chrispoole.com

I’ve just finished reading Paul Graham’s essay on Procrastination, and have to say that is is another of Paul’s good essays.
I pretty much agree with what he says, and I’m definitely a procrastinator. But the main reason I procrastinate (I think), is that I can’t think straight if there is some small thing bugging me. So I’ll go fix whatever is annoying me, and then get back to work. But inevitably I’ll find something else to do too. What really interests me though is Paul’s comment on reddit:

Maybe you have to work on the big stuff in your spare time, like Einstein in the patent office.

I think he’s pretty much along the right tracks here. I think Einstein was only working on the stuff he was working on, because he found it interesting (Paul has an essay on this too). And if you find something interesting, you’re far more likely to work on it. How do we know that he was also interested in much more complex things, but put those off to work on his theories of relativity? We don’t, and we probably never will for sure.
I don’t think anyone can actually work on the big stuff as a whole anyway. The prospect is just too incomprehensible to even start. So I think the secret is to hold the grand idea in your head, the goal you are working towards. But then to split up the actual work you have to do to get to that point into little bits, and tackle each bit at a time. Just like piecing together a jigsaw: you can see the end image from the start, but you have to start with just one piece and built up from there. The more pieces you put in place, the easier it is to see where you are heading, that you are heading in the right direction, and which pieces are out of place.