From Two tramps in Mud Time by Robert Frost:
My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future’s sakes.
Choosing what to work on
The Hamming question can be stressful to consider. A better question to ask: what makes you feel alive? Easier questions: what are you most curious about? What challenge do you find inviting? What are you best at?
Keep both questions in the back of your mind. Create a list of problems you want to work on. Try things. Life is just a series of experiments. Take small bets with no expectations for any specific outcome. Hypothesis test!
Life is long - you can have multiple careers. But whatever you do, do it well. How you do anything is how you do everything.
Questions to figure out what to work on
- What are my comparative advantages? What’s been easy for me but hard for others? What can I get great at?
- What feels like play to me but is work to others? What do I gravitate towards?
- What am I willing to work on for decades?
- If I could only be excellent at one thing, what would it be?
- What would I do if I could only work on one thing until death?
- What would I work on if I knew I’d succeed?
- What would I work on assuming I’ll fail at everything I want to try?
- What would I do if I had no obligations?
- What would I do if all jobs paid the same?
- What would I do if I had 1 day to live? 1 week? 1 month? 6 months? A year? 5 years? 10 years?
Y/N questions to evaluate an opportunity
Only say yes to an opportunity if you answer yes to all of the following:
- Will I develop valuable skills? Specific knowledge?
- Will I be working with people I admire/want to “grow up to be like”?
- Does it align with my mission? Is it something I’d work on even if I didn’t get paid for it? Is it something I’d suffer for?
- Do I have a clear vision for the desired outcome/impact? Do I find it exciting?
- Will I regret not taking a chance on this opportunity?
- Am I certain I’m not just drawn by money or prestige? Carried forward by inertia?
Categories of work
Modes:
- research or development or operations
- specialist or generalist
- bird or frog
- analytical or creative
- finite game or infinite game
- zero sum or positive sum
- free-lance or startup or big company
- mission driven or means to an end
Things you can create:
- Ideas and knowledge
- Products
- Services
- Social structures
Reminders
There’s no right answer. There’s no such thing as the best thing to work on.
From Julia Evans:
there is no one right thing to work on. I work with many many excellent people who are working on many many important things. Not all things are equally impactful (which is what this post is all about!), but it’s about reliably finding useful things to work on that are within your capabilities, not finding a global optimum.
Take your time to gather information and think, but don’t be Buridan’s donkey. Try things. Nothing’s irreversible.
Time spent on something that doesn’t work out is not a waste of time. The notion of “wasting your life” is absurd. As long as you are doing what you want, you are not wasting time.
Life is not a race. Why are you rushing? To go where?