The most important thing is to stick with the same technologies and become an expert in them.
Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
31–40 of 137 posts
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#32I've read some wonderful responses, especially nostrademons's. I don't see "minimizing technical debt" on the page yet, so I would like to mention it. This would require discipline, having grasped some/all of the overall picture, and foresight/planning.
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#33Little bit of background as to why I think I can answer this: Three years ago, I ran my own web design/development/marketing company, doing a lot of the front end UI/UX stuff, as well as the marketing plans for my clients. I did this, worked another full time job, voluntered 15 hours a week, and was taking 21 credits a semester. After that, for a year, I commuted 5 hours each way to attend a weekend post-baccalaureate medical program (full time) while working in a hospital full time (actually averaged 51 hours a week). Now, I'm a senior systems analyst with the same healthcare organization, I have a wife and 2 year old daughter, I'm working on my startup, and my manager and others are often commenting on how amazed they are at how much I get done, and I love my work-life balance. I don't feel like anyone is short-changed.
So what's my dirty little secret? Three simple things: I keep a to-do list, the items on the list are incredibly clear and take, at max, 2 hours, and finally, I switch gears if I have to wait on other people (i.e. I don't surf the net while I wait for an email to approve workflow, I simply switch to another item on my to do list)
I am INCREDIBLY focused on execution, and if I have a task that I know can cause my mind to wander, I limit the amount of time I spend on it (for example, I have research potential repository structures, 1 hour, on my to do list right now).
I used to write things like 'redo startup website' on my to-do lists years ago. Now it's '1. rewrite main copy on landing page to highlight x feature 2. rewrite faq to include a, b, c questions. 3. change contact form to say 'sign up', reset analytics'. Make your tasks granular, tactical, and limit the time frame. I also start my day with a maximum of 6 things on the to-do list, and I rank them based on priority. As I start to cross things off the list, I add more to the next day (or for later that day if I am finishing things faster than I had anticipated). Finally, before I go to bed at night, I make sure I have 6 items on my to do list for the next day, so I can hit the ground running.
Plan ahead. Break it down. Prioritize. Write things down. Regardless of what you do for a living, or where you are in life, you can definitely use this method to improve your productivity. Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#34I don't have good work-life balance but I work insanely productive. 70 hours a week on average. 23 years old.
Working 70 hours a week doesn't mean you are productive, just that you are working 70 hours per week. Being productive means getting things done. Maybe you are crushing it and doing 120 hours work of work in 70 hours. Or maybe you are doing 70 hours of work in 70 hours.
>Or maybe you are doing 70 hours of work in 70 hours.
Or maybe doing 35 hours of work in 70 hours.
I'm not sure how many hours I do, probably around 35. I start at around 8am and work till about 6, but take long breaks during the day.
I find that I'm much more productive if I take a lot of breaks -- long hours don't necessarily result in getting more stuff done. I've never had a problem getting all the stuff done that I need to do, and I tend to be more productive than most other developers I've met. In fact, sometimes doing no work for a day or two is a good way to limber up for a difficult project.
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#35Not wasting time on HN helps a lot. My productive days are those where I'm very focussed and not distracted.
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#36In 2007, I finished my bba, received an angel investment, and started a company. Three months later (and with my investor's enthusiastic support), I started a non-profit street magazine. About two years later, I ended up in hospital with stroke symptoms and blood pressure on the 'how are you alive?' end of the scale. Because of this, I beg anyone who wants to be as highly productive as I was to please take care of yo…
So out of curiosity, in your case, was this overworked + crappy diet + lack of physical activity, or was this overworked + healthy/balanced/junk-free diet + some modicum of regular physical activity?
It started as a spiral of being overworked and not sleeping enough. As I slept less, my coffee consumption skyrocketed and my diet grew worse and worse. I tried to exercise three times a week, but between being tired, mild stomach problems from too much coffee and unhealthy food, and energy spikes, my intensity in the gym slipped and I eventually started skipping more workouts.
It all spiralled because all of those things made me less effective. So, I not only made more mistakes but those mistakes kept me up later and later at night...
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#37I definitely do not consider myself a "highly productive" person in the sense I believe you are referring to. I am productive though and have found little tricks that have helped me personally.
1. If I am working on a large project I try to keep it split into very small pieces. I only work on a small piece at a time and switch between pieces often. This keeps my mind going. It also helps if you start to get stuck and lose focus by looking things up or just outright losing interest in what you are working on. By breaking it into small pieces you tend to complete more items and it tricks your mind into staying focused (at least for me). As someone else pointed out, a big time suck for developers is having to look things up. If I know that I want to get 20 things done in a day, I will work to get as many as possible done before I get stuck having to look something up. Sometimes I find that doing other things will freshen my mind and I no longer need to look it up.
2. If I find myself getting stuck or losing focus, I get up immediately and do something else non-work related. I may go for a 15-20 minute walk, grab a cup of coffee, or read HN.
3. I try to go to sleep at, or around, the same time every night and try to wake up at, or around, the same time every day. Being in a routine helps.
4. Watch what you eat/drink. I used to drink a couple beers every night, smoke, and drank a lot of soda. I stopped drinking 2 years ago (I still have a beer every now and then at events or with dinner on occasion), I quit smoking (been a year now), and gave up soda entirely (haven't had one in 3 years). Combined with exercising more and watching what I eat I have found this alone the biggest improvement to my staying focused and being productive. I also used to eat late at night, which didn't help my sleep cycle and also is bad for your health in general. I forced myself to get on a more routine diet, or at least eating cycle.
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#38Never heard of the two people you mention, but I'll share what I've observed: The two biggest time sinks in everyday programming are 1.) communicating with everyone else and 2.) looking things up. If you can avoid these and have a quick analytical mind, you can basically program as quickly as you can type. So the secret to being insanely productive is to work as a solo programmer in a domain where you are thoroughly…
> I read an interview with Guido van Rossum, Jeff Dean, and Craig Silverstein within Google where they were asked basically the same question, and the answer all of them gave was "The ability to hold the entire program in your head." There are memory improvement techniques, developed over centuries, which can help. Think of it as latency reduction in a source code memory palace. http://mt.artofmemory.com/start
On the other hand, if you can do this and your co-workers can't, you may be tempted to write complex and entangled code, because the implications of each line are perfectly obvious to you.
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#39You can skim over all productivity tips and just get one thing fixed to be as productive as them - SHIP! It's no surprise that these people have that habit deeply ingrained in them and joy of shipping encourages them to do more.
A great little poem got posted here which I find highly relevant. [1]
Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?
#40In 2007, I finished my bba, received an angel investment, and started a company. Three months later (and with my investor's enthusiastic support), I started a non-profit street magazine. About two years later, I ended up in hospital with stroke symptoms and blood pressure on the 'how are you alive?' end of the scale. Because of this, I beg anyone who wants to be as highly productive as I was to please take care of yo…
Did you use/abuse caffeine/ritalin/..?
Massive caffeine abuse. I drank truly insane amounts of coffee.