1. Remove Facebook from my bookmarks toolbar
2. Restrict myself to one time-leeching website (HN, Stack Overflow, Google Reader) open at any given time
3. Keep IM, IRC, and Twitter in a separate space so that I have control of when I see updates.
Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#42I've been gradually building an app to help me do a form of time-boxing. Plus have about 5 different ways to set reminders for myself.
One thing I got from the the Getting Things Done universe is that having a reliable way to offload notes, thoughts, plans, etc. is essentially, because it means you can safely forget about stuff. That allows for better focus on whatever it is you decide to do right now.
I wrote about some of my CLI todo/tasks/bugs hacks here: http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/jamesbritt/James_wil...
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#43I like to keep it simple. My list has 1 item on it. I work on that until either it's done (often) or I struggle so much with it that I decide to change plans (rarely). For the last 2 days, I've been writing a model configurator that explodes input parameters into individual objects. I probably have 8 or 9 things dependent on this (not really sure yet), so I plug away until done. Then I'll figure out the new only thin…
Just identify your critical path, remove it, and repeat forever.
Remove it? I don't understand; could you please explain?
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#441. Outsourcing tasks that don't require my specific involvement to my offshore team. 2. Dining out instead of cooking. It is not much more expensive to dine out, but it saves me time (grocery shopping, cooking time, cleaning time). 3. Roomba. I will never vacuum again. Ever.
It's unhealthy, though, isn't it? I have a hard time finding places that are healthy, fast, tasty and cheap all the same time. Whereas I can quickly cook healthy cheap and tasty meals.
New York City banned trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils) in restaurants.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/07/20/hscout629180.h...
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#45A proper amount of sleep, say 8 hours is usually creamy for myself, your mileage may vary.
For myself at least, I find that if I don't get proper sleep that the performance lost over the awake time just isn't worth skimping on sleep. That and I feel like shit.
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unhealthy, though, isn't it? I have a hard time finding places that are healthy, fast, tasty and cheap all the same time. Whereas I can quickly cook healthy cheap and tasty meals.
I would love to hear a few of your recipes for healthy cheap and tasty meals that can be prepared quickly.
Below are some vague, probably bizarre ideas, mixed in with terrible CS metaphores. I apologize in advance:
I think it's mainly about amortization. So you can prepare rice, a big vegetable curry, and a roast turkey on the weekend. These are time consuming but set-and-forget items (code and curry mix well).
You can then add JIT customization during the week - get last-day shrimp and make a stir fry (use a decent vegetable oil, it doesn't need much) with your rice.
This one sounds strange but is delicious - If you're feeling vegetarian, curry makes a great burrito filling (if you like cheese, melt a little on top).
I've got a market nearby where I can get lots of cheap tomatoes (most are slightly squishy because they're almost old. These are the best kind). Throw 'em in a blender with an onion, garlic clove, lemon juice, and chili, and you've got delicious fresh salsa. Takes 5 minutes, and it's delicious next to fish (like cod) which can be seared quite rapidly.
Get a chicken breast, just saute lightly. Then sear the sides - with oyster sauce for an asian theme, raisins and cinnamon for a moroccan one. Heat your salsa up and stew it with your rice to make a lovely spicy goulash (don't try this with canned salsa though, it's horrible).
Nothing is more decadent than a hot turkey sandwich with gravy and cranberry sauce when it's nowhere near thanksgiving, and turkey can be a good deal off-season.
Money-saving: spend a bit of money on: good breads (a sandwich is gourmet if served on sufficiently high quality bread), good sauces and toppings. Save money on veggies (buy last-day), drinks (drink water), starch (buy in huge bags).
What works well for speed is parallelism (clean while you cook, cook everything at the same time), amortization, and JIT compilation of add-ons :) Spend time on your amortized foods to get them right (so do soak your rice in cold water etc.. this pays off in delicious flavor, and the time cost per meal is tiny).
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#471. Vim 2. Efficient shell usage 3. Alternating coffee and ganja I think only the last one's a hack but it's a damn good one.
I second (1) and (2) - but for me (3) has a periodicity of roughly 4 years (I can't remember which one college was ... and I've become insomniac in grad school).
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#481. Vim 2. Efficient shell usage 3. Alternating coffee and ganja I think only the last one's a hack but it's a damn good one.
I second (1) and (2) - but for me (3) has a periodicity of roughly 4 years (I can't remember which one college was ... and I've become insomniac in grad school).
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#49I like to keep it simple. My list has 1 item on it. I work on that until either it's done (often) or I struggle so much with it that I decide to change plans (rarely). For the last 2 days, I've been writing a model configurator that explodes input parameters into individual objects. I probably have 8 or 9 things dependent on this (not really sure yet), so I plug away until done. Then I'll figure out the new only thin…
Just identify your critical path, remove it, and repeat forever. Remove it? I don't understand; could you please explain?
I parsed it as "resolve", or remove it from the plan because it's done.
Re: Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're exactly right. Dining out is an insignificant cost increase unless you're eating healthy (at which point the gap widens). Granted, this is entirely a function of how much your time is worth...
Remember when you calculate the cost of cooking that you have to add in the time spent grocery shopping, cooking, washing dishes, the cost of the electricity, gas, and water consumed, the time and cost of disposing of the trash, wear and tear on appliances, etc. Dining out is essentially outsourcing these tasks.
Time spent on grocery shopping, washing dishes, etc. are only opportunity costs, they only cost money if you were to otherwise use that specific time generating income.