Ask HN: How do you get to be good at this? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you get to be good at this?

3 pointssown6 comments

Or, at least, how do you get the energy to be good at this? I'm familiar with the 10,000 hours hypothesis but I barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning.

I've been programming "professionally" for a few years now but any energy I may have had after school is more or less gone.

I've been thinking about quitting my job, wondering how much of it is the source of my discontent. Go on some kind of a sabbatical and try to learn something new. I'm not sure if I'd be a good steward over free time. I don't know.

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This is what I do to get out of a funk. It isn't easy at first, but it has worked 100% of the time.

Set priorities, define roles, choose action, schedule action, do it. No Matter What. NO EXCUSES! Here's an example.

Priorities: 1. Spiritual faith 2. Family 3. Health 4. Work 5. Hobbies

Roles: 1. Christian 2. Husband, home owner 3. Body inhabitant 4. IT consultant 5. Chess player

Actions: 1. Read Bible, pray 2. Spend quality time with wife (because her Love Language[1] is "quality time"). If her Language was "receiving gifts" I'd buy her cards and flowers, but she doesn't speak that Language. 2a. Pay bills, update monthly budget 3. Exercise, in bed by 9pm for a few days 4. Review work day each evening, plan for next day 5. Study a chess game played between two master level players. Memorize it.

Schedule: On Sunday, write down specifically when you will do all of the above the following week.

Do it: You won't get fired, your life will not end if you tell people "no", you will be fine (actually better off) if you miss your favorite TV show. YOU set these priorities, so if they are actually important, do them. If you find it difficult to take action, you may have to make life changes, like changing jobs or cutting out hobbies. In the end you decide what's important and how you spend your time. It's a CHOICE. Anytime you think you "have to" do something, instead say you "choose to".

This is basically Stephen Covey planning[2], Quadrant Two thinking[3].

"Get away and do nothing for a while", is not a solution. Unsure if this applies, but I know a lot of people in their mid-twenties, out of school, working full time for the first time, and their "solution" is not "work harder", but "get away and do nothing for a while". That's a fast track to being below average in life. Being awesome at life is hard. Anyone who is awesome at being a spouse or parent, or a successful business owner, or successful at anything, very likely put in a lot of hard work and made sacrifices for long periods in their life.

Parents who give their children an easy life are not doing them any favors. If I've misjudged you, and you have been working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, for the last 20 years, without missing a day, and you need to get away and do nothing for a while, then in that case, I would agree with you. Otherwise I would say you are just soft. I'm soft. My parents gave me an easy life, and I have to fight laziness every day because of it.

You mentioned you are familiar with deliberate practice and 10,000 hours, and I'd like to remind you that people who put in 10,000 hours WORKED THEIR ASS OFF. They didn't "do nothing for a while" and then arrive at awesome.

Ask 100 people why Magic Johnson was good at basketball, and 99 of them will say it's because he was "naturally talented". Magic Johnson says, "Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers."

Do whatever it takes to work hard. If you have low energy, find out how to get high energy. Exercise, eat healthy, get enough sleep. Find people with high energy and ask them what they do. If you have a medical condition causing you to have low energy then see a doctor. There are at least 1000 more things you could do to proactively find a solution to your low energy, and all of them are going to be more effective than a "sabbatical".

Unlike any other time in recorded history, we live in the information age. If you want to become good at doing anything, you can find out how. The hard part is doing the work. If doing the work was easy, we would all be skinny and rich.

Now watch these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R9c0RAz678 (gets good 2:45 in)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPsnqwmn21g

[1] For when you have a significant other: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/learn-the-languages/the-five-l...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Things_First_(book)

[3] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FourQuadrants

Your job is not you. In fact, if your job is the least interesting thing about your life, then you're probably doing fine.

I agree that you do need to learn something new or go on a trip somewhere. Don't quit your job unless you have a better one already lined up.

How do people get good enough to get hired where ever? Let's say I'm using this as a sort of test rather than wanting to get hired somewhere. Some people I see are so productive, those fabled 10:1 engineers but I don't see a path to getting there.

Hmm, you sound like you've got yourself upset by reading all the Marissa Mayer news, then trying to compare yourself to her and falling short. Am I right?

Anyway, here is the "secret": Find an opportunity that seems interesting to you and has a decent potential payoff (money, or not, whatever motivates you), then jump into it and work your ass off for a few years until you get to a point where you really aren't going to advance any further, then use that experience that you have earned to hop to the next opportunity that interests you.

Also, be very wary of comparing yourself to people based on what you hear about them in the news or what they say about themselves on blogs or on Hacker News. There's a lot of bullshitting in business. It sounds like you want to turn yourself into some kind of hyper-efficient generalist that can get hired anywhere -- in fact, no such person exists.

> Hmm, you sound like you've got yourself upset by reading all the Marissa Mayer news, then trying to compare yourself to her and falling short. Am I right?

No, not really.

But this does sound like reasonable advice.

Sounds like you're suffering depression. I suggest looking into some remedies, be it meds, an exercise regime or better diet. But really, look into it.

I'd also suggest looking somewhere completely different. Go get inspired. Do you know how? That's important. Refresh your spirit. Meditate. Pray. Befriend someone who is lonely. Get your mind blown by learning something completely new.

The world may be radically different when your done doing that, a new world of possibilities.

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