5 ms·

I agree with the title, but I wish the solution was less about a second brain and more about giving ourselves space. The past week I've been getting burned in

I agree with the title, but I wish the solution was less about a second brain and more about giving ourselves space. The past week I've been getting burned in meetings, and just a whole lot of "to-do". And I'm just not as creative anymore because I don't have the room to be bored and ponder (which I like)

wintogreen74 3y ago
Boredom is such a great motivator. The problem is kids are never bored anymore (for real; I'm sure they still say they are...)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yamazakiwi 3y ago
  Maybe that's just for children? I'm bored everyday at work and it never motivates me. Boredom drives me towards the easy things just to kill time. The outcome is usually waiting for the cause of boredom to end. (Work)
  - BagelGuy 3y ago
    Boredom + Freedom = Creativity.
    - yamazakiwi 3y ago
      I see, the missing link is not age, it's freedom. I myself do a bad job of being bored, even when freedom is provided. My reaction is reinforced due to how often I am compelled to deal with boredom without freedom.
      - datameta 3y ago
        I second this very much so. Even if I have the extra time due to working from home, I usually don't feel free enough during work hours to get engrossed in a hobby or side project. I just seek escape in the form of cheap temporary entertainment.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      Freedom is debatable. Too much of it and you just get overwhelmed with possibilities. I'd submit that it's boredom plus constraints that equal creativity. You're forced to think around your obstacles. It's why bands and authors suck once they make it big. Once they have tons of time and money, output suffers and they stop delivering. The threat of starvation no longer forces them to make something that works on their broken keyboard.
      - yamazakiwi 3y ago
        I think contextually art is one thing that can be made great utilizing creative restraints, but it's less likely a person will be willing to jump around obstacles if they are too great or not specifically related to the creative pursuit. Many times a creative pursuit doesn't seem like an option BECAUSE of the constraints.
      - antifa 3y ago
        If starvation and bordom and constraints were the key to quality then we’d all have been annihilated by the 3rd world in less than a week.
spieswl 3y ago
I think the content of the article is totally orthogonal to the problem the title supposedly addresses. I was immediately excited to read this but then found no relation to what the article talks about. Content curation? Really? We're not overwhelmed with content, we're overwhelmed with noise.
- Yizahi 3y ago
  With noise AND with actual content too. I have 1850 bookmarks in my browser. And that's after I basically deleted previous 2000-3000 batch a few years ago, with the intention not to do it again. I have caught myself multiple times scrolling through the My List on Netflix for minuted unable to pick anything. Same with my Steam library. And other similar examples. All of those items are presumably not noise, because I have consciously picked them to watch or read later. I'm just like a hamster in wheel, constantly seeing new good things and storing them in an infinite cycle, never to revisit.
- antifa 3y ago
  It feels like most content streams have anti-curration based designs. To use HN as an example, here's no way to say "I want to see rust and python content but not JS" or "I want to see JS and rust content but not python". You write your own custom chrome/firefox extension or you just deal with it. Basically all known social media websites have orders of magnitudes worse versions of this.
- projectazorian 3y ago
  Yes and curation is the process by which one can identify valuable content among the noise. As someone with a somewhat creative job, and a creative hobby on the side, the concept resonates with me. But maybe it's not universally applicable.
  - spieswl 3y ago
    As perhaps with some other HNers, I'm in specialized, technical line of work (robotics) and the SNR for most of content sources is absurdly low. There's just no way for me to put in a reasonable amount of curation effort for subject matters involving my field _at the degree of specialization I need it_ and get meaningful insights back. Maybe later when my focus or responsibilities have changed, but that runs the risk of keeping a library of curated content that I can't validate at the time I capture it (_because I will have to validate that content later when it aligns with whatever-later-task-is-relevant_). And this says nothing about the creativity that's sapped by the organizational inefficiency, the clumsy handoffs, the incomplete understanding of what is truly wanted and/or needed at the end of a creative endeavor, and all of the other things that are the sources of hundreds or thousands of cuts at your psyche.

wintogreen74 3y ago

Boredom is such a great motivator. The problem is kids are never bored anymore (for real; I'm sure they still say they are...)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yamazakiwi 3y ago
Maybe that's just for children? I'm bored everyday at work and it never motivates me. Boredom drives me towards the easy things just to kill time. The outcome is usually waiting for the cause of boredom to end. (Work)
- BagelGuy 3y ago
  Boredom + Freedom = Creativity.
  - yamazakiwi 3y ago
    I see, the missing link is not age, it's freedom. I myself do a bad job of being bored, even when freedom is provided. My reaction is reinforced due to how often I am compelled to deal with boredom without freedom.
    - datameta 3y ago
      I second this very much so. Even if I have the extra time due to working from home, I usually don't feel free enough during work hours to get engrossed in a hobby or side project. I just seek escape in the form of cheap temporary entertainment.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    Freedom is debatable. Too much of it and you just get overwhelmed with possibilities. I'd submit that it's boredom plus constraints that equal creativity. You're forced to think around your obstacles. It's why bands and authors suck once they make it big. Once they have tons of time and money, output suffers and they stop delivering. The threat of starvation no longer forces them to make something that works on their broken keyboard.
    - yamazakiwi 3y ago
      I think contextually art is one thing that can be made great utilizing creative restraints, but it's less likely a person will be willing to jump around obstacles if they are too great or not specifically related to the creative pursuit. Many times a creative pursuit doesn't seem like an option BECAUSE of the constraints.
    - antifa 3y ago
      If starvation and bordom and constraints were the key to quality then we’d all have been annihilated by the 3rd world in less than a week.

spieswl 3y ago

I think the content of the article is totally orthogonal to the problem the title supposedly addresses. I was immediately excited to read this but then found no relation to what the article talks about. Content curation? Really? We're not overwhelmed with content, we're overwhelmed with noise.

Yizahi 3y ago
With noise AND with actual content too. I have 1850 bookmarks in my browser. And that's after I basically deleted previous 2000-3000 batch a few years ago, with the intention not to do it again. I have caught myself multiple times scrolling through the My List on Netflix for minuted unable to pick anything. Same with my Steam library. And other similar examples. All of those items are presumably not noise, because I have consciously picked them to watch or read later. I'm just like a hamster in wheel, constantly seeing new good things and storing them in an infinite cycle, never to revisit.
antifa 3y ago
It feels like most content streams have anti-curration based designs. To use HN as an example, here's no way to say "I want to see rust and python content but not JS" or "I want to see JS and rust content but not python". You write your own custom chrome/firefox extension or you just deal with it. Basically all known social media websites have orders of magnitudes worse versions of this.
projectazorian 3y ago
Yes and curation is the process by which one can identify valuable content among the noise. As someone with a somewhat creative job, and a creative hobby on the side, the concept resonates with me. But maybe it's not universally applicable.
- spieswl 3y ago
  As perhaps with some other HNers, I'm in specialized, technical line of work (robotics) and the SNR for most of content sources is absurdly low. There's just no way for me to put in a reasonable amount of curation effort for subject matters involving my field _at the degree of specialization I need it_ and get meaningful insights back. Maybe later when my focus or responsibilities have changed, but that runs the risk of keeping a library of curated content that I can't validate at the time I capture it (_because I will have to validate that content later when it aligns with whatever-later-task-is-relevant_). And this says nothing about the creativity that's sapped by the organizational inefficiency, the clumsy handoffs, the incomplete understanding of what is truly wanted and/or needed at the end of a creative endeavor, and all of the other things that are the sources of hundreds or thousands of cuts at your psyche.