This week, it took me 5 hours to write a piece of code. My teammate did a similar job in 30 minutes. Fortunately, it didn’t really affect me today. But I remember a time when I would have felt extremely miserable for taking so much time to complete a task while my friend blinked and it was over for him.
Over time, I realized that we do not have to be perfect, or be good at everything. What is important, in my opinion, is the result. Am I able to complete the task? Yes. The time required does not matter to me. I know that many of you who read these lines may have difficulty thinking like me. Let me tell you all the good things working longer will bring to you.
My story
I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD). As early as kindergarten, my teachers talked to my parents about my attention deficit and encouraged me to get medication. Now that I’m 22, I’ve been taking medication for more than a decade. It helps me a lot. On the other hand, it always takes me so much time to complete a task!
Whether it’s a task like homework I need to complete for school or a task I need to do for a personal project, it doesn’t matter. It takes time.
You’re not worse because you need to study longer than others
The person who’s faster than you probably has more experience in the subject! Let me make sure it’s clear:
- You’re not an idiot
- You have your place in your field of study, whether it’s computer science or another subject
- You will eventually succeed in this difficult task, like all the others before!
This more difficult aspect of your personality makes you who you are. And I dare say it can help you in other areas of your life. Have you already realized? Let me tell you how this problem can transform you positively:
Why Working Longer Than Others Is a Good Quality
1. You’re determined and perseverant
And yes! When you have to work 10x more hours than anyone else around you, well… it makes you very determined and perseverant! Even if it’s difficult, even if you can’t do the exercises given by your professor, you’ll always work hard to make it happen once and for all.
We are all developing ways to succeed : whether we go to our teachers every week, send them emails continuously, raise our hand in class, anything, we want and we will succeed at any price! And that is a quality that many employers are looking for.
2. You’re hard-working
When we have to work that much to succeed… let’s just say that we get used to working hard, long, and we never stop until we reach our goal. So, you are someone who works, and who is not afraid to put the required hours in order to succeed. Being a hard worker is a magnificent quality!
3. You develop your organization
Having more difficulty, we find ways to overcome our problems. One of the ways I found is to be very well organized. For example, as soon as I have a question to ask a teacher, I write it on a post-it in the margin of my sheet. That way, when I’m in front of the teacher, I can ask him or her all my questions quickly and efficiently!
I now use a digital calendar to record all the events I attend, as well as the Todoist application that I use every day to remind me of the tasks I have to do. You need so much time to work, you learn to find ways to plan your time so you have enough time slots to succeed!
4. You can understand the theory better than your friends
Please read my whole explication before judging the subtitle of this section! Also, remember that this is all from MY experience with my friends. Everyone is different and unique.
When I spend 5 hours to do an exercise and my friend did it in 30 minutes, most of the time, I understand better the exercise and can explain WHY we did things that way and I am able to generalize for other exercises.
By having to work longer and more to reach the same point of others in terms of tasks, that makes me someone who persevere, and I developed other qualities mention in this post. Those qualities developed makes me someone who reads all the little characters in every little slide of the PowerPoints. What is the consequence of this? I know every little detail of theory we saw when most of my friends just went over it fast and didn’t pay as much attention to detail as I did.
This is ALL from MY personal experience with all my friends. The people who have it easier and don’t have to work as much as I do, tend to not study as much => they don’t go through the PowerPoint as much => don’t do all the suggested maths exercises when I do ALL of them (that’s an example).
What is the difference between a person who did 50 maths exercises and someone who only did the 10 exercises covered in class? Well, the person who did 50 covered more exceptions. What do you do when you encounter a maths problem you never did before? Well, it’s not as easy. What if that exercise problem was the 49th? I did it, the others didn’t. I know more than they do. That pays off in the exam.
You are able to do the work and you are not afraid! Yes, the ratio effort/result is not very good for you, but at least you have the merit of having given your 100% at all times.
Maybe you don’t see the result of your work in your grades today, but…
Let me tell you about myself again. Throughout high school, my grades did not reflect my efforts and my study hours. By cons, quietly, my notes began to rise. Then, in CEGEP, I started to get the best grades in my life. It’s a bit like something was unlocked in me. Finally, my work was showing in my grades, and they are even better now that I’m at university!
If this is your case right now and you do not see the result of your efforts, don’t lose hope. I’m sure it’ll come someday! That day, you will be so proud of yourself! I assure you, it’s worth it!
Conclusion
I wrote this article today because I consider that many people live this problem of loneliness and do not realize that this flaw can be positive in their lives. Not too long ago, I realized how happy I was to be who I am today, with my flaws and qualities.
I am very proud today to be the one I am talking about in this article: determined, persevering, hardworking, organized. And I would not be this person without the flaw of needing a lot more time than anyone around me to complete a task.
This flaw gave me today 4 beautiful qualities, so who am I to complain?
28 comments
Tu as raison. Ça m’a pris 10 ans avant d’atteindre le poste que je convoitais dans mon travail. Par la suite j’ai travaillé là 25 ans et j’étais heureux de travailler pour cette organisation tous les jours.
Salut Richard!
Je ne savais pas, c’est super!
Marie
Good explanation, I suggest you to try Yoga as well, early in the morning.
Have a great day and keep posting awesome articles 🙂
Hi Navneet! Thanks for the suggestion, I should try!
Marie
I just wanted to say that I suffer from being slowly in study and work…so I always have problems with employeer…business always needs fast people… Maybe lack of experience effect me or my brain is slow… But one my employer one day I don’t deserve that I went to collage because I am slowly at memorizing and basic math despite I studied computer information system and graduated with nice grads.
I want also to say don’t give up and hear negative people
Hi Rose!
Ahh I’m so sorry this happened to you. If you went through college and graduated, then YOU CAN DO IT!
You’re right, we should never give up and be down because of negative people!
Marie xx
I came across you via your IG page.
Am so inspired that I had to check your blog.
Nice work your doing.
Thanks for sharing these tips as they reflect my personality.
It takes me longer time to study and sometimes my efforts doesn’t reflect on my grades.
Your post has been a source of encouragement to me.
Hi Rapture! Thank you so much for your kind words! I’m very glad this blog post could help you!
Talk soon!
Marie
Wow, thanks for sharing this, it is really motivational! I’m currently studying computer science and recently I’ve started to feel as if I’ve reached a Dead End. Before reading this I thought that maybe I’m a good-for-nothing ’cause my grades were not as good as expected. I’ve been stuck with the idea “I really know something?” Then I came accross your IG page and noticed you had a blog and read this article. And you’re right, maybe I’m not bad and maybe all I need is study longer and work harder. The organization part is a must-do hahaha. Anyways, thank you, you have helped me a lot!
P.S. Sorry for such a long comment hahah
Hi Gerson!
I hope I helped you realize that you’re NOT “good-for-nothing” !!
Thank you for your comment!
Marie
It was a great reminder! Thank you for encouraging us to accomplish our tasks! I feel better now about myself.
Hello Lida, that’s awesome! I’m glad I could help you xx
Marie
It’s so great to know that I am not alone. I usually need more time than my colleagues to complete a specific task too. But as you said in the post, working long hours is not always a bad thing. I never thought of the qualities it brings to my personality until I read your post. Thanks for making me realize that my ADD is not only a thing that makes me think that I am less than others. It does make me who I am. You know how to touch people’s hearts through your writing. Your post made my day.
Hello Emma,
We are definitely not alone in this! I’m glad I was able to make you see some of your qualities with the post.
Awww, your comment really made me happy, too!
Have a great week! xx
Marie
I actually don’t agree with you, specially with the example of your 4 point – You better understand the theory than your friends
On what basis do you write that you’ll have a better understanding of the theory if you’ll work more on the topic than others? What makes you think that if someone did a task quicker, he understands it less?
I mean don’t get me wrong, I believe that everyone has their own time to work on something, but from your article is seems like you are trying to say that if you work longer than you will get this done better? Working longer is not equal to getting more work done
Hello anonymous person,
I understand what you’re saying and I agree with you. What I was saying in that paragraph is mostly around the 80/20 rule I explained, which most of my friends follow. They can still get good grades anyway. They do the work but prefer to stop at 80% of the knowledge gained, because the last 20% takes too much effort/commitment. For them, the ROI is not worth it. Sometimes this has for consequences that I know the last sentence in the PowerPoint that was written in smaller characters and they don’t.
I think the problem is that you read the paragraph without understanding what I meant with the 80/20. Also, it’s completely from experience, so like everything in life some people are not like this and can understand everything well fast, no doubt.
On what basis do you write that you’ll have a better understanding of the theory if you’ll work more on the topic than others? Because I ask questions to professors often and again, from experience, afterward I know more than them. They don’t remember that one time the professor said it in class for 10 seconds.
If I do more maths exercises than them (because they follow the 80/20 rule), then I know more exceptions than they do. Most of the time we don’t cover every exception there can be in the exercises, and it’s sometimes the one that is asked in the exam.
But again, I agree with you, it’s different for everyone.
Tripped across this blog and there’s a fair amount of faulty reasoning going on here by extending your experience to others. It’s simply not true that taking longer means there’s a better understanding of the problem or subject at hand. Nor does working harder and longer indicate more perseverance or quality of knowledge. You seem to think it’s a virtue to have to work more than someone else when that someone else may have a far better understanding than you do in a much shorter time-and they may understand it without even asking the professors–now that would be true understanding! But you simply do not know. Personally, I’m in the “work smarter, not harder” camp so I take exactly as much time as it takes to get something and not a moment more. But having said that, we all learn at different paces and have differing strengths and weaknesses. Now, are you talking about just for collage classes and doing homework? Because I can tell you in the world of IT and getting coding done, we want the developer who can get the coding done fast and with good quality (yes, it’s possible to do both). That takes both experience and knowledge. Maybe when some new language or toolset or API is released there’s a learning curve but if I have a developer who consistently takes 2 to 3 times as long as other developers doing similar projects, that developer is probably not going to make it where I work. You mentioned ADHD, that does change things a bit in that it’s a recognized ADA disability (here in America at least) so we do give some accommodations if that would be the case. But I will agree with what I think is the underlying principle of your post, which is sticking to something, even if it takes you longer to do it than others is a good trait as opposed to those who simply give up. But this business that you understand more than others for the simple reason that you have to spend much more time due to your ADHD (or some other reason including just not being good at it) is simply an assumption that is not based on any facts. You are very young and have a lot to learn and what’s more, you have a lot of experience to get before you can truly understand a lot of this stuff. Experience is the best teacher for sure. As I celebrate my 30th year in IT, I have learned that there’s no substitute for it.
Hello! You are the second person to mention all of this, so I think I will need to edit my blog post to make my point clearer.
By having to work longer and more to reach the same point of others in terms of tasks, that makes me someone who persevere, and I developed other qualities mention in this post. Those qualities developed makes me someone who reads all the little characters in every little slide of the PowerPoints. What is the consequence of this? I know every little detail of theory we saw when most of my friends just went over it fast and didn’t pay as much attention to detail as I did.
This is ALL from MY personal experience with all my friends. The people who have it easier and don’t have to work as much as I do, tend to not study as much -> don’t go through the PowerPoint as much -> don’t do all the suggested maths exercises when I DO THEM ALL (that’s an example).
What is the difference between a person who did 50 maths exercises and someone who only did the 10 exercises covered in class? Well, the person who did 50 covered more exceptions. What do you do when you encounter a maths problem you never did before? Well, it’s not as easy. What if that exercise problem was the 49th? I did it, the others didn’t. I know more than they do. That pays off in the exam.
This complete blog post is not really about coding. Weird enough, all my previous employers (I have 4 in mind right now) told me that my greatest strength is that I learn fast. Don’t ask me why I need extra time in everything university-related but when I’m at work, it would seem like I am fast enough to do the required jobs, as per all my previous supervisors told me.
Marie 🙂
As primary and high school student I was generally a fast enough learner that I didn’t need to “study” per se, I just did the work and that was enough. Since I started learning certain subjects at university level, such as maths and programming, I have actually had to learn how to study, and I learn these subjects more slowly than I am used to. This post was valuable and reassuring!
I work as a coder alongside my studies and I often struggle with the fact that I am not as fast as some of my colleagues at certain types of tasks. But the more thoroughly I study – e.g. doing ALL the exercises as you described – the better my understanding and I am gradually getting faster at those tasks. My determination to complete almost any assigned task or solve any assigned problem, flexibility, and openness to trying and learning new things, holds me in good stead with my colleagues even though I am not as fast. Sometimes I do need to remind myself of that though – and if I find myself working somewhere that values speed over all other qualities, that is not the right place for me to work.
I dont know how I cross with u experiencie and blog. My mother tongue is not the english, so I understand u about that. Maybe this seems silly but in this point of my life Im trying to change my life style, about my studies and work. I dont know, maybe exist a reason for get this information. Thank u for share your opinion and experiencies.
PD: Srry for my english.
Hello Jorge!
No it’s not silly at all, you can totally change your lifestyle and how you manage your studies and your work!
Good luck 🙂
Marie
I have the same issue (or maybe blessing) as you, so it was nice to read someone else felt this way. Do you know of any studies/papers that discuss this topic, as I tried to find some and couldn’t? Keep up the good work 🙂
Hello Ivan!
Glad to know you share my feelings! Maybe I could suggest the book “Grit”, it’s about how Grit is more beneficial long-term than talent.
Marie
Wow! Wonderful blog. Thanks for sharing!!
Dear girlknowstech,
I really appreciate your efforts and achievement. I can better understand because in 2013 – 14, I was facing short memory or memory lost or forgot problem. Then I left my medicine and start learning things in different way. I normally took time to gain understanding about the topic and initially take more time to gain understanding. But once I gain understanding then I was on the top of the things.
But Can you help me or guide me about being successful in Blogging, Web Development. Because I was previously working in Networking field. I have shifted myself towards Blogging, SEO, Word Press, Javascript, PHP, MYsql and XAMPP track. Can you guide me regarding these to me more successful.
Thanks
Hello Muhammad!
You’ve been through a lot!
I’m happy to help you, but I can’t guide you on a 1:1 basis. Do you have specific questions for me about blogging? If so, I’d be happy to try and answer.
Best wishes,
Marie
Thank you so much for this article! This has been my problem my whole life and I was bullied a lot by classmates because they thought I studied too much on purpose. I finally have received some validation, and studying longer did end up leading me to do better. Thank you!
Hello Meg! Wow, I’m so sorry to hear that you were bullied 🙁
I’m very glad this post was helpful.
Best wishes!
Marie