Comment by gopalv

Impatience is one of those selfish virtues.

Most of everything in the article is about the speed at which a human moves.

This is not about the machine, but it is indirectly about it - if I hit a sub-optimal build step, I will spend time speeding it up because the difference between a 45s build and a 90s build is that I will start typing a comment on HN instead of seeing if it worked.

In the real world, usually faster is better, because the world we operate in keeps changing - the decisions you made have a shelf life and your execution speed limits how often you deliver what is right or what would have been great six months ago.

So, I do everything in my power so that I can do things faster.

Lastly, I only have a fixed number of hours left on the planet - going faster is better than going longer at a task, because my goal is not to work 8 hours & go home, it is to finish my work and get back to my life.

Oddly enough, sometimes going faster can look paradoxical. I work only about 6 hours a day, but they are placed in such a way that I am at maximum velocity & flow during those hours.

I cannot keep that up beyond a couple of hours, so I work 10 AM to 12, eat a long lunch & get back to work at 2. Work from 2 through 4, go chase kids from 4:30 to about 9:30 PM. Work another 2 hours from 9:30 to 11:30, to be in bed fast asleep before midnight.

This means the hours I work are the fastest times of my day, while about 3 days a week 9 AM to 10, I am at a coffee shop reading a book.

I might be finishing lunch & then playing pool from 1 to 2 PM, so it does look to a lot of people that I am moving in a leisurely speed at work, but the only speed that matters is when you actually sit down and start thinking/typing.

On the way, whatever tool or processes I use that are slow or repetitive gets improved or automated, because again I want to be done at 4:30 before my brain goes into "driving in traffic" readiness.

The "make sharp tools" is a side-effect, not the core process which drives productivity.