Ask HN: What bits of fundamental knowledge are productivity multipliers?

I think the true 10x multiplier is not a technical skill at all. It is the ability to quickly cut through irrelevant tasks and actions to focus on the thing that will move the business goal forward fastest. It is enshrined in the concept of the MVP and the short iteration cycle. Quicky building something that does not solve a business problem is not productive. Work=force*displacement. No movement, no work.

A closely related skill is the ability to cut through all the abstractions and interfaces to get to the root cause of what is broken or needs changed. A technical and organizational debt buster if you will.

Not only that, but spend time learning your tools as you use them. If you're like me, reading about a tool for four hours then trying to recall that information while using it is a wasted effort. You have to be continuously learning in increments over weeks, months, and maybe even years. Never stop learning.

This. Know your tools. Try other tools even if you finally decide to keep what you are used to. But you should master any software (including your OS), any programming language, any keystroke of actions that you use everyday.

By mastering I mean, not knowing everything, but knowing more than you knew yesterday.

A pretty underrated hint about learning keystrokes : _print Cheat Sheets_ (they are available in pdf for most tools) and keep them somewhere on your desk. You will discover tons of cools tricks while waiting for things.

Came here to say this. The library of Alexandria fell into disrepair. Try not to let the same thing happen to you, or all that knowledge will be for nothing.

All those little bits of knowledge are nice tools and patterns, they're definitely good to have. And if you have curiosity, you will naturally keep learning dozens of those over time.

But they are not applicable everywhere, so you should not expect your 8 hour days to turn into 48 minutes because you started using regexes, dynamic programming, and search algorithms everywhere.

The unlikable and unhelpful answer, but probably the single biggest fundamental multiplier, is unfortunately the g factor. General intelligence.

The only 10x differences that genuinely exist are between people who are 2x faster than average and people who are 5x worse. Not because they learned a trick, but for a complex combination of reasons, including having been handed down two or three standard deviations in general intelligence.

The harsh reality is that there is no single thing a 1x person can do to become 10x.