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I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

simonberens.me

111–120 of 346 posts

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#111

What a great idea. I've been grappling with low productivity for 20 years, trying various solutions without success. I would love to emulate your approach, but don't have the means at present. Regardless, I'm eager to observe the outcome of your experiment, with hopes of replicating it in the future. Don't pay attention to detractors, as tackling productivity is a critical concern and worthy of pursuing with determin…

I think the people who don’t support his experiment can probably justify their reasons for themselves without you insulting them.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#113
post #85

The not-completely-bonkers version of this is called "body doubling". Especially for people with ADHD and other executive function disorders, just being in someone else's presence can be hugely beneficial for productivity. There are several body doubling apps out there that virtually pair you with people while you're working.

Working Discord channels have worked well for me. When you share your screen and you are in a room with other people working it adds some level of motivation.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#114
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therapy would take away productive time :) I did actually use my own custom built productivity tools to block websites[0], and I used ActivityWatch[1] to track my time. [0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webblock/jeahkphmd... [1] https://activitywatch.net/

I think, it's quite obvious where the "productivity" goes: > In the morning session, I did yoga, went to the gym, started two blog posts, and did some work for my job. If it's the 5th you mention, it's just not that important?

My desire to increase my productivity was not solely (or largely) driven by doing better at my job; I find it's relatively easy to be productive if you go into the office.

I mainly wanted to get a lot of side projects/hobbies done.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#117
I'm not sure why there so many negative comments. I work from home for myself and I can say not having a boss to report to makes it easier to get bogged down in non productive tasks. When I used to go to an office and had a manager there was always that external pressure to get things done. I have to constantly remind myself to be productive and not spend time on time wasting websites so I can see how just knowing someone is watching would make you more productive. I remember a few years ago there was a website where you could be on a webcam with someone else while you both worked, sort of a productivity buddy type thing. Kudo's to the author for trying something new and sharing it with everyone. I think that's brave especially with all the keyboard critics in the world.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#119

[flagged]

People in general don’t do that much research on candidates or friends. OP will be fine, also you are the only one making this about romance. What are you basing this on? For being so concerned for OP you seem to want to drag them a bit more than I would anticipate.

Re: I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

#120
My wife is my productivity assistant. It works great.

Since COVID started we've had our desks next to each other, and even though she's not constantly checking on me, I know she can see if I'm just wasting time. On days where she's not working, or if one of us moves to another room to take a call, my productivity falls off a cliff.

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