3 ms·
I wouldn't agree with your first statement. In any job, no matter how enjoyable or rewarding overall, there are elements which are more interesting and others t
by apu 18y ago
I wouldn't agree with your first statement. In any job, no matter how enjoyable or rewarding overall, there are elements which are more interesting and others that are less so.
In my job, the ratio of fun stuff to non-fun stuff is quite high, but still finite -- there's still a fair amount of boring stuff I need to work on periodically. I find that one technique which works well is to try to pipeline my work (if possible) such that I can work on multiple aspects of it simultaneously. Then I can devote a few hours per day (or days per week) on the boring stuff, with the thought of working on the exciting stuff immediately afterwards as a strong motivator.
BTW if anyone finds a job that's uniformly exciting/fun throughout with no boring parts, let me know =)
- edw519 18y ago"In any job", "In my job", "if anyone finds a job" Notice a pattern? You're right, most jobs can have boring elements. I assumed that OP was talking about his startup, not his job. I am building a startup that, by definition, is what I want it to be. I can't imagine anything about it being "boring".
- tom_rath 18y agoI own my company, love the technology, am delighted in the revenue it's giving me and am absolutely bored to death with the task I am doing today. It needs to be done and I'm doing it, but this day has been an absolute slog with every keystroke. It doesn't matter how much you love your company: You're going to have "Ya know what? Fuck this!" days every now and then. Just learn to roll with 'em when they happen.
- alex_c 18y agoI am building a startup that, by definition, is what I want it to be. I can't imagine anything about it being "boring". This kind of, for lack of a better term, blind optimism, is one thing that gets to me after a while on News.YC, and I'm a pretty positive guy to start with. I simply cannot believe that every single last aspect of your start-up is enjoyable to you. Either you have someone else doing the parts you find boring, or you steer around the boring parts (possibly to the detriment of your start-up), or you're convincing yourself that you don't find them boring. I've spent the last week and a bit doing some work which is at best mind-numbingly boring, but which might be essential to our success. I will definitely be happy with the results, but that doesn't mean I wasn't bored out of my mind and whining about it the entire time; it just means I want to get it done faster so I can go back to something fun. There's nothing WRONG with finding certain aspects of the work boring, and I think that's a dangerous signal to send. The boring parts have to be done too. What happened to "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration"?
- edw519 18y agoMaybe "boring" is not the best word. Maybe we are really talking about "more fun" vs. "less fun". Naturally, some things are more fun that others, but I am never bored in my startup. Frustrated sometimes, yes. This week I lost a whole day because I had overlooked something simple one day last week. Had to retool the whole stupid thing when I really wanted to build the next level up. So the exciting part had to wait a day. No big deal. It happens. But was I ever "bored"? Hardly. A little background. I sat in class bored to tears for 17 years. Then, I did work in 86 other companies (none of them mine) before I started this one. I have a clear vision of what I want and a fairly clear idea of how things should work. I love both the technical details and the people part. Usually, I can't wait to get to the next thing. The only thing I really don't like is when a client calls for me to fix something on their crappy system. Shifting gears sucks. Boring? No, I just don't see it.