Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

guzey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 162 posts

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#121

Post by avip »

viach wrote: post #112
frlnc_throwaway wrote: post #25

I highly recommend Jean Moroney's blog. She digs deep into the psychology behind productivity and goal-setting. I found many unique insights in her articles. Thanks to her writing I've come to believe that procrastination often stems from deeper emotional issues or an unacknowledged clash of priorities (for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do, the deeper issue i…

> for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do This is called a day job, even for programmers. > you haven't resolved the clash between your short-time desires and your long-term goals Is it even possible to resolve? One would like to read books (play guitar, gardening) for the rest of his life instead of trying to get his docker-compose file working properly. How a…

If you actually spent your entire days gardening, you'd soon feel an irresistible urge to bake a working docker-compose file. You'll procrastinate and dream about YAML files instead of paying attention to your plants.

This is why some advanced communities have a weekly/monthly duty cycle where people switch activities.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#122

Post by zettatron »

My productivity hack is coming to terms with the fact that my life can't, and will likely never, be as optimised as the processes and routines that I like to optimize for work.

There is something about the oppressive guilt of being "unproductive" that, for myself personally, far outweighs any of the benefits gained from being hyper-productive.

Although I do feel a certain "high" when coming off of a full 8 hours of get-$#&+-done mode. I try to realize that isn't a switch that is flipped. It's just a derivative of my current state of mind.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#123

Post by avip »

savolai wrote: post #43
OedipusRex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's turtles all the way down.

Or in this case, tomatoes. (My first hn joke. Not sure if jokes are allowed but sure was worth it.)

As someone who had never contributed anything to this forum other than mediocre jokes, I can attest it's allowed (but more often than not downvoted to oblivion).

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#124

Post by scottishfiction »

Draiken wrote: post #118

I often get surprised how deep we got hooked into the system. We tell ourselves unless we're doing something (no matter how useless that is) we're worthless. Everything becomes a different kind of procrastination. We feel productive creating yet another CRUD app, idle game or advertisement optimization tool that ultimately does nothing for anyone but the capitalists on the top of the chain. Only to feel bad about doi…

There are places where you can find well-paid work that isn’t for ‘capitalists at the top of the chain’. Well, at least not directly. Do you think you’d find the public sector equally meaningless?

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#126

Post by scottishfiction »

scottishfiction wrote: post #124
Draiken wrote: post #118

I often get surprised how deep we got hooked into the system. We tell ourselves unless we're doing something (no matter how useless that is) we're worthless. Everything becomes a different kind of procrastination. We feel productive creating yet another CRUD app, idle game or advertisement optimization tool that ultimately does nothing for anyone but the capitalists on the top of the chain. Only to feel bad about doi…

There are places where you can find well-paid work that isn’t for ‘capitalists at the top of the chain’. Well, at least not directly. Do you think you’d find the public sector equally meaningless?

To answer my own question, I’m not sure I find a great deal of meaning in most of my work, but I like doing the work and I like the people I work with, and I don’t resent the people I work for, because it’s ultimately the British public.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#127

Post by lanekelly »

dfboyd wrote: post #103

I looked at the guy's pie charts of working time, and unless I'm reading them wrong, he _never sleeps_. He has all 24 hours of the day marked as mostly work.

He's mapping his working time onto the pie chart. For example, if he works 9am-5pm, during that time he follows the pie chart's structure for that block of time.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#128

Post by reubenswartz »

CPLX wrote: post #8

This is actually a pretty good list. Obviously it's personal and specific to him but it gives food for thought. With that said I've read a million posts like this and the only thing that's ever made me feel like I had genuinely changed my perspective and understood what was happening more clearly was reading the Getting Things Done book. The key insight for me is that so much of procrastination results from a lack of…

Yes. And if you’re not sure what to do next, the next thing to do is figure out that next step. Sounds circular and silly, but helps tremendously to realize, hey, I got stuck, let me take a step back and figure out what I’m really trying to do and what tasks I need to complete to get it done.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#129

Post by dominotw »

derefr wrote: post #119
dominotw wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So often, people take on tasks because they think you have to do them, or the task meets some criteria that someone else has set. You feel you have to do the project because it's required for a class, or your boss told you to do it, or it's the only way you see to get the credential you need to take the next step in your career. Remided me of passage from J.K's book. "There are two kinds of action. One brings you r…

Sometimes making art has boring parts, too. Writing a book, for example, can be drudgery, even if you're not writing for anyone in particular or aiming to make a profit—just because there's an order-of-magnitude difference between the amount of effort required to exhaust your creative impulse, and the amount of effort required to actually create a whole work from which you can feel satisfied that you have communicate…

> Sometimes making art has boring parts, too.

Right but productivity hacks culture is not usually talking about this specific type of work.

Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible

#130

Post by viach »

avip wrote: post #121
viach wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for example, when you try to force yourself to do something that you don't, in fact, want to do This is called a day job, even for programmers. > you haven't resolved the clash between your short-time desires and your long-term goals Is it even possible to resolve? One would like to read books (play guitar, gardening) for the rest of his life instead of trying to get his docker-compose file working properly. How a…

If you actually spent your entire days gardening, you'd soon feel an irresistible urge to bake a working docker-compose file. You'll procrastinate and dream about YAML files instead of paying attention to your plants. This is why some advanced communities have a weekly/monthly duty cycle where people switch activities.

> This is why some advanced communities have a weekly/monthly duty cycle where people switch activities.

Monthly/monthly sounds more fair to me. Or even monthly/weekly if I'm allowed to dream...

Post reply on HN