I would definitely recommend against having an hour’s commute to work. It is a really strong predictor for life dissatisfaction. Fifteen minutes is the number I heard to be a good balance.
I currently have an hours commute, which I find works quite well for me. It is a little bit unusual though - it is a train journey with no changes, I always get a seat, and I live about a 2 minute walk from the train station, and work about a 2 minute walk from the train station at the other side. The train journey is about 50 minutes. It's a good period of time to slowly engage and disengage - I do the things that m…
Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
51–60 of 162 posts
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#52Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#53I would definitely recommend against having an hour’s commute to work. It is a really strong predictor for life dissatisfaction. Fifteen minutes is the number I heard to be a good balance.
Strongly agree, though if you find yourself in that situation there are ways you can turn it into productive time. Especially if you otherwise don't have blocks of alone downtime. - Use the time to think. Driving the same commute every day becomes automatic and you can solve problems, practice a talk, iterate or come up with ideas and so on. Take notes via voice. - Podcasts. There's an endless amount of learning avai…
I'm making my way through a backlog of must read sci-fi and fantasy classics I never would have read otherwise because I have little time to read a book as it is.
I have to wait a bit and have a somewhat limited selection with my library card, but overall it's worth it.
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#54I would definitely recommend against having an hour’s commute to work. It is a really strong predictor for life dissatisfaction. Fifteen minutes is the number I heard to be a good balance.
It kind of works. Lately it has been 1.5 each way which starts eating seriously into other things.
The things that makes it tolerable are typically:
- if I can work while commuting, because that means shorter time in the office. Ironically - and depending on project - I can get more work done on the train than in a similar time slot in the office.
- if I can work on a side project
- if not, if I can read or study
- if I could sleep (I find it hard, but sometimes it works)
But it is tiring to be away from home 10-11 hours a day just to fill 40 hours.
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was procrastinating and read about the Pomedoro technique and it worked pretty well for me. Sometimes you need a trick I guess.
Pomodoro worked great for me until I just stopped wanting to do my job.
When motivation is at a low, the 25/5 flips around.
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Esp. when reading the part about 15 working hours per day.
Note that there's only 625 minutes of working during this "15 " hours work day. So working 5 days a week this is less than 60 hours of work per week.
It's the complete absence of influence of other people (be it in the form of SOs, kids, coworkers, office environments, meetings, bosses, customers, what have you) that makes it alien to me.
If I could have 4 hours of real, concentrated, productive work on important things each working day, I would massively increase the impact of my work.
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#57One great hack for this is if you work from home, get up and get dressed, then go out for a walk around the block as your "commute" to work. At the end of your work day, take a walk again in the opposite direction as your commute home.
Even though the ploy is totally obvious, it will put your mind in a work vs play mode depending on the direction of the walk.
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#58Serious 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).
Example: I read the following article over the course of 2 days. While I was reading it, I had VSCode open and was taking notes in Markdown. While this article only mildly changed how I acted, it definitely planted a few seeds in my head, which I am trying to cultivate. And now I have a source of notes on productivity I can look at any time!
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/P3zrurj5hHKFKDL3M/productivi...
Re: Every productivity thought I've ever had, as concisely as possible
#59The simplest productivity hack is finding passion. I never seen a windsurfer procrastinate. If you are truly enjoying your work and can't wait to do it, there is nothing going to stop you.
Clearly you don’t have an anxiety disorder.