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Disconnected

paulrouget.com

I've noticed that many of us with a hacker mindset (myself included!) have this innate need to optimize / maximize / minimize... For me, this often leads to "all" or "nothing". I have to drink either 6 beers or no beers, eat 6 donuts or no donuts, code all night or not code at all. On one hand, I like it this way. It gives me a chance to harness that energy to accomplish a lot in a short period. On the other hand, sometimes I just wish I were more normal and would love to find a happy medium.

OP is doing the same thing here. Going from (probably) overload to zero. I wish him the best and I'm sure he'll learn a lot about himself.

Hopefully he, I, and a lot of others like us will learn to find a way to thrive somewhere between all and nothing.

I never understood the all or nothing mentality, especially among developers.

Coding all night is the most pervasive example. I wake up before 6 AM every day so I'm physically tired by 9 PM. Usually I'm mentally tired well before dinner. Maybe "all night" is a euphemism for "a long time" and I'm over thinking it but I consider it a productive day when I get 3 hours of work on a side project done in addition to my day job.

That being said, I have no problem going home and spending time with my family and not doing anything on my phone, computer, or even Xbox, so maybe it's just me.

EDIT: I don't want to be that guy, but isn't it a fairly commonplace meme among programmers to argue against 8-10-12 hour coding sprints for their employers because you can really "only" get 4-6 hours of good programming time out of someone in a day?[0]

[0] Citation needed

Yeah - I've never used 'all night' to mean 24 hours/no-sleep. I did used to do a lot of work well past midnight in a former life, but also wouldn't get started before 10am (usaully) and have some downtiem (or at least non-coding time) in the afternoon.

I recently did several 2-3 day stints of 'all night' - almost - meaning up at 6am and going to bed at 3:30 or 4am the next morning (fruitlessly trying to track down and fix some bugs on a system that was live). I was pretty unproductive at 2am, but kept thinking "almost got it... almost got it"... then didn't have it. I might have found it faster with more sleep, but maybe not - the 'fix' only came to me after digging around with the code and settings and numerous tests (was only occurring on production system, not dev system). Oh, that was the other reason for late night - could only reproduce this on production, and it was better to do it at night when there were far fewer users.

The last time I stayed up past midnight to work on something was probably close to a year ago. I stopped when I made what I thought was a simple change and ended up completely fubaring the font end of the site.

I went to bed and first thing the next morning fixed what was an insurmountable obstacle just a few hours before. Maybe it's because I wasn't on a deadline, maybe it's because I could sleep as long as I wanted because it was a weekend, but since then I haven't had any reason or desire to work past the point where my body wants to go to sleep.

Yeah, most of the time, I find that when I hit a 'hard' problem, I can shelve it and sleep or go away, and probably 95% of the time I have a decent (sometimes good!) solution soon (the next day or two). Perspective, more brain work, whatever - not sure what happens. The all-nighters are certainly less frequent for me - the recent stints in Jan/Feb were the first time in probably more than 4 years, if memory serves correctly.

The trick to "all night" is that you can only work X hours in a certain 24 hour period. You can do them during the day, or during the night, but you cannot do 2X by doing both. It just doesn't work that way.

I'd see it as also being that all night is a lot more conducive to no interruptions.

I definitely understand the all-or-nothing mentality! And I think it's rational in that it solves the slippery slope problem. It's the same reason to identify as a vegetarian instead of, say, only eating meat on special occasions. Slippery slopes are slippery!

Shameless plug: My startup, http://beeminder.com, is "safety rope for slippery slopes" -- a commitment device tool that let's you hard-commit to anything graphable. Like time spent online, which you can track with our http://rescuetime.com integration.

I've done the "all night" thing a few times, especially during phases when I had no external schedule constraints (like a dayjob). It's hard to explain, but I kinda like those crazy marathon coding sessions, although I'd shy away from them now, even if I had the option. If for no other reason, because I associate them with drinking lots of coffee and energy drinks and eating lots of junk food, and since I was diagnosed as a diabetic, I'm trying to cut back on unhealthy stuff.

Strangely enough though, I feel like I've written some of my best code near the tail end of a 20+ hour coding binge, when I can barely keep my eyes open. But maybe it just seemed that way at the time. :-)

I regularly stay up until after mindnight doing stuff, and up at 6am. I simply don't sleep that much. If I go to bed before that I tend to toss and turn and don't get a lot of sleep anyway so I figure why not be productive.

Most nights I'm working on code or writing or gaming though I occasionally will stay up and read a book.

I think you can get more that 4-6 good hours of good work out of programmers so long as you break it up. 12 hours is possible on occasion but not daily. You will burn out and become brain fried, but if you break it up, say 4 code 1 doing something completely different 4 code 1 something different and 4 code you can do it on a more regular basis.

And by 'something different' I mean engaging different parts of the brain. Paint, write, clean house, yard work.. something that gets you away from and disconnected from the computer and the work. Gaming might qualify but if your on the computer or XBox your not really disconnecting from the tech.

> 12 hours is possible on occasion but not daily. You will burn out and become brain fried, but if you break it up, say 4 code 1 doing something completely different 4 code 1 something different and 4 code you can do it on a more regular basis.

Before I had a real job I used to work in a supermarket. Other than that I'd usually game or code and now and again watch TV. My favourite was Saturday when I worked from 1pm to 10pm. I'd then come home and be up until 2 or 3am gaming or coding. The next day I'd wake up around 8 or 9am and code some more.

For the past few years I've had a proper 9 - 5 (+) job. Here in the EU nobody seems to work crazy 80 hours weeks, but I hardly ever get home before 6:30pm. This year I've been trying to do One Game A Month [1], and really I just haven't had the time or energy to do it. In the evening I hardly ever feel like coding more, and at the weekend I can usually only get around 6 hours before I've had enough. I would love to be able to spend as much time coding on what I want as I did 5 years ago :)

[1] http://www.onegameamonth.com/

I have this exact same problem. Whenever I try to make a new good habit or break a bad habit, it's always all or nothing. Once I slip into the grey my mind is to good at rationalizing my way towards the other pole.

You are not alone :-)

... if you don't want to fall back into old tracks, turn 90 degrees.

I wake up before or at 4. If not I have to force myself out of bed at 08.30.

You don't fall into, 'oh I didn't wake up at 4 so the 8.30 doesn't matter' trap?

No, by then either the kids wake up or office hours are closing in on me :-)

The only one of those examples that really makes sense in terms of all or nothing is coding, at least for me. If I don't have at least a few hours then I don't really get much done, although that may be from my inexperience.

Well, my wife is not a hacker, but we share the motto "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing."

In the middle of my doctorate I did something similar. I disappeared for 6 weeks on Amtrak. I took a stack of books with me and a list of places to see in the US. I went everywhere. And I paid for the trip by writing some Lotus 1-2-3 code at the very start.

That trip was the only reason I managed to come back and finish.

That's awesome. I recently took an Amtrak from Tuscaloosa, AL to New Orleans, LA for a weekend trip, and got some coding done along the way. Man was it beautiful, and working in the snack-car was perfect. I thought about doing something similar to what you just mentioned - but I need a little more money and a lot more time to do it haha. What were the best trains that you took? The Crescent line was pretty nice and looked like it stopped in some cool places further North than my journey.

I think the best was Houston to LA and sitting in the observation car across AZ. But also going through the Rockies, across Alabama, and side trip to Grand Canyon on an Amtrak bus.

Bear in mind this was 1990. No mobile phone, no laptop. Just rucksack, books, an AT&T calling card for when I saw a pay phone to call home, 1-800-USA-RAIL for reservations, and a copy of Let's Go.

I had one of these: http://www.amtrak.com/take-the-trains-across-america-with-us...

In 2000, I worked in Kennicott Alaska for three summers, four months at a stretch. It is a town of about 100 people at the end of a sixty mile dirt road in the center of the nation's largest national park. There was a payphone, satellite, but there was a three to five second delay, making conversations difficult. It was rarely used. I wrote many letters.

Now, I see friends who live there posting every so often on facebook. By phone.

I miss those days, just a decade ago, when remote meant remote.

I take a weekend a month now and drive the 45 minutes out of town into the higher desert of Southern Arizona and spend at least 24 hours offline. No cell service, no electricity, and even the radio stations don't make it.

During that information/connection blackout, what do you do? Just sit there in the car, looking at the stars?

Ha, no. I camp. It's National Forest Service land, so you can throw up a tent wherever you like. I sit down with a bottle of beer, throw a steak on the fire, and read a book.

Ah that seems awesome.

Would that be near Patagonia?

yep. Gardner Canyon, ten miles from Patagonia as the crow flies.

Can you really go offline these days? I mean, beside my work (which obviously happens to be online), here are things that I do on the Internet.

1. Connect with my family. International calls are so expensive and I'm accustomed to the video calls luxury that Skype gives for free.

2. Buy Stuff. First, I get a wide range of choice; and second, it saves me time.

3. Pay bills. (Internet, Water, Electricity...)

4. Entertainment. Watch movies, music, and TV series.

5. Book an airline ticket and an hotel (just did it, so it came to my mind). The alternative is to get in touch by phone with a travel agency that I'll need to go to physically to pay.

6. Withdraw money from an ATM.

The Internet is now too blended with our physical life. I think it's wrong to try to fight it. It made our life easier and it's improving our life.

If you are being stressed, then it's because of the way you are handling your work. 2 months won't cut it out. You need a radical change on how you work, and not how to use the Internet. You can be stressed on an offline job too.

I know because I'm in the same boat, and I'm still figuring out how to change it.

> Can you really go offline these days?

Sure, 4.5 billion people do it daily.

Only for very restricted definitions of "online". 75% of the world population has a cellphone.

Please. There are around a billion smartphones. Dumbphones do not count as "online". At least, certainly not in the context of csomar's comment, and not in the context of paulrouget's blog post.

Why not? Between WAP and SMS, you can do a lot of online stuff, like using Twitter, sending emails, making bank transfers, getting Google Calendar alerts, paying bills, book flight tickets and more. Especially in the countries where people don't have smartphones or computers, this is extremely common.

I think it doesn't make sense to exclude them just because they use a different interface.

If using an ATM count, then so does using a dumbphone to transfer money (which is a big business in Kenya).

> 6. Withdraw money from an ATM.

Oh come on, that's taking it a bit far..

Lived in Taiwan for six years. It's a very special place, whether you're interested in immersing yourself in Chinese language/culture or starting something new.

Like many Asian countries, it's also a very dynamic place -- the pace of change really is quite amazing. I've blogged about this in the past (see http://www.ilamont.com/2009/08/taiwan-double-takes-1993-2009... ) but it's great to be able to see it up close.

Good luck.

Unfortunately you may find out you're one of those people that can't slow down - all you do is swap one all-consuming obsession for another.

Power to him I say - trading one obsession for another can still provide the cognitive reset and reinvigoration that he's looking for.

@hfs,

it looks like you're hellbanned (and like you may have been since around your first comment).

I think one of my greatest regrets about being a developer is how difficult it is to remain offline. Certain scenarios, such as maintaining uptime and being aware of security releases, requires almost constant check-in. The best resources and discussion on the profession can't be found in print. And the nature of the work, well, is inextricable from being on a computer

Thats why I have the hard rule of not being reachable on holidays and state that upfront. I never take a computer with me and often go to places where there is no reception at all - so I couldn't, even if I wanted.

Clients have to cope with that, thats part of the game.

I live in a rural valley with no mobile phone reception. If people call me when I'm home, they get my voicemail. I do have an internet connection at home, but it's not fast and I rarely use it.

I'm on a computer all day at work, and work hard - when I go home, I have little inclination to then use a computer again, even if it's for leisure or games.

That's mostly a characteristic of service developers like ourselves. For a desktop application developer, those issues like uptime and security vulnerabilities are nowhere near as urgent. If a computer running Photoshop dies, nobody at Adobe will lose sleep over it ;)

That's the operations side of technology, but your point stands.

It's the same everywhere though -- farms, factories, govt offices, law offices, convenience stores, etc. In all cases, it's handled by spreading the workload, over family, shifts, or minions.

Perhaps the unusual part of technology is that there is a larger viable component of individual work effort. Many in the industry are drawn to that and resistant to larger group energy pools.

I've spent a few weeks abroad (outside of the US) with the knowledge that I might be exposed to work despite being on vacation (my domestic "vacations" mostly mean working a little less and maybe being in a different place while doing it).

The best experience was by far the first, when I had almost no contact with clients/partners and actually did manage to spend almost all of my time being half-lost and confused, entertaining the natives with my awful language skills, and generally learning about what another place is like rather than learning what it's like to do the same thing somewhere else.

Disconnecting is only half of it, but it's the most important half. Being connected to all things Work means you're still in the same place, wherever you might be geographically, and you can't possibly concentrate on the other half -- actually immersing yourself in something different -- enough for it to impact you as much as it otherwise could.

Paul has been doing some fantastic work in the last few years, he definitely deserves the break.

I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but for a third party to "justify" anyone's break is less than necessary.

In my eyes a break need not be earned by doing great work. People need time off. They need time to think, develop their interests, and do things beyond what their job or career demands from them.

Ideally for all of us this time would come (many times, and often) before retirement. If you haven't seen this TED talk, a brilliant furniture designer talks about his 7 on, 1 off lifestyle and makes a call for us to rethink the power of time off.

http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time...

But.. but.. then there'd be a gap in your CV! Shock, horror.

Having this kind of experience gives you a tremendous amount of perspective that it is hard to get in any other way. I figure he'll either come back even more passionately engaged in his development career, or take a right turn into a different direction. Either way is fine, of course--the important part is having the perspective and distance to choose wisely.

Everyone needs to do this regularly. You'll realize how pointless so much of your internet time really is. I've quit forums/sites I was addicted to quite easily by just getting away for a while then never checking those sites again when I came back. Your brain needs a break, too.

lived in china for six months and almost disconnected, i can say that was awesome experience. it has been 3 years since then and i noticed with your post, i need it too. coding is challenge and fun but if you put a startup pressure on it with high entrepreneurship spirit without any monetization, it gives you nothing but consume your life. anyway have fun, I'll give a break at the end of 2013.

I don't think I could pull it off. I admire it so much but I doubt I'm interesting enough to spend two months alone. I'd definitely break.

I'd like to recommend a good book for this kind of journey:

Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti

www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0060648805/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

Non-mobile link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060648805/

Good decision. I have been in Taiwan before and want to move there in December.

I think this is great. I hope he writes a follow-up when he comes back.

Taiwan is a great place. I wish the OP luck.

What a smart guy to realize he needed to take a break and unplug. Too many people just never understand you don't HAVE to run the rat race and never take a break.

As a side note, after several epic burnouts myself, I re-discovered how important meditation and relaxation skills are to avoiding burning out. It doesn't take much time or somewhere special and it can have profound effects on reducing your stress levels.

I do my best to keep weekends family time - and I think I would be better off keeping them disconnected too.

Maybe a day a week away from the world is a good idea, and with a family about all I can hope for :-)

I don't think complete disconnection is important. What is important is what you are doing while you are connected during your personal time.

I used to have a hard time getting away from work. Now I don't check emails and I avoid programming on the weekend. If the servers melt someone will phone me. I used to find checking emails was stressful. Someone would report a small issue and the little thing would nag at me to fix it. I found it hard to relax.

One weekend I assumed the world wasn't going to end, I assumed my help wouldn't be required. I kept my phone with me. Been enjoying completely work free weekends ever since.

It's like a Prophet come down from the mountain and said, you know you can just leave work at 5 pm Friday and not go back till 9am Mon

Who is this guy? Why does Hacker News care about some blog post on his personal life?

must be weirdo

Because his plans connect with plenty of people around here who are thinking of disconnecting as well. That would be one reason.

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