Comment by mattmillr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattmillr | Hacker News Reader

I had this same issue in college, and later as an employee. I've discovered I don't perform very well when I have to ask "why" too many times to figure out the value of the work I'm doing.

"Why am I studying this material? To pass the test. Why? To pass the class. Why? To get a good GPA? Why?..." You lost me several Whys back!

As a professional, it was the same way. The worst was when my short stint in Finance, but even working for nonprofits and social-conscious startups, it's tough for me to get motivated when the end goal is too many layers of abstraction away.

(I think that's strange, because when I'm actually dealing with technology, abstraction is one of my strengths.)

This was one of the factors in my decision to start my own company. I want to get rid of the layers of Whys and let them have more weight. Why am I working on this project? To make this client happy, so I can pay the rent this month.

Another approach that has helped me in the last year or so has been phrasing my goals and aspirations in the form, "I want to be the kind of person who ___." Then do ___!

It may be that being able to see all the layers of abstraction clearly helps to illustrate just how far removed from worthwhile action the task is. For people not used to dealing with abstraction, they may only sense the disconnect. This may make the problem more apparent.

Holy crap. I thought I was the only one. I know I'm smart, I just don't put in the effort to study. I'm friends with all these people who don't have the problem I have (or they've figured out how to solve it).

At the same time though, I'm constantly working on side projects. Currently, I'm building an autonomous tricopter, because I thought it'd be cool to build. Last semester, I wrote a webapp to handle an event we were having. Previous semester, I was working on a way to control my room from my computer (still working on that, just not as intensely). These all easily answer "Why am I doing this?" (tricopter: because it's cool. Webapp: Might be able to make money from this [Note: didn't make any money from it ): ]. Computer-controlled room: It's cool, and it allows me to be incredibly lazy.)

I know that I'm not an idiot, I should be getting As, and I do get As in the classes that genuinely interest me. Unfortunately, at least 75% of the classes I take don't interest me, so I get lost in trying to answer "why am I even bothering with this?"

Similar problem here - eg. I once almost failed a course because I decided that writing a computer game for a Lisp competition is much more fun. I get A's in courses I care about, which is a suprising minority, and learn some of the rest while procrastinating, in completely different order than university would like.

That's an interesting observation.

I would say it fits, since the person at the top (guy running the company, decision maker, so on) sees the abstractions beneath him, and takes action accordingly. Being a layer of abstraction (as you discuss) keeps you focused in one area, but without much knowledge of what's outside or the companies overall objectives for a specific task. It's hard to find motivation and purpose when you see just code.

There was recent article about people getting bored, and it seems to stems from the same source, visibility and purpose. From experience, the view from the top is all about visibility and purpose. You know why things are happening, and you believe in the reason because you are often the source of the actions. You enjoy the work because you feel the connection.

So how do we create visibility without inviting the increased communications overhead discussed in the mythical-man month? Is it read only, or does there have to be a full feedback mechanism?

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