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Comment by rodrigodlu | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure it's because they're not paying full attention, even worse, sometimes already building an intense narrative with only few items internalized inside their brains.

I also feel that this is happening more and more, since there's more rewards for giving very small pieces of attention and energy to a bigger pool of people, instead giving extra energy or attention to a smaller pool of people seeking for one's help.

I'm just facing this with a contractor doing repairs in my house, a month ago was finding a decent mechanic to fix just 2 issues on my car.

The first promptly finds energy to discuss things it receives through social networks or messages, but can't provide a decent list of things that I need to provide him to finish his work faster.

The second case took a lot of time and discussing with 6 different mechanics, until th car broke and it was towed.

I'm seeing this more and more, unfortunately.

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That actually sounds like a good idea for a technical support app:

The only interaction possible is they can tell you the problem, then you can give them a list of things to try, and they can do nothing but give feedback on each step, in order, and you arent bothered until they at least respond something for each step

This sounds like a recipe to get a lot of `asdfalsfasfsd` responses...

I'm starting to think Humanity's problems are not technical in nature. I don't see how to even think about forcing people to help themselves.

This is obviously satire, but we could make every internet app completely modal: once you start a flow on any site your computer prohibits you from starting any other flow on any other site before you complete the previous one.

Or simply their priorities are not your priorities. They have encountered a problem, they asked for help, but they have 10 other things going on. By the time you answer, they have forgotten half the context of the issue. They try one thing, it doesn't work, they don't have more time right now so they answer that thing 1 didn't work. Repeat.

I find most people suffer from at least one (and more commonly two) of the following: insufficient attention to detail; poor time management; and bad organization skills.

> their priorities are not your priorities.

> insufficient attention to detail

I believe there's a cause effect scenario here.

This is especially true in the trades. If you're able to:

- be on time

- respond to emails/texts, and especially: phone calls

- give quotes

Then if you're even halfway competent, the world is your oyster. Please come do work for me!

If you can manage people and budgets, you can have more work than you'll know what to do with (assuming there's work available).

The inability of many people to focus their attention and prioritize their work is shocking to me. This isn't just for the stereotypical "younger adult" either, this seems to apply across the board (and especially to boomer-aged adults!).

> I'm just facing this with a contractor doing repairs in my house

Are you saying that you give your contractor a list of seven things to address, and find that they only address two and say they're done?

I can't remember where I heard of using painter's tape for this, but it's used as a metaphor in this article https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-blue-tape-list/

.... I also found this link while looking for the above article, https://www.quantumbalancing.com/news/bluetape.htm . That's. ... just... well. Not what I was looking for, but was so remarkable that I thought I would link to it here. I suppose they have probably sold some of their devices. I'm curious to know what the insides are like, but not curious enough to spend $1k+.

Imagine blue tape for software. I guess the closest thing I have seen is

// Fixme: address this later.

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