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I think this is something well-known among high-achievers at school, but I knew some people at school who would just spend 36 hours straight doing all their ass

I think this is something well-known among high-achievers at school, but I knew some people at school who would just spend 36 hours straight doing all their assignments and still get bad marks. It was always this way for me: work for a few hours, take a break, (maybe a walk, chat with friends/roommates), make some (healthy) food, then get back to it. Staying up never helps, because you have to sleep anyway, and getting poor sleep just makes you work poorly: you can always get something done in the morning. I guess in the end whats most important is time management, making sure you have time to get exercise, socialize, eat right, and get all your assignments in on time and study enough for exams. Having a good cohort, I think, is also important. A lot of friends of mine got Summa Cum Laude, honors etc., ended up doing PhD work at top universities. We all had a very similar work ethic and we were constantly bouncing shit off each other and debating and going out and having fun. The idea that good work requires suffering is nonsense: good work is joyful and passionate. Good work is doing something you care about and find deeply compelling. Good work is always, in the end, something you think is good for yourself. I think as long as you remember that you'll be happy and satisfied with whatever you choose to do.

quickthrower2 3y ago
What you describe is what I imagined university to be like but found that people were quite lazy and amazed that I studied during the course and not all in the last 24h. Kind of made me leave academic life too early in a way I feel.
vjk800 3y ago
I've always been a sort of lazy high achiever and very puzzled about this. I was always a near-top (but not top) student in schools, got a PhD and am now working in a high paying job in a bank. Besides one or two years during my university years, I've always been extremely lazy. On the other hand, in all of these institutions there have been many people who have been very serious hard workers and perhaps even at the time been ahead of me in whatever metrics the institution happened to use to measure success. However, over time I've noticed that these sort of things sort of even out. People who worked very hard in the high school or during my PhD are not more successful than me anymore. I don't know if it's just that life is so random that the effect of hard work gets washed out by random life choices or what. It's also plausible that working hard just puts you in a very non-creative mindset and creativity is what gets most of the work done in a complex environment in the end. For many people, hard work often seems to be an end to itself and it matters less to those people where the work is directed at. As a result, people end up working crazy hours doing stuff that could be done in one tenth of a time by using a bit of creativity or just waiting the problem to somehow become irrelevant.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  You might just have higher IQ or whatever. Some people work hard because they can get 60% instead of 50% and get more money than they would have got had they not worked hard. Your test score and profile is irrelevant to them.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  My story is fairly similar to yours. I felt that I always had limited energy to really focus on the "important" things that turned somewhat boring after a while, and my peers who were able to keep going went further in academia. I got easily distracted by more "fun" problem solving and looking around rather than going really really deep in a given topic. If only I had had that energy to go the extra mile, I could now be in temporary academic position in some city with worse quality of life making one third of the money they pay for coding. Oh well, sometimes you just have to take what life gives you I suppose.
  - atemerev 3y ago
    I returned to the academia after 15 years in the industry. Copying protobufs for an ad company (or worse) will not get you any meaning of life.
    - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
      How was going back? I'm assuming the field must be somewhat applied? I did theory, and once you leave there's just no going back. I still try to keep up with the more fun stuff occasionally, because it is indeed much more interesting.
    - _zoltan_ 3y ago
      your work is not you? find meaning outside of work. my kids fill all my non work hours with extreme joy.
- pbmonster 3y ago
  > I don't know if it's just that life is so random that the effect of hard work gets washed out by random life choices or what. It's also plausible that working hard just puts you in a very non-creative mindset and creativity is what gets most of the work done in a complex environment in the end. Don't overestimate how much actual work is getting done by "hard working" people. They put in the time, but procrastination doesn't stop just because you work hard. And that certainly includes the types of "productive" procrastination that doesn't look/feel like procrastination, like making Figures/Powerpoints more pretty or doing another rewrite on a piece of text nobody is ever going to do more with than glance at. Seriously, otherwise intelligent people can spent an hour re-writing a single email.
afpx 3y ago
Something you learn from your parents, maybe? I grew up poor and didn't have access to parents, so I had to figure out things on my own, by trial and error, unfortunately. And, it took me 40 years to figure out that basic lifestyle improvements could help a lot.

quickthrower2 3y ago

What you describe is what I imagined university to be like but found that people were quite lazy and amazed that I studied during the course and not all in the last 24h. Kind of made me leave academic life too early in a way I feel.

vjk800 3y ago

I've always been a sort of lazy high achiever and very puzzled about this. I was always a near-top (but not top) student in schools, got a PhD and am now working in a high paying job in a bank. Besides one or two years during my university years, I've always been extremely lazy. On the other hand, in all of these institutions there have been many people who have been very serious hard workers and perhaps even at the time been ahead of me in whatever metrics the institution happened to use to measure success. However, over time I've noticed that these sort of things sort of even out. People who worked very hard in the high school or during my PhD are not more successful than me anymore. I don't know if it's just that life is so random that the effect of hard work gets washed out by random life choices or what. It's also plausible that working hard just puts you in a very non-creative mindset and creativity is what gets most of the work done in a complex environment in the end. For many people, hard work often seems to be an end to itself and it matters less to those people where the work is directed at. As a result, people end up working crazy hours doing stuff that could be done in one tenth of a time by using a bit of creativity or just waiting the problem to somehow become irrelevant.

quickthrower2 3y ago
You might just have higher IQ or whatever. Some people work hard because they can get 60% instead of 50% and get more money than they would have got had they not worked hard. Your test score and profile is irrelevant to them.
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
My story is fairly similar to yours. I felt that I always had limited energy to really focus on the "important" things that turned somewhat boring after a while, and my peers who were able to keep going went further in academia. I got easily distracted by more "fun" problem solving and looking around rather than going really really deep in a given topic. If only I had had that energy to go the extra mile, I could now be in temporary academic position in some city with worse quality of life making one third of the money they pay for coding. Oh well, sometimes you just have to take what life gives you I suppose.
- atemerev 3y ago
  I returned to the academia after 15 years in the industry. Copying protobufs for an ad company (or worse) will not get you any meaning of life.
  - karmakurtisaani 3y ago
    How was going back? I'm assuming the field must be somewhat applied? I did theory, and once you leave there's just no going back. I still try to keep up with the more fun stuff occasionally, because it is indeed much more interesting.
  - _zoltan_ 3y ago
    your work is not you? find meaning outside of work. my kids fill all my non work hours with extreme joy.
pbmonster 3y ago
> I don't know if it's just that life is so random that the effect of hard work gets washed out by random life choices or what. It's also plausible that working hard just puts you in a very non-creative mindset and creativity is what gets most of the work done in a complex environment in the end. Don't overestimate how much actual work is getting done by "hard working" people. They put in the time, but procrastination doesn't stop just because you work hard. And that certainly includes the types of "productive" procrastination that doesn't look/feel like procrastination, like making Figures/Powerpoints more pretty or doing another rewrite on a piece of text nobody is ever going to do more with than glance at. Seriously, otherwise intelligent people can spent an hour re-writing a single email.

afpx 3y ago

Something you learn from your parents, maybe? I grew up poor and didn't have access to parents, so I had to figure out things on my own, by trial and error, unfortunately. And, it took me 40 years to figure out that basic lifestyle improvements could help a lot.