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Ten minutes a day

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Re: Ten minutes a day

#21

Post by maheart »

I started using the Pomodoro technique a few years ago, and I've successfully shipped 3 (almost 4) FOSS projects since then. The hardest part is getting started. It's surprising how much work gets done with only 30 minutes a day, over a few months.

On an unrelated note, like the author, I also keep track of how much time I've spent on these FOSS projectss. But it's disheartening to see how much time I've spent on FOSS, and while I have users (they want support/features :) -- potential employers spend almost no time looking at my work, but will still ask me to spend hours on their tech challenges (averaging ~20 hours per challenge).

Re: Ten minutes a day

#22

Post by pjbster »

ndnxhs wrote: post #14
melenaos wrote: post #13

Recently I have start workout for 10 mins a day including warmup. To go for an hour in the gym it's much harder because it take +30 mins to commute +15 min to shower. After 1 hour of gym I feel exhausted and I don't want to do it again next day. But with 10 mins per day, I don't have to convince myself to do it, it's such an easy task and I feel better after doing it. I don't lose my time in commute and I do it every…

I have found cycling to be a good daily exercise. It becomes my commute so it takes no time out of my day also there is no way to give up. I can stop at any time at a gym but if I stop on my bike I still have to get back home. I have a pretty brutal uphill way back home but I feel great after which makes me do it again the next day.

I miss cycling to and from work. I used to live 27 miles away from the office and I'd do that ride 5 days a week. Yeah it was 3 hours out of the day but the alternatives didn't add up to a whole lot less than 2 hours anyway so I didn't mind. But my fitness was incredible. I could jump on the bike at the weekend and do a hilly century no problem. I once did an Everesting challenge which amounted to 13 hours going uphill and I held several KOMs on local Strava segments.

But I had a bad collision which has kept me off the bike for 15 months now. When the doctors were attending me in hospital they had to double check my birthdate because they assumed I was 20 years younger. They wouldn't make the same mistake now -- I really feel like I've aged 10 years in that time.

Re: Ten minutes a day

#23

Post by harryf »

abainbridge wrote: post #12

So if I time-slice the 8 productive hours of my day into 10 minute slots, can I write 48 books in 499 days? Of course not. I've tried working on pet projects for 10 minutes before going to work each day. The problem I find is that while I might only do active work on the task for ten minutes, my brain is thinking about it for much longer. Spending those ten minutes in the morning reduces my ability to do my day job b…

> Spending those ten minutes in the morning reduces my ability to do my day job because I've used up a significant fraction of my day's useful thinking budget.

Like the term “useful thinking budget” - will steal that if I may. To me that type of thinking is usually deep and involves much lateral thought than logical. It’s usually where I establish “focus” on something I’m working on and usually where creative breakthroughs happen on things blocking me.

But it only happens when I’m alone, relaxed and undistracted which is usually the shower in the morning. Going for walks also helps. Also it seems to require feedback “did this idea work in practice?” which creates positive reinforement that my ideas are worth having. Just endless producing ideas without testing them is undermining - used to do that in my early 20’s

Re: Ten minutes a day

#24

Post by wj »

Waterluvian wrote: post #20
nevster wrote: post #19

I use http://dontbreakthechain.com and have a few different 10 minute things in there.

I'd love to hear from full time parents how they do routines like these. I'm sure it's absolutely possible but between a 2 month and 2 year old I don't come close to finding the time to think about extra projects.

Short answer is that, like everything in life, it is harder as a parent.

I've meditated for ten minutes a day for a few months now and written 500 words a day so far this year. The chain method absolutely works (I'll stay up late at night staring at a blank page until I get to my 500 words) but it can be a chore. I go through with it because I know that once I break the chain that makes it easier to break it tomorrow.

I'm hoping that my current work craziness calms down a bit in a few weeks at which point I'll be scheduling these two things on my calendar in the morning and not start the rest of my day until they are done.

Re: Ten minutes a day

#25

Post by mindentropy »

maheart wrote: post #21

I started using the Pomodoro technique a few years ago, and I've successfully shipped 3 (almost 4) FOSS projects since then. The hardest part is getting started. It's surprising how much work gets done with only 30 minutes a day, over a few months. On an unrelated note, like the author, I also keep track of how much time I've spent on these FOSS projectss. But it's disheartening to see how much time I've spent on FOS…

> The hardest part is getting started.

This is a big problem for me as I age. Personal problems etc take up my mind space and it is very hard to motivate myself to work. Also constant interruptions which I have to attend to makes things really miserable and have stopped my progress of personal projects.

What do you do to handle starting up?

Re: Ten minutes a day

#26

Post by [deleted] »

Waterluvian wrote: post #20
nevster wrote: post #19

I use http://dontbreakthechain.com and have a few different 10 minute things in there.

I'd love to hear from full time parents how they do routines like these. I'm sure it's absolutely possible but between a 2 month and 2 year old I don't come close to finding the time to think about extra projects.

[deleted]

Re: Ten minutes a day

#27

Post by ndnxhs »

temo4ka wrote: post #18
ndnxhs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found cycling to be a good daily exercise. It becomes my commute so it takes no time out of my day also there is no way to give up. I can stop at any time at a gym but if I stop on my bike I still have to get back home. I have a pretty brutal uphill way back home but I feel great after which makes me do it again the next day.

Yep, it's great unless the uphill is actually on the way to the job, then it becomes not so great :-)

In that case I'd use an ebike. Still decent fitness but not super intence

Re: Ten minutes a day

#28

Post by patrickg_zill »

melenaos wrote: post #13

Recently I have start workout for 10 mins a day including warmup. To go for an hour in the gym it's much harder because it take +30 mins to commute +15 min to shower. After 1 hour of gym I feel exhausted and I don't want to do it again next day. But with 10 mins per day, I don't have to convince myself to do it, it's such an easy task and I feel better after doing it. I don't lose my time in commute and I do it every…

The Canadian government sponsored the development of the 5BX program, which is designed to give you a decent fitness level in 11 minutes per day.

Have you ever tried this program?

Re: Ten minutes a day

#29

Post by muzani »

Waterluvian wrote: post #20
nevster wrote: post #19

I use http://dontbreakthechain.com and have a few different 10 minute things in there.

I'd love to hear from full time parents how they do routines like these. I'm sure it's absolutely possible but between a 2 month and 2 year old I don't come close to finding the time to think about extra projects.

Parent here.

Get the spouse to hold the kids. Even if you're a full time housewife, many husbands are willing to hold the baby for a couple hours each evening. Maybe take them for a walk, bath, watch YouTube together.

My wife's flow activities is experimenting with cooking and child care. We've actually got a couple of apps in the works for this.

Re: Ten minutes a day

#30

Post by teddyh »

sowbug wrote: post #5
tapanjk wrote: post #3

> Writing every day kept ideas top of mind. When I finished writing, I’d carry the puzzles to my commute or the shower, and I’d talk to people about them. My ideas were always nearby, making it easy to jump back in. This sounds like the main takeaway. Even though the direct time spent on an activity may seem small, the total effective time spent on that activity shoots up if it is performed daily (v/s weekly or longe…

I also liked this: "... today might not be a good day, so let’s use it for something I have to do anyway." The idea transfers well to coding. Maybe you're not feeling inspired today, but there's probably something mechanical that needs to happen to your project -- resolve a TODO, update the docs, triage a bug report. So do it, and even if that doesn't snap you back into the groove, at least you got that one thing don…

“You have to move forward a little bit, every day. It doesn’t matter if your code is lame and buggy and nobody wants it. If you are moving forward, writing code and fixing bugs constantly, time is on your side.”

— Joel Spolsky, Fire And Motion, https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

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