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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

#271

Post by findoer »

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…

When I started out, I thought you would be assigned work with the expectation that you could complete it. I basically murdered myself for a half a year and developed minor health problems, since I was broke and worried about losing my income. As my energy and stuff deteriorated I lost the ability to concentrate or do much work, and I started getting warnings for not working fast enough etc. At that point I felt manipulated and got angry, and thought that actual work output counted for nothing, since it just lead to raised expectations, accusations of not working hard enough, and no upside.

So I spent half a year doing the minimum amount of actual work I thought I could get away while spending the rest of my time socializing and helping out coworkers. I think this basically made my manager lose her mind. She started badmouthing me to my skip level and using me as a scape goat for our project not working out (we were a small team and I went from the highest output worker to the slowest) but all my skip level manager would hear from other employees was how great an employee I was. Eventually she seemed to start avoiding me, and then went psycho and left the organization.

Overall, I think that this only works if everyone is straight forward and doesn't do any creepy things out of greed or ambition.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#272

Post by saiprashanth93 »

patwalls wrote: post #133

> Get a separate device for leisure and use it far from your workplace to cultivate location-based behaviors. Can someone explain this more? Curious to how others approach this as well.

I was also curious about this. Don't have enough data on how this works in real life. What is to say that you won't spend more time on entertainment now that you have a separate device for it?

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#273

Post by dispo001 »

crispinb wrote: post #60
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.

From the article it looks like he works 7 days a week, in two 3hr+ sessions. Not so punishing perhaps in terms purely of hours, but .. really? Not even one day off a week? In 2017? > It seems I value working less than other people I don't know anyone who works 7 days a week.

I work 7 days most of the weeks but its physical labor. (the mind is reserved for personal use) I've convinced myself that the joy of relaxing depends on how hard you've worked and that the longer you relax the less enjoyable it gets. You pretty much have to get back to work asap.

I stay productive by eliminating idle time between tasks. Switching should be seamless. If at any time you don't know what you are going to do after you've done the thing you are doing you are doing it wrong.

My coworkers all work harder than I do. End of the shift I've done just as much but they are totally worn out (when I go to my next job)

I do procrastinate for a total of 20 min or so by spending excessive attention on details. This amuses me greatly specially when it infuriates coworkers.

It is like a sport, the work it self is not important it is all about the experience. If I ever get bored with this routine I take 3 or 12 months off right at that very moment. The thought is very comforting. No way I'm going to push it into burnout.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#274

Post by wpietri »

treehau5 wrote: post #189
wpietri wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well depends on what angle I could talk all day -- it's cathartic! In any case, video game addiction is real, it is an addiction, and it fits the bill just like any other type of addiction. Granted it is without the heavy consequences sometimes faced by substance addictions, but nonetheless, it can have real direct consequenses on your health. To me the signs were clear: 1. At the point where the instant you get bore…

This is great. Thanks!

Personally, I avoid most video games because I recognize how addictive they are for me. But I definitely know people who struggle with this, and for them it's hard to even recognize that this could be a problem.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#275

Post by arvinsim »

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #9
wingerlang wrote: post #3

EDIT: Not that sneaky, just me completely blanking on the sentence after the actual link! Original comment below. ---- Sneaky. I clicked around on the links he had on his tools and found one that looked interesting (Qbserve) and it turns out it's one of his products which I felt would have been nice to have as a note. The only indication of this is the bottom footer header which also says Qbserve.

Did the copy change? It says "our automatic time tracker" and it is also on the same domain. It's an excellent tool. I have only tried the free trial though. $40 feels a bit high. $25 or below would have been an instant buy. I think he will also get better conversions if the free trial is 30 days instead of 10

> I think he will also get better conversions if the free trial is 30 days instead of 10

I agree. It seems that 10 days is not sufficient to get a good opinion on it.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#276

Post by tylersmith »

davymac wrote: post #65
tylersmith wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same issue due to depression and Lexapro has helped immensely. The negative feelings persist but the motivation and lack of apathy toward work has been greatly improved.

I take Lexapro with Vyvanse. Fantastic combo. The persistently negative thoughts just turned off. I try to take "medication vacations" for tolerance and I can tell by the end of the 1st day the shitty thought patterns come right back in a hurry. It's incredible. The self-loathing and obsessive perfectionism (including having to correct everyone on everything, and not being able to be wrong without getting angry) has…

Interesting. Thanks for the information. I'll discuss it with my psychiatrist.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#277

Post by crispinb »

dispo001 wrote: post #273
crispinb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article it looks like he works 7 days a week, in two 3hr+ sessions. Not so punishing perhaps in terms purely of hours, but .. really? Not even one day off a week? In 2017? > It seems I value working less than other people I don't know anyone who works 7 days a week.

I work 7 days most of the weeks but its physical labor. (the mind is reserved for personal use) I've convinced myself that the joy of relaxing depends on how hard you've worked and that the longer you relax the less enjoyable it gets. You pretty much have to get back to work asap. I stay productive by eliminating idle time between tasks. Switching should be seamless. If at any time you don't know what you are going t…

> I stay productive by eliminating idle time between tasks. Switching should be seamless.

This is typically easier with physical labour I think (only 'typically': of course there are variations). Our bodies are far better designed for physical tasks than our minds are for purely mental ones. The latter mismatch forces a variety of coping workarounds, amongst which are task-switching costs.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#278

Post by InternetUser »

findoer wrote: post #271
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…

When I started out, I thought you would be assigned work with the expectation that you could complete it. I basically murdered myself for a half a year and developed minor health problems, since I was broke and worried about losing my income. As my energy and stuff deteriorated I lost the ability to concentrate or do much work, and I started getting warnings for not working fast enough etc. At that point I felt manip…

> Eventually she seemed to start avoiding me, and then went psycho and left the organization.

I often think that people say that someone is "psycho" when the person is actually just someone stupid who ended up with some power, perhaps through physical attractiveness, or through simple dishonesty, or maybe even both. Was that woman less intelligent than you? Was she not very intelligent to begin with? I think it's actually more helpful and more accurate for people to replace a psychoanalytic view of others, with a straightfoward smart-or-stupid view, and of course that is to be done in context. It's important not to overthink things. A professional chef may think I'm "crazy" for how inefficiently and poorly I cook my food every day, but actually I'm just stupid at it.

Re: How I got to 200 productive hours a month

#279

Post by tonyedgecombe »

empath75 wrote: post #73

>Such news don't actually inform us but spread sensationalism, negative emotions, and outright lies to capture attention. What do you gain from following the latest political crisis or some scandal? You can't do anything meaningful about these events. They only depress you and occupy space in your mind. It's better to direct your focus toward things that we can actually impact and improve. This is a depressing point…

It is depressing but it is accurate, ignore the media and you are uninformed, consume the media and you are misinformed.
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