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Productivity

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Productivity

#271

Post by woolvalley »

fao_ wrote: post #213
jjallen wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubtful you would care about theoretical physics in the first place if your IQ was 90.

This is a deep misunderstanding of IQ. As the product of two MENSA-ns, I can say with good faith: While high-IQ people do seem to have more varied interests than average people, IQ doesn't so much as govern interest as govern processing speed. One of the original purposes of IQ was selecting for fighter pilots -- fighter pilots with higher IQs means that you have fewer deaths, because they are able to process and rea…

IQ isn't all processing speed, it's only one part of the test. If you can't solve the symbol puzzle, you can't solve it.

Re: Productivity

#272

Post by newfoundglory »

vilmosi wrote: post #260
toasterlovin wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Color me skeptical. Pretty much every intervention ever tried has failed to measurably increase IQ long-term. The only exceptions are fixing nutritional deficiencies. If you could reliably raise IQ by a standard deviation in reasonably nourished children, it would be one of the most profound socio-political developments of all time (on the scale of major economic transitions like agriculture -> manufacturing -> knowl…

Well average IQ of the human population around the world has been increasing in the past decades if not centuries. And it's not because we're evolving within a few generations.

There have been massive improvements in average nutrition over the last few decades though.

Re: Productivity

#273

Post by toasterlovin »

newfoundglory wrote: post #272
vilmosi wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well average IQ of the human population around the world has been increasing in the past decades if not centuries. And it's not because we're evolving within a few generations.

There have been massive improvements in average nutrition over the last few decades though.

Your parent is right: IQ has been increasing. Even in countries where you wouldn't expect the cause to be improved nutrition. But nobody really knows why, nor has anybody discovered an intervention that can, on its own, reliably increase IQ.

Re: Productivity

#274

Post by Bizarro »

Great write-up. I pretty much agree with everything Sam said.

I'd add one caveat about working out though. Be sure to monitor your fatigue the next couple days after a workout. It's surprisingly easy to overdo it, and feel lethargic/foggy-brained for a day or so after working out too much even if you have got enough sleep and are eating right. And it's easy to dismiss it as something else - not enough sleep, not eating right, etc..

Drink lots and lots of water. Many people are dehydrated, don't know it, and it has some nasty side effects.

Look into taking magnesium supplements. I believe there was a study that most people are magnesium deficient and magnesium is a great, natural "chill pill".

I need to start making informal lists a daily ritual. I kept on thinking that I needed to find the perfect note taking app, but I've started just creating a file for each day in a folder in drop box. It's not even a list file, but whatever I happen to be thinking about. I'd still like to find a killer note taking app, but that will do for now.

Analysis paralysis (or fear of making the right choice) is a big productivity drain. Manage fear by tackling low-hanging fruit.

As an example, I've been wanting to clean up some code of mine for a while, but fear breaking things and going down rabbit holes that I don't to go down (forget the tests for now). So instead of digging into core business logic, I work on just moving some startup code into modules where I know they should belong. This (hopefully) diminishes because it'll typically either work or not, without heisenbugs creeping around. At least doing something like that gets you going in the right direction and in a mindset of taking on bigger tasks.

I'm not hungry at breakfast too and I tried the intermittent fasting and while sometimes it worked great, most of the time it didn't. So these days I try to eat some protein mid-morning. I actually try to delay caffeine intake until I reach the mid-afternoon blahs, making sure to not intake too late in the day.

Naps are awesome. Five minutes will do wonders. Even closing your eyes and almost getting to the point of going to sleep helps. I tell Alexa to set 5-10 minute timers.

Re: Productivity

#275

Post by manmal »

My personal tip is related to one in the article: Instead of a full spectrum LED, use a near-infrared (Eg 850nm) light and shine it on your forehead for 5-10 minutes. The concentration gains I get from this are substantial, and they last up to 2 days. Security camera IR lights with 850nm can be had for $30 or so at Amazon. The name of the mechanism by which this works is called photobiomodulation, and there’s thousands of papers on how it improves body function.

Re: Productivity

#276

Post by FooHentai »

StavrosK wrote: post #270
FooHentai wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why this pressing need to maximize productivity? Cynical answer: Because the person paying for your time would like the maximum return from that investment, and the need for human agency requires that we rationalize that pressure as something that originates within ourselves.

And the person selling their time (me) would like maximum compensation for that investment, so the employer should commensurately strive to always increase my pay. That logic doesn't quite work that way.

True, because the balance of power doesn't favour it.

In a situation where employees have the balance of power, it does produce great pressure to raise pay, and you do also then see the same rationalization from the employer that it's because their employees are so great and that they're so generous. But reality is the market pressure drove it, not those things.

Re: Productivity

#277

Post by Godel_unicode »

vilmosi wrote: post #260
toasterlovin wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Color me skeptical. Pretty much every intervention ever tried has failed to measurably increase IQ long-term. The only exceptions are fixing nutritional deficiencies. If you could reliably raise IQ by a standard deviation in reasonably nourished children, it would be one of the most profound socio-political developments of all time (on the scale of major economic transitions like agriculture -> manufacturing -> knowl…

Well average IQ of the human population around the world has been increasing in the past decades if not centuries. And it's not because we're evolving within a few generations.

There's been really interesting work showing correlations between this increase in IQ and improvements in diet.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3044837/

Re: Productivity

#278

Post by sifoo »

inteleng wrote: post #110

Great: productivity advice from a failed entrepreneur (and stoner) who slimed his way to the top ranks of YC. Edit: keep downvoting. Let the hate flow through you.

Speaking of hate, you might want to consider a look in the mirror.

Re: Productivity

#279

Post by nategri »

manmal wrote: post #275

My personal tip is related to one in the article: Instead of a full spectrum LED, use a near-infrared (Eg 850nm) light and shine it on your forehead for 5-10 minutes. The concentration gains I get from this are substantial, and they last up to 2 days. Security camera IR lights with 850nm can be had for $30 or so at Amazon. The name of the mechanism by which this works is called photobiomodulation, and there’s thousan…

Seeing a "mercola.com" domain show up in the first page of google results for this phenomenon just increased the difficulty of parsing whether or not the effect is legit or not by an order of magnitude.

Re: Productivity

#280

Post by [deleted] »

jdminhbg wrote: post #256
fogzen wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person that serves Sam espresso in the morning, why would they choose to make minimum wage? Because they have no other options that’s why. “Do what you love” “work on important things” is so incredibly tone-deaf it’s insulting. It’s not helpful either.

Do you know whether Sam buys or makes his own espresso? Do you know that any given barista makes minimum wage? Do you know that any given barista has no other options than being a barista? In two sentences, you made more unsupported assumptions than either the original article or the comment you're replying to, yet you seem to find them tone-deaf and insulting. How do you think a student working a morning barista shi…

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