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Finish one thing today

finishonethingtoday.com

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Re: Finish one thing today

#31

Post by chuckcode »

sockgrant wrote: post #22

Similar to this, at Google they do "snippets". Every week they write a short e-mail blurb about what they accomplished last week and what they plan to complete this week. I gave this method a try and it's been great. It helps me stay on task, have goals, and feel good about what I've accomplished. It helps me minimize the "swamped" feeling because I'm actively prioritizing and then knocking those things off the list.…

Seems like there is something important socially about being able to tell others what you plan to do and then after the fact share what you accomplished. As a software engineer it can be difficult when the work is so technical that I can't really share it with anybody easily. Trying to friends and family about how the new code using AVX instructions runs a lot faster in a critical section of the code ends up being underwhelming.

Sites like "finish one thing today" calls out again that constant struggle between curiosity and focus. My natural curiosity has been a huge benefit in my life but it certainly gets in the way sometimes when I need it to turn off so I can just focus on the problem at hand.

Re: Finish one thing today

#32

Post by exodust »

Am I in therapy?

We're evolving, not finishing.

Obsessing over finishing something every day can't be useful or necessary. Could be distracting.

The haiku-styled self-help thingy here is lacking depth.. it's generic motivational cliche central. It's corny stuff.

Sounds like a form of OCD. The same people couldn't bare to leave the dirty dishes til the next morning.

Relax. You don't need to finish something today for the sake of "finishing".

You can subscribe to the journey or the destination, choose one, but don't push what you choose onto others and call it "Hacker News".

"Ship one thing today".

Ah... nope. And I don't ship. Never understood the obsession with "shipping". It suggests a commercial operation, a red-button launch, manufacturing and selling washing machines.

Re: Finish one thing today

#33

Post by dceddia »

aidos wrote: post #14

I lived with my girlfriend's parents many years ago and at the time her father was building a Morris Minor 1000 and a Triumph Bonneville bike (in his spare time). The final results were showroom condition vehicles; absolute works of art. I was fortunate enough to be there for most of the duration of the projects. I learnt _a lot_ about how vehicles work from those days. It was fascinating working on machines like tha…

That sounds like an amazing feat from a productivity/finishing projects standpoint, but I'd be really interested to hear about the organization process for a thing like that. I'm sure one can't rely on memory alone to remember which tiny washer goes with each widget. For a smaller project, I'd sort the screws into cups or something. But for an entire bike? Huh.

Re: Finish one thing today

#35

Post by mrbig4545 »

I finished at least 3 things today. 4 if you count making the bed...

why is this site trying to make me lazy?

and if I don't want to finish something, then I won't. I'm not a machine, I want to have some days off, usually not enough.

but when I can, I enjoy spending a whole day on the sofa doing nothing. you should try it, it's nice

Re: Finish one thing today

#36

Post by bronson »

dceddia wrote: post #33
aidos wrote: post #14

I lived with my girlfriend's parents many years ago and at the time her father was building a Morris Minor 1000 and a Triumph Bonneville bike (in his spare time). The final results were showroom condition vehicles; absolute works of art. I was fortunate enough to be there for most of the duration of the projects. I learnt _a lot_ about how vehicles work from those days. It was fascinating working on machines like tha…

That sounds like an amazing feat from a productivity/finishing projects standpoint, but I'd be really interested to hear about the organization process for a thing like that. I'm sure one can't rely on memory alone to remember which tiny washer goes with each widget. For a smaller project, I'd sort the screws into cups or something. But for an entire bike? Huh.

It's not like every washer needs to be removed simultaneously. Just rebuild each component one by one.

That said, it's still amazing work. When some friends built a Lemons car (nowhere near as exacting), I was surprised to find that probably 75% of our time and communication was inventory management and organization. You think you're going to be welding and spinning nuts? No, you're going to be heading back to the store for more acetone and Sterilite boxes while your friend spends hours sorting parts looking for the !#$*@ headlight switch.

Re: Finish one thing today

#37

Post by jh3 »

shas3 wrote: post #23
jsherer wrote: post #11

Similar comments from a University of Texas, Austin commencement speech by Adm. McRaven [1]: "Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket…

I think the flip side of this approach is that one may get bogged down in doing tasks which give you short term satisfaction but don't do much in helping you progress on real projects. I faced this problem often as a graduate student. On certain days, I would get immense satisfaction in discovering new Latex tricks and packages, tweaking research codes to the point of diminishing returns, organizing bibliography, etc…

That's procrastination :)

Re: Finish one thing today

#38

Post by maxxxxx »

jsherer wrote: post #11

Similar comments from a University of Texas, Austin commencement speech by Adm. McRaven [1]: "Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket…

When I was in military we learned to sleep on top of the made bed and only straighten it out a little in the morning :-)

Re: Finish one thing today

#40

Post by moogleii »

maxxxxx wrote: post #38
jsherer wrote: post #11

Similar comments from a University of Texas, Austin commencement speech by Adm. McRaven [1]: "Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket…

When I was in military we learned to sleep on top of the made bed and only straighten it out a little in the morning :-)

Looks like it encouraged sleeping out of the box at least!
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