Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been my approach but I’m getting fed up with my consequent inability to manage my time, which is way more precious and easily wasted than money, and harder to budget well. There are a lot of things I want and need to do but find very hard to do consistently. I want an app (for iOS) that helps me “budget my time” but I haven’t found one. It should help me with goals like “30 minutes daily housekeeping, 4 hour…
>I want an app (for iOS) that helps me “budget my time” but I haven’t found one. It should help me with goals like “30 minutes daily housekeeping, 4 hours weekly woodworking”, etc. Have you tried Habitica?
Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
41–50 of 60 posts
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#42Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#43So when I need to focus I’ll just start a Freedom (https://freedom.to/) session that prevents me from using Firefox (I use Firefox Dev Edition for work instead and don’t tend to use problematic websites in it anyway) and keep my phone far away from my field-of-view (it’s 80% of-the-time on silent mode).
If I’m still managing to fritter my time away then it means whatever I’m tasked with isn’t very important to me and I should strongly consider doing another project, whether it’s a personal or professional one.
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I want an app (for iOS) that helps me “budget my time” but I haven’t found one. It should help me with goals like “30 minutes daily housekeeping, 4 hours weekly woodworking”, etc. Have you tried Habitica?
I’m trying it now, thanks. It seemed a bit too much when I considered it once but I can see the appeal.
I’ve toyed in my head with the idea of making a similar app, still heavily-inspired by gaming but without diving deep into the 16-bit RPG pixel atmosphere and the baggage that carries.
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#45I also use a Pomodoro-style system to get myself to concentrate. Right now, I'm using the _Forest_ app on my Android to tell me to concentrate. Good luck!
what do you during your breaks? This I think is the greatest pitfall for me. Get up and walk around? I usually find that I just want to go back to work once I let my mind wander.
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m trying it now, thanks. It seemed a bit too much when I considered it once but I can see the appeal.
As someone that likes the spirit behind Habitica and has tried it a few times – also contributed some bugfixes I desperately needed – I’m curious what you found a bit too much, since I felt the same way. I’ve toyed in my head with the idea of making a similar app, still heavily-inspired by gaming but without diving deep into the 16-bit RPG pixel atmosphere and the baggage that carries.
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#47Even more important is setting the right physical environment - I'll try to find a relatively quiet coffee shop that doesn't play music (or at least not pop music). This is still fairly suboptimal though, especially because I am addicted to people-watching. After a couple of hours I usually find myself observing the facial expressions of baristas as they go about their job. The best working environment I've ever found was when I used to sneak into the psychology experiment cubicles at my university - small, isolated white rooms with no visual distractions.
Taking a small dose of dried psilocybin truffles (about 0.25g) can be quite helpful for focus. It puts me in more of a third-person view where I'm less likely to get distracted by external things although it also makes me more emotional which can sometimes leads me to get distracted by internal things.
I've used modafinil in the past which definitely aids focus (I think partly because it alleviates depressive feelings) but the long half-life ends up affecting my sleep and it becomes a negative trade-off in the end.
Morning is definitely the best time for getting work done. I find it very difficult to reach the same level of focus after lunch so I try to squeeze as much as I can into the first four hours of the day. This might be related to nutrition so I could do with experimenting with my lunch diet to improve this.
To-do lists and calendars are helpful to a point but I'm so bad at sticking to them that I often end up feeling deflated.
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone that likes the spirit behind Habitica and has tried it a few times – also contributed some bugfixes I desperately needed – I’m curious what you found a bit too much, since I felt the same way. I’ve toyed in my head with the idea of making a similar app, still heavily-inspired by gaming but without diving deep into the 16-bit RPG pixel atmosphere and the baggage that carries.
It just seems a bit optimized for people who actually love RPGs in all their complexity with different items and stuff, when I might prefer something that has a game aspect while staying quite simple. I’m less motivated by the possibility of spending gold coins to buy a new hat for my avatar than I am by simple and beautiful app interactions and just managing to remember and track my real life duties and desires. But…
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#49http://redgreenrepeat.com/2016/04/01/apple-watch-beyond-fitn...
Re: Ask HN: What tools/methods do you use to focus your time well?
#50It really has helped me organize my life.