41–50 of 202 posts
You should buy some nice headphones, if you only have speakers right now.
Even really cheap in-ear ones are actually very good. You can listen to music quietly and still make it out.
Could someone please expound upon the term "Kanban board", as used in this article? I am not understanding the connection between Kanban and what the author is describing, though I would like to.
Love this - a simple personal anecdote/retrospective rather than a self-promotion or "everyone should do as I say" piece. You could solve the girlfriend + music issue with a nice set of closed-stage headphones. I love my AKGs. But I'd actually A/B test with and without headphones - without the distraction of office noise, no headphones/music might actually be helping you focus as well. I find that even with a solid,…
Mornings are great. Yesterday I woke up at 4 and saw that Facebook Hacker Cup is on. I finished all the problems before my work day started - how awesome is that to start your day? One thing I don't understand is how people can focus on a couple of projects simultaneously. This year I've worked a lot with javascript and backbone, and I have a folder with ~4 open source projects I wrote that I'm not going to publish.…
Just seems like a weird reason to not release code you intended to be open source.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even really cheap in-ear ones are actually very good. You can listen to music quietly and still make it out.
For me, music is so important that I would have to disagree and recommend not going the cheap route. Investing a pair of good quality headphones is a no-brainer. Just make sure they are comfortable.
Thanks for this post, I will need to try it. I agree the few times I've been up early to code (even to catch up on some work) its been good, felt like I got extra hours to the day (well, I guess I did!) even before I officially started. I think then after 5pm going to the gym or relaxing can be a good choice because I've already done my 2 hours on my side project. It does get exhausting doing extra work after 5pm (af…
I find it difficult to get to sleep often lying awake for up to 5 hours before falling asleep. As I am a freelancer I then tend to make up for it by sleeping in late (as I don't have a job to go to).
I have recently been following a schedule of sleeping 2 nights and then staying up 1 night. This night without sleep I use for work and it also helps fix my problem of getting to sleep for the next 2 nights. I find that I am extremely productive working through the night and gain in productivity by falling asleep more quickly and getting up earlier the other 2 days.
In the last six or seven years I've been up regularly at 5am or so. I can get an hour of work done before the rest of the household wakes up. It's great. My inspiration was Gene Wolfe, who wrote _The Book of the New Sun_ in the wee hours, and held down a day job as a technical magazine editor. [I'm not claiming my code is anywhere near as great as the wonderful writing that Wolfe did, but the early hours are definite…
Wow. That's really interesting. I was actually going to give this a try because of Robert Pirsig, who wrote Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Here's how he did it:
In a 1974 interview with National Public Radio, Pirsig stated that the book took him four years to write. During two of these years, Pirsig continued working at his job of writing computer manuals. This caused him to fall into an unorthodox schedule, waking up very early and writing Zen from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m., then eating and going to his day job. [1]
Funny he also writes technical literature (computer manuals versus technical magazine editor).
> the early hours are definitely some of my most creative time
This is something I've noticed too. When writing (usually essays, but sometimes code), I'm almost always more productive very late night/early morning. I don't know of any reasons (other than the obvious: you're not being distracted), nor do I know of any studies. Are there any out there?
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_M...
Could someone please expound upon the term "Kanban board", as used in this article? I am not understanding the connection between Kanban and what the author is describing, though I would like to.
Have a look over at JoelOnSoftware (?? Or was it the Fog Creek Site?)
They have a free online version of something similar that they are trying to hit the big time with. I forget what it is called though.