HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

While I find some of the points this article is making to be valid, I also find its deeply cynical take hard to swallow.

I would prefer to look for the nuance, the diamonds in the rough, and not write off a vast body of (in my view) highly valuable content, just because in later years the output quality of the platform deteriorated. (The latter point being one I don't disagree with).

Firstly, too much weight seems to be being given to the "ideas" part of "Ideas worth spreading". The best TED talks are not just about ideas. Many of the most engaging and inspiring talks are retrospectives on what individuals and teams have done. In fact I'd argue that the most valuable TED talks are about conclusions formed from decades of research, or exciting technological advancements made through thousands of hours of deep work and experimentation.

In other words, they are often talks about about consistent, dedicated execution, as much as they are about ideas.

Like all new ideas, some will have potential and continue to develop, others will not. Some things will come to fruition sooner, others will take vastly longer than expected. This is the nature of progress.

The author seems to think that just because someone presents an idea, or some work that they've been doing, that this somehow constitutes some form of "promise" that can be broken or not delivered on in the future. And if that assumed promise is subsequently broken, this invalidates the whole work and renders the originator of that idea a charlatan.

Rather I prefer to think of it like this; we are watching people who are excited and passionate about their work, who have a sense of belief and conviction in the value of what they're doing. Every truly great (and truly bad) idea throughout time has been presented in this way. Some ideas have legs, others don't. As consumers of content, whether books, online talks, articles, we are not meant to be passive and switch off our critical thinking apparatus. When consuming such material, we should be cognisant of the fact that - of course - the speaker, or author is going to be the strongest, most vocal evangelist for their work.

No one would do anything if they didn't believe in what they were doing.

Some specifics from the article:

> Of course, Gates’s popular and well-shared TED talk — viewed millions of times — didn’t alter the course of history. Neither did any of the other “ideas worth spreading”..

I find the writing off of Gates' pandemic talk baffling. Whatever you think of Gates, I don't really understand the conclusion the author is leading us to here. Are we saying that Gates shouldn't have bothered doing such a talk? That the 43M viewers of that talk left it with their thinking about the risk of worldwide pandemics totally unchanged? Perhaps they would have been better off spending that 10 minutes watching American Idol?

> including Monica Lewinsky’s massively viral speech about how to stop online bullying through compassion and empathy

How to stop online bullying through compassion and empathy. Are we suggesting that fewer people talking about this would be better?

> it feels like we are living in a reality that is the exact opposite of the future envisioned that year. A president took office in part because of his talent for online bullying.

In my view, the logic (or lack of) behind this flow of arguments is rather nonsensical.

I think there is some truth in what the author is saying elsewhere in the article, but for me it's marred by the somewhat irrational points like the above, and difficult to therefore take seriously as a whole.

I could say more about why I think we shouldn't write of TED talks fully and unequivocally, but instead, here are some of my all time favourites. Each one of these are superb and well worth watching. The nature of the medium means that the talks can't go deep into their subjects, and are generally a means to introduce people to ideas and concepts that they may want to follow up on and research further, if so inspired.

There are many more than the few listed below.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - "Flow, the secret to happiness"

https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_s...

Chris Hadfield - "What I learned from going blind in space"

https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from...

Martin Seligman - "The new era of positive psychology"

https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_the_new_era_of_pos...

Carol Dweck - "The power of believing that you can improve"

https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing...

Malcolm Gladwell - "Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce"

https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_choice_happiness_...

Tim Urban - "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator"

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

Stephen Hawking - "Questioning the universe"

https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_hawking_questioning_the_un...

Reggie Watts - "Beats that defy boxes"

https://www.ted.com/talks/reggie_watts_beats_that_defy_boxes

Tim Ferriss - "Why you should define your fears instead of your goals"

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_ferriss_why_you_should_define_...

Tim Urban, the author of waitbutwhy, did a talk about that same topic (pretty much about the same article).

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

There's a good TED talk on procrastination which might interest you: https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

⬐ dgreensp

I love that guy, but I think the best use of this level of awareness into the mechanics of your procrastination — the elaborate story — is to realize it’s just a story. The moment you really realize this, the story changes.

⬐ jcranendonk

Eh, I'll get to it later.

⬐ nestorherre

Oh, the irony.

It's normal for some people.

I've tried everything. Two things finally helped me: understanding, and that one neat trick.

Understanding:

Understanding yourself is important later, but for now, it helps if you understand procrastination.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

That one neat trick?

Just do one. One push up, one minute of meditation, one minute of work.

Setting yourself up for failure will never work. Setting the bar really low is the only thing that let me achieve anything.

I can do one minute of work. It's easy. I very rarely stop after 60 seconds, but sometimes I really just ain't in the mood. Most of the time, I just keep going. If I lose focus, I say, ok one more minute then I can do something else.

Who has time for 100 pushups a day? Nobody. Who doesn't have time for 1 pushup? It's literally like 10 seconds of hard work unless you think about it for longer (why?)

The one neat trick is more about "just starting" than anything else.

Working is easy, starting is hard. The biggest issue with most motivation techniques is they assume you have already started.

What you need to do is reduce any and all friction from starting. If starting seems daunting or too hard, you're planning to do too much. Reduce the act of starting to it's simplest form if you have to. Ive had days where my task was to sit down at my desk. That's all I had to do before I could tell myself "job done." I wasn't going to get much done on that sort of day anyway but at least I didnt beat my self up about it.

That last point is where understanding yourself and acceptance really starts to play a role.

⬐ rqm

Thank you for that one neat trick.

I sympathize. I spend a lot of time in the dark playground myself.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...

I see a "put back" button. Isn't it a synonym for procrastination? :)

I suggest following for at least taking one step away from procrastination.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

You are not alone:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

It's a common problem. Watch this TED Talk about why we procrastinate by Tim Urban and read his articles. They're both funny and insightful.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

⬐ JoeAltmaier

Maybe later.

⬐ raldi

I think you're underselling this TED talk. The entire 14 minutes is about OP's exact problem.

⬐ tirade

Thought I'd never bother with a TED talk again, but having now spent the 14 minutes watching this one, I think you've actually oversold it. It's 10 minutes restating the OP's problem (the urge to procrastinate with what is easy and fun until time pressure and fear provide enough motivation to finally work) with the visual of a funny monkey. Worse, the last 4 minutes is just the speaker throwing up his hands and saying, "Well, I'm fine with this being my way of working (it's even how I prepped for this talk) but I got lots of letters from people who find this to be a totally crushing and painful way to live. But rather than discuss solutions to the affected, I'll just blithely say that everyone is a procrastinator and we should all stop procrastinating so much, because life is short."

Gee, thanks, TED guy!

⬐ raldi

I never said anything about solutions.

⬐ hoodwink

Agreed. Unfortunately the solution to procrastination is unlikely to be found in a 14 minute TED Talk. However, I hoped that the OP could find some solace in recognizing that he is not inherently worse than other people. Procrastination is part of the human condition!

⬐ raldi

Well, there's also the scarier point made at the end of the talk that a lot of procrastinators find a way to get through life by using deadline pressure to trigger productivity, but that while this can seem like a perfectly functional, if gut-wrenching, system, it actually leads to long-term life problems that are hard to notice until it's too late to do anything about them.

⬐ cylinder

It's pretty bad for me, I dream about bailing to a blue collar life because then I can focus and work with my hands, and not click around online procrastinating.

All that talk did was talk about the symptoms of what it's like to be a procrastinator. Including the link in another comment. Who wants to talk about how to fix it other than "stop procrastinating!"

⬐ hoodwink

Well, maybe you're being too hard on yourself. Seeing that this is a widespread problem might help that.

⬐ pflanze

Don't blue collar workers procrastinate by chatting with each other?

⬐ ak39

Do you keep a simple list of things to finish? Whenever you think of something that needs to be done, jot it down. Carry that black book everywhere. See if that works.

⬐ cylinder

I am horrible at lists and calendars. Even if I start keeping a Todo list or an organized calendar or Evernote ideas log, I just stop paying attention to the list eventually. I see how coworkers are constantly looking at their calendar, and that's just confusing to me.

⬐ ak39

I too am horrible with lists. But when you get started - just a simple list of things (no calendar due dates etc) - just the list ... you start thinking differently.

Step 1: Make a list.

Step 2: Do nothing!

Jokes aside, soon enough you'll execute on the list and then you can show your cat what a badass you are at getting things done.

Good luck friend.

⬐ tedmiston

Have you tried a methodology like GTD?

⬐ cylinder

Hadn't heard of it before. Thanks. Researching it and will set some time to setting up the framework. It seems like quite a lot of administrative overhead but I'm willing to give it a shot.

⬐ tedmiston

There's definitely some overhead to start, but you don't have to do everything on day 1. You can simplify that a bit with existing GTD-friendly software. There are many, but one of the most popular is Wunderlist (https://www.wunderlist.com/).

If you don't have time to sit down to read the book right now, here's a nice 15-minute overview - https://hamberg.no/gtd/.

⬐ feiss

Me too. I just stopped trying to follow any productivity technique time ago, because all of them ask you a minimum of discipline and consistency, and I'm too chaotic for that.

So I just try to be responsible and get the job done.

(Well, I sometimes keep a todo list of features/bugs I have to do/fix, but not as a task list I have to follow, but as a backup memory)

⬐ tedmiston

Keeping an "easy" list is one idea from Getting Things Done that still works for me. Energy level was one type of context, but there are others as well.

https://hamberg.no/gtd/#contexts

HTML infographic inspired by Tim Urban's Life Calendar[1]. Made this after seeing his TED talk[2].

[1] http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mas...

⬐ tahon

Great talk. I just ordered the poster.

⬐ Romkinson

Just watched his talk literally last night and ordered the same poster :) Thanks for sharing!

Another good source on procrastination and deadlines: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_mast...