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Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

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41–49 of 49 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#41
>What productivity hacks have changed your life?

Learning Vim.

The learning curve was steep and for the first year (!!) I felt SO awkward in Vim. However, I pushed on and eventually it became second nature. I started reading up on how to do stuff differently, I watched a lot of youtube videos. Then I started implementing these things more and more into my daily routine. Now all these things are ingrained so much I get annoyed if there is a text box without my Vim binding because sometimes I just mash kjkjkjkjkj which I rebound to .

Learning Vim is worth it.

For those who are still in doubt, you are going to be editing text (code probably) for so much more hours. If you are going to repeat something or do it often you should invest in your productivity. You could think of your non-trained productivity as a straight line in the (time, productivity) plane and your invested productivity as some exponential curve. It takes (a lot of) time to get to the same level, but afterwards your productivity just skyrockets. I am very happy I made the Vim investment.

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#42

I just tell myself "Stop being a f *ing loser and do what needs to be done!". It works.

Not sure why the parent was down voted. Various things work for different people and I follow something similar. I keep a mantra of sorts going on in my head throughout the day where I tell myself to not be weak and give in to procrastination (I'm on a lunch break right now). This actually does push me harder during the hours which I've set aside for productive time. That way I feel zero guilt when indulging in HN and YouTube after my work hours.

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#43

Changing my schedule so that my 7 hours of free time is before work rather than after work. Previously I was burnt out from work and when I got home I would do nothing but browse the internet. Also turning off the cell phone during my free time and only using a computer for productive purposes rather than website consumption. In the past couple of months on this schedule, I have read 13 books, practiced 150 Mandarin…

Did you notice a dip in your job performance?

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#44

These are simple ones that you probably all know. I'm just writing them down for reference. __General__ 1) Flux for sleep (sleep being the 'hack') 2) Social pressure: find a community that you want to belong to and that gives you the social pressure towards goals you want to achive __For programming (when learning a new language)__ For me, the focus is on getting as unstuck as possible. I've noticed that interactive…

I tried flux, but I just find it irritating when the screen turns yellow. It probably doesn't help that my office has a daylight bulb

In preferences you can always tune the level of "yellow". I personally, keep it at 5500k during the day, and in the evening turn it down a bit to 4800k.

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe a physical notebook is much better for me than an e-notebook

Totally agree, I think pen and paper makes me think more about what I'm writing. I still use digital note taking (recently ditched Evernote for Notion – which is wonderful), but only as a sort of "overflow". In my original post I mentioned I don't move everything over each week if it's not relevant at the moment, that usually means I add it to a digital document with some longer term tasks or ideas.

What's this Notion? Couldn't find it online

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, I think pen and paper makes me think more about what I'm writing. I still use digital note taking (recently ditched Evernote for Notion – which is wonderful), but only as a sort of "overflow". In my original post I mentioned I don't move everything over each week if it's not relevant at the moment, that usually means I add it to a digital document with some longer term tasks or ideas.

What's this Notion? Couldn't find it online

https://www.notion.so/

I just googled "notion notes" and it was the first link. Looks quite interesting!

Re: Ask HN: What are your greatest productivity hacks?

#49

Changing my schedule so that my 7 hours of free time is before work rather than after work. Previously I was burnt out from work and when I got home I would do nothing but browse the internet. Also turning off the cell phone during my free time and only using a computer for productive purposes rather than website consumption. In the past couple of months on this schedule, I have read 13 books, practiced 150 Mandarin…

I should follow your advice. I'm too addicted to Reddit.
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