Great article and advice! I like the emphasis on finding the right direction. It's so true. I didn't fully understand the 15 minutes LED light in the morning when reading email. Is it better than natural light? Or even better, don't read email when you wake up :)
Productivity
31–40 of 428 posts
Re: Productivity
#32I see these kinds of articles come along from time to time, and it always makes me wonder: Why this pressing need to maximize productivity? Why not just do things you enjoy, at a pace that you enjoy? Is it for more money/prestige? What's the use if you've been stressing and pressuring yourself for it all your life? I feel like the odd person out because I work on something while I enjoy it, stop working on it when I…
For me, there's a conflict between long-term and short-term enjoyment. I have a 'goal' of independence from my 9-5, but after I get home from work and play with my kids a bit, it sounds more immediately _enjoyable_ to watch a TV show with my wife rather than spend a couple hours on my side project. So it does sound ideal to > do things you enjoy, at a pace that you enjoy but I think there's a part of life where you'r…
> If I can be more productive, that's minimizing the time I spend sacrificing enjoyment before attaining my goals :).
What would you do if you didn't have to work? Spend more time with your wife and kids? Isn't it a bit odd to say "if only I spent less time with my wife and kids, then I could have a chance to spend more time with them in the future!"?
Re: Productivity
#33I really like that its so easy for successful and productive people to share their thoughts on what got them where they are and their advice on how others can get there too. The part of the essay I liked the most was perhaps his comment about having strong convictions on things. This is incredibly important. To get to a level of knowledge on anything to get that conviction though, requires a lot of deliberate reading…
[deleted]
Re: Productivity
#34> Finally, to repeat one more time: productivity in the wrong direction isn’t worth anything at all. Think more about what to work on. How can one say this? How can you know without action? You can spend your entire life thinking about what to work on. Ultimately, you have to do something. There's a saying... 失败是成功之母 (failure is the mother of success).
I agree that there is value in trying things for the sake of trying. I would argue that working on something you are passionate and excited about is much more important than working on things that are necessarily the "right" direction.
Re: Productivity
#35Never heard of people using LED lights in the morning. He's already supplementing with vitamin D, so what is the benefit of using the light on top of that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_blue_light_technolo...
The significance is on blue light. The same way it has negative side effects at night (which is why tools like f.lux and night shift exist), it has positive effects in the morning. Folks who live in northern regions struggle in the winter with depression due to the lack of sun and the impact that has on your circadian rhythm. Not sure the folks in SF have much to worry about here ;)
Re: Productivity
#36With hacker news you can't be productive, if you use it whole day. Also avoid the trap of productivity porn you have to decide for your own self what pace and things work for you nobody else can't. You are just being an information junkie by reading article like this.
Re: Productivity
#37Your productivity is only as good as what you decide to work on. This is an excellent point! "Finally, to repeat one more time: productivity in the wrong direction isn’t worth anything at all. Think more about what to work on."
Unfortunately, very few people have the option to only work on things they enjoy. Even professors get stuck doing things they don't want to do, and that aren't valuable, but there is no choice unless you have at least a few million in the bank.
Re: Productivity
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if you read the post, but the author addresses a couple of your points and seems to agree with you: I’ve learned that I can’t be very productive working on things I don’t care about or don’t like. So I just try not to put myself in a position where I have to do them (by delegating, avoiding, or something else). Stuff that you don’t like is a painful drag on morale and momentum. And: Also, don’t fall into the…
To be honest, I didn't read it. Reading articles about productivity makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, when I'm perfectly happy otherwise. They're the Instagram of work life for me. EDIT: I went back and read it, I agree with most of what he says (and my original comment wasn't very relevant to this particular article), I would just add "don't stress about productivity, most of the time it's fine to just d…
I'd like to agree wholeheartedly about reading articles makes you feel like you're doing something wrong. I feel this way about almost all non-technical work books and articles and tend to avoid them.
Re: Productivity
#39I see these kinds of articles come along from time to time, and it always makes me wonder: Why this pressing need to maximize productivity? Why not just do things you enjoy, at a pace that you enjoy? Is it for more money/prestige? What's the use if you've been stressing and pressuring yourself for it all your life? I feel like the odd person out because I work on something while I enjoy it, stop working on it when I…
Interesting view. IMHO your approach also maximizes 'productivity' as the output of your approach is a 'product' which has high utility to you but may not have same utility to others. If the utility it generates for you gives you more fulfilment than the utility which 'productivity' in traditional sense does so be it.
Re: Productivity
#40Instead of being wowed by Sam Altman's title (president of Y-Combinator), you should look through his previous posts to gauge whether his advices are worthy.
some gems from before:
On China: "The other stark contrast is how much harder people in China seem to work than people here, and how working hard is considered a good thing, not a bad thing."
http://blog.samaltman.com/china
On Speech
"Earlier this year, I noticed something in China that really surprised me. I realized I felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco"
"but it’s possible we have to allow people to say disparaging things about gay people if we want them to be able to say novel things about physics"