have in mind for a project. This is just my experience, i'm interested in others. I do feel that ambitious is a great thing and more people should think big, out of the tech world. Big, in relative terms to what they are doing.

Great point about how being ambitious can keep you going through rougher times. I'm also very ambitious, and I definitely agree it has helped in those situations.

I guess it is always a balance - I certainly agree that not thinking big enough can be detrimental, but what I've found recently is that the small successes I'm having are triggering off some thoughts that are months or years away if they even ever happen, and I think taking too long to think about things like that is not productive - it almost certainly won't happen the way you're thinking it will, and it is time you are spending when you could be doing valuable customer or product development.

Love your point about not having your idea of success set in stone. I agree it's very good to be open-minded so you can take advantages of opportunities you might not have seen coming. That could well be another reason not to think too much about your own ambitious thoughts, since the more you think about them the more likely you are to have your mind set on that "success" and not grab other opportunities when they arise.

A very interesting subject overall I think - overall a balance is required. I think it's perhaps a continual flip-flop of thinking ambitiously too much and not enough until you find a nice medium which suits your own personality and allows you to be productive whilst still staying motivated by where you could get to.

Yes, well put.

It helps me to act like a robot. I put the Machinarium soundtrack on and treat those oncoming emotions as voltage spikes and work at a steady level with my hands shaking and a maniacal grin fighting it's way to visibility.

Another real problem with the spikes of excitement (besides the authors point that it wastes time) is that the spike has to level out. Instead of working on the project with a steady force, you sprint and crash which is ineffiecent for our brains.

Glad to see I'm not alone in my "self defeating" thoughts

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