5 ms·

I tend to do a lot of my problem solving laying awake in bed at night. Either I can't sleep or I wake up in the small hours of the night, and I'll chew on some

by taneq 6y ago

I tend to do a lot of my problem solving laying awake in bed at night. Either I can't sleep or I wake up in the small hours of the night, and I'll chew on some problem that's been bugging me until I solve it and go back to sleep. This was part of what made me want to start my own company. I'm not doing my best work until I'm so immersed in a project that my brain's working on it round the clock in the background, and I didn't want to give my full energies to developing IP for an employer that returned no loyalty.

nicbou 6y ago
It might be the only time in the day where you are idle and undistracted. Try going on a walk, it achieves the same effect. Walking home from work helped a lot with that and also with signing off at the end of the day.
plutonorm 6y ago
For me too. I'm far less effective when the problem isn't taking over my whole brain. And when I have two problems going on at once it causes large amounts of stress. So if I'm working on something that isn't aligned with my actual goals - then I have a mind that is constantly flip flopping between the task I'm supposed to be doing, my work, and the task I really want to do. So I've spent my working life intermittently working on the programming problem at hand and wandering off into 'thinking space' to work on the intellectual problem I'm actually interested in. In those rare periods where I actually want to work on what I'm supposed to be working on - maybe a couple of times a year - my productivity literally triples.
herodoturtle 6y ago
Precisely the same reason I started my company 15 years ago. That, and wanting to work from home. It was a different world back then.
heikkilevanto 6y ago
Yes to night thinking. Once I was involved in hunting down a tricky bug. We spent days and weeks trying various things. One night I woke up, not with a clear solution, but three new things to try. Tested the first one, and it worked. Told my boss that it had come to me while sleeping, and he told me to charge at least six hours for productive sleeping.
- chrisweekly 6y ago
  Yeah! See also "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind".
chrisweekly 6y ago
This. I'm reminded of a thought along the lines of "never go to sleep without giving your subconscious something to work on for you".
luminati 6y ago
Now how are you planning to return loyalty to the employees whom you’ve hired who work the same way as you?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- taneq 6y ago
  Initially, by paying them properly and respecting the work that they do. Down the track, still figuring it out but probably some kind of employee stock program combined with a mini-startup-incubator system for when employees come up with new product ideas and want more independence. But simply not telling employees who've saved my bacon multiple times that they're expected to take a significant pay cut while working unlimited uncompensated overtime with unlimited uncompensated travel would be a good start. (The guy who took the devil's bargain I turned down worked 400 hours overtime in the first four months, I absolutely made the right choice.)
  - KajMagnus 6y ago
    I like these ideas. If you get this started, the mini-startup-incubator system for example, it'd be interested to read about. Maybe if you write a blog post or something? What if you create a people-to-notify list, in case you write such a blog post in the future? Then please add me :- ) (email in my profile)

by taneq 6y ago

nicbou 6y ago

It might be the only time in the day where you are idle and undistracted. Try going on a walk, it achieves the same effect. Walking home from work helped a lot with that and also with signing off at the end of the day.

plutonorm 6y ago

For me too. I'm far less effective when the problem isn't taking over my whole brain. And when I have two problems going on at once it causes large amounts of stress. So if I'm working on something that isn't aligned with my actual goals - then I have a mind that is constantly flip flopping between the task I'm supposed to be doing, my work, and the task I really want to do. So I've spent my working life intermittently working on the programming problem at hand and wandering off into 'thinking space' to work on the intellectual problem I'm actually interested in. In those rare periods where I actually want to work on what I'm supposed to be working on - maybe a couple of times a year - my productivity literally triples.

herodoturtle 6y ago

Precisely the same reason I started my company 15 years ago. That, and wanting to work from home. It was a different world back then.

heikkilevanto 6y ago

Yes to night thinking. Once I was involved in hunting down a tricky bug. We spent days and weeks trying various things. One night I woke up, not with a clear solution, but three new things to try. Tested the first one, and it worked. Told my boss that it had come to me while sleeping, and he told me to charge at least six hours for productive sleeping.

chrisweekly 6y ago
Yeah! See also "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind".

chrisweekly 6y ago

This. I'm reminded of a thought along the lines of "never go to sleep without giving your subconscious something to work on for you".

luminati 6y ago

Now how are you planning to return loyalty to the employees whom you’ve hired who work the same way as you?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
taneq 6y ago
Initially, by paying them properly and respecting the work that they do. Down the track, still figuring it out but probably some kind of employee stock program combined with a mini-startup-incubator system for when employees come up with new product ideas and want more independence. But simply not telling employees who've saved my bacon multiple times that they're expected to take a significant pay cut while working unlimited uncompensated overtime with unlimited uncompensated travel would be a good start. (The guy who took the devil's bargain I turned down worked 400 hours overtime in the first four months, I absolutely made the right choice.)
- KajMagnus 6y ago
  I like these ideas. If you get this started, the mini-startup-incubator system for example, it'd be interested to read about. Maybe if you write a blog post or something? What if you create a people-to-notify list, in case you write such a blog post in the future? Then please add me :- ) (email in my profile)