Ask HN: What do productive people do on weekends?

I don't know that I agree. The "right direction" is something that is hard to define alone and is likely to be defined by the social context you find yourself in at any given moment. Finding something that you enjoy and doing that can be the wrong direction as well.

It seems that I've been the most productive when I've felt the greatest weight of responsibility--first child, first few mortgage payments, first employee--and I have been the least productive when I attempt to avoid responsibility. Productivity, at least as defined as "what I need to get done to feel satisfied that I have fulfilled my obligations in the least amount of time" for me requires motivation, and nothing is so motivating as honest responsibility.

Saturdays are often filled with work for me, now. I work towards my master's degree, and I work on and around the house, and I work and play with my children. I rarely work on the business.

Agreed; I think it's important to realize that a naive bias for action/productivity is not always the best thing. It's imperative to cultivate a good sense of what is worth doing, otherwise one will just produce a lot that will be irrelevant at best or garbage at worst. There are many "productive" people, but a question worth asking is how many of those actions result in lasting value, however you choose to qualify that. A lot of competent and productive people leave lasting negative value, due to misdirected efforts. For some definitions, spending a weekend building sand castles with kids might have more lasting value than working on a coding project. Don't let more visible metrics of productivity (eg: number of Github projects, HN points, etc.) cloud your judgement. If you want to step back and think about this matter (one productive use of the weekend ;-)), I really like the talk by Evan Czaplicki (Elm creator/designer) on "What is success?" which might provide some food for thought [1].

To clarify, doing only things that are worth doing doesn't imply holding back from producing/practicing because you're not yet good enough. I was referring more to the direction than the quantum in that direction. See what Ira Glass said about taste and practice [2].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGlzRt-FYto

[2]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to...

Define "Productive" Define "Success"

Assuming I qualify, no two weekends are the same, I don't have a routine.

This particular weekend? I slept in. I sent an email that I've been drafting all week. I had dinner with my parents, wife and kids for my daughter's birthday, and spent some time by the pool at the hotel drinking beer (it's rare I catch up with my parents, they drove up specifically for the day). I deleted a post I'd spent an hour writing because I realised I had to go back and rethink the entire premise of my reply. I spent a few hours catching up on a legal drama between two game developers. I intended to play some apex legends but now I wasted too much time in the evening watching youtube and drinking. I watched a tutorial video or two. I wrote this reply and almost deleted it too...

Overall my weekends boil down to: Family stuff, personal projects, sleep and recreation.

(I should add, I invested hugely in building my career profile, lots of weekends and late nights involved so the story is very different now that people are chasing me for my skills instead of the other way around).

I don't work a 9-5, so weekends aren't that special to me. Often I work on weekends, or don't work on weekdays.

This weekend is the beginning of tech week in the theatre -- I'll leave it up to the reader to decide if that's evidence of my productivity and success, or lack of!

As a person who was under the impression they were having a productive weekend but who is somehow writing an answer on HN now...!

Personally I would describe productive time as

* Anything which isn't consuming media, whether it's movies/tv shows/Reddit/HN/gaming.

Then starting with the obvious "gotta do it" or "good for you" stuff.

* Just finished doing my taxes

* Cleaning your place, organizing your things

* Cooking / Meal Prep

* Working Out

* Seeing friends & family

And then I'd separate any efforts made towards personal development and in pursuit of goals you've set, separated into two main categories.

1) Learning (Coding, How to do a rubiks cube, anything really which requires concentration and effort)

2) Creating (Any side project, personal business, home improvement, etc.)

These categories are broad enough to include pretty much everything.

Any mix of these activities in which I minimize the consuming media part, I'm happy with.