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Things I've quit doing at my desk

justinjackson.ca

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Re: Things I've quit doing at my desk

#91

Post by Evbn »

dimitar wrote: post #84
politician wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often when I think I'm hungry, I'm actually thirsty. A glass of warmed water (surprisingly) quashes the need to snack. Cold water is no good. Does anyone know why that is?

Not sure why is that, but I think it temporarily fills your stomach and makes it 'relax'. In my experience the same meal if hot makes me feel much more full. I've heard that fast food joints intentionally try to serve the coldest possible drinks to make patrons feel they are hungry for another burger.

The fraction of visits that involve seconds is vanishingly small.

Re: Things I've quit doing at my desk

#92

Post by Evbn »

thomasd wrote: post #72
jaysonelliot wrote: post #2

I would add "Eating" to the list. I eat at my desk all the time, and I really need to stop. When I eat at my desk, I'm generally eating things that aren't that healthy to begin with, snacking unnecessarily, and/or eating too quickly, and doing it in some misguided notion that I'm able to work and eat at the same time. I'm not actually productive at times like that, it just lets me deal with some illogical guilt I fee…

Yeah, this is high on my list too. Often I fool myself by thinking that I need to eat to concentrate. Of course it ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy (if I don't eat I can't concentrate). I think a lot of times, what we do at our desk are some sort of "rituals" that we think help us to get into the zone. Most of the time they just get in our way of doing things.

Chewing is scientifically known to help thinking. Swallowing is a side effect.

Re: Things I've quit doing at my desk

#93

Post by Evbn »

emillon wrote: post #14
praptak wrote: post #7

Ad procrastinating: I remember someone (Paul Graham?) reporting that he configured a separate machine for procrastination-inducing activities so as to avoid the "just quickly check my feed while this is compiling" syndrome.

Matt Might suggested something similar for distractions and gaming : http://matt.might.net/articles/cripple-your-technology/

Yes, I hate distracting chat popups when I am gaming, especially ones from coworkers.

Re: Things I've quit doing at my desk

#94

Post by Evbn »

mijustin wrote: post #52
jakejake wrote: post #41

I knew before I clicked that there was going to be something about a standing desk. I feel a subtle smugness coming from the standing desk crew that irks me a little. But, as far as procrastinating I have definitely been slipping lately and need to lay off facebook, reddit, and (gulp) HN as well. Wait... what am I still doing here..!

Ha ha. I only mention it because it's really worked for me. There are other strategies that could work well: one is to sit for only 30 minutes at a time, and then get up and go for a quick walk. The challenge for developers is that they often need 2 hours of uninterrupted time to focus.

I tried a standing desk, and got horrible blood flow pains on my arms when typing.

Re: Things I've quit doing at my desk

#95

Post by s_henry_paulson »

vikas5678 wrote: post #62
tocomment wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did he say it didnt work? It seems like a great idea.

The "Note" on top. PG says: "The strategy described at the end of this essay didn't work. It would work for a while, and then I'd gradually find myself using the Internet on my work computer. I'm trying other strategies now, but I think this time I'll wait till I'm sure they work before writing about them."

I developed this method independently, and I've gotten it to work (more or less).

The trick is that you need to make it more difficult to access your "time wasting" sites on your work station.

I do this by adding entries into my hosts file and redirecting certain sites to 0.0.0.0, this way I need to use another machine when I want to browse these sites.

This helps maintain the separation, and keeps you from mindlessly entering in your favorite urls in a browser while at your desk.

Re: Things I've quit doing at my desk

#96

Post by mijustin »

xiaoma wrote: post #67

That desk seriously needs a nice 27" monitor before it can be a proper "workstation".

I had a large external monitor, but I haven't set it up in my new office yet. I'm actually enjoying the limitation of the smaller screen: ensures I'm only working on 1 thing at a time.
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