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Thanks for asking this. I have always wondered the same and I look forward to the answers. I am not as prolific as many of the people you are probably thinkin

Thanks for asking this. I have always wondered the same and I look forward to the answers. I am not as prolific as many of the people you are probably thinking of but I am slightly above average. Here are a few things that WORKED FOR ME: - Learn & use GTD - life changing. I use omnifocus but you can do it with pen & paper - Automate as much as you can - checkout keyboard maestro and many other tools - Use your calendar efficiently - block time for reading, playing, OSS or whatever - wake up early - excercise (i don't do too much but the days I do, I feel great) - keyboard shortcuts for everything - look for productivity tips for whatever tools you are using. - turn off facebook and distracting material - monitor your time - I use rescue time - outsource as much as you can. I use fancyhands.com to handle things like calling the phone company, cable company, making appointments and so on. It saved me tons of hours of BS tasks - I have had some success with the pomodora technique as well, give it a shot. - Don't work more than 8 hours a day - Work from home as much as you can - don't burn out - for side projects, blogging, oss or whatever it is you want to do, i find it better to do 1 or 2 hours a day than try to crank 8 hours on sunday. - spend time with friends and family - it's amazing how your productivit improves when you are refreshed - take a power nap or naps - sleep well I am married with infant twins so I try to be as efficient as possible with the limited time I have infront of the computer. 1 hour of highly focused work yields more output than 4 hours of distracted, half-ass work. forgive the self promotion but I think it is relevant. I put together a free ebook about mac productivity tips - might not be as helpful for techies like you but you might at least learn a trick or 2 or find an app that you never heard off - www.bestmactips.com

SkyMarshal 11y ago
What's GDT?
- self 11y ago
  GTD = Getting Things Done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
- marknutter 11y ago
  Probably meant GTD (Getting Things Done)
- jastix 11y ago
  "Getting Things Done" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
- lbo1 11y ago
  Getting Things Done, I presume?
Numberwang 11y ago
As someone who has tried GTD and failed. Do you mind me asking a few questions? How do you deal with habits? What are projects and what are tasks? Is vacuuming once a week something you would schedule in a calendar? Would you schedule doing dental floss every night? Also, for big projects which would have a task list of several 100 tasks, many of which would not be visible to you on the outset, how would you deal with those? And what about all those halfbaked, barely logged ideas, sentences for things to write someday, concepts... In essence. GTD stresses me out because it promises complete control over what to do and think about and when. Trying to implement it whilst dealing with the above questions induces anxiety and procrastination.
- eibrahim 11y ago
  Great question. Here are some answer and again, this what works FOR ME. inbox/collection: everytime I think of something i add it to my tool's inbox (omnifocus), so if we are talking and you mention a book or movie, i would hit a shortcut (or on my phone) and enter "watch american history x" done... process: once a day, I would go through my inbox and categroize stuff... takes very little time... so the movie might go into my "movies to watch" project. implement signup page might go into my "App x project" etc... I usually add context as well so "call Joe about insurance" will have a "phone" context review: this was the MOST important step in my process. I review my projects once a week on friday and make sure i don't forget anything. I have a recurring task to remind me to do a weekly review. This step was essentially the biggest improvement I did in my process. Omnifocus makes it easy because I can set when i want to review each process... so my "books to read" project is reviewed once a month but my "launch taskorami" project is once a week, etc... Answers: - I add some habits like workout every other day, or pray/meditate in the am, but i don't go crazy and add "brush teeth", "wipe butt", etc... - projects = something with multiple tasks or longer duration e.g. "baby proof house" with tasks like research cabinet proofing, outlet proofing, padding for table corners, buy gates for stairs, door handle proofing, CO sensor, etc... but sometime i don't turn things into a project so "replace sink", i will probably just add multiple tasks instead of a project like "find plumber", "buy sink" and so on. - the large projects get reviewed during my weekly review so i get to skim through the tasks and priortize accordingly. - for half-backed ideas i have several "reference projects" such as "movies to watch" "startup ideas" "places to visit" "open source ideas" "things to checkout" "blog posts ideas" and I usually set these projects to be reviewed once a month or even more. The key is, it's a pretty flexible system, you just need to find what works for you. and like i said, you can use pen and paper a thousand other online tools - my favorite is omnifocus Tool: I use omnifocus and I love it but the one thing I hate about omnifocus is that it is mac and iphone only which is the reason i built taskorami.com - it's in private beta but I haven't really worked on it for a while - been busy with baby twins. You can check it out and use the invitation code "vip" to signup (private link: https://taskorami.firebaseapp.com/a/ https://taskorami.firebaseapp.com/a/) . It's built on ember and firebase and has a responsive/mobile site but no native apps. PS: sorry for typos and bad grammar - too tired to edit :)
cprayingmantis 11y ago
Starting out it seems hard just to work 8 hours a day when everyone else is in the office for 10 or 12. How do you balance this?
- eibrahim 11y ago
  Do it from day one and set their expectations right away. But of course do a good job and get stuff done. Make the 8 hours count. That's why I said work from home then you don't have to pretend to work for 10 hours. You will be more flexible. Under promise over deliver is the best tip I ever got.

SkyMarshal 11y ago

What's GDT?

self 11y ago
GTD = Getting Things Done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
marknutter 11y ago
Probably meant GTD (Getting Things Done)
jastix 11y ago
"Getting Things Done" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
lbo1 11y ago
Getting Things Done, I presume?

Numberwang 11y ago

As someone who has tried GTD and failed. Do you mind me asking a few questions? How do you deal with habits? What are projects and what are tasks? Is vacuuming once a week something you would schedule in a calendar? Would you schedule doing dental floss every night? Also, for big projects which would have a task list of several 100 tasks, many of which would not be visible to you on the outset, how would you deal with those? And what about all those halfbaked, barely logged ideas, sentences for things to write someday, concepts... In essence. GTD stresses me out because it promises complete control over what to do and think about and when. Trying to implement it whilst dealing with the above questions induces anxiety and procrastination.

eibrahim 11y ago
Great question. Here are some answer and again, this what works FOR ME. inbox/collection: everytime I think of something i add it to my tool's inbox (omnifocus), so if we are talking and you mention a book or movie, i would hit a shortcut (or on my phone) and enter "watch american history x" done... process: once a day, I would go through my inbox and categroize stuff... takes very little time... so the movie might go into my "movies to watch" project. implement signup page might go into my "App x project" etc... I usually add context as well so "call Joe about insurance" will have a "phone" context review: this was the MOST important step in my process. I review my projects once a week on friday and make sure i don't forget anything. I have a recurring task to remind me to do a weekly review. This step was essentially the biggest improvement I did in my process. Omnifocus makes it easy because I can set when i want to review each process... so my "books to read" project is reviewed once a month but my "launch taskorami" project is once a week, etc... Answers: - I add some habits like workout every other day, or pray/meditate in the am, but i don't go crazy and add "brush teeth", "wipe butt", etc... - projects = something with multiple tasks or longer duration e.g. "baby proof house" with tasks like research cabinet proofing, outlet proofing, padding for table corners, buy gates for stairs, door handle proofing, CO sensor, etc... but sometime i don't turn things into a project so "replace sink", i will probably just add multiple tasks instead of a project like "find plumber", "buy sink" and so on. - the large projects get reviewed during my weekly review so i get to skim through the tasks and priortize accordingly. - for half-backed ideas i have several "reference projects" such as "movies to watch" "startup ideas" "places to visit" "open source ideas" "things to checkout" "blog posts ideas" and I usually set these projects to be reviewed once a month or even more. The key is, it's a pretty flexible system, you just need to find what works for you. and like i said, you can use pen and paper a thousand other online tools - my favorite is omnifocus Tool: I use omnifocus and I love it but the one thing I hate about omnifocus is that it is mac and iphone only which is the reason i built taskorami.com - it's in private beta but I haven't really worked on it for a while - been busy with baby twins. You can check it out and use the invitation code "vip" to signup (private link: https://taskorami.firebaseapp.com/a/ https://taskorami.firebaseapp.com/a/) . It's built on ember and firebase and has a responsive/mobile site but no native apps. PS: sorry for typos and bad grammar - too tired to edit :)

cprayingmantis 11y ago

Starting out it seems hard just to work 8 hours a day when everyone else is in the office for 10 or 12. How do you balance this?

eibrahim 11y ago
Do it from day one and set their expectations right away. But of course do a good job and get stuff done. Make the 8 hours count. That's why I said work from home then you don't have to pretend to work for 10 hours. You will be more flexible. Under promise over deliver is the best tip I ever got.