Ask HN: Which daily habit has affected your productivity the most?

The biggest moment for me was when I started thinking about productivity (or its absence) as a matter of willpower, and started to think strategically about how to make it easy. It's still a struggle to think that way: it seems like you should be able to grit your teeth, roll up your sleeves, and become productive. But that's not really how our brains work. Not mine, at least. For me, after that mindset shift, the most valuable strategies have been creating early external deadlines, drafting in longhand or into a voice recorder—and, above all and whenever possible, working closely with awesome collaborators rather than alone.

A few people are saying that they are most productive by starting their day on a big problem.

I am the opposite of this. I try to tackle a small problem or two in the morning in order to improve my mental state. If I'm able to get things done quickly, then it sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Sleep at minimum 7 hours (ideally 8), exercise every morning, drink lots of water.

It's simple. Execution is the hard part.

Clicked in here to say exactly this. The only thing I would add might be obvious, that consistency is extremely important. Just getting enough actually isn't enough, consistent timing is essential.

My second most significant is probably reading in place of momentary distractions.

I'm applying nearly all my "free time" (what's left after the family, work, exercise and sleep that I consider essential) with an attack on my backlog of books.

I wiped my devices and rebuilt them with only the essentials - no more newsreaders or social apps and I've greatly limited my web browsing.

Not only am I working towards a goal and learning new things, I'm spending it on a book or two rather than 100s of throwaway articles and blog posts - all but eliminating "context-switching" as I feel like I can keep 2 or 3 concerns in mental cache and get the full value of the time I spend on each of them.

I'll tell you what doesn't help productivity. Being in a toxic relationship. Get out while you still can.