We Still Don’t Get Things Done • Hacker News Board

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#31

Post by Lightbody » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

jkhdigital wrote: post #24

I still think David Allen nailed it in Getting Things Done . Not the system necessarily, but he nailed the diagnosis of why we fail to get things done: an inability to be honest with ourselves about (1) the full scope and scale of the commitments we make, and (2) just how little time and attention we have at our disposal in meeting those commitments. Really, it’s the same sort of problem that is described in The Goal…

For what it’s worth, we (Reclaim.ai - I’m quoted in the article), have a lot of ADHD customers who tell us that we help with time blocking on their calendar.

In particular, the fact that we do it automatically seems to be the thing they appreciate.

Edit: First time I’ve ever been downvoted into negative territory. Clearly I’ve embarrassed myself ;P

Is it because of self promotion? I guess… seems weird though I/my company are literally part of the article, I replied to a specific comment around issues with time blocking for ADHD people, and how automation seems to be a solve to the problem highlighted by the parent.

shrug

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#32

Post by moksly » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

The more project management tools I have to work with, the less likely I am to work for or with a company.

I have a somewhat similar stance on software architecture. Sure, I’m TOGAF certified but if you actually expect me to work with notation correct Archimare/UML/whatever and not just draw boxes on a napkin you’re either insane or sell a product with no competition.

This is anecdotal of course, but after 30 years of working with hundreds of companies to supply our municipality with software, we have yet to see a correlation between quality and “best practices”. It doesn’t matter if companies do this or that testing and use the full confluence suite or if they just pull spaghetti out of their asses and support is a phone call… the quality is the same over time, hell, often we get more from the spaghetti companies than the “best practice” ones. You might think that it’s a short term thing and that the spaghetti and no testing catches up, but it doesn’t. Maybe because we don’t have to fund those 8 people, that you never really learn the role off but it sure isn’t technical, that sit in on every meeting as opposed to talking directly with the spaghetti slinger and a sales person? I’m not sure, and I’d love to tell people that following this or that “best practice” is the way to go, but that’s just not what our data shows.

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#33

Post by Lightbody » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

superice wrote: post #18

kilroy123 wrote: post #14

I'm always curious how others "work." I use the Pomodoro technique myself, where I do a minimum of 8 sessions per workday. I try to do 10, but usually, I'm somewhere in between. I do not count meetings. Every day at work, I show up and do a minimum of 4 straight hours of concentrated and focused work. I often get told things like: "I'm killing it", "I'm a high producer", etc. To me, I feel like I'm cheating the syste…

I use a similar technique, combined with meticulous time tracking of every and any minute I spend professionally. As somebody who is self-employed, I quickly realized that working 8+ hours per day is an absolute myth. I count any day where I spent more than 4 hours in a state of focused work as a great day, and weeks where I spend more than 20 hours a week are rare. My personal goal has shifted from trying to work as…

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#34

Post by praptak » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:33 PM UTC

kilroy123 wrote: post #14

I'm always curious how others "work." I use the Pomodoro technique myself, where I do a minimum of 8 sessions per workday. I try to do 10, but usually, I'm somewhere in between. I do not count meetings. Every day at work, I show up and do a minimum of 4 straight hours of concentrated and focused work. I often get told things like: "I'm killing it", "I'm a high producer", etc. To me, I feel like I'm cheating the syste…

I am a huge procrastinator. After a long time of trying various things I found out that getting shit done is a constant battle that starts very deep inside the mind. I'm talking about the stuff you talk with your therapist and probably not on the first session too.

I get stuff done only as long as I'm keeping the chain of motivation from the inside the mind to the thing I'm doing. If I start thinking that I "have" to do something, the chain is broken, as it means that I don't really want to do it.

When my mind is in the "I chose to do it" mode instead, I don't even need Pomodoro - I can consistently do stuff even if there is some aversion.

The most coherent writing about this I know is the Procrastination Monkey series from Waitbutwhy.

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#35

Post by 34qlgkaer » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

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Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#36

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

Sometimes (regularly actually) i'm fascinated about society as a system, so much fuzz so much ignorance, so much unknowns and noise .. yet it kind works (massive crisis aside).

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#37

Post by markus_zhang » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

kilroy123 wrote: post #14

I'm always curious how others "work." I use the Pomodoro technique myself, where I do a minimum of 8 sessions per workday. I try to do 10, but usually, I'm somewhere in between. I do not count meetings. Every day at work, I show up and do a minimum of 4 straight hours of concentrated and focused work. I often get told things like: "I'm killing it", "I'm a high producer", etc. To me, I feel like I'm cheating the syste…

>Every day at work, I show up and do a minimum of 4 straight hours of concentrated and focused work.

It's a lot TBH. I'd laugh loudly if I can do that everyday. 4 hours of focused work most likely will deleptes all of my energy and leaves me drained after work.

On my side. I work as a BI developer so a lot of time is spent in meeting. A day with 3 hours of meeting is fairly common but most of the time I don't need to speak so I mute the mic and only turn my focus to them when someone called me for advice.

A lot of time is wasted on things such as waiting for answers from a team in HQ which is located at the other side of the earth. Sometimes someone puts up a shiny new framework with quirky DSL and dumps it on our team with little documentation and you can foresee how much time it takes to "learn" and "unlearn" later. I'd recommend avoiding working in a team that has zero control of the tools and processes.

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#38

Post by Doches » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

This is _exactly_ why I stopped keeping TODO lists, and started keeping DONE lists instead.

What's a done list? Think of it as an anti-TODO list: your DONE list is where you write down everything that you've, well, done. You know that little dopamine kick you get from filing a neatly-tagged TODO or marking off something that you've finished? A done list is just that, and the only way to use it is to train yourself to stop organising and just...get stuff done.

I love it so much I built my own done list app: https://donel.ist . It's 100% free, and there's even an API to play around with if that's your thing.

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#39

Post by Doches » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #15

Tempest1981 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adam Savage uses checklists as a motivational tool. Something satisfying about marking things as done. On paper, esp. I could only find this -- with a link to another wired article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20263850

Yep! I use RememberTheMilk, and while I still have tasks that are years old, I find it generally helpful. I like the confidence of being able to mentally unburden myself of remembering things (even if I usually still do) and sometimes find myself creating tasks just to check them off, because I've done them but hadn't added them to the list-- why not feel good about your accomplishments? The reality is, many tasks, p…

Skip to the end of that thought, and just keep a list where all you do is write down stuff you've done. Soon you'll have trained your brain to look around for stuff to add to your "done list"

(I do this, check out https://donel.ist for a kill-your-todos-get-stuff-done app I built to help myself do it!)

Re: We Still Don’t Get Things Done

#40

Post by jointpdf » Sat, Jul 31, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

TheFreim wrote: post #17

kilroy123 wrote: post #14

I'm always curious how others "work." I use the Pomodoro technique myself, where I do a minimum of 8 sessions per workday. I try to do 10, but usually, I'm somewhere in between. I do not count meetings. Every day at work, I show up and do a minimum of 4 straight hours of concentrated and focused work. I often get told things like: "I'm killing it", "I'm a high producer", etc. To me, I feel like I'm cheating the syste…

During school I'd immedietly do all of my assignments. Id spend anywhere from 2 to 6 straight hours getting the entire week of assignments done. By the time I got tired I was done with most of it and had time to do what I wanted. Worked wonders, while everyone else was struggling I was able to get straight A's and work on side projects/video games. Is the "real" world supposed to be different than this experience?

I don’t know what the real world is, but my experience as a chronic procrastinator with ADD was the polar opposite of this. I did assignments on the bus, wrote speeches during the period before I’d have to give them, etc. I’m mildly messed up from these habits now, but I did (mostly, with some spectacular failures) get away with it at the time.

If something captured my imagination, like certain writing assignments or my programming classes, then I could hyperfocus.