11–20 of 192 posts
Maybe the best takeaway is that there isn't really a single coherent ruleset for productivity...
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I used to think like you until I met a coworker. He could not code to save his life, nobody in the team liked working with him. Until one day we had a boring data entry task. He could do it for hours at a time, and barely made any mistake. This experience taught me something.
What did it teach you? I'm having trouble seeing the relevance.
> Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. This is exactly why I created Pony [0], an email platform that sends and receives messages once a day. The problem for me wasn’t managing my time, but managing my attention, which was really hard with everything coming at me constantly all the time. I observed that most things aren’t urgent, and further I observed that near…
Else most of the time, the "researching phase" is the most daunting task.
This article was a fun read as it playfully poked holes in some conventional wisdom but I'm not sure I'm left with coherent advice. Deep work doesn't matter? Working in 15 minute bursts is ok? Save rewarding work for after routine? Or maybe match it to my circadian rhythms? Work on what I love? Have a maker schedule? Maybe the best takeaway is that there isn't really a single coherent ruleset for productivity...
> Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. This is exactly why I created Pony [0], an email platform that sends and receives messages once a day. The problem for me wasn’t managing my time, but managing my attention, which was really hard with everything coming at me constantly all the time. I observed that most things aren’t urgent, and further I observed that near…
Please stop spamming your ads in every half-related HN thread. You are really annoying lots of people.
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Please stop spamming your ads in every half-related HN thread. You are really annoying lots of people.
Hi Jedi72, I sincerely don’t see how this half is related: this is very much related. Isn’t it relevant that no platform exists that gives you space and time to have attention-full communication? Isn’t that the whole problem? This article and Pony, a solution to the problems described in this article, wouldn’t exist otherwise.
I struggle with productivity, and feeling productive. and when I look back on times when I felt productive the attention thing does stand out.
It occurred to me when I thought of myself as a younger programmer that I used to love the time between midnight and 3AM, there was literally nothing on TV to distract me, the house was quiet, the kids and wife were in bed and asleep. I could spend the time thinking through the problem and then mindfully developing an approach to solve it. These days, not so much.
There is always something distracting in a web browser. Too many times I find I go to check something and poof an hour has vanished as I've followed a bunch of paths that I wasn't intending to follow. As a result my current efforts focus on not leaving a bunch of tabs open on my browser and being mindful about getting done what I came to do for the task at hand and going back to the task. No extra checking of mail or twitter or HN or what ever ...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi Jedi72, I sincerely don’t see how this half is related: this is very much related. Isn’t it relevant that no platform exists that gives you space and time to have attention-full communication? Isn’t that the whole problem? This article and Pony, a solution to the problems described in this article, wouldn’t exist otherwise.
If you want HN to look at your stuff, post a Show HN ️
What the author means by "attention management" is, perhaps, the ability to concentrate for a long period of time. Personally, for work that i love to do, concentration is rewarding. For mundane, routine work, I usually go on auto pilot, getting work done, but, doing it while my attention is somewhere else. For mundane work that requires concentration, my output falls off the cliff. Its here that many tips and tricks…
About 10 years ago I had a period of 6 months filled almost entirely with mundane work that required concentration. My gf at the time had a pretty hefty prescription for Vyvanse and well...
I was shocked at the difference. I could get done in one morning what would normally take an entire week. And I did it about that often, usually a Monday or Tues depending on meeting load and would use my free time to get to other side projects that were important but not my main priority.
I'm too old to have seen the ritalin craze in higher education (I used it a handful of times during all-nighters but it was fairly rare/hard to get), and I don't believe I've touched these types of drugs since, but I do understand their pull when one needs to grind.