Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Productivity

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 428 posts

Re: Productivity

#311

Post by Tomminn »

drb91 wrote: post #297
Tomminn wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So right now I'm 63 hours into a fast, which I just decided to do on a lark. I've been intrigued ever since hearing an interesting podcast on fasting ( https://tim.blog/2017/05/04/smart-drugs-fasting-and-fat-loss... ). At this stage, I have started to find mental things a little harder to do, but honestly its still pretty subtle and is pretty indistinguishable from the normal kinds of self pity I normally have when I…

> Physical tasks are obviously a different story. But your mind doesn't seem to slow down much at all for a pretty long time during fasting. I’m not sure i agree with this. Highly productive sessions always end with me feeling exhausted despite just concentrating intently for several hours. Doesn’t your brain already consume like 30% of your energy? It would really surprise me if your brain operated at full capacity…

The assumption you're making is that your brain gets no calories when you have no food. Every kilogram of fat on your body is 9000 calories just sitting there. Most of us have at least 10 of em, or 90,000 calories.

While it's definitely true that some things slow down to conserve energy, it seems like the brain isn't one of em. There are moments* now I feel I'm thinking considerably clearer than usual. The world just feels unbelievably quiet. And things are getting done.

*I don't want to sell it as if it's all sunshine and rainbows. So far, getting to sleep has been hell, and the hunger pangs at times have been pretty insistent. While the hunger seems to have gone now, I have a general feeling of physical frailty, including lightheadedness when I stand up, and occasional light nausea.

Re: Productivity

#312

Post by blackbagboys »

There are few modern white collar spectacles more nauseating than watching capitalist overlords jerk themselves off over their wise decision to make lifestyle choices literally everyone else would also choose if they weren't forcibly restrained from doing so by their own overlords.

The next time your boss calls you into a multi-hour meeting, tell him that it's much more productive if you only attend for 15-20 minutes. If he assigns you a task you find to be a "painful drag on morale", then go ahead and "be ruthless about saying no." Let Altman know how it goes.

Re: Productivity

#313

Post by strken »

stavros wrote: post #6

I 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…

Talking about living a good life makes you sound like a deluded hippie, a hardcore Christian, or an ancient Greek. When people want to sneak advice on living virtuously past modern cynicism, they have to hide it under layers of similarly cynical ideas.

Because of this, suggestions on how to live well, make yourself into a better person, and enjoy your life are made in the name of increasing productivity. Spend time with your family, exercise, sleep properly, tackle interesting problems, work in a comfy quiet space with natural light, constantly learn new things, surround yourself with good positive people, take breaks when you're feeling the onset of burnout, experience nature, and value your time - it's okay to be happy, because you're doing it in the name of productivity!

Re: Productivity

#314

Post by rorykoehler »

skrebbel wrote: post #44

What I like about this list is not so much the content, but the underlying message that Altman got to this point by experimentation and iteration. There's sometimes this hidden cultural idea that wildly successful people became so successful simply (by luck and) by being super good at what they do. I think Altman classifies as successful by most common measures so I find it refreshing that he apparently wasn't born a…

From my own experience there are times where i might be seeming to do nothing at all to the outside world but i make up for it by figuring out how to do what might have been a months worth of productivity in a day. The down time is an important part of the process.

Added to that, often what might seem important one day turns out to be insignificant the next. Many people are relentlessly busy but never seem to advance very fast.

I'd agree with the article that the differentiator between the super successful business people and the rest of us is having a unique ability to see what actually matters in terms of moving the needle.

Re: Productivity

#315

Post by oceanman888 »

When I try to eat as little as I can at lunch to prevent getting sleepy(700kcal), I usually really hungry at 5 and productivity drops, any one knows how to deal with this?

Re: Productivity

#316

Post by sp527 »

Has Sam talked about depression? The mysterious periods of fog and lack of motivation he mentioned as well as a previous post that had a somewhat overly wistful tone about getting older (he's only in his early 30s!) seem like they could be symptoms :(

Re: Productivity

#318

Post by convery »

grosjona wrote: post #265

>> Also, don’t fall into the trap of productivity porn >> ... >> Some sort of sleep tracker to figure out how to sleep best is helpful >> ... >> I take a low dose of sleeping pills (like a third of a normal dose) or a very low dose of cannabis >> ... I use a full spectrum LED light most mornings >> ... so I get about 15 hours of fasting most days The whole article is productivity porn.

Assuming it's a "do as I say, not as I do" warning. As in, take some ideas but don't go crazy.

Re: Productivity

#320

Post by manmal »

nategri wrote: post #279
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.

This is IMO a good review: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066074/
Post reply on HN