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The author has clearly never heard of decision fatigue. The mind is a muscle and while it can be strengthened, like any muscle it has limits. As one grows more

The author has clearly never heard of decision fatigue. The mind is a muscle and while it can be strengthened, like any muscle it has limits. As one grows more experienced and gets a better understanding of their mental faculties, they come to realize — subconsciously or not — that they are only good for so much thinking in a day. Thus extreme measures like the Steve Jobs-ian "uniform" and chugging soylent instead of wasting five precious minutes every day pondering what to have for lunch. I've been immersed in "startup culture" for just over a decade now, and if I have one acute observation, it's the shift from "never not working" as an ethos to obsessing over not burning out. There is an entire genre of people thinking very hard about mind-hacks to avoid it (yes, irony alert). Looking forward to when this dude slams into the wall. (I'm guilty of the "uniform" strategy, incidentally, went to H&M and bought 20 identical black t-shirts and 10 white button-up dress shirts, best decision ever) ((second best decision was scheduling all meetings for the second half of the afternoon))

awinder 6y ago
I’ve noticed the same sort of switchover, although there’s the crazy outliers I think it’s mostly come from a good place & I’m happy to see it. Anyone that has to go through burnout knows that A) it sucks and B) there was now no time efficiency to what you were doing, because you are now ~0% effective. Basically it feels like the industry just read the operating manual on the human brain and realized collectively it wasn’t sustainable.
Ologn 6y ago
Andy Bechtolsheim said when Bill Joy worked at CSRG, he figured out how much longer it took him to write an e-mail when he had to hit the shift key versus when typing in all lowercase. Subsequently, all his CSRG e-mails seem to be in lowercase. Marshall McKusick took over Joy's role when he left to found Sun. McKusick said he thought he was capable of any programming feat Joy could do, the difference between them is that what took McKusick a month, Joy could do in four days.

awinder 6y ago

I’ve noticed the same sort of switchover, although there’s the crazy outliers I think it’s mostly come from a good place & I’m happy to see it. Anyone that has to go through burnout knows that A) it sucks and B) there was now no time efficiency to what you were doing, because you are now ~0% effective. Basically it feels like the industry just read the operating manual on the human brain and realized collectively it wasn’t sustainable.

Ologn 6y ago

Andy Bechtolsheim said when Bill Joy worked at CSRG, he figured out how much longer it took him to write an e-mail when he had to hit the shift key versus when typing in all lowercase. Subsequently, all his CSRG e-mails seem to be in lowercase. Marshall McKusick took over Joy's role when he left to found Sun. McKusick said he thought he was capable of any programming feat Joy could do, the difference between them is that what took McKusick a month, Joy could do in four days.