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

131–140 of 162 posts

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

#131

Post by avip »

viach wrote: post #130
avip wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

To clarify: Either weekly work routine (Sun. gardening, Mon. kitchen, Tue. teaching in school...), or monthly work routine (same, but tasks are retained for longer consecutive periods)

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

#133

Post by antisthenes »

Ensorceled wrote: post #15
thomas wrote: post #2

Serious question: Is anything less productive than reading other people's productivity thoughts? It's a combination of procrastination and finding out what works for someone who is presumably more productive than you (ie: guilt).

In the article you just read, the author writes an entire section: "2. Every productivity system stops working eventually and there’s nothing you can do about it" If you're like me and have ADHD, you read looking for your next system that will work for a while.

And if you're a night owl, you inevitably learn how to sleep right through your alarms.

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

#134

Post by jodrellblank »

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…

Then play guitar for the rest of your life. It might be a short life.

"Productivity" techniques are inherently flawed by the way they put capitalist "productivity" at the top of the most important things in life. Check the blogpost where the author describes playing a computer game as "life down the drain" and how their productivity tips have to tightly control that.

If your life is to be commercially productive and own a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar house and get paid for docker-compose, then you can't switch to playing the guitar and have the same life.

But if you consider your deathbed and think a life of fighting Docker was a total waste, what was the point? The "resolution" to the discrepancy doesn't come from a productivity technique, it comes from a enlightenment; losing the desires to control particular life outcomes and desiring "good" outcomes and fearing "bad" outcomes.

Go far enough down that and you'll unpack the fears and anxieties about not being good enough, not being perfect, making mistakes, being inferior, etc. which cause procrastination in the first place, and be more able to work on Docker without feeling bad. And more able to turn away from it and play guitar without the anxiety of "what if my boss says I wasn't productive enough".

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

#135

Post by viach »

avip wrote: post #131
viach wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

To clarify: Either weekly work routine (Sun. gardening, Mon. kitchen, Tue. teaching in school...), or monthly work routine (same, but tasks are retained for longer consecutive periods)

Got it. I agree with your point that after months of gardening I will probably be dreaming of the beauties of YAML files, or even XML if the gardening period was too long. But still, does it solve the motivation/productivity problem? Also, during long breaks you lose the context, so both types of activities will be less productive.

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

#136

Post by avip »

viach wrote: post #135
avip wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify: Either weekly work routine (Sun. gardening, Mon. kitchen, Tue. teaching in school...), or monthly work routine (same, but tasks are retained for longer consecutive periods)

Got it. I agree with your point that after months of gardening I will probably be dreaming of the beauties of YAML files, or even XML if the gardening period was too long. But still, does it solve the motivation/productivity problem? Also, during long breaks you lose the context, so both types of activities will be less productive.

I don't think this way of organizing work is about maximizing individual productivity. It's more about the (forgotten?) idea that there's more into humans than being productive in some narrow scope.

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

#137

Post by WatchDog »

jedberg wrote: post #67
guzey wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great idea and I used to do it for a while when I tried working from home. The problem for me is that I usually give on this ritual after a week or two. How long have you been able to sustain it for?

I don’t actually do it. :) my problem is that I work too much when I work from home. I can’t pull myself away. My solution was to have children who draw me away with their siren song of, “lets play legos daddy!”

How many times do I have to tell you child, the plural of Lego is Lego!

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

#138

Post by joelrunyon »

I've delved into this a couple times and put together a resource on some of my thoughts here.

https://impossiblehq.com/productivity/

The "Workstation Popcorn" methodology has been particularly useful to work from home, digital nomads, and remote workers who feel "stuck" in one spot throughout the day.

https://impossiblehq.com/workstation-popcorn/

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

#139

Post by trefn »

Scarblac wrote: post #23

I need just one thing: a way to get rid of a bad habit that doesn't involve changing the circumstances in which I have that habit. I'm a Web developer with a mindless tic-like habit of opening sites like Reddit and HN all the time. Even a second after closing it. I can't very well get rid of Web browsers. Edit: ohh, but the tip of going to a place where I've never procrastinated before and sitting down to think what…

I have a similar tic. I just edit my hosts file to redirect those requests to localhost. Then when I mindlessly navigate to one of those sites it doesn't work and I realize I did it unconsciously. I do the same for gmail because I have the same tic for checking my mail.

If I actually want to go to one of those sites I just edit the hosts file and comment out the redirect line.

On my mac, the /etc/hosts file looks like:

  # #
  # Host Database
  #
  # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
  # when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
  ##
  127.0.0.1 localhost
  255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
  ::1             localhost
  fe80::1%lo0 localhost

  127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com twitter.com www.facebook.com reddit.com
  127.0.0.1 mail.google.com

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

#140

Post by merlinsbrain »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #71
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you guys ever read the "War of Art"? It comes from a place that understands Procrastination as an emotional problem, and has a fully developed solution for dealing with it in that way. At the end it gets REALLY artsy and religious in a way that made me very uncomfortable. But its still the most helpful book I've ever read on productivity.

I really disliked that book, I found nothing actionable in it. I only read it to the end because it is recommended so often and I hoped to find something useful in it. Sadly I didn't.

I’ll concur with this thought.

It’s inspiring but there’s nothing really to take forward from there.

It’s like a talk from a motivational speaker - it’ll get you into that desirable state of mind for a little bit, but won’t help you change anything fundamentally.

Post reply on HN