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That's interesting. I saw once Timothy Feriss interviewing Neil Gaiman, and it was about focus and whatnot, and Gaiman said: "whenever I'm blocked, I stop, and

That's interesting. I saw once Timothy Feriss interviewing Neil Gaiman, and it was about focus and whatnot, and Gaiman said: "whenever I'm blocked, I stop, and start doing nothing. I can't watch a movie, read a book, I do nothing. I have only two options: I work or I do nothing - I cannot do anything else. After a little while, things get really boring, and I think 'might as well go back to work' - and that works as a charm.". I guess that's a very good way of setting your focus straight, to obey your commands, instead of the other way around.

ramraj07 6y ago
I used to do that technique for studying for the GRE. And it worked like a charm for sure (aside: Barron's GRE word list had the word <n-word>dly as meaning lazy in 2007 still. I was a kid in India but even to me it sounded wrong). Neil's full time work is to write. I'm sure this is what he does 9-5 or whenever he writes profesdionally. I doubt he just sits without doing nothing in the weekend when he could be playing with his kids. Thats the issue. If I was demotivated to do this in my day job that's one thing. Motivating yourself for extra work is where it's hard.
- nchelluri 6y ago
  A note on your aside: the word is niggardly, and root of the word is niggard, which according to this book I found via Wikipedia, is not related to the racist term: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IZRMl0NXHZ8C&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=middle+english+word+nig&#v=onepage&q=middle%20english%20word%20nig&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IZRMl0NXHZ8C&pg=PA34&lpg... > The term niggardly, arising in the Middle Ages, long predates the term <that word>, which arose in the 16th century. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n... I wonder if it should come into misuse just because of the confusion, though. Not sure.

ramraj07 6y ago

I used to do that technique for studying for the GRE. And it worked like a charm for sure (aside: Barron's GRE word list had the word <n-word>dly as meaning lazy in 2007 still. I was a kid in India but even to me it sounded wrong). Neil's full time work is to write. I'm sure this is what he does 9-5 or whenever he writes profesdionally. I doubt he just sits without doing nothing in the weekend when he could be playing with his kids. Thats the issue. If I was demotivated to do this in my day job that's one thing. Motivating yourself for extra work is where it's hard.

nchelluri 6y ago
A note on your aside: the word is niggardly, and root of the word is niggard, which according to this book I found via Wikipedia, is not related to the racist term: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IZRMl0NXHZ8C&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=middle+english+word+nig&#v=onepage&q=middle%20english%20word%20nig&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IZRMl0NXHZ8C&pg=PA34&lpg... > The term niggardly, arising in the Middle Ages, long predates the term <that word>, which arose in the 16th century. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n... I wonder if it should come into misuse just because of the confusion, though. Not sure.