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I recently decided I'd stop being a worthless human being who played video games all the time. My plan now is to learn a skill extremely well, get money, then play games in my spare time. I chose to learn how to program.
As part of this plan, I knew it was finally time to get a handle on possibly the biggest hindrance I've had my entire life: sleep. First, I have to work out every day (except rest days). Second, I have to be in bed every night by 11:00-11:30 (when possible with my job). If in a given week I do this every day, I treat myself to sushi on sunday. I love sushi.
The situation:
I wake up every morning at 6:30am. Eat breakfast, get coffee, sit down at computer and start learning programming. For 4 days now, I've been monitoring my productivity.
From 7-8 I can pick up extremely advanced concepts no problems. All the code I write is syntactically correct & I get a ton done.
From 8-9 My logic is solid, I pick up concepts with a little work, and I have syntactic errors here and there.
From 9-10 I slowly start sucking, until at 10:00 I just feel incredibly sleepy (and sometimes fall asleep in my chair).
But I can tell that I can accomplish as much from 7-8am as all the time I'd spend after 10am. And when I say I start learning programming, I mean 100% focus on it -- there are no distractions and this discussion isn't about that.
My Assessment:
There's this magical little hour in the mornings. I say magical because I don't know how it works yet. I want to test different things to extend this as long as possible, grow it over time, and treat it well.
Obviously the fact my body hasn't adapted to a regular sleep cycle (I figure that will take ~3 weeks) is affecting this. However, I'm just not learning fast enough. All the people who really know coding that I've talked to say it'll take 9 months to learn the basics of coding. I'll do it faster. I've got a couple approaches/ideas in mind and figure we'd all benefit from turning this into an open exchange of ideas. I'm especially interested in hearing from other people who code.
Here's a couple of mine:
45/15: When I reflect on it, bulldozing straight through everything until I'm nothing is dumb and exhausting. Set a timer for 45 minutes, go, then break for 15 and go do something braindead or rejuvenating (stare at a fish tank, meditate)
Peanuts: Brains are engines and engines need fuel. When I sit down I don't eat or drink anything til lunch. Obviously, drink of choice is water. But brain foods? I'm thinking peanuts and fruit. When 10 hits and I crash, I really crave sugar -- I'm thinking this means I need some energy.
Napping: not until I've adapted to my sleep cycle.
Then there's the concept of passion. this is a huge tangent so spoilered
+ Show Spoiler +Conventional wisdom says, If you're passionate about something, you don't need sleep! Once you 'find your passion' you'll be driven to success.
Now I think 'finding your passion' is bullshit. People don't inherently have a singular passion, they have a natural predisposition which prepares them for a variety of professions which would make them happy. But it's more than that, even.
Passion is cultivated. It's not something you magically find or think your way to, it's something you prepare for and pursue relentlessly for a period of time that's long enough to get over the learning curve, then see how you feel. You might get lucky and find something you're already prepared & suited for even though you didn't realize it. Other times you just have to choose something and go for it. If it works out, great. If it doesn't, learn and try something else.
so what I'm trying to say is that passion is born of agency. Agency is born of habit, willpower, and direction. Or at least that's the best I can tell right now, so until I learn a better way that's what I'm going with
 
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What language are you learning? Also check out the Big Programming thread on TL here, they will be very happy to help you with any questions you have about programming.
Good luck and don't give up! Once you know how to do some things, it's a very rewarding activity. And you can always keep learning and improving yourself.
[EDIT] Sorry that I didn't answer your question. When I code I don't set timers or have anything set up in particular. Sometimes i'm really into it and just code for some hours. Other times I'm more distracted and it's 50% code 50% other stuff (like internet).
Maybe it's a good idea to set small goals for yourself. An example: "I just learned about for-loops. I'm going to build a small program that has an array of 100 random generated integers (that I generate with the help of a for-loop). And I will write some functions that do something with this array. Search for an integer in the array, change a user inputted range to a specific user inputted integer,..."
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The first problem I notice is that right away (even though you get a coffee) after waking up you sit down for a few hours. Doing some stretches or basic exercises can really (in an oddly roundabout fashion) give me a burst of energy and keep me going through the day. What consists of your breakfast? It may be slowing you down. I remember Day9 once fell asleep after eating a whole steak, and I find I get pretty tired after eating a lot of food (chips in particular came to mind for some reason).
You could take it from another angle and only do the work when you've got a strong level of interest in it. It could be that programming just isn't at the top of your list of desires. Though it may be high up, there could be something else that could "fill" the time, also serving to avoid the strain of doing the same thing over and over. I often find that I can dive right into something only once I feel like I've done something very different before it. "Change of pace".
On another note, what exactly have you learned so far? I've been into programming for about a year now and though I'm not sure what "basics" exactly mean I think I know the general concepts (data structures, algorithms, even just variables and when and how to use them. How long have you been at this? And for example, what did you learn in the past 2-3 days?
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Only 14 mins before I go to work so for now just some quick answers to your questions~~
To start I moved through a c++ primer book my dad had. I got ~50-70 pages in before I took an EdX class over Ruby on Rails, which I passed & got the certificate but didn't really feel like I understood. So to remedy that I enrolled in an "intro to cs" class on developing algorithms in python. Recently my friend started a C++ class at a bigger university in my city, and he asked me for some help on his homework a couple weeks in -- it was a breeze even though I couldn't remember some of the exact syntax. That was extremely encouraging.
also, my day consists of 7am-11am programming, lunch & walk dog, then 12-330 workout & daily life stuff, then 330-4 is my true free time to purposelessly browse online (usually looking through slickdeals forum).
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@Pointx: I definitely want to try some goal-driven stuff. I'll start "playing" with the code I'm learning. As of now I haven't developed the creative capacity to do that.
...
Big programming thread!
@Roe: Morning physical activity, namely stretching: durr. I'll also figure out some "change-of-pace"-ers I could do, but given my environment right now that's kind of limited.
In the past 2-3 days I've learned about tuples, lists, dictionaries, functions and recursion/iteration. I've also figured out how to basically perform a calculus function (area under curve) using only basic algebra and functions, as well as programming/debugging the logic layer of a hang-man game.
@fight_or_flight Ego-depletion, I knew about. Zeigarnik effect I didn't.
Deliberate practicing is the concept this post was seeking. Explains my magical hour. Accountability charting myself from 7-12 & creating an action plan will keep me much more organized and focused on bigger wins. plus gaining an awareness of time-boundedness will definitely help when it comes to actual development(?). Thank you so much for that video, I appreciate it.
I'm pretty sure all of this was in a MightyAtom post I can't find from a long time ago. I did this for a good spell in college and got a ton done during this period, but didn't really "get it."
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Are you in College? Out of curiosity. I've observed many things you experience as well. I can be productive throughout the day but I get randomly tired for an hour or so sometimes. Tired enough that I can barely read my textbooks. After taking a break/nap I'm usually a bit more energetic. And then boom after an hour or so when the tiredness begun I have all my energy. Taking regular breaks is the only advice I can give you and try not to think about programming during those breaks at all.
I'm pretty sure all of this was in a MightyAtom post I can't find from a long time ago. I did this for a good spell in college and got a ton done during this period, but didn't really "get it."
I'd like to read that if you ever find it.
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I've seen you recently in the big programming thread. Keep it up!
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MightyAtom post on this. Glad I dug this up again
+ Show Spoiler +
Being Competitive Part 4: Discipline
MightyAtom, Nov 03 2010
Confidence is a mind set that allows you to compete when there are set-backs and when the road is tough and tortured, it gives you hope; while you may not be the best now, you will learn, you will try and you will be better.
But when it comes down to the execution of it, this is a game of intensity, stamina and effectiveness.
Value of Intensity
REGARDLESS how more skilled someone is, or more talented, intensity can make up the ground for it.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Gattaca, I actually named my son after the actor Ethan Hawke for this movie and 2 others (before sunset, before sunrise). In the movie, Ethan is the older brother who was born 'naturally' in a time where genetic birth modification was possible; he is born with a heart defect and relatively short for that time period; whereas his younger brother was born with the optimal genetic combination of both their parents.
I won't get into the plot, but Ethan's younger brother does everything better than Ethan and they always played this game of chicken where they would see who could swim out the farthest to the sea. Ethan's younger brother always won, except one day, one day Ethan won that race and actually carried his brother back and then disappear after than and followed his own dreams.
At the end of the film, after many years later, they reunite and Ethan's brother asks, 'how did you beat me that day?' And Ethan says, 'I never saved anything for the swim back...' Intensity...
Intensity makes up for lack of talent
When I was in high school, I was small, and I went out for 7's rugby union as a freshman in the fall; but there was an issue that, there wasn't a junior team, only a senior team, so I had to train with the seniors and while I would never play 7's, I was guaranteed a spot on the 15's in the Spring. I got destroyed, the physical difference between a 17/18 year and a 13/14 year old is considerable and they didn't hold back. But I learned quickly and was a star, the thing I had most though from that first year, was intensity, I was the smallest the weakest, but I never accepted that I couldn't play with the the big boys, I knew I wasn't going to score, but I could contribute and as long as people didn't know I was weak, I wasn't a liability on the pitch/field.
By the time I was a senior, I was eating kids for breakfast, by the time was varsity in university, I had a reputation for playing as if I was 2 people. And all this time, I thought I was really talented, but in fact, I wasn't. By the time I was 24 or so, I realized that after a game, I took much more time to recover and I had many more injuries than some other star players on the team. By the time I was 26, I knew I wasn't talented enough to be at an international level for more than a couple of years, simply because my body couldn't handle the punishment. By 27 my career was over. But during my time, it was my intensity which allowed me to play at the highest level, to play with ex-internationals and for them to respect me as one of their own. By that time, I knew I wasn't the most talented, I didn't have that innate ability to get the best performance and come out unhurt. No, I might have looked like a tough sonavabitch after a game, but damn I did not want to get into any bar fights, I could barely move my neck at times. But I had that intensity of walking on that field and saying, 'I'm here, and I don't care if I live or die on this pitch, this is war.'
So, intensity is short is the ability to put a true 100% effort every time you work, which is actually quite a feat. Imagine every time you lifted weights you did it until complete failure, or you run a race to place or you are running from the North Koreans who are going to shoot you, trust me, you'll actually be running at 100%. So we want to be 100% in what we do, but, we really don't put in 100% into nearly everything we do, but when we do, it covers a lot of competitive space.
Stamina via Routine
When you compete, part of discipline is this Intensity, but intensity is impossible to maintain over long periods of time by 'force of will'. Sure we can hype ourselves up, listen to some heavy metal or gangster rap or pretend we are rocky or something like that, but in the end, you just burn out. Intensity needs to be on a foundation of Stamina.
Stamina, its the ability to maintain the same level of performance over a long period of time. In professional dog fighting, they have 2 terms: mouth and game. If a dog got 'mouth' then he can finish a fight, he got the bite power, he smart, when get locks on, the only reason why he unlocks his jaw is to get a deeper bite; and there is 'game' if a dog got game, he can keep attacking and attacking endlessly to get that opportunity to use his 'mouth'.
Now in the case of stamina for competition, it is ONLY gain through ROUTINE. I don't care how smart you are, how much you can focus, if you don't have a daily competitive routine in your life, then you will burn out or you will not be consistent. I'm not talking about time management here, I'm talking about making the every day things you do in a routine regular way so that it allows you to be in a stable frame of mind and health so that when you turn on that intensity, its not a leap from zero to sixty, but you're always at that 30 mark, just ready to kick it into high gear, but its an easy 30, you're just cruising at that speed, no wasted gas or effort.
A Routine to Clear and Balance Yourself
At many of the top fortune 500 companies, the CEO and the top executives work out or run 5 miles in the morning, every morning before 7:30. The eat breakfast at the same time, they get into the office and have a very minor routine of things they do first, email, paper, coffee.
Now this all sounds so boring, but what it does is that it eliminates any minor distractions and things that do come up unexpectedly can be dealt with, with their full attention. It as though, you're always prepared to simply leave everything as it is and go right into the issue.
When you're not routine, all the little things in life add up, you can't work now cause your hungry, you feel bloated cause you didn't work out for 3 days, you're tired cause you when to bed at 3 am, just because. And when there is an issue that requires your intensity, all these little things either nag you at the back of your mind or else will effect your overall performance, because you're not at your best.
No Routine, Welcome to Burnout Country
The reality is for most people who are competitive and don't have routine is that they are walking time bombs. The only way to be truly competitive is to have some type of stable routine in your life, and those people who are competitive without it, they usually simply take on more and more tasks, until the tasks force them to be routine in a kind of perverse way.
It's perverse because instead of you making a routine, you've let the number of project deadlines and email requests dictate your schedule, thus, you do get in a routine, but its not productive and the intensity you put into dealing with all these projects is not focused and in the end a sure way to burn out. You check email 15 times a day to respond to, you have a really important deadline each week, because you have 6 different projects going on, etc.
Needless to say, work shouldn't be like that all the time, a major deadline once a month, or major deadlines in a single intense project every week for just 2 months, but not a deadline every week for the entire year, that is just nuts, and I'm not talking about some task, I mean a deadline that if it is not executed properly, you fuck up your firm's bottom line or can fuck up your career.
We Need Routine as Organic Beings
So, routine, life is just easier with it and it builds stamina because at the end of the day, there is only so much the body can handle and if we are always living as if we are problem solving even the minor things in our life (which are as important for us to function as physical mental humans, like eating right, exercise, maintaining good relationships with others, even entertaining ourselves); then how long do you expect to be able to perform at your best when all the little things are just building up.
So what to do, how to start.
1. One time, just go to bed at 9:30 pm, just one time.
2. You'll wake up at 5 or 6 am, you may say, I'm not a morning person, bullshit, everyone is a morning person, its just that they haven't woken up that early since they were 6 years old.
3. Stretch and do a set of exercises that you can do over the next week for 15 mins; 10 push ups, 10 sit ups X 5 (or whatever you can handle)
4. See what time it is: take a shower
5. Get a coffee or tea or whatever, sit down, get out a note book, and write out all things you need to do today and put the time it takes and when you are going to do it.
6. leave you house and do your day, keep note of when you leave.
Now repeat for a week. Try to get up at the same time, do the same thing, and leave the house at the same time.
Eventually that note book's tasks will become more accurate, eventually your routine will extend throughout the day, and you'll tweak your exercises etc.
Do it for 3 weeks, it will be a habit for life and I tend to do that when its time for me to start working like a mofo, when I'm relaxing at home or on vacation or whatever, I don't have routine and I get fat, lazy and disorganized, when I take one good nights early sleep and start it, I'm a freaking competitive monster in about 2 weeks.
Discipline's result is Effectiveness
The last point here is effectiveness, ok so you've got your intensity, you get on your task and you just do it and you have a great routine so when it's time to work, you have no distractions and you always have a good idea of what to do; now effectiveness is ensuring that you've optimize your intensity/stamina for your tasks.
1. You touch something, you finish it. don't fucking open the email and say I'll do it afterwards, no you open that email, you reply to it. And if you say, well what if it requires more time and thought? then I say, think faster you idiot, wtf kind of excuse is that, if they send you something in a email text, then how long will it really take.
2. Only do 5 major tasks a day. You may have 10 or 15 things to do, but if you try, you can't do them all properly, break down the task into 5 key things you must fucking do. And trust me, even 5 is a lot.
3. Don't waste time complaining, take a blank sheet of paper, write out the time you have left in the day in 30 min increments then put in your tasks and then try to stick to it and then when you do it, cross it off. Try to be generous in your estimates, then try to beat the time you've put allotted down, its the same thing as setting your clock 5 mins faster, you know it's 5 mins faster, but hell, it still helps you to be on time, cause it reminds you that you are normally a late mofo.
4. If you don't know what you are doing, then say, I DON'T KNOW and figure it out. If it is a creative task and you are stumped, go do something else and before you go to bed, write out the problem on a blank sheet of paper, when you wake up you'll have the solution. If you just don't have all the data, stop everything and find as much source documentation you can, then print it all out, and read it all first. If someone isn't working hard enough, don't be nice, say, 'I need you to do this and this, and I need by this time' be clear, people are not as competitive or attentive, if they want to be like that, its fine, but you can't expect everyone to be a superstar, just be clear with your expectations and deadlines.
Consistent High Level Performance ftw
So, this is all discipline, why, because it requires you maintain some level of consistent performance. You need to be intense in what you do, but if you just do it on force of will, you won't know when you've step over that line of being professional intense or just a burned out psychotic workaholic (I obviously I have been the latter most of my professional life) and you are engaged in a highly competitive environment, NO ONE IS THAT GOOD, that they can do this without some kind of routine to provide mental and physical stability for the stamina to keep on doing it at the same level. And lastly, if you got lots of game, but no mouth, then how the hell are you gonna get those results? that 'mouth' is that effectiveness, you have a task, break it down and take real steps forward, or else you will be just caught up in your own workload of doing dick all.
Everything I write here, it is hard to begin, but once you do it, it become easier until it's just natural. The flip side is to become to routine, but I don't think that really applies here to those who are naturally more intelligent and who would play 3 hours of SC anyways. Thing is, you will have years where you are routine, then something crazy happens then you need to get back into the routine, its life, it will happen, but you need to get back on that horse of discipline eventually and the sooner you do it, the better because Discipline is only things saving your ass from burn out.
Life is Nuts, but Sometimes you can Leave the Nuts Behind
My last point is this; sometimes in life, we have people who fuck up our routine because they are crazy or miserable or just want us to fail so they will do anything they can to fuck us up, either your mom just is nuts or your friends like to go out at night and do random dumb things. Sometimes in life, you have to make a decision to cut yourself off from these kinds of distractions and get your routine down and then slowly let them back in. You shouldn't hang out with miserable unfortunate people as friends unless you are their aid worker and if you want to move up, then you do it.
The movie 8 miles with Eminem has him trying to score it big and when he finally does, his boys say, lets go out and celebrate, and you know what he says, 'sorry boys, I gotta go back and work at the factory and keep my shift'.
Boys, don't hang out with the losers and when you got your routine, its an engine that will take you step by step closer to wherever you wanna go.
Cheers.
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On March 03 2013 22:29 KurtistheTurtle wrote:MightyAtom post on this. Glad I dug this up again + Show Spoiler +
Being Competitive Part 4: Discipline
MightyAtom, Nov 03 2010
Confidence is a mind set that allows you to compete when there are set-backs and when the road is tough and tortured, it gives you hope; while you may not be the best now, you will learn, you will try and you will be better.
But when it comes down to the execution of it, this is a game of intensity, stamina and effectiveness.
Value of Intensity
REGARDLESS how more skilled someone is, or more talented, intensity can make up the ground for it.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Gattaca, I actually named my son after the actor Ethan Hawke for this movie and 2 others (before sunset, before sunrise). In the movie, Ethan is the older brother who was born 'naturally' in a time where genetic birth modification was possible; he is born with a heart defect and relatively short for that time period; whereas his younger brother was born with the optimal genetic combination of both their parents.
I won't get into the plot, but Ethan's younger brother does everything better than Ethan and they always played this game of chicken where they would see who could swim out the farthest to the sea. Ethan's younger brother always won, except one day, one day Ethan won that race and actually carried his brother back and then disappear after than and followed his own dreams.
At the end of the film, after many years later, they reunite and Ethan's brother asks, 'how did you beat me that day?' And Ethan says, 'I never saved anything for the swim back...' Intensity...
Intensity makes up for lack of talent
When I was in high school, I was small, and I went out for 7's rugby union as a freshman in the fall; but there was an issue that, there wasn't a junior team, only a senior team, so I had to train with the seniors and while I would never play 7's, I was guaranteed a spot on the 15's in the Spring. I got destroyed, the physical difference between a 17/18 year and a 13/14 year old is considerable and they didn't hold back. But I learned quickly and was a star, the thing I had most though from that first year, was intensity, I was the smallest the weakest, but I never accepted that I couldn't play with the the big boys, I knew I wasn't going to score, but I could contribute and as long as people didn't know I was weak, I wasn't a liability on the pitch/field.
By the time I was a senior, I was eating kids for breakfast, by the time was varsity in university, I had a reputation for playing as if I was 2 people. And all this time, I thought I was really talented, but in fact, I wasn't. By the time I was 24 or so, I realized that after a game, I took much more time to recover and I had many more injuries than some other star players on the team. By the time I was 26, I knew I wasn't talented enough to be at an international level for more than a couple of years, simply because my body couldn't handle the punishment. By 27 my career was over. But during my time, it was my intensity which allowed me to play at the highest level, to play with ex-internationals and for them to respect me as one of their own. By that time, I knew I wasn't the most talented, I didn't have that innate ability to get the best performance and come out unhurt. No, I might have looked like a tough sonavabitch after a game, but damn I did not want to get into any bar fights, I could barely move my neck at times. But I had that intensity of walking on that field and saying, 'I'm here, and I don't care if I live or die on this pitch, this is war.'
So, intensity is short is the ability to put a true 100% effort every time you work, which is actually quite a feat. Imagine every time you lifted weights you did it until complete failure, or you run a race to place or you are running from the North Koreans who are going to shoot you, trust me, you'll actually be running at 100%. So we want to be 100% in what we do, but, we really don't put in 100% into nearly everything we do, but when we do, it covers a lot of competitive space.
Stamina via Routine
When you compete, part of discipline is this Intensity, but intensity is impossible to maintain over long periods of time by 'force of will'. Sure we can hype ourselves up, listen to some heavy metal or gangster rap or pretend we are rocky or something like that, but in the end, you just burn out. Intensity needs to be on a foundation of Stamina.
Stamina, its the ability to maintain the same level of performance over a long period of time. In professional dog fighting, they have 2 terms: mouth and game. If a dog got 'mouth' then he can finish a fight, he got the bite power, he smart, when get locks on, the only reason why he unlocks his jaw is to get a deeper bite; and there is 'game' if a dog got game, he can keep attacking and attacking endlessly to get that opportunity to use his 'mouth'.
Now in the case of stamina for competition, it is ONLY gain through ROUTINE. I don't care how smart you are, how much you can focus, if you don't have a daily competitive routine in your life, then you will burn out or you will not be consistent. I'm not talking about time management here, I'm talking about making the every day things you do in a routine regular way so that it allows you to be in a stable frame of mind and health so that when you turn on that intensity, its not a leap from zero to sixty, but you're always at that 30 mark, just ready to kick it into high gear, but its an easy 30, you're just cruising at that speed, no wasted gas or effort.
A Routine to Clear and Balance Yourself
At many of the top fortune 500 companies, the CEO and the top executives work out or run 5 miles in the morning, every morning before 7:30. The eat breakfast at the same time, they get into the office and have a very minor routine of things they do first, email, paper, coffee.
Now this all sounds so boring, but what it does is that it eliminates any minor distractions and things that do come up unexpectedly can be dealt with, with their full attention. It as though, you're always prepared to simply leave everything as it is and go right into the issue.
When you're not routine, all the little things in life add up, you can't work now cause your hungry, you feel bloated cause you didn't work out for 3 days, you're tired cause you when to bed at 3 am, just because. And when there is an issue that requires your intensity, all these little things either nag you at the back of your mind or else will effect your overall performance, because you're not at your best.
No Routine, Welcome to Burnout Country
The reality is for most people who are competitive and don't have routine is that they are walking time bombs. The only way to be truly competitive is to have some type of stable routine in your life, and those people who are competitive without it, they usually simply take on more and more tasks, until the tasks force them to be routine in a kind of perverse way.
It's perverse because instead of you making a routine, you've let the number of project deadlines and email requests dictate your schedule, thus, you do get in a routine, but its not productive and the intensity you put into dealing with all these projects is not focused and in the end a sure way to burn out. You check email 15 times a day to respond to, you have a really important deadline each week, because you have 6 different projects going on, etc.
Needless to say, work shouldn't be like that all the time, a major deadline once a month, or major deadlines in a single intense project every week for just 2 months, but not a deadline every week for the entire year, that is just nuts, and I'm not talking about some task, I mean a deadline that if it is not executed properly, you fuck up your firm's bottom line or can fuck up your career.
We Need Routine as Organic Beings
So, routine, life is just easier with it and it builds stamina because at the end of the day, there is only so much the body can handle and if we are always living as if we are problem solving even the minor things in our life (which are as important for us to function as physical mental humans, like eating right, exercise, maintaining good relationships with others, even entertaining ourselves); then how long do you expect to be able to perform at your best when all the little things are just building up.
So what to do, how to start.
1. One time, just go to bed at 9:30 pm, just one time.
2. You'll wake up at 5 or 6 am, you may say, I'm not a morning person, bullshit, everyone is a morning person, its just that they haven't woken up that early since they were 6 years old.
3. Stretch and do a set of exercises that you can do over the next week for 15 mins; 10 push ups, 10 sit ups X 5 (or whatever you can handle)
4. See what time it is: take a shower
5. Get a coffee or tea or whatever, sit down, get out a note book, and write out all things you need to do today and put the time it takes and when you are going to do it.
6. leave you house and do your day, keep note of when you leave.
Now repeat for a week. Try to get up at the same time, do the same thing, and leave the house at the same time.
Eventually that note book's tasks will become more accurate, eventually your routine will extend throughout the day, and you'll tweak your exercises etc.
Do it for 3 weeks, it will be a habit for life and I tend to do that when its time for me to start working like a mofo, when I'm relaxing at home or on vacation or whatever, I don't have routine and I get fat, lazy and disorganized, when I take one good nights early sleep and start it, I'm a freaking competitive monster in about 2 weeks.
Discipline's result is Effectiveness
The last point here is effectiveness, ok so you've got your intensity, you get on your task and you just do it and you have a great routine so when it's time to work, you have no distractions and you always have a good idea of what to do; now effectiveness is ensuring that you've optimize your intensity/stamina for your tasks.
1. You touch something, you finish it. don't fucking open the email and say I'll do it afterwards, no you open that email, you reply to it. And if you say, well what if it requires more time and thought? then I say, think faster you idiot, wtf kind of excuse is that, if they send you something in a email text, then how long will it really take.
2. Only do 5 major tasks a day. You may have 10 or 15 things to do, but if you try, you can't do them all properly, break down the task into 5 key things you must fucking do. And trust me, even 5 is a lot.
3. Don't waste time complaining, take a blank sheet of paper, write out the time you have left in the day in 30 min increments then put in your tasks and then try to stick to it and then when you do it, cross it off. Try to be generous in your estimates, then try to beat the time you've put allotted down, its the same thing as setting your clock 5 mins faster, you know it's 5 mins faster, but hell, it still helps you to be on time, cause it reminds you that you are normally a late mofo.
4. If you don't know what you are doing, then say, I DON'T KNOW and figure it out. If it is a creative task and you are stumped, go do something else and before you go to bed, write out the problem on a blank sheet of paper, when you wake up you'll have the solution. If you just don't have all the data, stop everything and find as much source documentation you can, then print it all out, and read it all first. If someone isn't working hard enough, don't be nice, say, 'I need you to do this and this, and I need by this time' be clear, people are not as competitive or attentive, if they want to be like that, its fine, but you can't expect everyone to be a superstar, just be clear with your expectations and deadlines.
Consistent High Level Performance ftw
So, this is all discipline, why, because it requires you maintain some level of consistent performance. You need to be intense in what you do, but if you just do it on force of will, you won't know when you've step over that line of being professional intense or just a burned out psychotic workaholic (I obviously I have been the latter most of my professional life) and you are engaged in a highly competitive environment, NO ONE IS THAT GOOD, that they can do this without some kind of routine to provide mental and physical stability for the stamina to keep on doing it at the same level. And lastly, if you got lots of game, but no mouth, then how the hell are you gonna get those results? that 'mouth' is that effectiveness, you have a task, break it down and take real steps forward, or else you will be just caught up in your own workload of doing dick all.
Everything I write here, it is hard to begin, but once you do it, it become easier until it's just natural. The flip side is to become to routine, but I don't think that really applies here to those who are naturally more intelligent and who would play 3 hours of SC anyways. Thing is, you will have years where you are routine, then something crazy happens then you need to get back into the routine, its life, it will happen, but you need to get back on that horse of discipline eventually and the sooner you do it, the better because Discipline is only things saving your ass from burn out.
Life is Nuts, but Sometimes you can Leave the Nuts Behind
My last point is this; sometimes in life, we have people who fuck up our routine because they are crazy or miserable or just want us to fail so they will do anything they can to fuck us up, either your mom just is nuts or your friends like to go out at night and do random dumb things. Sometimes in life, you have to make a decision to cut yourself off from these kinds of distractions and get your routine down and then slowly let them back in. You shouldn't hang out with miserable unfortunate people as friends unless you are their aid worker and if you want to move up, then you do it.
The movie 8 miles with Eminem has him trying to score it big and when he finally does, his boys say, lets go out and celebrate, and you know what he says, 'sorry boys, I gotta go back and work at the factory and keep my shift'.
Boys, don't hang out with the losers and when you got your routine, its an engine that will take you step by step closer to wherever you wanna go.
Cheers.
Great post. I'm definitely going to need this when heading into college. Right now I have zero routine whatsoever. 2/3 weeks for exams I just wing it, but I doubt I can still do this in during my studies.
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On March 03 2013 22:29 KurtistheTurtle wrote:MightyAtom post on this. Glad I dug this up again + Show Spoiler +
Being Competitive Part 4: Discipline
MightyAtom, Nov 03 2010
Confidence is a mind set that allows you to compete when there are set-backs and when the road is tough and tortured, it gives you hope; while you may not be the best now, you will learn, you will try and you will be better.
But when it comes down to the execution of it, this is a game of intensity, stamina and effectiveness.
Value of Intensity
REGARDLESS how more skilled someone is, or more talented, intensity can make up the ground for it.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Gattaca, I actually named my son after the actor Ethan Hawke for this movie and 2 others (before sunset, before sunrise). In the movie, Ethan is the older brother who was born 'naturally' in a time where genetic birth modification was possible; he is born with a heart defect and relatively short for that time period; whereas his younger brother was born with the optimal genetic combination of both their parents.
I won't get into the plot, but Ethan's younger brother does everything better than Ethan and they always played this game of chicken where they would see who could swim out the farthest to the sea. Ethan's younger brother always won, except one day, one day Ethan won that race and actually carried his brother back and then disappear after than and followed his own dreams.
At the end of the film, after many years later, they reunite and Ethan's brother asks, 'how did you beat me that day?' And Ethan says, 'I never saved anything for the swim back...' Intensity...
Intensity makes up for lack of talent
When I was in high school, I was small, and I went out for 7's rugby union as a freshman in the fall; but there was an issue that, there wasn't a junior team, only a senior team, so I had to train with the seniors and while I would never play 7's, I was guaranteed a spot on the 15's in the Spring. I got destroyed, the physical difference between a 17/18 year and a 13/14 year old is considerable and they didn't hold back. But I learned quickly and was a star, the thing I had most though from that first year, was intensity, I was the smallest the weakest, but I never accepted that I couldn't play with the the big boys, I knew I wasn't going to score, but I could contribute and as long as people didn't know I was weak, I wasn't a liability on the pitch/field.
By the time I was a senior, I was eating kids for breakfast, by the time was varsity in university, I had a reputation for playing as if I was 2 people. And all this time, I thought I was really talented, but in fact, I wasn't. By the time I was 24 or so, I realized that after a game, I took much more time to recover and I had many more injuries than some other star players on the team. By the time I was 26, I knew I wasn't talented enough to be at an international level for more than a couple of years, simply because my body couldn't handle the punishment. By 27 my career was over. But during my time, it was my intensity which allowed me to play at the highest level, to play with ex-internationals and for them to respect me as one of their own. By that time, I knew I wasn't the most talented, I didn't have that innate ability to get the best performance and come out unhurt. No, I might have looked like a tough sonavabitch after a game, but damn I did not want to get into any bar fights, I could barely move my neck at times. But I had that intensity of walking on that field and saying, 'I'm here, and I don't care if I live or die on this pitch, this is war.'
So, intensity is short is the ability to put a true 100% effort every time you work, which is actually quite a feat. Imagine every time you lifted weights you did it until complete failure, or you run a race to place or you are running from the North Koreans who are going to shoot you, trust me, you'll actually be running at 100%. So we want to be 100% in what we do, but, we really don't put in 100% into nearly everything we do, but when we do, it covers a lot of competitive space.
Stamina via Routine
When you compete, part of discipline is this Intensity, but intensity is impossible to maintain over long periods of time by 'force of will'. Sure we can hype ourselves up, listen to some heavy metal or gangster rap or pretend we are rocky or something like that, but in the end, you just burn out. Intensity needs to be on a foundation of Stamina.
Stamina, its the ability to maintain the same level of performance over a long period of time. In professional dog fighting, they have 2 terms: mouth and game. If a dog got 'mouth' then he can finish a fight, he got the bite power, he smart, when get locks on, the only reason why he unlocks his jaw is to get a deeper bite; and there is 'game' if a dog got game, he can keep attacking and attacking endlessly to get that opportunity to use his 'mouth'.
Now in the case of stamina for competition, it is ONLY gain through ROUTINE. I don't care how smart you are, how much you can focus, if you don't have a daily competitive routine in your life, then you will burn out or you will not be consistent. I'm not talking about time management here, I'm talking about making the every day things you do in a routine regular way so that it allows you to be in a stable frame of mind and health so that when you turn on that intensity, its not a leap from zero to sixty, but you're always at that 30 mark, just ready to kick it into high gear, but its an easy 30, you're just cruising at that speed, no wasted gas or effort.
A Routine to Clear and Balance Yourself
At many of the top fortune 500 companies, the CEO and the top executives work out or run 5 miles in the morning, every morning before 7:30. The eat breakfast at the same time, they get into the office and have a very minor routine of things they do first, email, paper, coffee.
Now this all sounds so boring, but what it does is that it eliminates any minor distractions and things that do come up unexpectedly can be dealt with, with their full attention. It as though, you're always prepared to simply leave everything as it is and go right into the issue.
When you're not routine, all the little things in life add up, you can't work now cause your hungry, you feel bloated cause you didn't work out for 3 days, you're tired cause you when to bed at 3 am, just because. And when there is an issue that requires your intensity, all these little things either nag you at the back of your mind or else will effect your overall performance, because you're not at your best.
No Routine, Welcome to Burnout Country
The reality is for most people who are competitive and don't have routine is that they are walking time bombs. The only way to be truly competitive is to have some type of stable routine in your life, and those people who are competitive without it, they usually simply take on more and more tasks, until the tasks force them to be routine in a kind of perverse way.
It's perverse because instead of you making a routine, you've let the number of project deadlines and email requests dictate your schedule, thus, you do get in a routine, but its not productive and the intensity you put into dealing with all these projects is not focused and in the end a sure way to burn out. You check email 15 times a day to respond to, you have a really important deadline each week, because you have 6 different projects going on, etc.
Needless to say, work shouldn't be like that all the time, a major deadline once a month, or major deadlines in a single intense project every week for just 2 months, but not a deadline every week for the entire year, that is just nuts, and I'm not talking about some task, I mean a deadline that if it is not executed properly, you fuck up your firm's bottom line or can fuck up your career.
We Need Routine as Organic Beings
So, routine, life is just easier with it and it builds stamina because at the end of the day, there is only so much the body can handle and if we are always living as if we are problem solving even the minor things in our life (which are as important for us to function as physical mental humans, like eating right, exercise, maintaining good relationships with others, even entertaining ourselves); then how long do you expect to be able to perform at your best when all the little things are just building up.
So what to do, how to start.
1. One time, just go to bed at 9:30 pm, just one time.
2. You'll wake up at 5 or 6 am, you may say, I'm not a morning person, bullshit, everyone is a morning person, its just that they haven't woken up that early since they were 6 years old.
3. Stretch and do a set of exercises that you can do over the next week for 15 mins; 10 push ups, 10 sit ups X 5 (or whatever you can handle)
4. See what time it is: take a shower
5. Get a coffee or tea or whatever, sit down, get out a note book, and write out all things you need to do today and put the time it takes and when you are going to do it.
6. leave you house and do your day, keep note of when you leave.
Now repeat for a week. Try to get up at the same time, do the same thing, and leave the house at the same time.
Eventually that note book's tasks will become more accurate, eventually your routine will extend throughout the day, and you'll tweak your exercises etc.
Do it for 3 weeks, it will be a habit for life and I tend to do that when its time for me to start working like a mofo, when I'm relaxing at home or on vacation or whatever, I don't have routine and I get fat, lazy and disorganized, when I take one good nights early sleep and start it, I'm a freaking competitive monster in about 2 weeks.
Discipline's result is Effectiveness
The last point here is effectiveness, ok so you've got your intensity, you get on your task and you just do it and you have a great routine so when it's time to work, you have no distractions and you always have a good idea of what to do; now effectiveness is ensuring that you've optimize your intensity/stamina for your tasks.
1. You touch something, you finish it. don't fucking open the email and say I'll do it afterwards, no you open that email, you reply to it. And if you say, well what if it requires more time and thought? then I say, think faster you idiot, wtf kind of excuse is that, if they send you something in a email text, then how long will it really take.
2. Only do 5 major tasks a day. You may have 10 or 15 things to do, but if you try, you can't do them all properly, break down the task into 5 key things you must fucking do. And trust me, even 5 is a lot.
3. Don't waste time complaining, take a blank sheet of paper, write out the time you have left in the day in 30 min increments then put in your tasks and then try to stick to it and then when you do it, cross it off. Try to be generous in your estimates, then try to beat the time you've put allotted down, its the same thing as setting your clock 5 mins faster, you know it's 5 mins faster, but hell, it still helps you to be on time, cause it reminds you that you are normally a late mofo.
4. If you don't know what you are doing, then say, I DON'T KNOW and figure it out. If it is a creative task and you are stumped, go do something else and before you go to bed, write out the problem on a blank sheet of paper, when you wake up you'll have the solution. If you just don't have all the data, stop everything and find as much source documentation you can, then print it all out, and read it all first. If someone isn't working hard enough, don't be nice, say, 'I need you to do this and this, and I need by this time' be clear, people are not as competitive or attentive, if they want to be like that, its fine, but you can't expect everyone to be a superstar, just be clear with your expectations and deadlines.
Consistent High Level Performance ftw
So, this is all discipline, why, because it requires you maintain some level of consistent performance. You need to be intense in what you do, but if you just do it on force of will, you won't know when you've step over that line of being professional intense or just a burned out psychotic workaholic (I obviously I have been the latter most of my professional life) and you are engaged in a highly competitive environment, NO ONE IS THAT GOOD, that they can do this without some kind of routine to provide mental and physical stability for the stamina to keep on doing it at the same level. And lastly, if you got lots of game, but no mouth, then how the hell are you gonna get those results? that 'mouth' is that effectiveness, you have a task, break it down and take real steps forward, or else you will be just caught up in your own workload of doing dick all.
Everything I write here, it is hard to begin, but once you do it, it become easier until it's just natural. The flip side is to become to routine, but I don't think that really applies here to those who are naturally more intelligent and who would play 3 hours of SC anyways. Thing is, you will have years where you are routine, then something crazy happens then you need to get back into the routine, its life, it will happen, but you need to get back on that horse of discipline eventually and the sooner you do it, the better because Discipline is only things saving your ass from burn out.
Life is Nuts, but Sometimes you can Leave the Nuts Behind
My last point is this; sometimes in life, we have people who fuck up our routine because they are crazy or miserable or just want us to fail so they will do anything they can to fuck us up, either your mom just is nuts or your friends like to go out at night and do random dumb things. Sometimes in life, you have to make a decision to cut yourself off from these kinds of distractions and get your routine down and then slowly let them back in. You shouldn't hang out with miserable unfortunate people as friends unless you are their aid worker and if you want to move up, then you do it.
The movie 8 miles with Eminem has him trying to score it big and when he finally does, his boys say, lets go out and celebrate, and you know what he says, 'sorry boys, I gotta go back and work at the factory and keep my shift'.
Boys, don't hang out with the losers and when you got your routine, its an engine that will take you step by step closer to wherever you wanna go.
Cheers.
Thank you for this post.
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EPT
