Interruptions are productivity and creativity killers. Middle managers are of questionable utility but that layer of an organization would be much more effective if it focused ruthlessly on removing distractions.
I worked at a small company where a significant portion of my effort went toward shielding my team from the distractions created by a CEO who couldn’t seem to help meddling in every aspect of the business. I think it’s because he started out doing, or at least being involved with, many of the functions of the company and had a hard time letting go as we grew. Even after the organization grew to 50+ people he couldn’t keep himself out of the nitty gritty details, but the format of the distraction changed over time. Instead of walking up to people and interrupting them in person (a double whammy according to this study, including both an “important” person and the in-person aspect), he would send what we called “Slack attacks” throughout the day. These were paragraphs-long Slack messages without any semblance of organization, punctuation, or line breaks. Fortunately, many of these messages were sent during the very early hours of the morning so they could be dealt with first thing in the AM, but that wasn’t always the case.
In the first phase I literally moved my team location and reorganized the desk arrangement so it was harder for him to get in and bug everyone. I had to “guard” the area and try to stop him from physically entering the space, which was always a strange dance. I couldn’t control his Slack messaging behavior so I worked with people to understand that while yes “the CEO is asking you for urgent work in Slack” seems like a valid reason to switch gears, but instead let me work to figure out what actually needs to be done and we’ll catch up later about what to do.
It was a weird dynamic but there was no doubt the distractions were a drag on performance. Every time he went on vacation we saw a marked increase in productivity, and more creative solutions seemed to come up as well. I don’t wish this type of environment on anyone but in a way I’m glad to have gone through it and learned some lessons about interruptions and how to avoid them.
When I was a middle manager at a past job, my team kept getting bombarded with meeting requests (it was a "fire drill all the time" kind of place).
I ended up making a 4 hour "team meeting" every Friday morning to give them focus time.
I mentioned to them that they could have done the same on their own if they wanted. My team lead pointed out that since our calendars were visible in the department, having me as the organized gave the meeting more "weight" and so line employees were less likely to push for time in that slot.
That's a good point, thanks for saying it. Speaking as one of such developers who had trouble with it for a long time, plenty of us might end up feeling shy or insecure about making proactive interventions to secure time for ourselves or our teams - all while our managers might be assuming we'll make such moves when needed. Sometimes all it takes is an explicit permission from a person in position of power - them saying to subordinates, "it's fine if you block off focus time for the team in the company calendar". And, per your example, it's even better when followed by assurances of support, such as being an organizer or confirmed invitee. For better or worse, a lot of inter-team dynamics ends up being about looks.
Half my day is blocked with “no meetings please unless urgent” and it works great - but I guess it’s part of the org culture that we respect each others time and don’t do a lot of unnecessary meetings in general anyway so idk if it would work that well somewhere else
That's an interesting experience and a valuable info.
But I wonder what would be the CEO's side of the story. I'm sure his behavior was bad, I'm not pretending the opposite. But maybe he also had reasons (misguided reasons, sure, but still reasons) to act as he did. Or maybe he did not have any reasons, it's also possible.
I've observed cases where indeed people were disturbing too much software developers.
But I've also observed cases where software developers were not enough aligned with the business side, despite them being 100% sure they were.
It's a tricky situation: being in the team means that you are not impartial, you don't have a remote view, you are only seeing one side of the story. I had situations where I've observed some non-dev team explaining their needs, then the software team went away, and then came back with something that was not what the non-dev team asked. Not only the non-dev team was indeed not satisfied, but I was agreeing to them: it was not what they explained, I was there, I understood what they said at the time. Worst, in the majority of the cases, the non-devs don't just say "no, it's incorrect", they try to find a compromise. Usually, it comes from the fact they have no idea what is possible or not, and just assume that if the devs did not do what they were expected, it means there are good reasons for that (either it is not possible, or that there were others things they did not know about, such as other requests from other part of the business). As someone with a lot of developing experience, I was able to see that the problem was that the devs just underestimated the need to fully understand the business side.
It's very tricky, because for a dev (or a dev-side person), it is very easy to just ignore that. If they ask for adjustment, it's "they don't know what they want". If they point at some requirements and underline that it does not mean what the devs thought it meant, it's "these requirements were badly written". And in the majority of the case, the business-side just makes do with the sub-optimal solution and the dev-side is considering that they successfully delivered. And similarly, I've also seen some devs being happy to be very productive, going very fast in developing something ... that the business did not need at all. When not adopted, it was again blamed on the business-side for not using the solution they've developed, rather than to wonder if what they have done was indeed productive or not.
The CEO in this example is an idiot, but it does not mean that magically the other side is able to be impartial when judging the situation.
The fact that one is bad at their job does not imply that someone else is good at their job. Why is it hard to accept that maybe being in a dev team doesn't mean you're good at your job?
So we’re back to the idea that only philosopher kings can shape and rule the ideal world? Plato would be proud!
Jests aside, I love the idea of incorporating an all encompassing AI philosophy built up from the rich history of thinking, wisdom, and texts that already exist. I’m no expert, but I don’t see how this would even be possible. Could you train some LLM exclusively on philosophical works, then prompt it to create a new perfect philosophy that it will then use to direct its “life” from then on? I can’t imagine that would work in any way. It would certainly be entertaining to see the results, however.
That said, AI companies would likely all benefit from a team of philosophers on staff. I imagine most companies would. Thinking deeply and critically has been proven to be enormously valuable to humankind, but it seems to be of dubious value to capital and those who live and die by it.
The fact that the majority of deep thinking and deep work of our time serves mainly to feed the endless growth of capital - instead of the well-being of humankind - is the great tragedy of our time.
> The fact that the majority of deep thinking and deep work of our time serves mainly to feed the endless growth of capital - instead of the well-being of humankind - is the great tragedy of our time.
I'm not blind to when this goes horribly wrong, or when needs go unaddressed because they aren't profitable, but most of the time these interests are unintentionally well aligned.
There is a lot of this "philosopher king" stuff. Prophets, ubermenchs, tlatoanis. It seems foreign to the concept of philosophy. As I see it, this comes more from the lineage of arts than the lineage of thinkers (it's not a critic, just an observation).
I think this is very obvious and both artists and philosophers understand it.
I'm worried about the mercantilist guild. They don't seem to get the message. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't really know much about what they think. Their actions show disgerard for the other two guilds.
To ponder whether there's any value in doing anything beyond maximizing steel fabrication output.
if it's absurd to you to think that a steel fabrication company should care about anything other than fabricating more steel, well that's your philosophy.
Steel-fabrication company literally can not care about anything because it's not a sentient being. Humans, who are related to this company and each other, already care about lot of stuff, including the output of said company and about how much they should care about that output. But that still is not philosophy, merely applied ethics in the sense that people are simply applying the ethical values they hold to the problems before them instead of contemplating which ethical values they should hold.
I too have survivorship bias that I try to explain away with self serving theories and ideas that pit my special nature against the tendencies of the inferior masses. In my case I literally survived alcoholism after I was lucky enough to come out alive after an accident. I used this as motivation to do the hard work of getting and staying sober. My brain sometimes tells me that I have some special power of “working hard enough to change myself” that has also helped me become an entrepreneur and make other positive changes in my life. I tell myself people sometimes fail because they didn’t go through this and can’t work hard enough to change themselves for the better. In reality it all comes down to luck and circumstance that I was fortunate enough to take advantage of.
In this post the author tries to set up an unassailable scenario where two very similar people end up with strikingly different life outcomes because of “how some of us have chosen to live their lives.” Conveniently, the author is the successful one because he is part of “a small set of humans who don’t act like their lives are predestined.” The majority, and the person he compares himself to, obviously couldn’t succeed without this special character aspect. In reality, it’s the “small set of humans” part that shows the way to the truth. The analysis that says successful people are different because they chose to act differently and not live a “predestined” life ignores all the people who also made that choice without getting lucky and achieving success. It also leaves out the people who lived a “predestined” life and succeeded despite their lack of willpower or special abilities or whatever else we can point to as an explanation.
Like I said, I am victim to the same fallacies in my own reasoning about my life, but I try very hard to overcome them or at least recognize them. The takeaway from this article isn’t that “you are the master of your own fate” but instead something like “be careful when trying to explain your own life’s circumstances, especially when your explanations put you in some special class that only few people have achieved.” Luck, by its very nature, is only for the few.
There are many ways to reason ethically about your situation, and you could start by using historical philosophers as inspiration.
Bentham might apply if you consider the overall outcome: is the work your company does positive or ethical for the majority of people the majority of the time? It seems like the “greatest good for the greatest number” would allow for some small unethical aspects so long as the outcome is good for the majority. This could also be seen as a shortcoming in that philosophy because it justifies some pretty terrible actions for the greater good (some of which, like the Manhattan project and its outcome, are mentioned elsewhere in this thread).
Kant might make you look at your company and imagine that all companies acted that way as a way to reason ethically. If all companies acted the way your company acts would that be good or bad for humanity? Kind of like the golden rule, but more rational.
There are many more to consider but it’s my view that most of them will get you to the point where you probably shouldn’t work for an unethical company, even if your particular work or area of focus is perfectly ethical. Mainly because you working for the company allows or helps it to exist in some way, and we don’t want unethical companies to exist. So maybe you could reason your way into working there if your sole focus was finding a way to destroy the company somehow. Otherwise it’s probably better to work elsewhere.
As an aside, I consider anything that actively subverts the company, beyond whistleblowing, as unethical, and in fact, it’s a threat that people like me have to defend against, so I would never involve myself in such activities.
I actively criticize and state my contentment for Microsoft, and other companies. Those statements may harm the image and the bottom line. Am I subverting those companies? And yes, I do wish for Microsoft and other companies market share to demise and shift else where. Companies can get too big they turn into a market bully by request free labor to get and retain their business. Personally experienced this.
Kroger is a good example of a large market share. They hide behind multiple grocery store names as a dark pattern to fool consumers that there is actual market competition. This allows for them to price gouge the consumer with lack of seller competition. Producers loose their selling power with the lack of buying competition too. Making those statements, am I subverting Kroger?
I think a better title might be “Memorize Exponentially” because that seems to be the true gist of the article.
There are undoubtedly many areas in which memorization is useful. I tend to use memorization as a second-order tool, in the sense that it is only useful to memorize once I’ve learned that memorization would be necessary.
I memorize combinations to locks I unlock frequently. I memorize names of items I sell in my shop so I don’t have to look them up over and over again.
In school I often memorized equations just long enough to get by. The few that are still with me are not those I used most frequently; they are the equations I understood at a visceral level. Obviously this means I am more conversant in Newtonian happenings than quantum concerns, so maybe there is a place for memorization. Or perhaps I lack sufficient experience in the quantum to really feel the laws that govern the smallest realms.
Either way the article paints a dull picture of learning. What of the feeling in the minds and hands of those future carpenters swinging their first hammer blows? What of the deep learning of the pianist that happens only after the transition from the first concerto as audience to the latest as featured virtuoso?
An exponential increase in the type of “learning” furthered by spaced repetition might be useful to some. I still prefer the linear road to understanding.
Memorization helps in the murky world of haven’t-quite-learned-it-yet. By knowing certain things to be true because you’ve memorized them, you can start to make connections to other things and investigate why those things are true. I most recently experienced this memorizing a bunch of stuff on intermodulation in RF (amateur radio). It had me questioning “why is this so?”, so I found a related domain: audio. Turns out IMD is an issue with mastering using saturation plugins (which add harmonics). Since I have some music background, this made the whole thing far more sensible to me. It’s really a process of presenting yourself with some disconnected facts, and filling in the gaps over time.
>There are undoubtedly many areas in which memorization is useful. I tend to use memorization as a second-order tool, in the sense that it is only useful to memorize once I’ve learned that memorization would be necessary.
For me (in medicine), it is the exact opposite. Memorization comes first, then you start to actually understand and learn things. Everything is so intermingled and there is no "learn this first to understand that". In addition, you can't start practicing things before memorizing them.
I feel like it's the same thing with the mnemonics. It's useful at first, but not very practical or efficient. However, as you use it more, you actually learn and stop using the mnemonic.
I understand what you mean but I think you underestimate how critical memory is for all forms of learning (even creative work/learning).
Our working memories have a capacity of 4. This means that we basically can't understand something if it requires more than 4 pieces of New knowledge to understand. To understand more complicated things we need to move some of the knowledge into our long-term memories.
We wrote an article on this topic here that i'd love to know what you think of
Someone took the time to read your article and give you their critical impression, and you respond here essentially by saying that they are wrong and that they should read another article you wrote to correct their thinking.
This comes off as condescending and dismissive. It's a poor way to treat people who have taken the time to engage with your content, especially if engagement is what you want, which appears to be the case given your other replies on this topic.
Take the time to respond to them directly rather than pointing them towards more content you've written, even if it means repeating ideas you've written elsewhere.
This approach has a number of benefits:
1. It has the effect of presenting what you've read elsewhere inline (most readers won't click that link)
2. It gives you an opportunity to revisit and refine your own thinking, and
3. It forces you to think carefully about the criticisms levied
And most importantly, it reciprocates the effort they've put into reading your post and responding to you so that you don't come off like a jerk.
I read that article, and your introduction on learning quantum mechanics is actually how I learned quantum mechanics! Or at least, about the known quantum particles in the standard model and their properties and behavior.
This is how I learn basically everything. That and practical application, so I'd learn cooking by cooking but I'd learn about information theory by just reading for hours at a time and falling down one hole after another. All this makes me wonder, where do you get the "you have 4 working memory slots" thing from? And how would you actually go about forcing things into long term memory?
I was a newspaper layout designer in a previous life. The only complaint I have about HN is the line length on large-ish screens.
In my newspaper days we stuck to around 60 characters as an optimal line length for readability. I've seen up to 80, but even that seems to be pushing it. Once you stretch out the lines so much it's hard to track back and forth from the end of one line to the beginning of the next line.
I'm reading the parent, top-level comment on a Macbook Air with a 13 inch screen and the first line is a whopping 194 characters long. Reading anything of length on this screen is decidedly uncomfortable when browsing HN.
I agree that simplicity is a noble and useful goal, but when it comes at the expense of usability it's hard to swallow.
I'm reading the parent, top-level comment on a Macbook Air with a 13 inch screen and the first line is a whopping 194 characters long.
...resize your browser window? The text is as wide as you want it to be.
On the other hand, I absolutely hate it when I want wider or narrower lines, and resizing the window either causes useless whitespace or a scrollbar to appear.
You think I'm going to resize my browser window narrower every time I switch to HN, and resize it wider every time I switch to a different tab?
Or you could just put it in a separate window of the desired width; maybe then you'd even have enough space on your huge monitor to see several sites all at once!
As I wrote the post above, I had about a dozen different windows open, all of varying sizes. Monitors have gotten much bigger, yet the users seem to have gotten worse at making good use of that space.
Why the heck would I want to put HN in a separate window instead of with the rest of my tabs? I only want one browser window, I'm not going to change my workflow to accomodate a single badly designed site, nor should I have to.
(Nor do I have a huge monitor, I'm on a laptop...)
This is something that has consistently bothered me about the web for most of my life. Why sites like Wikipedia (and many blogs) don't limit line length by default is beyond me. I usually just end up zooming in and/or limiting the width of my browser window.
> I was a newspaper layout designer in a previous life.
Such a cool-sounding job! Any fun stories to share from those days?
> Reading anything of length on this screen is decidedly uncomfortable when browsing HN.
Agreed. I always browse HN in a window that's half the width of my monitor.
There is something nice about the ultra-simplistic CSS that goes as wide as your window, though. Then, the user can just resize their window to find the sweet spot for themselves. The sites that force a fixed width for reading on everyone really miss the point, I think.
It was a cool job until the newspaper business imploded.
I have yet to experience anything even remotely close to the buzzing productivity of a newsroom minutes before the press deadline. Election nights were always fun because all the information was coming in later so we had to scramble. Obviously we knew about the time constraints beforehand so we could plan for it to the best of our ability, which of course usually fell to the curse of best laid plans.
I’m nostalgic for slower paced information flow and newspapers remain a near-perfect example.
The line length even seems to be limited already, just at a (too) high number. WHen I maximize the browser window the comment texts use about 2/3 of the width.
I just tried and Firefox' reader mode automatically limits the width, though unfortunately that's not made for interactive use. I guess it might be a good idea for a browser plugin (if it doesn't already exist), similar to the ones forcing dark color themes on websites using CSS.
I love used bookstores and my retail business is right next door to one that I mostly despise. The shelves are literally overflowing and there is no rhyme or reason to shelf organization. The prices are high, which I normally wouldn’t mind because usually it comes with great curation or presentation or a point of view. But this shop has none of those redeeming qualities. The employees also don’t seem to care about reading or books, other than to point out how quickly some categories of books fly off the shelves. It’s all very transactional.
It’s the weirdest experience because I want so badly for it to be like other shops I’ve browsed and loved. I’ve even considered opening my own bookshop down the street to fulfill my desire for a great used book shop in my city. Maybe someday.
The article explains this but the link scrolls to the third paragraph. For anyone who missed it:
> If you are a guitarist, you might notice that there is something strange about her technique. She was left-handed, but rather than stringing a guitar in reverse the way lefties usually do, she just played a standard-strung guitar upside down. She had to learn her own idiosyncratic chord shapes, and she played them by alternating bass with her fingers and playing melody notes with her thumb. This must have required some dedication! But none of it is as important as her sound and her material.
As a (right handed) guitarist I can't even imagine playing upside down guitar. It shows you that the brain can do amazing things, if you do it for long enough, and are dedicated enough. Plus she stopped playing for decades and then just went back to this like nothing was lost.
Before that there was no time limit though. I remember becoming a member in 2011 when I moved to a city with a local REI and that was one of the main benefits they pitched. I don’t miss it because I never returned anything after a year (or even a few weeks).
REI started a trade-in program that serves a similar function and probably manages to foil most of the people who would have abused the system in the past. I think it goes well with their overall “earth friendly” ethos and brand identity as well.
According to the 2020 census data linked below the percentage increases to around 24% for individuals who worked full time all year. I don’t think there is any easy way to find the more specific groups you mentioned. That’s not a large enough increase to consider making six figures as easy as “prioritizing” it or whatever you’re proposing.
In any case what you’re proposing is selection bias. No one should be surprised that people who work full time are more likely to make six figures than those who don’t. And yes, if you cherry pick a group of “professionals” who receive larger salaries of course the percentage will increase. And it’s back to survivorship bias for the “prioritization” examples you mentioned. Unless you happen to have a random sample of people who don’t make six figures but would prefer to.
Also, if I look at the people around myself and see that 1 / 4 are able to do something, it would probably be easy. So it’s the GPs own self awareness combined with the stat.
I worked at a small company where a significant portion of my effort went toward shielding my team from the distractions created by a CEO who couldn’t seem to help meddling in every aspect of the business. I think it’s because he started out doing, or at least being involved with, many of the functions of the company and had a hard time letting go as we grew. Even after the organization grew to 50+ people he couldn’t keep himself out of the nitty gritty details, but the format of the distraction changed over time. Instead of walking up to people and interrupting them in person (a double whammy according to this study, including both an “important” person and the in-person aspect), he would send what we called “Slack attacks” throughout the day. These were paragraphs-long Slack messages without any semblance of organization, punctuation, or line breaks. Fortunately, many of these messages were sent during the very early hours of the morning so they could be dealt with first thing in the AM, but that wasn’t always the case.
In the first phase I literally moved my team location and reorganized the desk arrangement so it was harder for him to get in and bug everyone. I had to “guard” the area and try to stop him from physically entering the space, which was always a strange dance. I couldn’t control his Slack messaging behavior so I worked with people to understand that while yes “the CEO is asking you for urgent work in Slack” seems like a valid reason to switch gears, but instead let me work to figure out what actually needs to be done and we’ll catch up later about what to do.
It was a weird dynamic but there was no doubt the distractions were a drag on performance. Every time he went on vacation we saw a marked increase in productivity, and more creative solutions seemed to come up as well. I don’t wish this type of environment on anyone but in a way I’m glad to have gone through it and learned some lessons about interruptions and how to avoid them.