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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

#211

Post by mbrock »

logfromblammo wrote: post #172
smelterdemon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm the ancestor, and yeah, I do work through my own firm and there are some monthly bills and bookkeeping that's not automatic. I also live overseas and pay my utilities and rent via EU bank transfer.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#212

Post by shoover »

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…

I second the disclaimer. The hourly path for money is fine, or also consider a hard focused normal work week followed by the same level of focus on complementary tasks on the weekend or evenings, such as a side project, open source contributions, or further studies. The same habits around environment, body, and mind carry over to benefit both projects and only the exact artifacts of the effort need change. As Csikszentmihalyi points out in Flow, many of make ourselves miserable by having no focus whatsoever in our leisure time.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#214

Post by loco5niner »

wpietri wrote: post #182
loco5niner wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying the things I wanted to say. Environment is certainly the better word. Really, how much can an 8-year-old change? Not much. *edit - of course, there is a level of individual responsibility as well.

Eight year olds can't change the environment much. But if we are making a lot of eight year olds struggle when we put them in an artificial environment, I hope we're considering whether we've make mistakes designing that environment.

agreed. I assume you are talking about the school environment?

I would add home environment (parents and siblings especially), culture, entertainment, friends, religion, sleeping habits, socioeconomic status... etc.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#216

Post by flachsechs »

mbrock wrote: post #26

TL;DR: Basically getting up early and doing 4 hours of deep work has changed my life from really stressful and bad to really productive and nice. One thing really fundamentally helped me, as someone who works from home on a large project in an asynchronous 100% remote organization. I work on a fairly involved project that demands a lot of hard work. At the same time there are other things I want to get done: some adm…

i agree with this. as i've gotten older i've become a morning person, usually starting around 6, but sometimes earlier. you can easily belt out 4-5 hours of real work before lunch time, and then take a leisurely lunch/walk/coffee, and do administrative / non-intense tasks in the early afternoon, leaving a relaxed afternoon and evening to do real life things.

and, when a true emergency pops up, it's rare, and it doesn't trigger your stress/frustration response.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#217

Post by agumonkey »

> The core principle of a productive environment is increasing the friction required to slip into distracting activities, so that it takes a significant effort to get distracted

I somehow believe that subconsciously, that's why we "go to" work. Staying at home doesn't disengage the leisure part of our brains enough for most.

Being far makes it easy deep down to care about something else.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#218

Post by kevan »

randallsquared wrote: post #192
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. In a high-level view, sure. But if the employee is given more to do than they could possibly do, it can be very damaging to morale. At review time of things one was expected to work on, there are things you accomplished, and things you failed to accomplish. In particular, if one responds to "I accomplished task1 a…

The devil is always in the details. You need a unified approach from first-line managers up to directors setting big picture goals for it to work. There's about 20 things we'd like to do as an organization every year. But, to stay focused and execute well we need to choose the 3-5 most important things. The same applies at the individual level. If everyone's on the same page then it works great.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#219

Post by BatFastard »

II2II wrote: post #203
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 depends. It may do wonders for efficiency, yet there are a number of ways it can breakdown: failing to complete regulatory or contractual requirements is a big one, since they rarely allow for flexibility. Clients may not receive the service they expect, so the organisation's reputation will be damaged. In ca…

No, there should ALWAYS be more work. If there is not more work, then as soon as work runs out the team is idle.

So you have to plan ahead.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#220

Post by rangersanger »

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…

Interesting statement. From my perspective this has been true of well run and poorly run companies alike.

Perhaps part of the difference is that well run companies allow the employees to prioritize, and poorly run companies don't. Either due to lack of trust or lack of clear/aligned company goals.

Additionally, poorly run companies/departments, and their employees may not realize this tacit agreement exists, leading to employee burnout, poor outcomes, etc.

Personally I've always known there would be more work than can be done, and part of my job is to "manage up," expectations. However, I've known many many colleagues over the years who have not been able to prioritize work in the same way. Wondering if more openness around this concept would lead to better outcomes.

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