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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

#221

Post by tentaTherapist »

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…

> 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.

Why would their incentives align at all?

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#222

Post by ensignavenger »

walshemj wrote: post #130
ensignavenger wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bank doesn't know how much my bill is going to be every month, so I have to put the amount in. Fortunately, I use simple.com and paying a bill with their mobile app takes a couple of seconds (once I have entered the companies info). Some companies have decent recurring billing via ACH, and I use that on most of my credit cards (I still check the statements each month), but my electric, water, sewer, and gas compan…

You don't have direct debits for this sort of thing ie bill is paid automatically?

YOu have to setup the ACH/Direct Debit with each utility here, you can't just set it up at the bank. And the utilities have crappy websites/processes for doing so- if they allow you to do it at all. They have a monopoly, so why bother with improving customer service?

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#223

Post by coldtea »

taway_1212 wrote: post #84
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, we have had huge WWII impact, dictatorship, civil war, and other such things in my parts, and they didn't impact much the generations involved in everyday life. I know tons of people that survived those events. Speaking to friends and relatives it was just things that happened. So it goes, etc.

Maybe they were more lucky. In case of my grandparents, they were children whose parents were executed by Nazis or sent to Auschwitz to die, or who themselves were sent, as teenagers, to a Stalinist prison.

Yes, both kinds of concentration camps are very extreme experiences.

I'm talking more general war and civil war scenarios (e.g. having your city bombed, being in a war, having family members die in such scenarios, etc -- which have been common in many places in the developing world (and Europe).

But the constant terror of a concentration camp for months or years on end is another thing.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#224

Post by ensignavenger »

jorvi wrote: post #140
walshemj wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have direct debits for this sort of thing ie bill is paid automatically?

Yeah this amazed me too. Usually gas and electric companies make a yearly estimate based on last year's use, then divide that by 12 months. If the estimate overshot, you get money back, otherwise you have to pay a little extra at the end of a 12 month cycle.

That is an option for most of my utilities, but I haven't set it up. I moved a year ago so it would have been difficult to estimate usage at that point. I guess I could set it up now.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#225

Post by mljoe »

kobeya wrote: post #15
Void_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well actually I think people should first try getting off social media - and not just that - getting off Internet.

If you have ADHD it’s not so simple. When I’m off my pills — which is to say every day of my life before I was diagnosed — I don’t really make conscious decisions about such things. I open my computer to work and find myself on Twitter or Facebook or HN or whatever 20min later without thinking about it. I mean that literally with no hyperbole. ADHD manifests from an under developed or under stimulated prefrontal cort…

I don't understand how what you described is ADHD and not average human behavior. If people were not easily distracted by Twitter and Facebook, they wouldn't have a functioning business. There are entire business models that rely on the truism that a huge fraction of the population will procrastinate on a trivial task that will clearly and unambiguously benefit them. Mail in rebates for instance. When does this become ADHD?

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#226

Post by tigershark »

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…

Ok, either you never worked for a big company or all the places where I worked were not well run accordingly to your definition. I guess it is a mixture of both options.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#227

Post by ismail »

shoover wrote: post #121

I read this as a single article distillation of the principles in Deep Work by Cal Newport, very well done. It's been a while since I read Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt, but the article feels familiar with that, as well (I recall a helpful section on meditation). The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry is another great resource. Newport's sources showed that most people are capable of about four hours of…

Great post. What I am struggling with is the following: These processes of deep work seem to be much easier to implement if you are doing remote work, coding, reasearch and more solitary work.

Anyone successfully implement this in a business with staff? What are your strategies?

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#228

Post by otterpro »

chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #184

> Walk for at least 30 minutes daily in a green place to relax your mind. If you have this resource available at your workplace (or even from home), consider yourself lucky. I imagine most software developers, including myself, don't have access to green space to be able to take a 30min walk! Maybe its time our zoning codes require preserving some green space around work places... Whether I'm at work or even at my ap…

If going outside to green environment is not an option, I recommend surrounding your work space / desk with greenery, such as ferns and low-maintenance houseplants. It does wonders and instantly changes my mood and the atmosphere.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#229

Post by ivanhoe »

So he basically works effectively 6 hours a day, every day of the week? If he wouldn't work for weekends that would be 30 something hours a week, which is for the most people a pretty relaxed work week. Plus he works on his own project from home (no clients to talk to, no deadlines, no distractions by co-workers, full control of the environment). Not to say that advices author gives are bad in any way, all of them are great and worth reading, just that the whole thing isn't as epic as the title suggests.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#230

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

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.

To be completely honest I work 2 - 100 hour weeks per month. It is tough, but I work much better in bursts.

I then basically take a 2 week vacation, but nobody knows about it except me. I schedule good chunks of Git Commits to push during my off weeks.

In the off time, I still respond to email, and occasionally take meetings. Which might take an hour per day. But I don't do anything productive. I play a lot of Nintendo.

I think this style would work better for lots of people, but regular 9-5 companies would never accept it. Its basically how college students work during Finals week, then take a nice break. I always wonder how many other people are out there like me? I think there has to be some.

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