Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient • Hacker News Board

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#11

Post by pnathan » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 10:32 PM UTC

minimax wrote: post #7

pnathan wrote: post #3

I approximately "invented" this after reading tons of productivity blogs and stuff. I keep an org-mode file with 3 headings: * week range ** day-in-week *** major topic And then I log what I did in the day. It is unbelievable how much you actually do some days when you feel like you did nothing but yammer and poke small problems. edit: I've done this for about 47 weeks now. I keep a single file, synced out to a backe…

Do you use much of the other org-mode bells and whistles when you do this?

Nah, not really. I really hit a comfort zone with this tracking system, so I haven't felt the drive to improve it.

The only thing that niggles a bit is that I'd like to check in/out on tasks sometimes. I know it's possible, but I don't have the urge to figure that out.

I use more of org-mode in other arenas: agenda preparation, PDF creation, and the occasional spreadsheet.

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#12

Post by minimax » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 10:41 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #11

minimax wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use much of the other org-mode bells and whistles when you do this?

Nah, not really. I really hit a comfort zone with this tracking system, so I haven't felt the drive to improve it. The only thing that niggles a bit is that I'd like to check in/out on tasks sometimes. I know it's possible , but I don't have the urge to figure that out. I use more of org-mode in other arenas: agenda preparation, PDF creation, and the occasional spreadsheet.

I have tried several times to get into org-mode and for whatever reason it just hasn't stuck. I'm going to give it another crack for daily logs.

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#13

Post by IheartApplesDix » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 10:45 PM UTC

Combine this with pomodoro technique and you'll never have free time again! /s

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#14

Post by adastra » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 10:54 PM UTC

nicksergeant wrote: post #6

Shameless plug for a stupid little web-app I wrote for exactly this purpose... years ago. It was my first foray into Django, and it's open-source: http://finisht.com http://github.com/nicksergeant/finisht

This is great. Is the app pronounced "finished", "finish it", or "finish shit!" ? I kind of like the last one, haha. Seriously though I'm curious which one.

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#15

Post by DasIch » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:07 PM UTC

You can be even more productive by not making any (Anti-)ToDo lists, thereby reducing management overhead and the time spent figuring out how to use, using and reviewing todo list techniques.

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#16

Post by ryanwaggoner » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:09 PM UTC

This is what excellent content marketing looks like.

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#17

Post by jkeel » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:16 PM UTC

This idea is similar to a pet project I did a looong time ago while learning C#. It's still up at http://getmicromanager.com/ but honestly I'm not sure if it still works with the current version of .NET (it was written on .NET 1.1).

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#18

Post by pnathan » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:24 PM UTC

minimax wrote: post #12

pnathan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, not really. I really hit a comfort zone with this tracking system, so I haven't felt the drive to improve it. The only thing that niggles a bit is that I'd like to check in/out on tasks sometimes. I know it's possible , but I don't have the urge to figure that out. I use more of org-mode in other arenas: agenda preparation, PDF creation, and the occasional spreadsheet.

I have tried several times to get into org-mode and for whatever reason it just hasn't stuck. I'm going to give it another crack for daily logs.

Honestly, you don't need org mode to do this. You just need a way to have a hierarchical folding tree (an outline) that takes text for both the headers and contents. I implemented a half-baked similar system in C# years and years ago - that worked really nice. I just use org-mode because I'm an emacs user and hey, it works well for me.

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#19

Post by mmahemoff » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:27 PM UTC

I do something like that in Trello, which is to retrospectively create spontaneous tasks and drag them straight to Done. (It's more satisfying to drag them across than just create them in the Done pile.)

Re: Marc Andreessen’s Productivity Trick to Feeling Marvelously Efficient

#20

Post by LiveTheDream » Tue, Oct 23, 2012, 11:30 PM UTC

DasIch wrote: post #15

You can be even more productive by not making any (Anti-)ToDo lists, thereby reducing management overhead and the time spent figuring out how to use, using and reviewing todo list techniques.

Don't become a slave to your lists, sure, but some basic organization can go a long way to increasing your productivity as well as giving you the ability to look back and review what you did.