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Comment by jmcphers | Hacker News Reader

> My mother is amazing to watch because she doesn't do anything efficiently, really: She puts about three times as much energy as necessary into everything she does. But she never spends any time wondering what to do next or how to optimize anything; she just keeps working. Her strategy, slightly simplified, is, "See something that needs to be done and do it." All day long. And at the end of the day, she's accomplished a huge amount.

This strategy is remarkably powerful and I've used it to great effect in my career. Committing yourself to pushing forward every single day, even if just a little bit, and always just peeling off one single thing you can do next (even if it's tiny yet takes you all day) has a dizzying compounding effect.

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As someone with rural/countryside roots, I recall similar advice on physical labor: it is best to work at a steady, consistent pace all day long without getting sweaty or breathless. You'll avoid (or postpone) dehydration, remain more alert and calm, and thus it is much easier to switch tasks immediately.

As a tree planter of several seasons, I've realized that this advice works remarkably well. Pushing yourself, sweating, drinking stimulating beverages instead of plain water etc seems to give you an edge while planting, but it's kind of deceptive in the long run IMO. Steady, moderately paced, but consistent, non-stop work is more effective in the grand total.

Then again, all this might come down to whether one is a "long distance runner" or a "sprinter" by personality and bodily characteristics. I guess I'm somewhere in between, but, approaching 40, these "100 meters in 9.2 seconds" daily life dashes are somehow starting to lose their appeal. Howdy, middle age!

This resonates with me, but sadly not with modern culture that is so hell-bent on both optimization and PUSH PUSH PUSH! all the time. It's ridiculous.

This approach is actually best for learning/studying anything Eg. Martial Arts, Mathematics etc. Regular, Mindful and Consistent practice without over-straining is the key. Intensity should pick up only for key events likes Exams, Tournaments etc. and maintained only for a short duration followed by relaxation.

This is effective because analysis paralysis is mentally draining.

We tend to think/optimize in terms of time. But I've found it helpful to optimize for mental energy, which is often the limiting factor.

This carries over to social anxiety as well -- you tend to overthink what people think and such -- the more you do things the better you naturally get from experience as well.

If you're doing, do you have time to overthink?

> We tend to think/optimize in terms of time. But I've found it helpful to optimize for mental energy, which is often the limiting factor.

I love this. Very succinct and insightful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31500342

Wonderful, thank you.

That article is from On Managing Yourself (2 vols) which is part of the HBR 10 Must Reads series. You will also find On Managing People (2 vols) and On Communication (2 vols) from the same series pretty useful.

https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time

"Long-term consistency trumps short term intensity" - Bruce Lee https://www.dannyok.com/blog/2015/9/26/long-term-consistency...

Unless we are talking about High-intensity interval training.

I know you’re being facetious, but actually any form of exercise is a great example of Bruce Lee being correct!

This is exactly how I approached Leetcode. TBH the grind has had satisfactory effects even though the immediate practical impact is just for interviewing. I don’t use it as a tool for interviewing, just as a tool of list of things to get done. I should just pour more energy into it and do it every day.

I also am stealing this principle ‘My scheduling principle is to do the thing I hate most on my to-do list’

This only works for simple tasks (can be brute forced), and ones you've done before (you know steps that lead to goal), and those with greedy strategies (heuristics).

Every long journey begins with a small step. You won't do the journey unless you are willing to do that small step. And the next.

Until eventually someone invariable has to clean up your mess due to awful choices.

But why should you care?

You've moved on with your trail of collateral damage by then, reaped the benefits and the fixer will subconsciously take the blame for any problems from outside observers.

A.k.a. "Move fast and break things".

Don’t know why you’re being downvoted, but this agency effect is real. The implicit assumption that rarely works out behind this “git ‘er done” is the “small” tasks picked up have already been organized into such tasks from a decomposition of the complex problem the tasks are part of.

This is why for example, I see fancy CICD pipelines covering for static component dependencies locked into a hard coded version of components. Completely breaking a core value proposition of the pipeline, but someone got the story points and moved on. It turns out that small task of putting the project into the pipeline should have been decomposed further. Oops.

This philosophy is a power tool and like any such tool, you take care in where you point it, and it will serve you well. Point it in the wrong direction however, and it will also happily blindly eviscerate you with no malice.

My mom is exactly the same and I really admire her for it.

or as we say at my job "JFDI". Just Do It. Stop Faffing. Just Do It. Ok. It's done. Now we can move on.

Step 1. Create a TODO list Step 2. Do the TODO list.

... there is no Step 3

Step 3: Update the TODO list

Step 4: Go to Step 2.

+1 for getting GOTO in there.

"Do the Next Right Thing" is what I try to do.

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