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Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

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Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#71

Post by seba_dos1 »

moron4hire wrote: post #62

There is a bit of a selection bias at work. You don't get to see the years from when they were struggling punters like the rest of us. You also don't get to see the things they try, fail at, and then discard. You don't see how long it took them to make the thing, not in a real, emotional sense. If anyone paid real attention to how long projects really take to make good at the start of their projects, they'd never sta…

>When you say, "I want to be that thing...", you necessarily have to also say, "... that means I will stop being this thing." I don't watch television. I don't follow professional sports. I don't work out at gyms. I don't read the latest books. I don't go to the latest movies. I don't play video games. I don't have a bowling league.

Oh, absolutely. I was always rather creating than consuming and I noticed two things: people wondering "how do I keep up with all this stuff I do" and me wondering "when do they read all these books and watch all these shows they're talking about at parties and that I know nothing about". I have never read or seen such titles that some people would instantly invalidate my geek card if they learned about it.

Recently I've decided that I need to finally read Discworld and also started watching Doctor Who. Although I think I needed and well deserved a break, it makes me feel kinda uneasy when I go to sleep with just "watched some episodes/read some chapters" as an achievement of the day instead of "made this feature working/investigated and fixed this bug/finished another part of animation/recorded a new song" etc. (not counting stuff made at work of course)

It's just one or another indeed.

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#72

Post by seiji »

pyre wrote: post #54
blakeyrat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you end up with something like Git, which is easy to use if you have the exact same background/education/philosophy as the person who wrote it, but has terrible usability for pretty much everybody else.

I don't have the same background as the "person that wrote it," and I consistently find the git command-line tools easier to work with than other tools (SourceTree, magit-mode, vim-fugitive, etc [1]). I think that in this case, it's just the mental model of a DAG[2] of commits that people have trouble wrapping their minds around. The tools are just there to help you slice and dice the DAG. [1] I haven't used Tortoise…

I consistently find the git command-line tools easier to work with than other tools

Yes, but how many weeks and months did you spend learning all the quirks? http://git-man-page-generator.lokaltog.net

that people have trouble wrapping their minds around.

If you create a product and just tell people "sorry, you're not smart enough to understand it," was it a good idea?

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#73

Post by ralphael »

candu wrote: post #23

This sounds counterintuitive, but: learn when to take breaks and step away from problems. Some of my most productive hours have been spent walking through parks, coming to crucial realizations or designing approaches that end up saving me days (or even weeks!) of wasted effort. Along the same lines, the best advice I ever received was from an old music teacher: do less, better. Also: if you think "delegating" and "ma…

I've solved my most complex problems when I went for a run on the evening of the day where I got stuck.

There's something about stepping away and being able to step through each scenario and look at things from a different angle.

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#74

Post by iron_ball »

pgeorgi wrote: post #69
pyre wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the same background as the "person that wrote it," and I consistently find the git command-line tools easier to work with than other tools (SourceTree, magit-mode, vim-fugitive, etc [1]). I think that in this case, it's just the mental model of a DAG[2] of commits that people have trouble wrapping their minds around. The tools are just there to help you slice and dice the DAG. [1] I haven't used Tortoise…

There are more DSCM implementations based on a DAG. (for example git, mercurial, bzr, monotone, codeville, fossil) The only one that draws serious usability complaints all the time is git.

To borrow a turn of phrase from Bjarne Stroustroup, there are two kinds of software: software people complain about, and software nobody uses.

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#76

Post by kedean »

iron_ball wrote: post #74
pgeorgi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more DSCM implementations based on a DAG. (for example git, mercurial, bzr, monotone, codeville, fossil) The only one that draws serious usability complaints all the time is git.

To borrow a turn of phrase from Bjarne Stroustroup, there are two kinds of software: software people complain about, and software nobody uses.

Yeah, the reason everyone complains about Git is because everyone uses git. SVN was the horse to beat 10 years ago, because everyone used it.

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#77

Post by vijayr »

nostrademons wrote: post #3

Never heard of the two people you mention, but I'll share what I've observed: The two biggest time sinks in everyday programming are 1.) communicating with everyone else and 2.) looking things up. If you can avoid these and have a quick analytical mind, you can basically program as quickly as you can type. So the secret to being insanely productive is to work as a solo programmer in a domain where you are thoroughly…

http://had.co.nz/ - Hadley Wickam - creator of many R packages. Taylor is the creator of awesome Laravel PHP framework, single handedly.

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#78

Post by aagha »

Find a task management tool that works for you and you will consistently use. It should be available to you at all times: At your desk and when you're out and about.

I recently settled on Trello after a customer showed me how he was using it. I have lists for:

- Inbox - I can put items in here easily: Trello widget on my phone, in Trello directly, or via email. Things sit here until they're moved to one of the other categories.

- Today - The things I plan to do today. I use labeling and mark things as either Work or Personal and use a priority flag for things that are very important.

- This Week - Things I want to get to this week

- Waiting On - Things I've acted on and am waiting on someone else to complete

- Later - Things I want to do but will get to later

- Done (this week) - Every week, I archive the previous weeks list and create a new one for the current week

This system works for ME, and your mileage may vary, but it's gotten me disciplined and focused on what to do every day and what to ignore.

Update: fixed formatting

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#79

Post by moron4hire »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #71
moron4hire wrote: post #62

There is a bit of a selection bias at work. You don't get to see the years from when they were struggling punters like the rest of us. You also don't get to see the things they try, fail at, and then discard. You don't see how long it took them to make the thing, not in a real, emotional sense. If anyone paid real attention to how long projects really take to make good at the start of their projects, they'd never sta…

>When you say, "I want to be that thing...", you necessarily have to also say, "... that means I will stop being this thing." I don't watch television. I don't follow professional sports. I don't work out at gyms. I don't read the latest books. I don't go to the latest movies. I don't play video games. I don't have a bowling league. Oh, absolutely. I was always rather creating than consuming and I noticed two things:…

Oh yeah, it annoys me to no end to be at a party, have people tell me "you have too much time on your hands" when they ask about and receive what I've been doing, then get scoffed at for not being a "true geek" for not having read this book or watched that movie. Or worse, having watched them recently, as an adult, rather than as a teenager when they did, so I don't appreciate it the same way they do through their nostalgia.

Re: Ask HN: How are some people exceptionally productive?

#80

Post by drothlis »

I like this quote attributed to John Carmack:

"Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better."

See also this blog post by someone who worked with Carmack: http://bookofhook.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/smart-guy-productiv...

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