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Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#71

Post by randycupertino »

surfsvammel wrote: post #39
dmje wrote: post #35

My intuition is that all of the benefit you get being outside and walking is probably lost by strapping a laptop to yourself and being on calls the whole time. Call me old fashioned but I'm outside to look at the sea, hear the birds and be very definitely away from my tech.

For the last year or so I have scheduled my two status meetings back to back in the mornings. That means I have 90 minutes of walking in the forrest in the morning (30min before the meetings and then 30min each for the two meetings). I have two teams reporting to me, and each have a 30minute morning meeting where we decide what needs the team attention during the day. There is also room for small talk to keep it a bi…

Don't you feel rude to the other people trying to enjoy their time in the forest for yammering on a work call?

Not as egregious as the mountain bikers who blast music from speakers on the trails as they ride, but still.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#72

Post by wintermutestwin »

reidjs wrote: post #3

Part of my solution to this is to identify what parts of a project can be done from my phone and then intentionally avoid doing those on the computer. - Writing correspondence, essays, docs, todolists? The voice-to-text feature works great on iPhones. - Reading blog posts or articles? Extract text then run it through the iPhone's screen reader. - Moving trello tasks around? Do it through the phone app. etc.

Part of my solution to this is to identify what parts of a project can be done on my computer and then intentionally avoid doing those on the phone.

If I have access to a nice screen, full keyboard and a mouse, the only reason I need to use my damn phone is developers who prioritize their phone apps over computer based applications (see Apple Music, etc).

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#73

Post by deniszgonjanin »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #10

Everything he does I see his keyboard or monitor in the background. I don’t know why he is so much into ‘productivity’ that even for walks he has to be in front of his machine and working? Why can’t he just enjoy walking to relax a bit outdoors. I think walking is as much for mental well being as for improving physical health and decoupling from work and digital life is how I’d like to relax.

When you've been gifted with a brain like his, I imagine the most interesting and intoxicating thing in life is to engage with your mind as much as you can.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#74

Post by insane_dreamer »

I want to be as productive as possible while working. What I don't want is to be as productive as possible while living. So tools that integrate work into non-work aspects of my life end up turning my whole life into endless work; for some people that might be fine -- and it used to be fine for me 2 decades ago, but it's not fine anymore.

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#75

Post by joseda-hg »

elzbardico wrote: post #13
gordon_freeman wrote: post #10

Everything he does I see his keyboard or monitor in the background. I don’t know why he is so much into ‘productivity’ that even for walks he has to be in front of his machine and working? Why can’t he just enjoy walking to relax a bit outdoors. I think walking is as much for mental well being as for improving physical health and decoupling from work and digital life is how I’d like to relax.

For people like him, working is the supreme form of relaxation. I can't relate, it is not my cup of tea, but I can understand it and refrain for judging.

Reminds me of my old man, he couldn't stay still more than 10 minutes, but he loved every minute of working

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#76

Post by dang »

testfoobar wrote: post #65
dang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please let's not do Wolfram Derangement Syndrome in HN threads—if not for Wolfram, at least for ourselves. This was already a cliché a decade ago. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Understood. BTW - as always - thank you for keeping HN threads focused and useful.

Appreciated!

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#77

Post by chrisweekly »

justinlloyd wrote: post #11
caust1c wrote: post #9

> I have systems that keep all sorts of data, including every keystroke I type, every step I take and what my computer screen looks like every minute Yikes? He's smart, so I'm sure he's protected it adequately, but auditing the surface area of this much software seems insane.

Not really. I keep even more than that. And at a finer grained resolution. And have done so for almost two decades. It's all put on to a write-only-by-the-capturing-device/read-only-by-other-device secured storage system.

Have you written anything public about your setup (and/or rationale)?

Re: Seeking the productive life: Some details of my personal infrastructure (2019)

#80

Post by justinlloyd »

timdavila wrote: post #68
justinlloyd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I keep even more than that. And at a finer grained resolution. And have done so for almost two decades. It's all put on to a write-only-by-the-capturing-device/read-only-by-other-device secured storage system.

Curious why you do this and what you feel like it adds to your life?

Why does it have to add anything to my life? Why be the third person to climb a mountain?

I hear tell of a 19th century English gentleman who manually recorded the level of rain water and the barometric pressure in his garden, a dozen times a day, including the wee hours of the morning, waking up several times a night as though afflicted with the worst UTI possible, through all weathers, all seasons, all ills, all trials and travails, any and all privations that life could send his way, and did so for 40+ years. Obssessively and compulsively some would say. Or we may say diligently if being generous. I am sure that at some point someone asked "why do you do this? what do you feel it adds to your life?"

Because I can. And because I want to.

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