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Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

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Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#61

Post by halviti »

vrutberg wrote: post #40
DanBC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Which steps are impossible for 90% of the population?

Not a lot of people can spend 1/3 of a year on vacation. I'm in Sweden and I consider my vacation time pretty generous (6 weeks per year), but still, I'm still nowhere near 1/3 of a year.

Yes, but those 6 weeks are just your government sanctioned vacation. There's nothing stopping you from taking more time for yourself.

We get 5 weeks where I am, but I still make it a point to take at least 2 months off.

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#62

Post by chrisjack »

vrutberg wrote: post #40
DanBC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Which steps are impossible for 90% of the population?

Not a lot of people can spend 1/3 of a year on vacation. I'm in Sweden and I consider my vacation time pretty generous (6 weeks per year), but still, I'm still nowhere near 1/3 of a year.

I think he meant time off (which is more realistic) Considering most people have 2 day off each week + the statutory holidays the 1/3 is actually achievable. (exemple for canada with 4 week off: 52*2=104 "week end" + 10 statutory holliday + 4 week (20 days) vacation= 134 days/365 = 37% more than 1/3)

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#63

Post by falcolas »

jdimov9 wrote: post #17

Here's what works for achieving extreme levels of hyper-creativity and hyper-productivity for me. Will it work for you? Yes. Will you do it? No, you will find endless excuses to call the below "impossible". Still, for anyone who dares, here it is: 1. Get as much sleep as you can. Consistently. Yes, it's counter-intuitive. Yes, you'll have fewer waking hours. But those few hours will be many times more productive and…

7 of 9. Numbers 6 and 7 are really hard at the moment, as I'm constrained by the expectations of a manager, who is also a friend.

That said, I'll agree that it does work. And I'll even submit my idea of why most people will consider it "impossible". Understanding the difference between hours spent tapping on a keyboard and productivity takes experience.

I didn't have that experience 15, 10, even 2 years ago, so the idea of being able to "do" less and get more out of it was quite foreign.

It works, though. :)

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#64

Post by falcolas »

raverbashing wrote: post #57
ivanche wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if we are talking about true multitasking (working on more than one thing at the same time) then humans can't do that - we only have one CPU with one core, our brain. Some people can do scheduling and time-sharing well, that is they work on one thing for some time, then on second one for some time, then on third one, then they return to the first one etc. but that's not multitasking really.

"we only have one CPU with one core," "but that's not multitasking really." Do you think single core computers don't do multitasking? They do it exactly this way.

Computers have a context switching time of a few nanoseconds. People have a context switching time measured in the tens of minutes. If you do it too much, half of your day is consumed just switching your mental context between the tasks.

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#65

Post by baobaba »

1. The most valuable productivity hack I ever learned: facing an overwhelming task, write down all the tiniest steps the task consists of (even if the step is as simple as opening an IDE). Then, do the first tiny step. This goes a long way towards fighting resistance/procrastination. I do this with Trello cards (easy to add checklists to cards).

2. If you want to get a project done, keep your mind in the context of that project at all costs. Simple trick: in the evening, close other windows on your computer except the ones related to the project you want to get done: an IDE, a TODO list, related research. It will be much easier in the morning to kick things off.

3. If a project / work causes a lot of resistance and procrastination, ask yourself if you absolutely must be doing it. Challenge assumptions.

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#66

Post by jordsmi »

baobaba wrote: post #65

1. The most valuable productivity hack I ever learned: facing an overwhelming task, write down all the tiniest steps the task consists of (even if the step is as simple as opening an IDE). Then, do the first tiny step. This goes a long way towards fighting resistance/procrastination. I do this with Trello cards (easy to add checklists to cards). 2. If you want to get a project done, keep your mind in the context of t…

Number 1 is a huge. The biggest thing with procrastination is actually starting on the task. Usually it's something I want to do, but just can't get myself to do it for various reasons. If I just do something as simple as saying I am going to write one line of code, I usually get sucked into the project.

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#67

Post by cJ0th »

rayalez wrote: post #60

- Buy a cheap android tablet to do all the time-wasting activities on(HN/Reddit/tv-shows), that way it is pretty easy to avoid doing any of it on your laptop, which turns it into a pure-productivity device that you use only for creating things. - Try to find ONE most important activity to do and focus on doing that. Switching your focus between several tasks, or having to constantly decide what is the most important…

upvote for the first bullet point. I never considered that!

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#68

Post by dr_hercules »

atmosx wrote: post #24
jdimov9 wrote: post #17

Here's what works for achieving extreme levels of hyper-creativity and hyper-productivity for me. Will it work for you? Yes. Will you do it? No, you will find endless excuses to call the below "impossible". Still, for anyone who dares, here it is: 1. Get as much sleep as you can. Consistently. Yes, it's counter-intuitive. Yes, you'll have fewer waking hours. But those few hours will be many times more productive and…

Did you get that list from some TED, Accelerator Speech or a book? Because it ain't realistic for 90% of the 'population'... which means it's unrealistic and pretty much useless.

90% of the population aren't on HN.

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#69

Post by dr_hercules »

vrutberg wrote: post #40
DanBC wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Which steps are impossible for 90% of the population?

Not a lot of people can spend 1/3 of a year on vacation. I'm in Sweden and I consider my vacation time pretty generous (6 weeks per year), but still, I'm still nowhere near 1/3 of a year.

switch jobs after 12 months and take 6 months off (or rather "on" as I would say)

Re: Ask HN: Share your best personal productivity tips and tricks

#70

Post by dr_hercules »

jdimov9 wrote: post #17

Here's what works for achieving extreme levels of hyper-creativity and hyper-productivity for me. Will it work for you? Yes. Will you do it? No, you will find endless excuses to call the below "impossible". Still, for anyone who dares, here it is: 1. Get as much sleep as you can. Consistently. Yes, it's counter-intuitive. Yes, you'll have fewer waking hours. But those few hours will be many times more productive and…

I guess if you follow those nine rules for a year - your head will clear up that much - you will realize how pointless this carrot-in-front-of-donkey-style-career-rat-race is and get off!
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