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Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

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111–120 of 162 posts

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#111

RE: 11.3 Browser tab management No manual, rule-based tab management ever worked for me, which is why I took over development for Tab Wrangler a while back and have been continuing to update it. Garbage collection for old tabs without me having to intervene. This has been the best system for me, and it has worked well for years. Old tabs are automatically cleaned up when I haven't looked at them in a while. It's all…

dayum. that's sounds like something I really need. every time i sort out my tabs it takes only a week before it's back to normal.

when the tabs are closed and stored are they put into one folder or can they be put into month folders?

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#112

I highly recommend Jean Moroney's blog. She digs deep into the psychology behind productivity and goal-setting. I found many unique insights in her articles. Thanks to her writing I've come to believe that procrastination often stems from deeper emotional issues or an unacknowledged clash of priorities (for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do, the deeper issue i…

> for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do

This is called a day job, even for programmers.

> you haven't resolved the clash between your short-time desires and your long-term goals

Is it even possible to resolve? One would like to read books (play guitar, gardening) for the rest of his life instead of trying to get his docker-compose file working properly. How a productivity technique could resolve such a discrepancy between goals and desires?

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#113
I think the biggest realization I've ever had is that things take time away. The sensation of procrastination happens when you feel the "thing you need to do" should take some smaller constrained amount of time, usually in days or weeks or sometimes months.

But if you can stomach that the thing may take years or even a decade, you'd feel much less like you were procrastinating.

In addition, if you assume that the thing will always be done piecemeal, here and there, or when you can remember to do it say like cleaning a room or organizing a thing, then that can also alleviate the sensation of procrastination.

The sensation tends to occur when you maintain a false belief that the things you need to get done should take hours or days instead of weeks or years.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#114
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get your first HN joke.

Pomodoro timers are shaped like tomatoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

I also read it as "throwing tomatoes", as each commentator was criticizing the previous level as being unproductive.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#115

I highly recommend Jean Moroney's blog. She digs deep into the psychology behind productivity and goal-setting. I found many unique insights in her articles. Thanks to her writing I've come to believe that procrastination often stems from deeper emotional issues or an unacknowledged clash of priorities (for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do, the deeper issue i…

> So often, people take on tasks because they think you have to do them, or the task meets some criteria that someone else has set. You feel you have to do the project because it's required for a class, or your boss told you to do it, or it's the only way you see to get the credential you need to take the next step in your career.

Remided me of passage from J.K's book.

"There are two kinds of action. One brings you reward, and the doing of it strengthens the ego, the ‘me’. The other kind of action, the action which you love to do, has no reward or punishment and is not concerned with what the neighbour says, or with gods or with the priests or with belief. You do it because it is the only thing to do. You rejoice in the very doing of it, not for heaven or the avoidance of hell. You just do it and in the very doing of it is the delight. This action is of freedom from society and has nothing whatsoever to do with morality. This action is from nothingness. When there is this, you can look at the world from that silence of nothingness."

Seems like you need all kinds of productivity tools/hacks for the former and none for the latter.

> clash between your short-time desires and your long-term goals

Or maybe its a clash between the artist in you with cog in the machine that you need to be live the life you want

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#116
post #65
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or in this case, tomatoes. (My first hn joke. Not sure if jokes are allowed but sure was worth it.)

I don't get your first HN joke.

"The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. ... Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for 'tomato', after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Cirillo used as a university student."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#117
post #112

I highly recommend Jean Moroney's blog. She digs deep into the psychology behind productivity and goal-setting. I found many unique insights in her articles. Thanks to her writing I've come to believe that procrastination often stems from deeper emotional issues or an unacknowledged clash of priorities (for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do, the deeper issue i…

> for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do This is called a day job, even for programmers. > you haven't resolved the clash between your short-time desires and your long-term goals Is it even possible to resolve? One would like to read books (play guitar, gardening) for the rest of his life instead of trying to get his docker-compose file working properly. How a…

I have this observation as well. Many lifestyle ideologies fall apart like this in practice, I think. The one I’ve found work for me the best is Eckart Tolle’s “The Power of Now.” If you forgive its aloofness and smirkiness, I really do believe finding a sense of joy in doing what you do, even mundane things, can really help your mood and stave off procrastination.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#118
I often get surprised how deep we got hooked into the system. We tell ourselves unless we're doing something (no matter how useless that is) we're worthless. Everything becomes a different kind of procrastination.

We feel productive creating yet another CRUD app, idle game or advertisement optimization tool that ultimately does nothing for anyone but the capitalists on the top of the chain. Only to feel bad about doing anything that doesn't generate profit to someone.

It saddens me that I don't see a way out of this hole. The system has won and everyone either follows it willingly or is forced to by society.

If only I could be like the OP who seems to live happily in this productivity cycle without gazing into the abyss that is the meaninglessness of it all.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#119

I highly recommend Jean Moroney's blog. She digs deep into the psychology behind productivity and goal-setting. I found many unique insights in her articles. Thanks to her writing I've come to believe that procrastination often stems from deeper emotional issues or an unacknowledged clash of priorities (for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do, the deeper issue i…

> So often, people take on tasks because they think you have to do them, or the task meets some criteria that someone else has set. You feel you have to do the project because it's required for a class, or your boss told you to do it, or it's the only way you see to get the credential you need to take the next step in your career. Remided me of passage from J.K's book. "There are two kinds of action. One brings you r…

Sometimes making art has boring parts, too. Writing a book, for example, can be drudgery, even if you're not writing for anyone in particular or aiming to make a profit—just because there's an order-of-magnitude difference between the amount of effort required to exhaust your creative impulse, and the amount of effort required to actually create a whole work from which you can feel satisfied that you have communicated the thing your creative impulse was driving you to communicate.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#120
> "provides me with 625 minutes of work, interspersed with 275 minutes of breaks (provided my workday is 15 hours)."

Why would you work for 15 hours? I aim for 6. No way that you can be productive for 15 hours.

And, do you really want to spend pretty much all your time working? I followed along and agreed with lots of the stuff, then a comment like this throws me off. I totally understand that you're having trouble focusing if that's a normal day.

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