Don't be lazy, don't be stupid [22.00.0126]

J.D Concepts 22 Blog
1

I just wrote a blog post and messed it up by not following my own checklist – lazy and stupid – and then tested out a new code idea, and messed it up by just not reading the documentation. Lazy! And! Stupid!

Lazy is default

Of course it is. Evolution and stuff. But when dealing with the complexity of the modern world, it is no longer an advantage.

Because being lazy now just means that I have to do it again later. That’s not efficient, and it’s frustrating, and it leads to a worse state of mind, and poorer quality work.

Checklists

When I write a blog post, I have a checklist. It’s kinda boring: do this, do that. It’s more work than just banging out a tweet. But hey, that’s what it is. To ignore that fact is to be childish.

So I just published a couple of blog posts and totally ignored my checklist, and now I have to spend more time fixing them than I would have had I just done it right.

Lazy. Stupid.

Tend to your checklists

Checklists are a superpower. Read Atul Gawande’s 'The Checklist Manifesto’.

But they must be kept up to date. Because every step is a chore, and superfluous steps will lead you to resent and ultimately reject the whole list.

Every time you touch your checklist, fix what’s broken. You need to want to use your checklists. They need to be a relief, not a burden.

Documentation

Then I was messing about with this Astro feature and it wasn’t working and arrrgh whyyyyy and eventually I ask their AI support bot on Discord and it tells me about this one line I need to add … which is just right there in the documentation. Clear as day.

So had I just taken the time to read it, it would have worked, and I wouldn’t have been frustrated, and I wouldn’t have had to open Discord which is now a distraction, and it would have been working half an hour ago, and all the rest.

Don’t be lazy. Don’t be stupid.[1]

  1. Sorry @alex. But it still reads well? ↩︎

2

Sorry @alex. But it still reads well?

I love this, because the original saying we used to use has “shit” instead of “stupid”. I realise that you probably modified this to “stupid” for the blog post, which is fine because the sentiment is the same. So, I recall that the original saying was: “Don’t be lazy, don’t be shit!”.

You did petition me to change it to “Don’t be shit, don’t be lazy!” for a while there, but I prefer the other way around because I like the poetic mechanism of metrical placement and end-rhyme positioning.

This makes it a terminal rhyme is where the hard sounding words are placed at the end of the line where they fall in a strong rhythmic position and are easiest for the ear to catch. For example:

Jack be nimble [soft], Jack be quick [hard];
Jack jump over the candlestick"

So that’s why I prefer the “shit” at the end, but you’ve swapped them anyway as you’ve moved “lazy” to the middle and put “stupid” at the end, so I think we are now both in complete agreement!

3

Good to see this blog inspiring poetry.

Yeah, while I personally cuss like a fucking sailor, I’d like the public-facing JD stuff to be family friendly. ‘Stupid’ seemed to work nicely and doesn’t really change the message.

The back-story for everyone else. Me and Alex worked together for many years. When you’re on a busy, high-stress project it can be really easy to be lazy. There’s a lot to do – does it really matter if I don’t do this one thing well? The answer is yes, it does. So, don’t be lazy.

Then we had a (very senior) manager and they were just shit. They needed to quit, for everyone’s sakes. So don’t be shit is a bit more difficult, but the intent was that if you know you’re being a bit shit, stop it.

I always had this in my mind as don’t be shit, don’t be lazy. Which personally I still prefer as it delivers that fricative, harsh sh sound right up front. It tells me early on that this is not a happy message. Alex always preferred it the other way around and now I know why.

4

To be completely honest - and so you can now get an insight into my strange brain - in my head, I’ve always said “Don’t be lazy, don’t be shit; don’t jump over the candlestick.”

Which is weird. I get that.

1 Like
5

:roll_eyes:

Try working with this guy.

1 Like