How to stop feeling lost in tech: the wafflehouse method

This is the opposite of what helped me to stop feeling lost in life. I grew up very goal oriented and executed towards those goals with focus and determination. Around when I turned 40 I realized I wasn't all that happy and I'd spent my entire life so far living for rewards that would come in the future. The problem is that those rewards didn't give sustaining satisfaction. They pass remarkably quickly when you get to them. I stopped feeling lost when I gave up trying to plan my life out and gave up setting goals. Instead I now just trust my instincts and follow what seems interesting or meaningful to me right now. This keeps me living more contentedly in the present and I still get things done.

Having said all that, I came to this realization only after ticking a whole bunch of societal and cultural expectation boxes which means I can afford to take my foot off the gas. Trusting your instincts is a much scarier proposition earlier in life, but I still think it's probably the right thing to do.

This may work for the author, and for other people, but I would never give this advice. It supposes you are able to articulate where you want to be in five years, and have the ability to break that down into actionable tasks. Most people just want to have a stable job, apartment/house, and good relationship. Any further breakdown is often guessing, unrealistic, or outright fantasy.

My advice to people in this situation varies tremendously given their background and what they're trying to learn, but it tends towards the same general method: start with something ultra simple and achievable, repeat it a bunch of times (perhaps with some minor variations) until you're relatively comfortable doing it on your own, then begin to branch out. If you're stuck for ideas, show it to somebody else and see what they think; having a training partner or mentor can help you feel less overwhelmed.

The author is working out his personal demons through planning actualization. I hope it works out for him and I would be interested in a followup. In my own experience the best laid plans remain just that..... life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

Did not expect chez cora to make the front page of HN.

People underestimate how important just setting some time aside to think about and commit to a goal is. That part of this post I like, people often overlook that a big part of making a big decision is that commitment and putting yourself in the mind space. The part that I don’t like is trying to pack 5 years of planning into 48 hours and breaking it down to daily goals. If you weren’t overwhelmed before you are now. You don’t know what you don’t know, a week or a month go by and you realize there is a better path or a different but related goal that is actually what you want. Would recommend instead: do the vision quest or whatever you want to call it to either decide you don’t want to do what it is your doing or commit to what it is you are doing. if it is the latter decide on one impactful thing you can start today to get yourself closer, reflect at the end of the week and adjust as needed until you die.

I wrote a toy program once, in which an agent should navigate on its own through a 2D platformer environment. Jump over obstacles/holes, climb stairs, etc.

The idea was that the agent would first receive a goal like "go to tile (15, 28)", then use Dijkstra's algorithm to create a "movement plan" - like "move 2 tiles to the right, trigger a jump, move 3 tiles to the left while in the air", etc - and then execute that plan.

My main takeaway was that even in this small toy world, with clearly defined goals, very simple, deterministic "physics", complete information and an "executor" that is 100% reliable and never gets tired or distracted, it didn't work.

The simplified assumptions about the "physics" in the plan-making stage didn't match how the environment actually behaved, and the agent ended up in a different place than planned after a small number of steps.

What worked was to only execute the first few steps of the plan, then throw the rest away and make a new plan from the new location, then repeat, etc etc.

If this stuff didn't even work in a toy world, with a computer, I can't imagine that making detailed steps for a 5 year period in the real world would work, with the planner having even less knowledge about the world to base their plan on.

In my experience, the best case scenario for students (or anyone) who do these elaborate planning rituals is that it serves as a catharsis that moves their anxieties from their brain to some paper. Relieved, they loosen up and get back to making progress while forgetting about their detailed 5-year plan

The worst case is when this ritual produces a rigid set of unrealistic goals that the person almost immediately fails to achieve. This new sense of failure is compounded on top of existing anxieties and now they’re making even less progress than before while being even more sad about it.

Grinding out your goals in a 48-hour vision quest-esque process like this, especially for someone early career or facing larger questions about trajectory, seems odd. Five years is an infinite amount of time for some people and especially so with pace of change and uncertainty these days.

I suppose this might work for some, but it comes off as excessively performative and not actually practical.

Back in 2006 when I was in YC I wrote down a handful of goals. I looked at those goals daily. Just envisioned getting them or something even better than them. They seemed so lofty and ridiculous at the time. But oddly, they all became some version of true. Some of them took so much longer (and brought new problems) than I even anticipated, but some version of what I wanted transpired. So any process like this that involves setting down some goals and getting you excited to keep putting down work towards them seems like a pretty good idea :)

I'm not in tech, but in my experience, I've gotten furthest in the directions of my goals, and my best results, by:

- keeping in mind the direction I want to advance, but

- determining which activities I should repeat every day to move in that direction,

- executing those activities consistently (every day) and regularly (according to rules/principles, as I learn/discover them), and

- gradually refining that execution with practice.

To me, it feels a bit like walking across your house in the dark: you know where you'd like to go, but you can only feel your way there a step at a time, you run into things, but you course-correct and keep moving forward.

Keep it simple.

Some paraphrases:

Tyson: Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. (A PERT chart with hundreds of nodes, planned in advance, is almost certain to fall apart.)

Patton: A good plan, violently executed now.

Von Clausewitz: The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.

In Step 5, it's a bit of a "first, draw 3 circles, then draw the rest of the owl, but here's a picture of the space shuttle instead".

Semantically, that example "DAG" graph looks like a data flow diagram (not a state diagram, nor a control flowchart), which is more for modeling ongoing processes, often infinite.

The text talking about the "DAG", however, sounds more like it wants a Gantt chart. And a Gantt chart will start with hierarchical decomposition (i.e., starting with a big task, and breaking it down into progressively smaller pieces, recursively). And have interdependencies among those subtasks (e.g., task get-first-job.get-network-engineer-job can't start until task learn-networking.get-network-engineer-certification.take-the-test produces the cert; and that task has a dependency on studying for the exam). This will also show you what can and can't be parallelized. And when you start putting durations and resource allocations on your Gantt, you can even estimate when you'll hit various milestones.

If you made an example diagram for accomplishing life goals, rather than picking a random "DAG", then it would be more clear to the reader.

I’m a big fan of the “just take a day or two to do nothing but think” part. We should cherish the fact that we are alive, and being without distractions just experiencing life is very valuable.

But I don’t get the second part. Do we really need to be so goal oriented in tech specifically? I mean maybe if you wanted to go from being a programmer to a professional wrestler, I could see it. But if you’re just trying to keep your career going, just do what’s useful at work / school right now, and explore what interests you.

This is sidestepping that the market for CS degrees has gone from new grads making more than median income to some of the highest unemployment among college grads. I hope this is temporary, but the problem right now isn't focus or goal setting. It's that the entry rung to the ladder ceased to exist.

I'm sure someone will say this, but of course, having a plan is useless, but planning itself is priceless.

The reality you must accept is that life will just happen to you, and not just unexpected events, but transitions in your own needs, desires, and wants. Your plans will change.

One part of the planning fallacy that is perhaps understated is how much your internal locus will change over time. There are periods in your life where you chase money, status, impact, etc. And then there are other periods in your life where you chase knowledge, understanding, stillness.

Just know the tradeoff you make with any approach and structure.

The biggest challenge with the approach the OP explains is that you tend to have a very instrumentalist way of looking at the world. Every day, every interaction is in service of these goals. Obsession isn't healthy forever but it is useful in periods

Any time you encounter a self help piece ask yourself, "Does this advice assume I have significant motivation, concentration, and persistence?" If so, drop it right in the trash. If you had that 9/10 you'd be doing something pretty effective already.

It's really tough right now, because it's not at all clear what to learn. For most of the last century, if your objective for a college education included at least a middle class living standard, there were choices you could make which offered a high probability of that. This is no longer true.

About US half of college graduates end up in jobs that don't really require a college education. It's worse in some other countries, such as Egypt and India. The phrase "elite overproduction" is sometimes used. That's not a new idea; see Eric Hoffer's "Working and Thinking on the Waterfront", where he talks about "intellectuals" from the standpoint of a longshoreman. It's become more of an issue as the educational establishment expanded. Historically, there's a surplus of smart people. Only from about 1955 to 2005 was there a general shortage.

Now, of course, we have "AI". We have no idea how good "AI" will be in four years. It's already reducing hiring of new graduates. We have no idea what happens next. Even the popular crap jobs, Uber and Amazon warehouses, already peaked and are declining.

And don't talk about "Universal Basic Income". It used to be called "the dole" or "welfare". You get a free apartment in a crappy housing project, which is in a bad neighborhood because it's full of people with no job and no future.

Long term goals are fine, but it is more reasonable to focus on near term endeavors that serve your long term goals. Those near term projects should be broken into manageable steps. This more flexible method allows for greater risk tolerance and opportunities to reexamine goals.

Typically we learn things as we challenge ourselves and grow. Executing your process will bring new information to light. I won't generalize universally, but if your goals or worldview hasn't evolved from age 20 to 30, it may suggest a lack of growth. It is similar to how the problem solving process often draws in concerns you hadn't initially considered. Sometimes you have to build the prototype before you can understand the full scope of the problem you are solving. Frequently you will find a more relevant problem in this stage of exploration.

Individuals are not large institutions. "5 year plans" are famously deployed by central planners in command and control economies. As an individual, you have an advantage in dynamism. Institutions typically have an obligation to provide consistent, predictable forward guidance. This allows the individuals within those institutions to plan their lives accordingly.

For these reasons, I've always found the suggestion of a "5 year plan" to be ridiculous for my usage. Perhaps it makes more sense for individuals who wish to position themselves as employees for life. Even for them, a goal of adding today's hottest buzzwords to a resume doesn't guarantee that those buzzwords will be relevant in 5-10 years. For entrepreneurs and creators, an iterative approach may be more appropriate.

Take two days off, once in a year, only for yourself, that’s the thing to take here away - great to do. I would do it without laptop, phone on do not disturb and watching the time fly by. No activity, not making plans, no sports, nothing, maybe a waffle house.

I think writing a little bit everyday is much more productive and introspective than writing endlessly for a 48 hour solo retreat (the retreat part is not a bad idea!)

Maintaining a journal that I write into daily is one of the best things I've ever done. It is so easy for me to reflect on why I feel the things I feel, especially when something happens that is significant enough to write about in the moment.

The longer you have to take to decide between Option A and Option B, the less overwhelmingly obvious the chasm between A and B is to you.

If you're already in college and you still have no idea what you'd like to do as a young person in your life, I would - and did - take that as strong evidence that I should just focus on executing and follow life's default goals for a while. They've been selected by competitive pressures I couldn't hope to reproduce with my own brain, so they're probably pretty good vehicles to midwit enlightenment.

You already know what these are: Finish high school, and college if possible; get a day job and try to focus on being good at it instead of angry at it. Get your own place. Find a life partner. Have some kids. Rise up the ranks at your day job if you're cut out for it, but there's no shame in just holding down the fort if you aren't. Etc, etc. It works well! You don't have to pretend to be special, you can just focus on being good.

This feels like the sort of thing that works well for people who don’t need it. If you’re the sort of person who can sit down and plan your next half decade in detail, then execute that plan, you’re probably going to do well regardless. And if you’re the sort of person more like me, this plan will last about two days. Fortunately there are other paths to success.

For some reason, I see this style of "everything lowercase" more often recently. It distracts me from the content a lot. Was there a reason this style has become more popular?

I can’t think of a single period in my adult life of 30 years that I can look back 5 years and say this was all according to plan.

I’ve stayed prepared for opportunities. But I can’t say I’ve had a plan.

It's so hard to read with all of them lowercases. My eyesight is poor.

I would literally rather hang myself than do this.

I’ve felt pretty lost before too, like stuck in this maze of endless paths. That line about not chasing tools but getting closer to the person you want to be really hit me. A lot of times it’s not that we don’t plan enough, it’s just that we rarely slow down and really listen to ourselves. This approach feels simple but grounding.

Could've been written better, and also, it is posed as something new and illuminating - that style too could've been changed. But kinda agree on the high points.

Just figure out what you want. That is your "goal". It does not need to be 1,2,5 years - can be anything. Things can change and are always in flux. Be open to changing both your goals and/or your daily habits. Change goals when you achieve or grow out of them, change habits when they aren't getting you closer to your goals or not helping you enjoy the journey.

Work backwards from your goals and break them down into something you can do as daily habits. The daily habits should have very STRICT success metrics in the direction of the goals' success metrics. If you do not have STRICT metrics for both the GOALs and the DAILY ACTIONs, you do not have good FEEDBACK.

If you do not have good FEEDBACK, you can spend a lot of time, even years - which I did, doing things that FEEL like you're working towards something with nothing to show at the end. There HAS to be a way to SHOW to yourself whether you are making progress or not. In too many things in life I have at times felt bad about my life not being a certain way, when I actually look at what I've done - like truly sit down and note things down, I realize my mind has been playing tricks on me - years of a lot of apparent struggle, but not much truly done - perhaps just a bit here and there.

I know there's many counter arguments to the STRICTness and GOAL setting nature of this way of living life. One counter argument is it's too rigid - but I like to think of it as chaos within constraints - btw you can tune the constraints to suit yourself. Another is once you reach a goal then what - I would say then another goal or just improving/maintaining that goal. Another one is Goodhart's Law - to which I say you will slowly learn to set good metrics and to use them as directional measures.

Despite all the problems with metrics and strictness, I think it is still the best way to go. Also I am personally against grandiose systems or too much complexity. I would say the core of it is just being AWARE. As long as you are AWARE of the inputs you're putting in and what outputs you'll get out of em I think it's fine to decide whether to do stuff or not. You can be lazy or free flowing or instinctual or whatever. (Your fast instincts could actually be very well aligned with your slow goals - though those kind of people are super rare I feel).

I had a good strong 3 year run at something that looks similar enough to this around the time I moved across the country and changed careers a couple of decades ago. I've struggled to get that kind of determination again, but I've done it again with personal fitness in the last two years...

I think this is good advice, for nearly anyone.

If your personal planning ritual is this intensive then I'd hate to see what you go through trying to write some code.

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The problem with advice is it’s what worked once for one person, filtered through their unreliable memory then retold in a way that favors them and ignores all the detours.

Actually there are several problems with advice!

These type of posts have never worked for me. I open these every single time thinking "wait maybe this time it is different, wait no this time it has to be different" still waiting...(insert skull meme)

The problem with this kind of detailed long-term planning is that you won’t possibly be able to reverse engineer the exact path you’re going to take. And if you get too attached to your bullet points, lists, charts and graphs, you don’t know how to react when you hit a snag or a fork in the road.

When that bump comes, people often abandon the whole plan. So the trouble with goals is that the good (getting you motivated to act) is often outweighed by the bad (draining motivation when the arbitrary goal is not met).

What you really want, in hn-friendly language, is not a 2D point on a map, but a vector. You want to know the general direction that you want to move toward in your life, and then start increasing your velocity.

A point is something you have reached or not (hint: it’s not even satisfying when you hit it). But you can change your vector on a dime. Even if you’re nowhere near your dream life, even in terrible times, you can always instantly pivot and vector in the right direction.

If it makes you feel good, make the big plans and be as detailed as you please. But hold them lightly. And just get moving along your vector.

I am not a SWE, although I wrote a lot of code for ~5 years as a release engineer/devops guy.

Start at the bottom, at first, say yes to things.

AI cannot say yes to things. It sucks at solving problems. It is good at vomiting up pre-determined solutions

AI cannot smooth over things with customers. AI even if it could, would suck at it.

Get into a support role; it is a fine job and as much as they want to automate it away, they cannot. It often has a path to FTE SWE and the pay is OK.

What has always worked for me is the exact opposite: no goal from the start, just try as many things that interest you as possible until you have one or two areas that work for you. Repeat when you’re burned out.

This isn't realistic.

Wanting things to be true does not make them true.

“Get a promotion this year, be a manager next year, manage the division in three years” is not a plan you can execute.

This is just the old self affirmation stuff you hear all the time: you won't succeed if you want it a bit. You wont succeed if want it and do nothing. You will succeed if you go all in, 100%.

It is BS.

You wont succeed if you go all in, statistically.

You might get a different outcome, but you wont hit your goal.

It is provably false that everyone who goes all succeeds; Not everyone gets to be an astronaut, no matter how hard they work.

The reality is that some people will put a little effort in and succeed, and some people will put a lot in and succeed. Other people will fail.

Your goals are not indicators of future success.

Only actual things that have actually happened are strong signals for future events.

The advice of having goals is helpful, but the much much more important thing to do is measure what actually happens and realistically create goals based on actual reality.

Try things. Measure things. Adopt things that work. Consciously record what you do, how it goes, how long it takes and use that to estimate achievable goals, instead of guessing randomly.

hey everyone author here, I'm really glad to see all the different life structures people have adopted.

not all strategies work for all brains unfortunately.

but the essence is this:

- untangle yourself from the claws of others' expectations

- imagine vividly someone you would feel proud to merge with in the near future

- distill that image into your very own crooked and muddy golden path

- act now and take control of your life

- periodically look back at the image you hold and course correct where your heart guides you

This is definitely something I did when I was younger (DAGs and everything, sans Waffle House - maybe a Vietnamese restaurant named "Vietnamese Restaurant" before it burned down).

Also, normally this style of writing would annoy me but I found it very charming and fun, somehow.

These days, I think just visualizing what my "proudest self" in 5 years would be would be enough to help me sort of 'manifest' it without all of the excessive planning bits. The visualizing bit is kind of the hard part.

Given everything happening in the world at the moment the FUD has been strong the last few years making it nerve-racking to plan anything big.

Most of the good things in life don’t respond to this kind of thing.

Seeing my old home city stirs something in me! Oh how I miss it sometimes.

I am not sure I agree with this method, especially for younger people who have never experienced the things they want. When I was twenty, circa 2015, I would have seen myself working for Google.

What 30 year old me knows is that I am happier with tons of free time and agency, not tons of money and a big title.

People often like the general idea but are not ready for the process that leads there. They might not even like what the goal feels like! A lot of kids these days want to be an influencer, until they learn what it entails. A lot of people want FIRE, but are not ready to work 70 hour weeks in their prime years.

One thing that helped me not get lost is something Quebec did right with its education system: make people try different things, not just things that are immediately relevant to their career. CEGEP was a ton of fun. Take unusual lessons, try new hobbies, read outside of your habitual circles. It’s easier to plan your future without tunnel vision.

I'm pretty sure the author hasn't actually followed his own advice. Also, the writing style was atrocious. I wouldn't trust anything said. Seems like the type of post he wrote for himself (nothing wrong with that), but I don't feel that asking a 20-25 year old to have a 5 year plan which is basically 1/4 of their conscious life is something useful or achievable for most.

> you have to be careful though.

> if you actually do this you get a very stressful side effect:

> there is no one to blame but yourself

Uh no thanks!

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