Why time management is ruining our lives • Hacker News Board

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#71

Post by jlgaddis » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:18 PM UTC

justifier wrote: post #47

i actively develop time management techniques the best experience i've ever had was with meeting a reading deadline i needed to read through a final draft of a book i was writing with friends before the publication date i had read the book a thousand times but in pieces so it was important for me to read it through cover to cover before it was published i knew when the deadline was and was putting it off until three…

Why do you neglect the SHIFT and punctuation keys yet give the ENTER key so much attention?

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#72

Post by hinkley » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

rdiddly wrote: post #28

saycheese wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like something someone would say that has no idea what dementia is; feels comparable to saying a savant is a genius. Being in the present is a skill that is learned, not a disorder.

Since children have it, I don't think it's a learned skill. But I think the bad habits of drifting off to another illusory time are learned, and then have to be unlearned.

when the child is doing fine, they get to live in the moment, and are often left alone to do what they are doing. When we don't like what they're up to we often talk to them about 'not yet' or 'not anymore' and time becomes something they have to contend with.

And then we start doing fucked up things like asking five year olds what they want to be when they grow up. How much pressure is that? they don't even know what grown up is yet, except that people stop telling you what to do all day (oh, if only they knew, they would never grow up)

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#73

Post by blowski » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #69

coldcode wrote: post #64

At work it is routine for people to create long phone meetings, invite 50 people who all are expected to be online, talk for hour with no decision, plan another meeting for later to talk about it again. People only show up because if they don't they will be blamed for anything that goes wrong which will spawn more unpleasant meetings. The actual decision needed could be done in a couple of Slack messages between two…

Those who can, do. Those who can't, talk.

Nice idea, but doesn't work in practice. Without talking regularly with key stakeholders, you have no idea whether you're building the right thing - and frequently you won't.

If you define productivity merely as writing lines of code, then sure, meetings are a waste of time. But if you define productivity as delivering something genuinely valuable, then talking often makes you much more productive.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#74

Post by tinbucket » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:25 PM UTC

pmichaud wrote: post #62

ryandrake wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for pointing that out. Not answering one's E-mail is on my list of "rude things that somehow have become acceptable". It's part of individual companies' cultures. I've worked places where people can generally be relied upon to get back to you, and places where you might as well print out the message and shred it--it's not going to be responded to. The former means your working relationship with me is going…

I like your tactical suggestion at the bottom, but I wanted to say that I rankle at the top. Philosophically, I don't think a request for my attention creates an obligation to give it. Practically, if I responded to every email I received, I'd spend all my time doing nothing but responding to email, then I'd still fail by running out of time. It's actually pretty stressful. I've outsourced a lot of my email to a coup…

I couldn't agree more that a request for my attention does not obligate me to give it; if it did, I could spend all my (work) day answering emails and all my leisure time watching adverts.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#75

Post by sambe » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

blowski wrote: post #73

gedy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, talk.

Nice idea, but doesn't work in practice. Without talking regularly with key stakeholders, you have no idea whether you're building the right thing - and frequently you won't. If you define productivity merely as writing lines of code, then sure, meetings are a waste of time. But if you define productivity as delivering something genuinely valuable, then talking often makes you much more productive.

I'm not sure you're going to the same kind of meetings as the ancestors. Of course you need context and feedback. The kind of meetings that often happen in a certain type of business involve way more people than necessary, most of whom also lack the context to make informed choices, and prefer to continually change the subject to draw or divert attention to/from themselves. Product meetings with savvy stakeholders pulling in a mostly unified direction are awesome. Even when people disagree, as long as they agree on the rules of the game and try to work for a win-win things tend to work out pretty well. Talking in circles offf-topic for 2 hours whilst people play with their social media isn't productive in anyone's definition.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#76

Post by austinl » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:30 PM UTC

> “This topic of productivity induces the worst kind of procrastination, because it feels like you’re doing work, but I was producing stuff that had the express purpose of saying to people, ‘Look, come and see how to do your work, rather than doing your work!’”

Outside of email, I often get carried away with setting up a system for doing work instead of actually doing work. If I know I have a lot to do, I'll spend time thinking about how I might organize it in a list and track my progress. Sometimes I even open the App Store and look through more to-do apps!

Something I've settled on now is making a list (usually in an app called Clear), then going through it once a day and putting it on my calendar.

Putting things on my calendar has helped a lot. I think, "this is the time I've set aside to get this thing done. I'm not going to focus on anything else but this for the next 30min/1hr". It also makes me feel less guilty about relaxing when I've got nothing scheduled.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#77

Post by BN1978 » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

I don't want to be a slave to my to-do list (my way of dealing with time-management). OTOH, if I don't have a to-do list, in the long run, I am also not happy, and that negatively influence the quality of my life. I try to find a balance between the two. Sometimes I am successful in that, and sometimes I am not. And BTW, I am great Trello fan.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#78

Post by omilu » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:39 PM UTC

andyidsinga wrote: post #44

dominotw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one should ONLY live in both the past and the future Time is expression of sorrow. Past time is full of regrets, future time is full of apprehension.

hmmm - I think there is both sorrow and joy in both ..no?

there is lot's of joy in the past, but it's sad because it is distant and gone.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#79

Post by tedmiston » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:41 PM UTC

As I read this well written piece I can't help but to stop and think about the irony of reading a 22-minute article about priorities and time management instead of getting back to spending time with family and friends over the Christmas break.

I will stop and react to one piece:

> In an era of insecure employment, we must constantly demonstrate our usefulness through frenetic doing

This is why I started my own company this year. I still do the same type of work providing dev services vs being a dev employee, but it's freed me from busy work that involves being present in a chair 9–5 which gets mistaken for productivity in a traditional office environment.

Re: Why time management is ruining our lives

#80

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Sat, Dec 24, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

andyidsinga wrote: post #12

I suspect that the notion of managing one's inbox creates a sort of kruger-dunning effect with the inbox owner in terms of perceived productivity. I've given up active or structured management of my inbox : I read a few times during the work day, try to keep up, but don't get worried about missing 40% of things that come through. I'm at-ease with the notion that important communications have a way of finding me (emai…

In my experience, it would be fine to let email slide, since about 90% of the time, the person sending it asks, face-to-face, "Did you get that email I sent you?" the next time you see them. It makes almost all of the "actionable" email I get completely redundant.