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How I got to 200 productive hours a month

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Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#171

Post by mtone »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #114
hacker_9 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"early to rise, early to bed, socially dead"

Social life is overrated anyway. I used to be "late to rise, late to bed, fuck parties, let me live in peace when everyone else sleeps and doesn't distract me with nonsense", but recently my SO beat some sense into me, and I'm slowly joining the "early to rise" crowd now.

Care to share some of the arguments that made you change your views? For instance, wanting to build a family (having kids tends to force a morning schedule).

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#172

Post by logfromblammo »

smelterdemon wrote: post #100
codeulike wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 'paying bills' here is shorthand for the general administrative burden of being alive, which seems to have grown substantially in recent decades.

In what ways has it grown? It seems easier than ever to track and automate personal finance.

For me, "paying bills" is not the literal act of making payments to vendors and creditors. It is the act of exporting one's labor outside the family, in exchange for the medium of exchange required to pay one's bills.

I don't "pay my bills" by writing checks and mailing them. I "pay my bills" by working at a corporate peon job for 40 hours a week. If I do the same kind of work at home on a side project, that is still work, but not "bill paying" work.

The literal act of paying bills takes me all of five minutes every month. An hour per year, whenever I don't have to add any new payees to the system. I spend more time voiding my bowels, which I always seem to have enough time for, regardless of how much time I spend working.

Maybe ancestor post was referring to doing accounts payable and accounts receivable accounting work for the business? Seems like that might be more labor intensive than hitting the "pay" button for the electric bill, even with modern business accounting software. Even then, it wouldn't be something I'd do every day, and if all I felt I could do in the afternoons is light administrative work, I think I'd just knock off early if I didn't have enough to fill at least a solid 2 hours, or if it was the last day of the month.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#173

Post by rockostrich »

tehlike wrote: post #168
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete. This is because the employee is then forced to prioritise their work themselves and only focus on the pieces of work that align with their incentives. Which should align with the company incentivies. If this was not the case, then the organization would need to employ additional staff to plan work, in order to maxim…

"A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete." That's the whole problem, right there. Sometimes, this "well run" company will generate work that might not matter, not at all.

All companies that are well run will have a queue of work for each employee, but not all companies that have a queue of work for each employee are well run.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#174

Post by wpietri »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #128
ulkesh wrote: post #118

> Caution: The mentioned amount of hours is not advisable for people working on someone else's business for illusory stock options, with no payment for overtime. There's also no point in going beyond this number because working over 50 hours a week actually decreases productivity. Life should come first in the "work-life balance." Great disclaimer in the article. The only problem is that many employers will be quite…

A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete. This is because the employee is then forced to prioritise their work themselves and only focus on the pieces of work that align with their incentives. Which should align with the company incentivies. If this was not the case, then the organization would need to employ additional staff to plan work, in order to maxim…

> A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete.

I'm not sure that's really true of a well-run company, but it's definitely true of badly run ones. In chaotic organizations, an unrealistic (or absent) sense of capacity and unclear priorities combine to create large amounts of work in process. Individual prioritization is definitely a survival skill there.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#175

Post by wolco »

welly wrote: post #45

Who works 200 hours a month? That's either five 10 hour days a week or roughly seven 7 hour days a week. My time off work is far, far too important to me to be working either of those options. It seems I value working less than other people. I'm fine with that.

I did 100 hours plus my full time job 220 a month for the last 9 months. Helped me get more out of debt. Helped that I was doing different things. Helped and hurt in terms of switching mental mindsets.

Glad to be off of that train since September 1. Really takes a toll.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#176

Post by wpietri »

treehau5 wrote: post #169

I found a lot of this advice, coincidentally, in the book "Respawn" over at game quitters (I had a horrible video game addiction that I decided I needed to break) -- that is the advice to apply the same psychological principles that get people hooked to video games to other things in life. This is the ultimate life hack for me and something I am still working on.

Could you say more about this? I was just talking with somebody about video game addictions, and I'd love to have more resources to offer people struggling with it.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#177

Post by TeMPOraL »

mtone wrote: post #171
TeMPOraL wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social life is overrated anyway. I used to be "late to rise, late to bed, fuck parties, let me live in peace when everyone else sleeps and doesn't distract me with nonsense", but recently my SO beat some sense into me, and I'm slowly joining the "early to rise" crowd now.

Care to share some of the arguments that made you change your views? For instance, wanting to build a family (having kids tends to force a morning schedule).

Wanting to be "in the same timezone" as her (she's an early bird). Plus wanting to start a family somewhat soon-ish.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#178

Post by Jemmeh »

tome wrote: post #144
hacker_9 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"early to rise, early to bed, socially dead"

Here's an idea. I'd be interested in fellow HNers thoughts on it. Get up really early, say 5am. Finish work perhaps 3pm. Sleep for four hours until 7pm. Go out, do other stuff, party as much as you like until 1am. Sleep. 8 hours sleep a day in 2 chunks of 4 hours. Would that work?

I've done this sometimes, I think it's pretty dependent on you being able to fall asleep quickly. Which you can train yourself to do. But it would usually be more of a 3hr/4.5hr split to match with REM cycles. Or just 3&3. I felt fine. If anything I prefer it, but realistically I've found it hard to do while working 9-6. I end up wanting a sleep time in the afternoon.

Sometimes I do 6hrs at night and take a nap on lunch for about 45minutes. This is okay, but hard to do outside of winter as it's too hot to sleep in my car.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#179

Post by dsenkus »

iluvmylife wrote: post #107
dsenkus wrote: post #51

Thanks for great article, I found some good ideas how to optimise my workflow. I think everyone should spend some time adopting these techniques, instead of relying on "autopilot" mode. Here's my mindmap of this article if anyone is interested: https://imgur.com/a/RnRgV

What did you use to create this? Anyone have good recommendation for mind map tools?

I've used Omnigraffle for this one, but there are open source alternatives like FreeMind. Or you could use online tool like https://www.draw.io/

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#180

Post by wpietri »

kobeya wrote: post #8

> Two years ago I could spend a week not working because I was avoiding some task. This is a great article and there’s plenty to talk about in organizational systems, even if this seems to be subtly pitching his own products in places. But if anyone reading this identifies with this sort of chronic procrastination, consider seeking psychiatric help. This is a giant red flag for adult ADHD, which is a serious and ofte…

Regarding the universal efficacy of stimulants, it should be noted that stimulants helping with something is not diagnostic of a medical issue. Stimulants help everybody with with getting-work-done issues. That's why the majority of Americans take stimulants daily, and many workplaces give them away for free.

So sure, if someone is having trouble keeping up with the pace of their societally assigned hamster wheel and find stimulants help, sure, they should go for it. But they should not mistake that for an illness, any more than a person needing a step-stool to get to the top cupboard should think they have some sort of growth hormone deficiency. Artificial environments can require artificial compensation, but that doesn't mean there's some sort of medical problem.

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