21 ms·

How I got to 200 productive hours a month

853 points by miqkt 9y ago

zerr 9y ago
Interesting. Yet another "Mac" time tracker and todo management app. Do all these apps make some ramen income (at least)? An article on this would've been more useful ;)
- Void_ 9y ago
  I built a minor one - FocusList (http://focuslist.co http://focuslist.co) and it makes ramen income. Here's an article about Timing: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/timing https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/timing I think he's doing much better now since he's released the new version. It's a great app too, worth the money. I don't use it to actually track my time, but I use it to track my internet time - how much time I spent browsing. If you're looking for something simpler for that purpose there's also this: http://focuslist.co/escape2/ http://focuslist.co/escape2/
- maccard 9y ago
  I thought the article was quite good. It only mentions their product once, in an appropriate place, and aloud lists alternatives (along with a clear message this is their product).
- ivm 9y ago
  > Do all these apps make some ramen income (at least)? Yes, but 3-4 times less than I can earn by just freelancing. But it's mostly a visibility problem — time tracking keywords are too competitive. I wouldn't recommend developing Mac-only apps because they are too hard to promote. Press is not interested in reviewing software for 15-20% of their readers. Even Apple-centered press is more about iPhones nowadays.
  - zerr 9y ago
    Btw, any reason not going cross-platform (Win/Linux along with Mac)? Judging by screenshots it doesn't look like a native Cocoa app, neither download size corresponds to Electron - what framework did you use for the UI?
    - ivm 9y ago
      It's a native Cocoa app, we just styled it a bit. Automatic tracking is the main reason for focusing on a single platform – it's too close to the system. Even on Mac I encounter complex special cases too often. Plus I have zero experience in Windows or Linux development.
wingerlang 9y ago
EDIT: Not that sneaky, just me completely blanking on the sentence after the actual link! Original comment below. ---- Sneaky. I clicked around on the links he had on his tools and found one that looked interesting (Qbserve) and it turns out it's one of his products which I felt would have been nice to have as a note. The only indication of this is the bottom footer header which also says Qbserve.
- boundlessdreamz 9y ago
  Did the copy change? It says "our automatic time tracker" and it is also on the same domain. It's an excellent tool. I have only tried the free trial though. $40 feels a bit high. $25 or below would have been an instant buy. I think he will also get better conversions if the free trial is 30 days instead of 10
  - wingerlang 9y ago
    You are probably right, it just didn't register in my head. I've edited my comment.
  - beagleman 9y ago
    I've been using Qbserve for maybe 6 months. It has saved me, I don't know, 4-6 hours a month ret-conning and tuning timesheets. It's also meant I've gotten paid for those trivial jobs that I always forget to enter into even the simplest manual tracker. The productivity boost (which I have absolutely noticed) is a nice bonus. I don't know what you charge for your time, but Qbserve paid for it for me several times over in the first month.
    - ivm 9y ago
      Thank you, I'm happy to hear that it works as intended!
  - ivm 9y ago
    Thank you. We set this price because it's not a subscription and you don't need to pay for upgrades. It's not a lucrative pricing model compared to $70-150/yr competitors and going lower in a niche market would be too uncomfortable.
JetSpiegel 9y ago
I was expecting the answer to be "hired a employee", not "worked 50h work weeks".
- derefr 9y ago
  I get what you're saying, but "productive hours a month" as a metric has to really be per-person, because hiring a new person should cause "reversion to the mean" in the productivity calculus, instead of magically increasing the total. Mythical Man Month logic dictates that a boss that is ~90% efficient at using their own time, that hires and delegates work to someone who is only 50% efficient, will end up getting less done (due to the quadratic communication overhead) than they would have with no subordinates. The best "productivity hacks", given communication overhead is a thing, aren't those that increase the total number of people trying to be productive, but rather those that increase each individual employee's productivity in a reliable way—such that they can be applied successfully by a large portion of the organization, rather than just to one hypomanic dude.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Over the years, I've employed a lot of people. Unless there is a crisis, I don't want anyone working that many hours. If there is a crisis, then I still don't want anyone working that many hours, so we need to figure out how to avoid that crisis in the future. I found that people start to lose productivity after about 36 hours per week. Just four more hours, a full 40 hours, saw a drop in production. Over 40 hours and it was very noticeable. This mostly applied to mentally taxing jobs. My solution was, as best as I could, to hire people to do certain jobs, not hire them to fill seats for certain hours. Employees had a job to do and I was happy so long as they got it done well and on time. If they got it done early, they still got paid the same. I'd not much care if they just went home after their job was done. So long as they met the time constraints, it was all good. Now, they usually stuck around and worked on other stuff, helped out, or refined their work. We also had, at one office, a pool table and small bar in the back - so they could opt to just hang around. Still, once knowledge workers go past about 36 hours, they start to really slow down - by my observations. It really wasn't worth it, most of the time, to have someone working overtime. They get sloppy, slow, and unhappy. It can be done for a crunch time, but that I found that should be a rare thing. The Seattle Hundreds that I hear about? Yeah, if I caught an employee trying to do something like that, I'd probably have reprimanded them. If they kept it up, I'd have probably terminated their employment with us. I don't want worn out employees and I don't want others feeling pressured to work long hours. Heh... Sometimes I kinda miss the office. Threads like these bring back fond memories.
McMini 9y ago
Reading this while procrastinating feels good
notMick 9y ago
Great advice for clearing the distractions. Another technique to use is to set 15 minute timers. You can try and get something completed in that time (ie race the clock challenge), or just a "wake up" event to alert you that you've been staring at a poster for the last 10 mins.....
kobeya 9y ago
> Two years ago I could spend a week not working because I was avoiding some task. This is a great article and there’s plenty to talk about in organizational systems, even if this seems to be subtly pitching his own products in places. But if anyone reading this identifies with this sort of chronic procrastination, consider seeking psychiatric help. This is a giant red flag for adult ADHD, which is a serious and often misunderstood issue, and one of the few psychiatric diagnoses for which there is solid treatments (stimulants) with near universal efficacy and very few side effects. Getting on Adderall, then Vyvanse changed my life for the better, and basically solved this issue overnight, as well as a bunch of other benefits.
- Void_ 9y ago
  Well actually I think people should first try getting off social media - and not just that - getting off Internet.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    If you have ADHD it’s not so simple. When I’m off my pills — which is to say every day of my life before I was diagnosed — I don’t really make conscious decisions about such things. I open my computer to work and find myself on Twitter or Facebook or HN or whatever 20min later without thinking about it. I mean that literally with no hyperbole. ADHD manifests from an under developed or under stimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for such task prioritization and decision making. Without stimulants I’m not really making conscious decisions about most things. Much like how you’ve probably driven your commute sometimes and arrived without really much memory of how you got there (“driving on autopilot”). That’s every moment of every day in the most extreme ADHD case (it’s a spectrum of course and you should seek treatment if you think you’re anywhere on it, even if the above sounds more extreme than you).
    - seedie 9y ago
      Were there things on the other hand that you could focus on very well, were you dived in deeply? Or did your autopilot drive you away from everything you were focused on after a while? thanks for sharing your experience
jlebrech 9y ago
I found when I freelanced I would only work on direct requests that needed immediate action for the first half of the day and count that as me time, and work post office hours on the stuff that needed my focus.
mbrock 9y ago
TL;DR: Basically getting up early and doing 4 hours of deep work has changed my life from really stressful and bad to really productive and nice. One thing really fundamentally helped me, as someone who works from home on a large project in an asynchronous 100% remote organization. I work on a fairly involved project that demands a lot of hard work. At the same time there are other things I want to get done: some administrative duties, some nonprofit work, etc etc. That makes me stressed and anxious, and my natural response to that is to buckle down and try to "finish" the big projects, by overworking... Except overworking doesn't actually tend to mean getting a lot of work done, because I spend more mental energy being stressed about how much I have to do than I spend on actually doing it. It's a pretty vicious cycle and I guess it is a proximate cause of burnout. It all changed when I realized I cannot sustainably do more than a few hours of hard work every day, and took that to heart. Now I don't try to get more done in a day than is sustainably possible. I wake up pretty early, around 6, sometimes 7, sometimes 5. Then I make a cup of coffee, some small breakfast, and sit down in my comfortable coding environment, and do a sprint of serious working. About 4 hours of that is usually enough to land a decent series of commits that definitely advance the project. Then I do the mental magic that previous me never did. I think: "Wow, that's great work for one day! I'm definitely on track!" And at this point it's like 11 AM. So I can happily go have lunch, another cup of coffee, listen to a podcast or something, and know that I have plenty of time in the afternoon for paying bills and whatnot. I also like to take some time in the afternoon to improve my work life in some rewarding way. This includes Emacs tweaking, build server and CI setup, etc. Lately I've managed to get my business email into a form that I enjoy. (Details: my maildir gets mined for all the important recurring PDFs which end up in monthly folders, and since yesterday I even have a shell script that uses "pdftotext -layout" to parse out due amounts and OCR/reference numbers from the few recurring bills we need to pay manually. This eliminates a type of drudgery that I really loathe, so it's a huge win in terms of mental energy.)
- tshanmu 9y ago
  This is so much relatable to my situation. Thanks for the tips!
- lazyjones 9y ago
  Sounds to me like you had some issues with distractions during the day, amplified by working at home. Other people (like me) prefer to work late at night for the same reason, it also allows for a more social lifestyle (i.e. going out occasionally) than having to be in bed early.
scandox 9y ago
> The next step is taming your pocket monster. This really meant something quite different to me. I think sex (in whatever form) is an issue that needs to be taken semi-seriously within this context. Professors Mitchell and Webb have good advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk
hobos_delight 9y ago
I just finished this[1] book with tips about how to get back into that deep work routine, and whilst I'm not there yet - there have been some immediately tangible benefits. Like turning off work email push notifications, developing a routine (for my study after work - MSCS) and scheduling all parts of my day and sticking to them. It's not a long book, but I highly recommend it. [1] http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/
scirocco 9y ago
There are very few applications I allow to send notifications.
welly 9y ago
Who works 200 hours a month? That's either five 10 hour days a week or roughly seven 7 hour days a week. My time off work is far, far too important to me to be working either of those options. It seems I value working less than other people. I'm fine with that.
- crispinb 9y ago
  From the article it looks like he works 7 days a week, in two 3hr+ sessions. Not so punishing perhaps in terms purely of hours, but .. really? Not even one day off a week? In 2017? > It seems I value working less than other people I don't know anyone who works 7 days a week.
  - azag0 9y ago
    It also seems that he works at least partially on his own stuff. For me personally, there is a big difference between working on something for someone, and working on my own ideas. The latter tires me much less.
    - welly 9y ago
      This is quite true. I guess I don't count the hours I work on my own projects and learning.
      - azag0 9y ago
        I think this may be actually the source of much confusion in discussions of how much "work" is good.
  - welly 9y ago
    I should rephrase that to "some people"! And likewise, neither do I. I'd be interested to read a follow up blog post titled: "How I got down from 200 productive hours a month to something a bit more reasonable for sanity and health's sake".
    - 9y ago
unfamiliar 9y ago
Are there any MyFitnessPal alternatives that don't force you to log in so that they can monetise my eating habits?
- jacalata 9y ago
  What functionality are you looking for exactly?
  - unfamiliar 9y ago
    The ability to easily log all contents of meals, with a large searchable database so that I can just scan a barcode for most things or type the name. Then have the app tally up daily caloric intake, maybe macros, and graph it.
- dublinben 9y ago
  There's the command line program Nut. http://nut.sourceforge.net/ http://nut.sourceforge.net/
gazarullz 9y ago
For those people that manage to get up pretty early, 4-5 in the morning, how do they cope with the weekend and what kind of weekend schedule do they have ? What time do they usually go to sleep and what is their noon daily pattern (weekday and weekends). Most importantly how do they spend their time after 7pm during workdays and weekends ?
- hacker_9 9y ago
  "early to rise, early to bed, socially dead"
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Social life is overrated anyway. I used to be "late to rise, late to bed, fuck parties, let me live in peace when everyone else sleeps and doesn't distract me with nonsense", but recently my SO beat some sense into me, and I'm slowly joining the "early to rise" crowd now.
    - mtone 9y ago
      Care to share some of the arguments that made you change your views? For instance, wanting to build a family (having kids tends to force a morning schedule).
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Wanting to be "in the same timezone" as her (she's an early bird). Plus wanting to start a family somewhat soon-ish.
  - joncrocks 9y ago
    "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy but socially dead." ...from the Animaniacs It's a different take on: "Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise"
  - tome 9y ago
    Here's an idea. I'd be interested in fellow HNers thoughts on it. Get up really early, say 5am. Finish work perhaps 3pm. Sleep for four hours until 7pm. Go out, do other stuff, party as much as you like until 1am. Sleep. 8 hours sleep a day in 2 chunks of 4 hours. Would that work?
dsenkus 9y ago
Thanks for great article, I found some good ideas how to optimise my workflow. I think everyone should spend some time adopting these techniques, instead of relying on "autopilot" mode. Here's my mindmap of this article if anyone is interested: https://imgur.com/a/RnRgV https://imgur.com/a/RnRgV
- ivm 9y ago
  This is awesome, thanks! I will definitely make some mindmaps for our future articles.
- iluvmylife 9y ago
  What did you use to create this? Anyone have good recommendation for mind map tools?
  - dsenkus 9y ago
    I've used Omnigraffle for this one, but there are open source alternatives like FreeMind. Or you could use online tool like https://www.draw.io/ https://www.draw.io/
- graeme 9y ago
  Nice mind map. Is there a larger version? It is very blurry when viewed on my ipad.
  - dsenkus 9y ago
    Sure no problem, here's the larger one https://imgur.com/gallery/Nc2MP https://imgur.com/gallery/Nc2MP
    - graeme 9y ago
      Thanks!
syllogism 9y ago
When I read the article I was thinking there was actually something quite simple missing from it. I found that just measuring the number of productive hours per day was enough to be very helpful in breaking some bad habits, because it made me mindful of how I was spending my time. I was going to suggest the Qbserve tracker for this --- then I saw that that's actually your app! I guess you didn't want to plug it more, but anyway -- it's really good. I really missed it when I switched to Ubuntu.
- Loic 9y ago
  I have been using the Hamster time tracking application for the past 5 years (Ubuntu/Gnome3). It works very nicely, you can export everything as XML and you can query the database with Python. I am using the XML export to generate static work logs for my customers and the Python bindings (dbus) to generate some special efficiency stats for me.
- mistersquid 9y ago
  I've been using Timing, an amazing software with a very small memory and resource footprint. [0] If it matters, Timing's UX is very macOS-y both in my experience and in the opinion of Mac aficionado John Gruber. [1] I have no relation to product except that I'm a satisfied customer. [0] https://timingapp.com https://timingapp.com [1] (disclosure: advert) https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/07/02/timing https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/07/02/timing
  - Lord_Zero 9y ago
    Anything like this good for Windows?
    - pdm55 9y ago
      https://www.manictime.com/ https://www.manictime.com/
  - VonBeatsthoven 9y ago
    Am I missing something? It looks like it is actually a macOS app, not available for Linux?
saikatsg 9y ago
Turn off notifications...now!
- aversafe 9y ago
  and ringtones, the imessage link with your computer, etc. Put your apple watch on cinema mode. :)
emodendroket 9y ago
I don't believe anybody is really productive 200 hours in a month. Focus on fewer things if you feel you need to work 50 hours a week, every week.
- dx034 9y ago
  It's 46 hours a week and if he works 6 days a week that would be 9h per day. Considering that he has no commute it's probably not more than a 40h workday for most people working in an office. Rather less than that.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I went for the simplifying but technically inaccurate "four weeks in a month." Anyway, I'm not sure that commuting should be counted in the same bucket as work, but, more importantly, you seem to rather glibly gloss over having only one-day weekends. Like, OK, maybe I could do that a few weeks in a year, but all the time? It's a big difference.
- ivm 9y ago
  I'd like to focus on fewer things but I still feel that 50hrs are ok. We are awake about 16 hours each day. If less than 7 are spent working, there are still 9 hours each day for other stuff.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    OK, but plenty of that is spent on chores, washing, getting dressed, transportation, and other drudgery, so it's not as much time as it sounds like.
    - softawre 9y ago
      So optimize away the chores? In my case, marrying a woman who wanted to be a stay at home mom worked pretty well. I'd rather be working than doing chores, she'd rather stay home and feel productive cleaning the house, and we're both super happy.
empath75 9y ago
>Such news don't actually inform us but spread sensationalism, negative emotions, and outright lies to capture attention. What do you gain from following the latest political crisis or some scandal? You can't do anything meaningful about these events. They only depress you and occupy space in your mind. It's better to direct your focus toward things that we can actually impact and improve. This is a depressing point of view to have and dangerous to the future of democratic system.
- wainstead 9y ago
  While I specifically disagree with the OP that "You can't do anything meaningful about these events," the rest of the advice is pretty dead-on. I've read it from a spectrum of authors as wide as Dale Carnegie ("How To Stop Worrying and Start Living") to Dr. Andrew Weil ("8 Weeks to Optimum Health") to Cal Newport ("Deep Work"). Think of it this way: it's good to be well-informed about the state of political affairs today and to understand the issues. What's not healthy is obsessively reading Twitter every hour, constantly being outraged and getting into flame wars (does anyone even use that term anymore?)
- Delmania 9y ago
  I agree. There's a wonderful statement that says that even if you don't take an interest in politics, politics will take an interest in you. It definitely is the responsibility of every citizen in a democratic nation to stay informed of what the government is doing. I think, however, the point here is to avoid obsessing over politics. If you learn of something that deeply disturbs or affect you, arguing about it on Reddit will not help, you need to take action. Contact your representatives, get involved in a PAC or political party, etc. You need to take as much action as you can.
- Asdfbla 9y ago
  That statement doesn't preclude some political activity if you consider it to be something that you can actually "impact and improve", in the author's words. Of course I can only speculate about the author's original intent, but I think I agree insofar that most daily news out there is irrelevant for most individuals. Even if you have a political cause you are interested in, you have limited time and energy, so it might be better to just stay informed in those areas that concern you and ignore the rest of the daily news. You can't fix the world as an individual, so it's pointless to concern yourself with things you can't impact. Of course that still means that everyone should probably find a little thing where they can try to make a change.
fidraj 9y ago
One of my coworkers is doing this: wake up early at about 6am, work till 4pm = 9 hours with a lunch break and commute. After he comes back home, he spends time with his gf watching tv but still coding for another 2 hours at least. This way he can work 220 hours a month not counting his side projects he works on weekends/free time. He is easily pulling about 250-260 hours a month. Yes, he's a workaholic.
leksak 9y ago
Am I the only one trying to do less?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Maybe. I'm personally trying to have "what I actually do" be closer to "what I want to be doing", and if I decide to do something, I want to always be doing it at peak performance.
- jventura 9y ago
  Nope, I'm reading this and thinking how I could do only 1 to 2 hours of deep productive work. I want to simplify my life...
  - leksak 9y ago
    Yeah I'm kind of tired trying to achieve things all the time.
rdudekul 9y ago
"Some people report success with Pomodoro, but I find it too short to make a deep dive into work." Pomodoro technique has been working for me very well. I started with 25 minute Pomodoros, gradually increased the duration to now 50 minutes per Pomodoro. I am able to do deep work (per my needs) consistently for about 4 Pomodoros per day.
ulkesh 9y ago
> Caution: The mentioned amount of hours is not advisable for people working on someone else's business for illusory stock options, with no payment for overtime. There's also no point in going beyond this number because working over 50 hours a week actually decreases productivity. Life should come first in the "work-life balance." Great disclaimer in the article. The only problem is that many employers will be quite happy with people working 50+ hours per week. It's up to the employee to not let an employer take that much advantage of them (this includes having enough savings to be able to put in notice at the job at any point, assuming no contract or law would prevent it). The current landscape of the technology field, while lucrative for an employee, especially in the United States, is tremendously skewed toward the business where many employers see high turn-around as the rule, and no longer the exception, leading the employer to expect employees to work such high numbers of hours. If a person likes working 200 hours per month, I wish them all the best and hope they are hourly-paid. Being salary-paid and having a family means I will continue to limit myself to 40 hours per week working for someone else. At a point where I work for myself, then, of course, that number may change.
- albertgoeswoof 9y ago
  A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete. This is because the employee is then forced to prioritise their work themselves and only focus on the pieces of work that align with their incentives. Which should align with the company incentivies. If this was not the case, then the organization would need to employ additional staff to plan work, in order to maximise efficiency. Which would be waste. So if you're working for someone else, prioritize and cut what you don't have time for. You'll be surprised what you can cut.
  - tehlike 9y ago
    "A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete." That's the whole problem, right there. Sometimes, this "well run" company will generate work that might not matter, not at all.
shoover 9y ago
I read this as a single article distillation of the principles in Deep Work by Cal Newport, very well done. It's been a while since I read Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt, but the article feels familiar with that, as well (I recall a helpful section on meditation). The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry is another great resource. Newport's sources showed that most people are capable of about four hours of deep work per day. If you hit that level, add in 2-3 hours of shallower tasks, and do it every day, you reach 200 "productive hours" in a month. I'm not sure how many people are willing or able to carve out two 3-hour blocks more than five days a week, but it seems highly worthwhile to step back once a month or quarter, with one's s.o. or family, if present, and think about what is possible and what makes sense in support of mutual goals. From there, in light of the goals and constraints, the article's breakdown for cultivating the environment, body, and mind are clarifying. Ok, I'm sitting down with my wife and doing this this weekend. The gist of the article is what I try to practice, and I find the strategy refresher motivating. I have had good success with removing push notifications, removing the phone from the workspace, sleeping at the same time, regular breaks to stay limber, targeted muscle work (rowing during winter until it gets too boring, the Roam Strong workout plan currently), and reducing junk calories intake. I've had less success building deep work persistence by making streaks and subdividing tasks. I think it's time to force the break to a separate device for leisure. How much is it worth spending on a CO2 monitor? As a remote worker, I'm in the same air space almost all day every day, so if there is a low grade problem, I'm cooked.
- ismail 9y ago
  Great post. What I am struggling with is the following: These processes of deep work seem to be much easier to implement if you are doing remote work, coding, reasearch and more solitary work. Anyone successfully implement this in a business with staff? What are your strategies?
  - shoover 9y ago
    Interesting question. I work three hours ahead of most people in my company, so I take the offline time I can get in the morning and make myself available the rest of the day. Something like that may work for a morning person in an office, but without a time zone limitation blessing an early exit every day, that may not be culturally feasible without just working more. In the book Newport runs down more strategies than regular daily blocks, everything from offsite retreats to people who can go deep on command whenever they get a small window. He described one professor who would use different modes based on his academic calendar, I think roughly by week or month granularity. During teaching times he was 100% available to students and staff, but during writing times his door was shut and everyone knew not to go in. The book is definitely worth a read if you're interested in more strategies.
patwalls 9y ago
> Get a separate device for leisure and use it far from your workplace to cultivate location-based behaviors. Can someone explain this more? Curious to how others approach this as well.
- driverdan 9y ago
  Have two computers and two desks, preferably in separate rooms. One is for leisure, the other is for work. It gives you physical separation of tasks which makes it much easier to focus on the correct context.
- ivm 9y ago
  Author here, I read HN and other distracting sites in the bed or from the "gym" room where we don't have a chair or a couch – only a yoga mat. It's not comfortable to sit there for more than an hour. By the way, I also have a "walking treadmill + wall shelf" setup to watch TV series from my laptop on the go.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  I'd like to know how others do this as well. I left my iPad Air on a plan. Older iPad I have is too slow to be used leisurely. iPhone is okay but sometimes I like having a more involved break. In that case I'd prefer having an ipad at minimum. I like to walk around at a fast pace while taking my break too when possible so a chromebook wouldn't work so well. Because I just have my phone as my break device. I've started to blur the lines again and take breaks at my desk too much and feel like I procrastinate more now. I just set up a productivity app that blocks sites and apps. Will see how it goes until I buy a newer iPad or think of something.
- saiprashanth93 9y ago
  I was also curious about this. Don't have enough data on how this works in real life. What is to say that you won't spend more time on entertainment now that you have a separate device for it?
freshhawk 9y ago
Besides the larger issues of whether or not this is something you should be doing, this seems a decent overview. Except for one part, the amount of exercise is terribly low. A swim a couple times a week and 30 minute walks every day is not good enough for your health or if you are chasing peak performance. First of all, this isn't even enough to offset the damage this much inactivity will cause. If you want peak mental performance and endurance then you want to be very active and very fit. Doesn't really matter what it is, although it should favour cardio over muscle mass at least a little.
- therealdrag0 9y ago
  I thought the latest was that it's diminishing returns (of life expectancy gains) after 30min of cardio (Assuming swimming is that) every day is not required.
- mrgill92 9y ago
  Source on that?
dahart 9y ago
There is too much good advice in this article. ;) By that I mean all the advice is great, but it's very difficult to change multiple habits at the same time, especially core habits like eating and sleeping and entertainment and work. Whenever I do that I revert pretty quickly. Changing one thing at a time and figuring out how to remove the friction from that one thing has been my path to success. For work hours, a simple work timer is what does the trick for me. I use Toggl - I have no affiliation, I dont know if it's the best, and I don't necessarily recommend it, but it does make it easy to keep track of how many minutes a day I'm sitting at my desk, and to assign those minutes to various tasks. Just having a metric for work hours is a big change and has helped me stay more focused.
shade23 9y ago
While I love the advice, my qualm are with the measurement of productivity,I use qbserve too,checking my logs I see 307 hours as an average for the past 4 months.(this includes office and my personal projects and also my studies(distance masters).But not every moment you spend on an IDE,terminal,<insert other tools associated with productivity> .. productive.I know that I spend 20% of time yak shaving.Trying to figure out why something simple is broken.This is not the time I would count as productivity. Measuring productivity as the completion of goals/output generated per hour spent seems to be a more viable quantity, however goals get modified too.Plus this is a much more time consuming process than just measuring hours. I find measuring time spent on productive apps to be analogous to measuring productivity using LOC, both are opaque and do not convey the actual meaning of what they are measuring.
throwawagrrm 9y ago
questionable choice on the grrm citation
SubiculumCode 9y ago
The author mentions that George R.R. Martin uses a similar set-up to separate work from leisure. Then I think: George RR Martin is a notoriously slow writer. Many are legitimately worried he will not finish GoT before heart disease takes the beloved author.
- clavalle 9y ago
  GRRM is a slow GOT writer. He pumps out other projects.
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    I see him listed as the editor quite frequently, true.
- treehau5 9y ago
  Yet GOT will last generations upon generations. There will be many reboots, rewrites, and scripts all based upon the work he has done long after he is gone. That is to say sometimes the best things in life take time. Most of our software projects won't make it past one year.
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    At the end of one of his books the author notes that the reader might be asking "Where is Tyrion?" The entire book had not contained my favorite character of the Game of Thrones series: Tyrion. The author continues, and I paraphrase "The story has a lot of plot lines and I decided to separate them into two books. No worries the next book will come out in a few months." It was in fact many many years
treehau5 9y ago
I found a lot of this advice, coincidentally, in the book "Respawn" over at game quitters (I had a horrible video game addiction that I decided I needed to break) -- that is the advice to apply the same psychological principles that get people hooked to video games to other things in life. This is the ultimate life hack for me and something I am still working on.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Could you say more about this? I was just talking with somebody about video game addictions, and I'd love to have more resources to offer people struggling with it.
  - treehau5 9y ago
    Well depends on what angle I could talk all day -- it's cathartic! In any case, video game addiction is real, it is an addiction, and it fits the bill just like any other type of addiction. Granted it is without the heavy consequences sometimes faced by substance addictions, but nonetheless, it can have real direct consequenses on your health. To me the signs were clear: 1. At the point where the instant you get bored and have free time, you automatically think to play video games 2. Thinking about video games or wishing to play while doing other activities 3. Other important areas in life suffer as a result of your video game addiction, such as neglecting a spouse or significant other, or falling behind in work, or showing up to work late all the time because you stayed up all night playing video games. Starting to lie about your problem or how much you actually play ("oh I don't really play that much" when really you recorded 20k hours of Counterstrike or you have played 1,000+ games in S7 to try and hit Platinum for the first time in League of Legends), lieing to your friends and family about your free time and missing out on important events "oh I am busy, sorry I can't come" but then you just go play video games. 4. Physical symptoms -- sleep deprivation due to playing video games, getting out of shape from sitting in a computer chair hours on end, eating junk food and takeout because cooking takes too much time and it cuts into your game time, posture being affected, eye sight affected, constant headaches, wrist pain, etc. 5. The most important sign to me -- the feeling of regret that you aren't accomplishing the things you wish to accomplish. Video games give you that false sense of accomplishment, but deep down inside, you wish you could do that side project, you wish you could hang out more with friends, or even get out more to make friends, you wish you could go to the gym and eat healthier to be in shape, etc. But even if it's not in this list, the most important thing is you wish you weren't playing video games because you want to be doing other things, but it's just so enticing. That's why this article is good advice -- you have to take those same reasons it's addicting (provides the sense of accomplishment, it's social, it's fun) and apply it to other areas in life, almost like a replacement strategy. https://gamequitters.com/ https://gamequitters.com/ was the website I eventually landed on. I saw Cam Adair's Ted talk and was inspired. I recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHmC2D0_Hdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHmC2D0_Hdg a tl;dr is he outlines 4 major reasons people play games: 1. They are a temporary escape 2. They are social 3. They provide a challenge 4. They provide constant measurable growth Understanding these help you overcome it. Finally, the most difficult challenge I think in overcoming video game addiction is that no one takes video gaming addiction seriously, therefore it is hard to find support. It is a real addiction, and people are really struggling with it, it is really damaging lives. P.S: If you read this post and are struggling with video game addiction, I would love to help and talk about it.
c3534l 9y ago
Oh, the irony of reading this when I was supposed to be working.
- Zezima 9y ago
  Not ironic if you start making changes to your work and become more productive!
chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
> Walk for at least 30 minutes daily in a green place to relax your mind. If you have this resource available at your workplace (or even from home), consider yourself lucky. I imagine most software developers, including myself, don't have access to green space to be able to take a 30min walk! Maybe its time our zoning codes require preserving some green space around work places... Whether I'm at work or even at my apartment, I'm surrounded by sprawl - highways, roads, parking lots. I am trapped no matter where I am.
- otterpro 9y ago
  If going outside to green environment is not an option, I recommend surrounding your work space / desk with greenery, such as ferns and low-maintenance houseplants. It does wonders and instantly changes my mood and the atmosphere.
sevensor 9y ago
Work from home, sleep more than seven hours, take naps, work in uninterrupted 3-hour bursts? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the author has no children.
PikelEmi 9y ago
How many was reading this article while on work?
agumonkey 9y ago
> The core principle of a productive environment is increasing the friction required to slip into distracting activities, so that it takes a significant effort to get distracted I somehow believe that subconsciously, that's why we "go to" work. Staying at home doesn't disengage the leisure part of our brains enough for most. Being far makes it easy deep down to care about something else.
ivanhoe 9y ago
So he basically works effectively 6 hours a day, every day of the week? If he wouldn't work for weekends that would be 30 something hours a week, which is for the most people a pretty relaxed work week. Plus he works on his own project from home (no clients to talk to, no deadlines, no distractions by co-workers, full control of the environment). Not to say that advices author gives are bad in any way, all of them are great and worth reading, just that the whole thing isn't as epic as the title suggests.
phasnox 9y ago
"Procrastination itself can have different causes — maybe the task is too complex or too boring, fear of failure or simple laziness. Even a slight presence of these negative factors can make us go for instant rewards" My entire life described in 2 sentences.
dispo001 9y ago
These type of articles are always shit, I expected it to be shit but clicked the link anyway. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't shit. Now if only implementation didn't terrify me.... hah... The big "trick" described seems to be an instance of: You are the product of your environment if you like it or not. There is very little you can do to fight its influences. The environment is there and you are becoming it. The only conscious remedy is to make the environment into what you want to be. I think the article provides the means to do a check list that could convince companies to allow remote work.
mat0 9y ago
Answer: you didnt
mezuzi 9y ago
I was enjoying the article until the first occurrence of the word "meditation". How about telepathy or neuro-linguistic programming??
- ivm 9y ago
  Keep reading and there will be a link to the NIH article with a list of studies. (The downvote is not mine, by the way.)

853 points by miqkt 9y ago

zerr 9y ago

Interesting. Yet another "Mac" time tracker and todo management app. Do all these apps make some ramen income (at least)? An article on this would've been more useful ;)

Void_ 9y ago
I built a minor one - FocusList (http://focuslist.co http://focuslist.co) and it makes ramen income. Here's an article about Timing: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/timing https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/timing I think he's doing much better now since he's released the new version. It's a great app too, worth the money. I don't use it to actually track my time, but I use it to track my internet time - how much time I spent browsing. If you're looking for something simpler for that purpose there's also this: http://focuslist.co/escape2/ http://focuslist.co/escape2/
maccard 9y ago
I thought the article was quite good. It only mentions their product once, in an appropriate place, and aloud lists alternatives (along with a clear message this is their product).
ivm 9y ago
> Do all these apps make some ramen income (at least)? Yes, but 3-4 times less than I can earn by just freelancing. But it's mostly a visibility problem — time tracking keywords are too competitive. I wouldn't recommend developing Mac-only apps because they are too hard to promote. Press is not interested in reviewing software for 15-20% of their readers. Even Apple-centered press is more about iPhones nowadays.
- zerr 9y ago
  Btw, any reason not going cross-platform (Win/Linux along with Mac)? Judging by screenshots it doesn't look like a native Cocoa app, neither download size corresponds to Electron - what framework did you use for the UI?
  - ivm 9y ago
    It's a native Cocoa app, we just styled it a bit. Automatic tracking is the main reason for focusing on a single platform – it's too close to the system. Even on Mac I encounter complex special cases too often. Plus I have zero experience in Windows or Linux development.

wingerlang 9y ago

EDIT: Not that sneaky, just me completely blanking on the sentence after the actual link! Original comment below. ---- Sneaky. I clicked around on the links he had on his tools and found one that looked interesting (Qbserve) and it turns out it's one of his products which I felt would have been nice to have as a note. The only indication of this is the bottom footer header which also says Qbserve.

boundlessdreamz 9y ago
Did the copy change? It says "our automatic time tracker" and it is also on the same domain. It's an excellent tool. I have only tried the free trial though. $40 feels a bit high. $25 or below would have been an instant buy. I think he will also get better conversions if the free trial is 30 days instead of 10
- wingerlang 9y ago
  You are probably right, it just didn't register in my head. I've edited my comment.
- beagleman 9y ago
  I've been using Qbserve for maybe 6 months. It has saved me, I don't know, 4-6 hours a month ret-conning and tuning timesheets. It's also meant I've gotten paid for those trivial jobs that I always forget to enter into even the simplest manual tracker. The productivity boost (which I have absolutely noticed) is a nice bonus. I don't know what you charge for your time, but Qbserve paid for it for me several times over in the first month.
  - ivm 9y ago
    Thank you, I'm happy to hear that it works as intended!
- ivm 9y ago
  Thank you. We set this price because it's not a subscription and you don't need to pay for upgrades. It's not a lucrative pricing model compared to $70-150/yr competitors and going lower in a niche market would be too uncomfortable.

JetSpiegel 9y ago

I was expecting the answer to be "hired a employee", not "worked 50h work weeks".

derefr 9y ago
I get what you're saying, but "productive hours a month" as a metric has to really be per-person, because hiring a new person should cause "reversion to the mean" in the productivity calculus, instead of magically increasing the total. Mythical Man Month logic dictates that a boss that is ~90% efficient at using their own time, that hires and delegates work to someone who is only 50% efficient, will end up getting less done (due to the quadratic communication overhead) than they would have with no subordinates. The best "productivity hacks", given communication overhead is a thing, aren't those that increase the total number of people trying to be productive, but rather those that increase each individual employee's productivity in a reliable way—such that they can be applied successfully by a large portion of the organization, rather than just to one hypomanic dude.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Over the years, I've employed a lot of people. Unless there is a crisis, I don't want anyone working that many hours. If there is a crisis, then I still don't want anyone working that many hours, so we need to figure out how to avoid that crisis in the future. I found that people start to lose productivity after about 36 hours per week. Just four more hours, a full 40 hours, saw a drop in production. Over 40 hours and it was very noticeable. This mostly applied to mentally taxing jobs. My solution was, as best as I could, to hire people to do certain jobs, not hire them to fill seats for certain hours. Employees had a job to do and I was happy so long as they got it done well and on time. If they got it done early, they still got paid the same. I'd not much care if they just went home after their job was done. So long as they met the time constraints, it was all good. Now, they usually stuck around and worked on other stuff, helped out, or refined their work. We also had, at one office, a pool table and small bar in the back - so they could opt to just hang around. Still, once knowledge workers go past about 36 hours, they start to really slow down - by my observations. It really wasn't worth it, most of the time, to have someone working overtime. They get sloppy, slow, and unhappy. It can be done for a crunch time, but that I found that should be a rare thing. The Seattle Hundreds that I hear about? Yeah, if I caught an employee trying to do something like that, I'd probably have reprimanded them. If they kept it up, I'd have probably terminated their employment with us. I don't want worn out employees and I don't want others feeling pressured to work long hours. Heh... Sometimes I kinda miss the office. Threads like these bring back fond memories.

McMini 9y ago

Reading this while procrastinating feels good

notMick 9y ago

Great advice for clearing the distractions. Another technique to use is to set 15 minute timers. You can try and get something completed in that time (ie race the clock challenge), or just a "wake up" event to alert you that you've been staring at a poster for the last 10 mins.....

kobeya 9y ago

> Two years ago I could spend a week not working because I was avoiding some task. This is a great article and there’s plenty to talk about in organizational systems, even if this seems to be subtly pitching his own products in places. But if anyone reading this identifies with this sort of chronic procrastination, consider seeking psychiatric help. This is a giant red flag for adult ADHD, which is a serious and often misunderstood issue, and one of the few psychiatric diagnoses for which there is solid treatments (stimulants) with near universal efficacy and very few side effects. Getting on Adderall, then Vyvanse changed my life for the better, and basically solved this issue overnight, as well as a bunch of other benefits.

Void_ 9y ago
Well actually I think people should first try getting off social media - and not just that - getting off Internet.
- kobeya 9y ago
  If you have ADHD it’s not so simple. When I’m off my pills — which is to say every day of my life before I was diagnosed — I don’t really make conscious decisions about such things. I open my computer to work and find myself on Twitter or Facebook or HN or whatever 20min later without thinking about it. I mean that literally with no hyperbole. ADHD manifests from an under developed or under stimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for such task prioritization and decision making. Without stimulants I’m not really making conscious decisions about most things. Much like how you’ve probably driven your commute sometimes and arrived without really much memory of how you got there (“driving on autopilot”). That’s every moment of every day in the most extreme ADHD case (it’s a spectrum of course and you should seek treatment if you think you’re anywhere on it, even if the above sounds more extreme than you).
  - seedie 9y ago
    Were there things on the other hand that you could focus on very well, were you dived in deeply? Or did your autopilot drive you away from everything you were focused on after a while? thanks for sharing your experience

jlebrech 9y ago

I found when I freelanced I would only work on direct requests that needed immediate action for the first half of the day and count that as me time, and work post office hours on the stuff that needed my focus.

mbrock 9y ago

TL;DR: Basically getting up early and doing 4 hours of deep work has changed my life from really stressful and bad to really productive and nice. One thing really fundamentally helped me, as someone who works from home on a large project in an asynchronous 100% remote organization. I work on a fairly involved project that demands a lot of hard work. At the same time there are other things I want to get done: some administrative duties, some nonprofit work, etc etc. That makes me stressed and anxious, and my natural response to that is to buckle down and try to "finish" the big projects, by overworking... Except overworking doesn't actually tend to mean getting a lot of work done, because I spend more mental energy being stressed about how much I have to do than I spend on actually doing it. It's a pretty vicious cycle and I guess it is a proximate cause of burnout. It all changed when I realized I cannot sustainably do more than a few hours of hard work every day, and took that to heart. Now I don't try to get more done in a day than is sustainably possible. I wake up pretty early, around 6, sometimes 7, sometimes 5. Then I make a cup of coffee, some small breakfast, and sit down in my comfortable coding environment, and do a sprint of serious working. About 4 hours of that is usually enough to land a decent series of commits that definitely advance the project. Then I do the mental magic that previous me never did. I think: "Wow, that's great work for one day! I'm definitely on track!" And at this point it's like 11 AM. So I can happily go have lunch, another cup of coffee, listen to a podcast or something, and know that I have plenty of time in the afternoon for paying bills and whatnot. I also like to take some time in the afternoon to improve my work life in some rewarding way. This includes Emacs tweaking, build server and CI setup, etc. Lately I've managed to get my business email into a form that I enjoy. (Details: my maildir gets mined for all the important recurring PDFs which end up in monthly folders, and since yesterday I even have a shell script that uses "pdftotext -layout" to parse out due amounts and OCR/reference numbers from the few recurring bills we need to pay manually. This eliminates a type of drudgery that I really loathe, so it's a huge win in terms of mental energy.)

tshanmu 9y ago
This is so much relatable to my situation. Thanks for the tips!
lazyjones 9y ago
Sounds to me like you had some issues with distractions during the day, amplified by working at home. Other people (like me) prefer to work late at night for the same reason, it also allows for a more social lifestyle (i.e. going out occasionally) than having to be in bed early.

scandox 9y ago

> The next step is taming your pocket monster. This really meant something quite different to me. I think sex (in whatever form) is an issue that needs to be taken semi-seriously within this context. Professors Mitchell and Webb have good advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk

hobos_delight 9y ago

I just finished this[1] book with tips about how to get back into that deep work routine, and whilst I'm not there yet - there have been some immediately tangible benefits. Like turning off work email push notifications, developing a routine (for my study after work - MSCS) and scheduling all parts of my day and sticking to them. It's not a long book, but I highly recommend it. [1] http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/

scirocco 9y ago

There are very few applications I allow to send notifications.

welly 9y ago

Who works 200 hours a month? That's either five 10 hour days a week or roughly seven 7 hour days a week. My time off work is far, far too important to me to be working either of those options. It seems I value working less than other people. I'm fine with that.

crispinb 9y ago
From the article it looks like he works 7 days a week, in two 3hr+ sessions. Not so punishing perhaps in terms purely of hours, but .. really? Not even one day off a week? In 2017? > It seems I value working less than other people I don't know anyone who works 7 days a week.
- azag0 9y ago
  It also seems that he works at least partially on his own stuff. For me personally, there is a big difference between working on something for someone, and working on my own ideas. The latter tires me much less.
  - welly 9y ago
    This is quite true. I guess I don't count the hours I work on my own projects and learning.
    - azag0 9y ago
      I think this may be actually the source of much confusion in discussions of how much "work" is good.
- welly 9y ago
  I should rephrase that to "some people"! And likewise, neither do I. I'd be interested to read a follow up blog post titled: "How I got down from 200 productive hours a month to something a bit more reasonable for sanity and health's sake".
  - 9y ago

unfamiliar 9y ago

Are there any MyFitnessPal alternatives that don't force you to log in so that they can monetise my eating habits?

jacalata 9y ago
What functionality are you looking for exactly?
- unfamiliar 9y ago
  The ability to easily log all contents of meals, with a large searchable database so that I can just scan a barcode for most things or type the name. Then have the app tally up daily caloric intake, maybe macros, and graph it.
dublinben 9y ago
There's the command line program Nut. http://nut.sourceforge.net/ http://nut.sourceforge.net/

gazarullz 9y ago

For those people that manage to get up pretty early, 4-5 in the morning, how do they cope with the weekend and what kind of weekend schedule do they have ? What time do they usually go to sleep and what is their noon daily pattern (weekday and weekends). Most importantly how do they spend their time after 7pm during workdays and weekends ?

hacker_9 9y ago
"early to rise, early to bed, socially dead"
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Social life is overrated anyway. I used to be "late to rise, late to bed, fuck parties, let me live in peace when everyone else sleeps and doesn't distract me with nonsense", but recently my SO beat some sense into me, and I'm slowly joining the "early to rise" crowd now.
  - mtone 9y ago
    Care to share some of the arguments that made you change your views? For instance, wanting to build a family (having kids tends to force a morning schedule).
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Wanting to be "in the same timezone" as her (she's an early bird). Plus wanting to start a family somewhat soon-ish.
- joncrocks 9y ago
  "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy but socially dead." ...from the Animaniacs It's a different take on: "Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise"
- tome 9y ago
  Here's an idea. I'd be interested in fellow HNers thoughts on it. Get up really early, say 5am. Finish work perhaps 3pm. Sleep for four hours until 7pm. Go out, do other stuff, party as much as you like until 1am. Sleep. 8 hours sleep a day in 2 chunks of 4 hours. Would that work?

dsenkus 9y ago

Thanks for great article, I found some good ideas how to optimise my workflow. I think everyone should spend some time adopting these techniques, instead of relying on "autopilot" mode. Here's my mindmap of this article if anyone is interested: https://imgur.com/a/RnRgV https://imgur.com/a/RnRgV

ivm 9y ago
This is awesome, thanks! I will definitely make some mindmaps for our future articles.
iluvmylife 9y ago
What did you use to create this? Anyone have good recommendation for mind map tools?
- dsenkus 9y ago
  I've used Omnigraffle for this one, but there are open source alternatives like FreeMind. Or you could use online tool like https://www.draw.io/ https://www.draw.io/
graeme 9y ago
Nice mind map. Is there a larger version? It is very blurry when viewed on my ipad.
- dsenkus 9y ago
  Sure no problem, here's the larger one https://imgur.com/gallery/Nc2MP https://imgur.com/gallery/Nc2MP
  - graeme 9y ago
    Thanks!

syllogism 9y ago

When I read the article I was thinking there was actually something quite simple missing from it. I found that just measuring the number of productive hours per day was enough to be very helpful in breaking some bad habits, because it made me mindful of how I was spending my time. I was going to suggest the Qbserve tracker for this --- then I saw that that's actually your app! I guess you didn't want to plug it more, but anyway -- it's really good. I really missed it when I switched to Ubuntu.

Loic 9y ago
I have been using the Hamster time tracking application for the past 5 years (Ubuntu/Gnome3). It works very nicely, you can export everything as XML and you can query the database with Python. I am using the XML export to generate static work logs for my customers and the Python bindings (dbus) to generate some special efficiency stats for me.
mistersquid 9y ago
I've been using Timing, an amazing software with a very small memory and resource footprint. [0] If it matters, Timing's UX is very macOS-y both in my experience and in the opinion of Mac aficionado John Gruber. [1] I have no relation to product except that I'm a satisfied customer. [0] https://timingapp.com https://timingapp.com [1] (disclosure: advert) https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/07/02/timing https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/07/02/timing
- Lord_Zero 9y ago
  Anything like this good for Windows?
  - pdm55 9y ago
    https://www.manictime.com/ https://www.manictime.com/
- VonBeatsthoven 9y ago
  Am I missing something? It looks like it is actually a macOS app, not available for Linux?

saikatsg 9y ago

Turn off notifications...now!

aversafe 9y ago
and ringtones, the imessage link with your computer, etc. Put your apple watch on cinema mode. :)

emodendroket 9y ago

I don't believe anybody is really productive 200 hours in a month. Focus on fewer things if you feel you need to work 50 hours a week, every week.

dx034 9y ago
It's 46 hours a week and if he works 6 days a week that would be 9h per day. Considering that he has no commute it's probably not more than a 40h workday for most people working in an office. Rather less than that.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I went for the simplifying but technically inaccurate "four weeks in a month." Anyway, I'm not sure that commuting should be counted in the same bucket as work, but, more importantly, you seem to rather glibly gloss over having only one-day weekends. Like, OK, maybe I could do that a few weeks in a year, but all the time? It's a big difference.
ivm 9y ago
I'd like to focus on fewer things but I still feel that 50hrs are ok. We are awake about 16 hours each day. If less than 7 are spent working, there are still 9 hours each day for other stuff.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  OK, but plenty of that is spent on chores, washing, getting dressed, transportation, and other drudgery, so it's not as much time as it sounds like.
  - softawre 9y ago
    So optimize away the chores? In my case, marrying a woman who wanted to be a stay at home mom worked pretty well. I'd rather be working than doing chores, she'd rather stay home and feel productive cleaning the house, and we're both super happy.

empath75 9y ago

>Such news don't actually inform us but spread sensationalism, negative emotions, and outright lies to capture attention. What do you gain from following the latest political crisis or some scandal? You can't do anything meaningful about these events. They only depress you and occupy space in your mind. It's better to direct your focus toward things that we can actually impact and improve. This is a depressing point of view to have and dangerous to the future of democratic system.

wainstead 9y ago
While I specifically disagree with the OP that "You can't do anything meaningful about these events," the rest of the advice is pretty dead-on. I've read it from a spectrum of authors as wide as Dale Carnegie ("How To Stop Worrying and Start Living") to Dr. Andrew Weil ("8 Weeks to Optimum Health") to Cal Newport ("Deep Work"). Think of it this way: it's good to be well-informed about the state of political affairs today and to understand the issues. What's not healthy is obsessively reading Twitter every hour, constantly being outraged and getting into flame wars (does anyone even use that term anymore?)
Delmania 9y ago
I agree. There's a wonderful statement that says that even if you don't take an interest in politics, politics will take an interest in you. It definitely is the responsibility of every citizen in a democratic nation to stay informed of what the government is doing. I think, however, the point here is to avoid obsessing over politics. If you learn of something that deeply disturbs or affect you, arguing about it on Reddit will not help, you need to take action. Contact your representatives, get involved in a PAC or political party, etc. You need to take as much action as you can.
Asdfbla 9y ago
That statement doesn't preclude some political activity if you consider it to be something that you can actually "impact and improve", in the author's words. Of course I can only speculate about the author's original intent, but I think I agree insofar that most daily news out there is irrelevant for most individuals. Even if you have a political cause you are interested in, you have limited time and energy, so it might be better to just stay informed in those areas that concern you and ignore the rest of the daily news. You can't fix the world as an individual, so it's pointless to concern yourself with things you can't impact. Of course that still means that everyone should probably find a little thing where they can try to make a change.

fidraj 9y ago

One of my coworkers is doing this: wake up early at about 6am, work till 4pm = 9 hours with a lunch break and commute. After he comes back home, he spends time with his gf watching tv but still coding for another 2 hours at least. This way he can work 220 hours a month not counting his side projects he works on weekends/free time. He is easily pulling about 250-260 hours a month. Yes, he's a workaholic.

leksak 9y ago

Am I the only one trying to do less?

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Maybe. I'm personally trying to have "what I actually do" be closer to "what I want to be doing", and if I decide to do something, I want to always be doing it at peak performance.
jventura 9y ago
Nope, I'm reading this and thinking how I could do only 1 to 2 hours of deep productive work. I want to simplify my life...
- leksak 9y ago
  Yeah I'm kind of tired trying to achieve things all the time.

rdudekul 9y ago

"Some people report success with Pomodoro, but I find it too short to make a deep dive into work." Pomodoro technique has been working for me very well. I started with 25 minute Pomodoros, gradually increased the duration to now 50 minutes per Pomodoro. I am able to do deep work (per my needs) consistently for about 4 Pomodoros per day.

ulkesh 9y ago

> Caution: The mentioned amount of hours is not advisable for people working on someone else's business for illusory stock options, with no payment for overtime. There's also no point in going beyond this number because working over 50 hours a week actually decreases productivity. Life should come first in the "work-life balance." Great disclaimer in the article. The only problem is that many employers will be quite happy with people working 50+ hours per week. It's up to the employee to not let an employer take that much advantage of them (this includes having enough savings to be able to put in notice at the job at any point, assuming no contract or law would prevent it). The current landscape of the technology field, while lucrative for an employee, especially in the United States, is tremendously skewed toward the business where many employers see high turn-around as the rule, and no longer the exception, leading the employer to expect employees to work such high numbers of hours. If a person likes working 200 hours per month, I wish them all the best and hope they are hourly-paid. Being salary-paid and having a family means I will continue to limit myself to 40 hours per week working for someone else. At a point where I work for myself, then, of course, that number may change.

albertgoeswoof 9y ago
A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete. This is because the employee is then forced to prioritise their work themselves and only focus on the pieces of work that align with their incentives. Which should align with the company incentivies. If this was not the case, then the organization would need to employ additional staff to plan work, in order to maximise efficiency. Which would be waste. So if you're working for someone else, prioritize and cut what you don't have time for. You'll be surprised what you can cut.
- tehlike 9y ago
  "A well run company will always have more work for each employee than is possible for them to complete." That's the whole problem, right there. Sometimes, this "well run" company will generate work that might not matter, not at all.

shoover 9y ago

I read this as a single article distillation of the principles in Deep Work by Cal Newport, very well done. It's been a while since I read Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt, but the article feels familiar with that, as well (I recall a helpful section on meditation). The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry is another great resource. Newport's sources showed that most people are capable of about four hours of deep work per day. If you hit that level, add in 2-3 hours of shallower tasks, and do it every day, you reach 200 "productive hours" in a month. I'm not sure how many people are willing or able to carve out two 3-hour blocks more than five days a week, but it seems highly worthwhile to step back once a month or quarter, with one's s.o. or family, if present, and think about what is possible and what makes sense in support of mutual goals. From there, in light of the goals and constraints, the article's breakdown for cultivating the environment, body, and mind are clarifying. Ok, I'm sitting down with my wife and doing this this weekend. The gist of the article is what I try to practice, and I find the strategy refresher motivating. I have had good success with removing push notifications, removing the phone from the workspace, sleeping at the same time, regular breaks to stay limber, targeted muscle work (rowing during winter until it gets too boring, the Roam Strong workout plan currently), and reducing junk calories intake. I've had less success building deep work persistence by making streaks and subdividing tasks. I think it's time to force the break to a separate device for leisure. How much is it worth spending on a CO2 monitor? As a remote worker, I'm in the same air space almost all day every day, so if there is a low grade problem, I'm cooked.

ismail 9y ago
Great post. What I am struggling with is the following: These processes of deep work seem to be much easier to implement if you are doing remote work, coding, reasearch and more solitary work. Anyone successfully implement this in a business with staff? What are your strategies?
- shoover 9y ago
  Interesting question. I work three hours ahead of most people in my company, so I take the offline time I can get in the morning and make myself available the rest of the day. Something like that may work for a morning person in an office, but without a time zone limitation blessing an early exit every day, that may not be culturally feasible without just working more. In the book Newport runs down more strategies than regular daily blocks, everything from offsite retreats to people who can go deep on command whenever they get a small window. He described one professor who would use different modes based on his academic calendar, I think roughly by week or month granularity. During teaching times he was 100% available to students and staff, but during writing times his door was shut and everyone knew not to go in. The book is definitely worth a read if you're interested in more strategies.

patwalls 9y ago

> Get a separate device for leisure and use it far from your workplace to cultivate location-based behaviors. Can someone explain this more? Curious to how others approach this as well.

driverdan 9y ago
Have two computers and two desks, preferably in separate rooms. One is for leisure, the other is for work. It gives you physical separation of tasks which makes it much easier to focus on the correct context.
ivm 9y ago
Author here, I read HN and other distracting sites in the bed or from the "gym" room where we don't have a chair or a couch – only a yoga mat. It's not comfortable to sit there for more than an hour. By the way, I also have a "walking treadmill + wall shelf" setup to watch TV series from my laptop on the go.
skinnymuch 9y ago
I'd like to know how others do this as well. I left my iPad Air on a plan. Older iPad I have is too slow to be used leisurely. iPhone is okay but sometimes I like having a more involved break. In that case I'd prefer having an ipad at minimum. I like to walk around at a fast pace while taking my break too when possible so a chromebook wouldn't work so well. Because I just have my phone as my break device. I've started to blur the lines again and take breaks at my desk too much and feel like I procrastinate more now. I just set up a productivity app that blocks sites and apps. Will see how it goes until I buy a newer iPad or think of something.
saiprashanth93 9y ago
I was also curious about this. Don't have enough data on how this works in real life. What is to say that you won't spend more time on entertainment now that you have a separate device for it?

freshhawk 9y ago

Besides the larger issues of whether or not this is something you should be doing, this seems a decent overview. Except for one part, the amount of exercise is terribly low. A swim a couple times a week and 30 minute walks every day is not good enough for your health or if you are chasing peak performance. First of all, this isn't even enough to offset the damage this much inactivity will cause. If you want peak mental performance and endurance then you want to be very active and very fit. Doesn't really matter what it is, although it should favour cardio over muscle mass at least a little.

therealdrag0 9y ago
I thought the latest was that it's diminishing returns (of life expectancy gains) after 30min of cardio (Assuming swimming is that) every day is not required.
mrgill92 9y ago
Source on that?

dahart 9y ago

There is too much good advice in this article. ;) By that I mean all the advice is great, but it's very difficult to change multiple habits at the same time, especially core habits like eating and sleeping and entertainment and work. Whenever I do that I revert pretty quickly. Changing one thing at a time and figuring out how to remove the friction from that one thing has been my path to success. For work hours, a simple work timer is what does the trick for me. I use Toggl - I have no affiliation, I dont know if it's the best, and I don't necessarily recommend it, but it does make it easy to keep track of how many minutes a day I'm sitting at my desk, and to assign those minutes to various tasks. Just having a metric for work hours is a big change and has helped me stay more focused.

shade23 9y ago

While I love the advice, my qualm are with the measurement of productivity,I use qbserve too,checking my logs I see 307 hours as an average for the past 4 months.(this includes office and my personal projects and also my studies(distance masters).But not every moment you spend on an IDE,terminal,<insert other tools associated with productivity> .. productive.I know that I spend 20% of time yak shaving.Trying to figure out why something simple is broken.This is not the time I would count as productivity. Measuring productivity as the completion of goals/output generated per hour spent seems to be a more viable quantity, however goals get modified too.Plus this is a much more time consuming process than just measuring hours. I find measuring time spent on productive apps to be analogous to measuring productivity using LOC, both are opaque and do not convey the actual meaning of what they are measuring.

throwawagrrm 9y ago

questionable choice on the grrm citation

SubiculumCode 9y ago

The author mentions that George R.R. Martin uses a similar set-up to separate work from leisure. Then I think: George RR Martin is a notoriously slow writer. Many are legitimately worried he will not finish GoT before heart disease takes the beloved author.

clavalle 9y ago
GRRM is a slow GOT writer. He pumps out other projects.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  I see him listed as the editor quite frequently, true.
treehau5 9y ago
Yet GOT will last generations upon generations. There will be many reboots, rewrites, and scripts all based upon the work he has done long after he is gone. That is to say sometimes the best things in life take time. Most of our software projects won't make it past one year.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  At the end of one of his books the author notes that the reader might be asking "Where is Tyrion?" The entire book had not contained my favorite character of the Game of Thrones series: Tyrion. The author continues, and I paraphrase "The story has a lot of plot lines and I decided to separate them into two books. No worries the next book will come out in a few months." It was in fact many many years

treehau5 9y ago

I found a lot of this advice, coincidentally, in the book "Respawn" over at game quitters (I had a horrible video game addiction that I decided I needed to break) -- that is the advice to apply the same psychological principles that get people hooked to video games to other things in life. This is the ultimate life hack for me and something I am still working on.

wpietri 9y ago
Could you say more about this? I was just talking with somebody about video game addictions, and I'd love to have more resources to offer people struggling with it.
- treehau5 9y ago
  Well depends on what angle I could talk all day -- it's cathartic! In any case, video game addiction is real, it is an addiction, and it fits the bill just like any other type of addiction. Granted it is without the heavy consequences sometimes faced by substance addictions, but nonetheless, it can have real direct consequenses on your health. To me the signs were clear: 1. At the point where the instant you get bored and have free time, you automatically think to play video games 2. Thinking about video games or wishing to play while doing other activities 3. Other important areas in life suffer as a result of your video game addiction, such as neglecting a spouse or significant other, or falling behind in work, or showing up to work late all the time because you stayed up all night playing video games. Starting to lie about your problem or how much you actually play ("oh I don't really play that much" when really you recorded 20k hours of Counterstrike or you have played 1,000+ games in S7 to try and hit Platinum for the first time in League of Legends), lieing to your friends and family about your free time and missing out on important events "oh I am busy, sorry I can't come" but then you just go play video games. 4. Physical symptoms -- sleep deprivation due to playing video games, getting out of shape from sitting in a computer chair hours on end, eating junk food and takeout because cooking takes too much time and it cuts into your game time, posture being affected, eye sight affected, constant headaches, wrist pain, etc. 5. The most important sign to me -- the feeling of regret that you aren't accomplishing the things you wish to accomplish. Video games give you that false sense of accomplishment, but deep down inside, you wish you could do that side project, you wish you could hang out more with friends, or even get out more to make friends, you wish you could go to the gym and eat healthier to be in shape, etc. But even if it's not in this list, the most important thing is you wish you weren't playing video games because you want to be doing other things, but it's just so enticing. That's why this article is good advice -- you have to take those same reasons it's addicting (provides the sense of accomplishment, it's social, it's fun) and apply it to other areas in life, almost like a replacement strategy. https://gamequitters.com/ https://gamequitters.com/ was the website I eventually landed on. I saw Cam Adair's Ted talk and was inspired. I recommend watching it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHmC2D0_Hdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHmC2D0_Hdg a tl;dr is he outlines 4 major reasons people play games: 1. They are a temporary escape 2. They are social 3. They provide a challenge 4. They provide constant measurable growth Understanding these help you overcome it. Finally, the most difficult challenge I think in overcoming video game addiction is that no one takes video gaming addiction seriously, therefore it is hard to find support. It is a real addiction, and people are really struggling with it, it is really damaging lives. P.S: If you read this post and are struggling with video game addiction, I would love to help and talk about it.

c3534l 9y ago

Oh, the irony of reading this when I was supposed to be working.

Zezima 9y ago
Not ironic if you start making changes to your work and become more productive!

chiefofgxbxl 9y ago

> Walk for at least 30 minutes daily in a green place to relax your mind. If you have this resource available at your workplace (or even from home), consider yourself lucky. I imagine most software developers, including myself, don't have access to green space to be able to take a 30min walk! Maybe its time our zoning codes require preserving some green space around work places... Whether I'm at work or even at my apartment, I'm surrounded by sprawl - highways, roads, parking lots. I am trapped no matter where I am.

otterpro 9y ago
If going outside to green environment is not an option, I recommend surrounding your work space / desk with greenery, such as ferns and low-maintenance houseplants. It does wonders and instantly changes my mood and the atmosphere.

sevensor 9y ago

Work from home, sleep more than seven hours, take naps, work in uninterrupted 3-hour bursts? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the author has no children.

PikelEmi 9y ago

How many was reading this article while on work?

agumonkey 9y ago

> The core principle of a productive environment is increasing the friction required to slip into distracting activities, so that it takes a significant effort to get distracted I somehow believe that subconsciously, that's why we "go to" work. Staying at home doesn't disengage the leisure part of our brains enough for most. Being far makes it easy deep down to care about something else.

ivanhoe 9y ago

So he basically works effectively 6 hours a day, every day of the week? If he wouldn't work for weekends that would be 30 something hours a week, which is for the most people a pretty relaxed work week. Plus he works on his own project from home (no clients to talk to, no deadlines, no distractions by co-workers, full control of the environment). Not to say that advices author gives are bad in any way, all of them are great and worth reading, just that the whole thing isn't as epic as the title suggests.

phasnox 9y ago

"Procrastination itself can have different causes — maybe the task is too complex or too boring, fear of failure or simple laziness. Even a slight presence of these negative factors can make us go for instant rewards" My entire life described in 2 sentences.

dispo001 9y ago

These type of articles are always shit, I expected it to be shit but clicked the link anyway. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't shit. Now if only implementation didn't terrify me.... hah... The big "trick" described seems to be an instance of: You are the product of your environment if you like it or not. There is very little you can do to fight its influences. The environment is there and you are becoming it. The only conscious remedy is to make the environment into what you want to be. I think the article provides the means to do a check list that could convince companies to allow remote work.

mat0 9y ago

Answer: you didnt

mezuzi 9y ago

I was enjoying the article until the first occurrence of the word "meditation". How about telepathy or neuro-linguistic programming??

ivm 9y ago
Keep reading and there will be a link to the NIH article with a list of studies. (The downvote is not mine, by the way.)