Producer vs. Consumer
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Producer vs. Consumer
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Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#2I personally find that even just 5 minute exercise in the morning before I take a shower gets me in the right mood.
Before I eat my breakfast or take a shower, I'll do a couple of pressups until I can't any more (usually about 40) and then some sit-ups(30 crunches and 30 normal ones). I'll then do so really light stretching (no idea what the names are: fetus position to stretching my back as I try to look at the ceiling etc...)
I'm currently living in Russia right now and trying to learn the language so my whole breakfast/exercise/shower I've got some Russian audio book playing in the background as well.
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#3I wonder, as a research scientist, how one reconciles the fact that your mostly a consumer of academic literature.
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#4So simple, but so spot on.
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#5I wonder, as a research scientist, how one reconciles the fact that your mostly a consumer of academic literature.
This is a difficult balance to master: you undoubtedly need to read a lot... both deeply and broadly. But there is such a thing as reading too much. It can curb creativity and become a goal in and of itself. I have not solved this problem... :)
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#6I find that this pattern works really well for me, even if it's not at the start of my day. When I get home from work, I try to "produce" something, like writing a blog post, exercising, or spending an hour coding a side-project. As a result, I don't have the mental guilt about watching a movie, reading HN, or playing xbox later in the evening.
I find if I do things in the reverse order (come home from work, plop down and start checking Twitter/reddit) then it quickly becomes dinner time and my brain has "shut down" for the day. It's easy to lull myself into thinking "Well Matt, today is almost over so no sense in starting something, just work on $FOO tomorrow".
Another trick that I've found that is highly effective for me is to "link" a producing behavior to a consuming one. I'm a bit of a TV addict so I made a deal with myself - I can watch as much TV as I want, as long as I'm doing it on the treadmill. Maybe you really enjoy listening to podcasts or sports talk radio, allow yourself to consume but only while you are doing chores or running errands. Some would argue that this is not a good way to build habits (in the sense that you are doing a behavior for the wrong motivations - in my case I am exercising in order to watch TV not to become healthier) but its been working for me so far.
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#7Happens to me all the time. Whenever I sit down and bs, with the intention of doing work later, work later never happens.
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#8I wonder, as a research scientist, how one reconciles the fact that your mostly a consumer of academic literature.
Quick observation: With research science, there is an end goal; something you would like to achieve with your reading outside of burning time and general malaise.
Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#9I find that this pattern works really well for me, even if it's not at the start of my day. When I get home from work, I try to "produce" something, like writing a blog post, exercising, or spending an hour coding a side-project. As a result, I don't have the mental guilt about watching a movie, reading HN, or playing xbox later in the evening. I find if I do things in the reverse order (come home from work, plop dow…
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Re: Producer vs. Consumer
#10I wonder, as a research scientist, how one reconciles the fact that your mostly a consumer of academic literature.
Try to peruse academic literature in light of your own research and interests.
Related is Richard Feynman's method, quoting https://findings.com/joejanowski/document/18782:
Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say: "How did he do it? He must be a genius!"