I don't know Tom Preston-Werner etc. so this comment is based upon the OP's post and the twitter feed and what I have just read.
Judging by the timing of the tweets it seems that TPW got into a manic episode and fixed a problem. While we have all done things like this from time to time I don't see it as an example of "how doers do".
"Doers" should be firing on all cylinders all the time taking on things that can't be fixed in a binge. And if they can be fixed in a hour or two it shouldn't take a manic episode to get the energy to fix them.
While I agree with your point, I do feel the need to point out that "finally doing some house cleaning" is not a manic episode. A manic episode is something that last a week and usually includes refactorings of more grandeur proportions
It is amazing how today's technology favours the doers who inspires us with their actions. Almost anyone in the world can see and learn from their actions, thanks to technology.
Decades ago leadership meant using powerful and inspiring words to move people into action. This led us to believe that people who could "communicate" well were natural leaders. Personally, I prefer "doers" to "talkers" as an inspirational model.
Good leaders have always been doers. That's how they became leaders. Leading has never been about being good at speeches. It's about doing the work and making sure the work is done right.
> go out there and do something worthwhile and stop regaling your heroes for their ability to shut up and ship.
Reminds me of a Buddhist saying that if you meet the Buddha on the road, you should kill him. Kill being used in the sense of remain detached, not physically kill.
I like how he summarizes the post he links to as “go out there and do something worthwhile and stop regaling your heroes for their ability to shut up and ship”, and then totally fails to take the point to heart, by writing a gushing piece about TPW and his “ability to shut up and ship”. Obnoxious.
Not ashamed to say I'm still working towards that ideal. My project is a start for me. It was too good of an example of doing that I couldn't point it out. It could have been anyone in my feed.
It's good to have this kind of drive, but writing replacements for existing tools/libraries because they're flawed, while fun, can be an incredible distraction from the end goal of shipping your product. I know this from experience. It's a balancing act: sometimes it's worth it, but often you'll spend more time writing the replacement than you'd spend using the bad tool.
Tom Preston-Werner is also incredibly lucky that he can write a spec and overnight a half-dozen implementations crop up. I wish that worked for me!
"but writing replacements for existing tools/libraries because they're flawed, while fun, can be an incredible distraction"
I think that's an excellent point and more or less goes along with my comment on this. I think what TPW was doing was actually trying to get out of the rut of completing the real work by trying to have some success and pleasure which would spur him on to finishing what he needed to do (as evidenced by the tweets) (reminds me a little of not getting into real work but spending time "organizing" first under you get the energy up to tackle the real task). Sometimes simply writing shell scripts gets me in the mood to do the "real work" that I have to do (programming or non programming).
Once again, nothing wrong with this approach I just don't think it's an example as stated of a "doer" which is not the same as saying that the behavior doesn't have any value.
No really ... how do doers do? I got married recently and have a full time job on weekdays. It has been an immense challenge to find time to work on personal projects now that I am no longer single. I've known some weight lifters who wake up early or go to bed very late in order to get in their workouts (I've had some success with this but have gotten overwhelmed after a few days). Any HNers have tips on how to live the hacker life while maintaining marital bliss?
Just work with her to find time to do what you want. If you lay out some things that are important to you, ask her to give up some weeknights (or whatever it takes for you) with you in the code cave to help you get there, and are prepared to sacrifice the occasional inspired time when stuff that's super important to her comes up, you'll be fine. I mean, she's your wife. She wants to see you accomplish stuff that's important to you, right? Make her a partner in doing that. Like lots of stuff in marriage, its about communication and compromise. Congratulations on the marriage, by the way!
Does your wife work? Do you have kids? Over the years my wife and I have gone back and forth on time splits. It doesn't help that I happen to be more of a night owl and she is more of an early riser, which means our natural tendencies tend to cut both ends of the day off from interaction.
The best thing that has worked for us is to communicate goals, so if I'm trying to get "X" done we'll work schedules to get time to work on it, and then if she is trying to get "Y" done we'll do the same for her. When we're doing "Z" which is high priority for both of us we we're just splitting up things to work on and doing them and time issues don't seem to pop up.
The key for us is that we're very supportive of each others goals, and when planned together we are both committed to making things successful. Problems arise when one of us goes heads down in some project and shuts the other out, leaving them to keep things going while the other gets their project done. That doesn't feel good to the person shut out. Things get dicey and we've got to recognize that something that should have been 'short and sweet' is taking way more time.
This seems like he's really just diverting to a more fun project as a way to procrastinate and still feel productive. His Jekyll project will still have those pull requests and issues to weed through at the end of the day :)
Judging by the timing of the tweets it seems that TPW got into a manic episode and fixed a problem. While we have all done things like this from time to time I don't see it as an example of "how doers do".
"Doers" should be firing on all cylinders all the time taking on things that can't be fixed in a binge. And if they can be fixed in a hour or two it shouldn't take a manic episode to get the energy to fix them.