<story><title>Smart Guy Productivity Pitfalls (2013)</title><url>http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>d--b</author><text>I often find myself slacking when I have to write code I am ashamed of.&lt;p&gt;Writing new stuff from scratch is fun, I have zero problem being motivated to code things that are hard or challenging. And I can keep focusing for a long time.&lt;p&gt;However, if my task is to shoehorn some code that I know to be crap into my project for x or y reason, oh boy, then I can drag my feet for a looooooooong time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>btilly</author><text>Having to wade through code I hate has the same effect on me.  Doubly so if I have to test it in an environment I hate.  Triply so if I am trying to accomplish a goal I don&amp;#x27;t care about.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s one of the reasons why I don&amp;#x27;t like working on UIs.  The code tends to be messy.  I often have to test in environments like IE for Windows.  And I don&amp;#x27;t actually care about how things work as long as they work.</text></comment>
<story><title>Smart Guy Productivity Pitfalls (2013)</title><url>http://bookofhook.blogspot.com/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>d--b</author><text>I often find myself slacking when I have to write code I am ashamed of.&lt;p&gt;Writing new stuff from scratch is fun, I have zero problem being motivated to code things that are hard or challenging. And I can keep focusing for a long time.&lt;p&gt;However, if my task is to shoehorn some code that I know to be crap into my project for x or y reason, oh boy, then I can drag my feet for a looooooooong time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>iamcasen</author><text>This. 100%! I find whenever I have a career crisis, or lack of motivation, it is because of this right here.&lt;p&gt;So much code no matter where you go will be something like this. You&amp;#x27;ll have to make something work even though all the code surrounding your feature is a dumpster fire that is so hard to predict, that you&amp;#x27;ll pull your hair our worrying about all the ways your feature will break.&lt;p&gt;When I get to build a new system from scratch? It&amp;#x27;s a breeze! I get thousands of times the amount of work done in the same amount of time.</text></comment>