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A simple habit that saves my evenings

alikhil.dev

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Re: A simple habit that saves my evenings

#91

Post by mxuribe »

Chilko wrote: post #25
mxuribe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea, i'll give that a shot. Thx for the tip!

Another options (particularly if your org runs off MS outlook & Teams) - pencil in the review time as an appointment in your calendar, so your status shows as 'Busy' during that time. If that's not sufficient, you can even make it a Teams meeting with only yourself in it, so then your Teams status would show that you're in a call.

Yeah, i use this technique - both a simple blocking appointment as well as a fake meeting with only myself...but what has even happened a few times is that someone will see that i have an appointment or meeting near the end of the day, and they figure they can book a short meeting with me immediately after that block...I have a colleague at work who from about 6pm until the following day blocks his calendar with an "out of office" signal...so its 100% clear that he is off the clock and not available...but still people in this company (from other timezones mostly but sometimes also the same timezone) harass others regardless if a calendar os blcoked, etc...Like i said its simply toxic where i work in this way. But, i appreciate the idea, thanks!

Re: A simple habit that saves my evenings

#92

Post by mxuribe »

cyberpunk wrote: post #27
mxuribe wrote: post #9

During my previous jobs, i used to use a sort of "end of day review" to see both what i accomplished that day (which made me feel good when i completed things), plus also get allowed me to get ready for what i need to do the next day. I suppose its similar to the habit denoted in this piece; pretty cool! At my current job, things are messier and shall we say not sustainable - culture is simply toxic. I actually can n…

Genuine question, why do you feel the need to respond to every message? I work in a place with teams on my project split across multiple time zones, and I reply to people when I'm able. If something is really on fire, I'll get a load of messages but generally that stuff should go to the team chat and not at me directly. Of course, we all keep some 'favourites' we do the odd favour for, but if you can't find 15 minute…

I appreciate your comments @cyberpunk!

> ...I work in a place with teams on my project split across multiple time zones, and I reply to people when I'm able...

I've worked in other places where i did just as you noted! But, here, at my current dayjob, the culture is vastly different in some ways compared to all the other companies that i've worked for (over the quarter century that i've sent being part of digital/technical teams across many medium and large enterprises).

Further, i wouldn't say that i'm trying to be a superhero, its merely that there's political pressure here to be "on"/activated all the time. I've been on global teams before, and as you noted, unless there is some massive issue, availability of members of the team is assumed to be within a reasonable range of hours per one's timezone...But, here, many enterprise cultural norms are thrown out the window. I kinda would assume that maybe some unique startup that is so new to the world might behave like this, but this company has been around a long time...and they seem to have lots of churn of their digital/tech teams....and although no company is perfect, this firm's issues i believe stems mostly from its toxic culture. So, for now, i'm doing my time, putting up with the annoyance for the time being, until it suits me to jump ship. Just not worth it for my peace of mind.

Re: A simple habit that saves my evenings

#96

Post by SenHeng »

auggierose wrote: post #73
j_bum wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to hear how to start today efficiently. Please do share! Sincerely, A true night owl.

Go to bed not later than 11pm. Wake up not later than 6am. Try to avoid HN after waking up and get straight to work. If you are productive as a night owl, you will be even more productive this way.

Ah yes, the tried and true “Have you tried not being a night owl?” method. Works every time.

Re: A simple habit that saves my evenings

#97

Post by rockercoaster »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #50
rockercoaster wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the oldest reference is we can find to this practice. I bet it's very old. Oldest I know of is only the late 19th century, but I bet we could beat that by at least several hundred years. Surely it comes up at least once somewhere in Shakespeare?

What’s the 19th century reference?

I Found No Peace by Webb Miller, published 1936, which is an autobiographical work by a reporter and war correspondent. I actually got the dates slightly wrong, this would have been the first decade of the 20th, not the 1890s as I thought (he wasn't old enough in that decade for the episode in question to have fallen in the 19th century, it was probably in something like 1905-1908).

Page 13 in my copy (I had trouble finding the passage in the scan I found on Internet Archive, I think it's a later printing that is somewhat abridged). He's writing of working for the state highway department, making road cuts and shoveling gravel:

> Some deliberately delayed the physical calls of nature in the morning until after they came to work. That give them the opportunity of taking ten minutes off. The nonshirkers applied blunt Anglo-Saxon terms to that particular trick.

Given his supplying the term "shirk" in that sentence and the characterization of their label for it as "Anglo-Saxon", I think what he's getting at is they called them "shit shirkers", which is pretty funny.

Re: A simple habit that saves my evenings

#99

Post by pazimzadeh »

satvikpendem wrote: post #74
pazimzadeh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's like most of the workday already gone if you don't work in the evenings, which he explicitly mentioned he does probably he does things easy tasks, things that can be done on autopilot, gradually moving on to initial attempts at harder tasks?

So they're just in a state of quasi work for the entire day in the evenings too? If they spend 6 hours on easy tasks when do they have the time for the hard tasks unless they work something like 12 hour days?

it sounds like they have time to go on a 100+ km bike ride throughout during the day, which isn't work. just going off of what they wrote..

seems like they enjoy what they do and/or enjoy what they do, which is critical for non-morning people

Re: A simple habit that saves my evenings

#100

Post by satvikpendem »

smartbit wrote: post #85
auggierose wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, this is not medical advice. In case you are not sick, this will work though.

That he doesn’t react to the suggestion of trying daily a few hours of cardio exercises instead preferring a few hours of insomnia, indeed tells me there are other issues in his/her life.

No, it's because if you have an actual medical condition, doing exercise doesn't work. I do exercise daily, it doesn't actually solve the core issue. It's like saying you can solve a broken leg with exercise.
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