[HN Gopher] Things that aren't doing the thing
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Things that aren't doing the thing
Author : downboots
Score : 49 points
Date : 2025-11-15 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (strangestloop.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (strangestloop.io)
| johnfn wrote:
| Marketing is absolutely doing the thing; ignore this to your
| peril. I don't think reality is quite as binary as this post
| suggests.
| bix6 wrote:
| But that would be doing the thing after you've done the thing
| no?
| pointlessone wrote:
| That depends. If OP's job is marketing then doing it before
| is doing the thing even if it pisses off the people who'll
| have to do the thing OP made up.
| johnfn wrote:
| I think you really want to be marketing concurrently with
| doing the thing. Saving it all for the end is probably a
| mistake. And a lot of projects don't have defined "end"s,
| like open source projects, or websites.
| thomascountz wrote:
| I'm inspired by this and want to extend it, perhaps
| telescopically, by discussing what the _thing_ is.
|
| Sometimes we see our task as being, "do C," and we forget the "B"
| and "A" that come before.
|
| Maybe you can't do "C" without discussing it ("B") or researching
| how others did it ("A"). In these cases, we shouldn't simply
| think the _thing_ is "C"--the _thing_ must first be "A," then
| "B," and then, "C."
|
| If we forget this, we're bound to think "C" is the only _thing_
| of value, that it should take an hour and not a week, or that
| people doing the "A's" or "B's" to enable the "Cs" must be doing
| no _thing_ at all!
| acestus5 wrote:
| You pay a doctor for a consultation. saying you paid the doctor
| for medical school and for the legacy of doctors that came
| before him is.... wrong.
| hinkley wrote:
| $5 for adjusting the screw. $495 for knowing which screw to
| adjust.
| valiant55 wrote:
| It's not wrong, that's exactly what I'm paying them for. If
| they didn't have the education then they wouldn't be a
| doctor, and I wouldn't be seeing them for a consultation.
|
| I'm well compensated not because I'm good at googling things,
| but because I have a proven track record of being good at
| googling things. If a junior was able to produce the same
| results they wouldnt be paid more.
| bix6 wrote:
| Obligatory https://youtu.be/mofRHlO1E_A?si=aEimHOsDYa3FkGYv
| mcdonje wrote:
| -Nike
| brettgriffin wrote:
| This gives very strong War of Art (Pressfield) vibes.
|
| As simple as it is, just remembering this is enough to make me go
| do the thing.
|
| And on that note, back to the thing.
| mjd wrote:
| LinkedIn is over there.
| gentooflux wrote:
| Writing a thing about things that aren't doing the thing isn't
| doing the thing unless the thing happens to be writing a thing
| about things that aren't doing the thing
| behnamoh wrote:
| Writing a comment about a thing that talks about things that
| aren't doing the thing isn't doing the thing unless the thing
| happens to be writing a comment about a thing that talks about
| things that aren't doing the thing
| nagisa wrote:
| If you have no idea how to do the thing, isn't reading about how
| others did the thing doing the thing?
| manmal wrote:
| No, you'll still need to do it.
| rtpg wrote:
| This hints at the antithesis to this article
|
| Doing a thing involves doing it, but it's very unlikely that
| doing a thing will involve exactly one atomic movement. So you
| have cutpoints at doing the thing.
|
| So to do the thing you first have to decide to do the thing.
| You have to decide what the thing is, or at least have enough
| of a vision of the thing to take the first step at doing a
| thing that might look like the thing.
|
| So "doing the thing" involves a lot of doing things that aren't
| the thing, but without which you won't get towards the thing.
|
| In other words: sitting down and writing down what the thing is
| _can very well_ be part of doing the thing.
|
| There's a sort of philosophical point too, about whether the
| thing is what you think it is. Plenty of people have had the "I
| thought this feature was going to do X, you thought it was
| going to do Y, and we all realised the mismatch very late in
| the process".
|
| I think both visions of the world are valid, and things you can
| keep in your mind at the same time to deploy as needed.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| _" Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should
| be entreated not to hit the nail at all."_ -- Nietzsche
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| I wonder what thing the author was avoiding when they published
| this thing ;)
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Having a meeting about doing the thing isn't doing the thing
| afandian wrote:
| One day, when I get enough spare time, I will make the thing. I
| even have some components ready.
|
| Until then I daydream of how I will make it and how it will fit
| together.
|
| If I never get round to it then that time will have been wasted.
| But if I do, all that daydreaming will have been useful mental
| prototyping.
|
| But was it <<doing the thing>>?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| And now we have a whole post about not doing the thing, which is
| also not doing the thing.
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(page generated 2025-11-15 23:00 UTC)