4 ms·

Ask HN: How is your typical day?

3 points by pghimire 16y ago

Just curious, how a hacker/entrepreneur/programmer spends his/her typical day.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Up at 345am, daily habits until 530am, start programming with remote client team at 530 and work until early afternoon, then switch gears to work on my own projects. Tired all the time :)
patio11 16y ago
I don't know if I have typical days. Yesterday, woke up at 7 AM. Answered personal email, talked to sister for an hour, morning routine. Started work at 9:00 sharp, gave myself 50 EpicWin points. Spent three hours reimplementing OKCupid's sharing bar for a client. Showed client. Client ecstatic. Used opportunity to remind client to pay me for last month. Received money, transferred to bank account. Separately, did a wire to Japan for my monthly "salary." Broke for lunch at 1230. Returned to apartment at 2:00. Felt woozy, so slept. Woke at six, resumed work for second client. Bragging elided due to confidentiality, but I think after this engagement my rates get a new digit. 10:00, realized it was late. Went to dinner, gym. Home at 11:30. Wanted to play Starcraft but had an email from a BCC customer. Spent an hour doing a one-off feature to knock her socks off. (She works for somebody I like. It is not usually worthwhile to do customizations for an audience of one.) After that, I would have gone to sleep, but there was a very interesting live video from CapitalFactory. Watched their Demo Day pitches. One, for Smackages, is the best I have ever seen and should be taught in rhetoric for how to deliver a persuasive speech. Seriously not joking. Get a video copy, watch it, if three lines don't blow your mind you are not watching the same video. Then Dave McClure had a presentation. He is always funny and insightful, so I watched that, too. Went to bed at 5 Am, slept through morning, no EpicWin points for me today.
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  Are you doing freelance development work for clients? Why? I would have expected you to just focus 100% on BCC and AR.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Scaling it back after September is over. Consulting pays a lot up front, which I can use to buy my way around my graphical inadequacies for AR. It will probably also underwrite employee #1 eventually, in much the same fashion that it paid my salary in the dry summer months. BCC I am keeping up with decently. Did my work on it in summer, now I just reap what I sowed pretty much. Cross your fingers for me in October - the upside is, ahem, very up. My main issue at present is that juggling all these things makes heavy greenfield dev for AR harder than it would be if it were my only project.

3 points by pghimire 16y ago

Just curious, how a hacker/entrepreneur/programmer spends his/her typical day.

Up at 345am, daily habits until 530am, start programming with remote client team at 530 and work until early afternoon, then switch gears to work on my own projects. Tired all the time :)

patio11 16y ago

I don't know if I have typical days. Yesterday, woke up at 7 AM. Answered personal email, talked to sister for an hour, morning routine. Started work at 9:00 sharp, gave myself 50 EpicWin points. Spent three hours reimplementing OKCupid's sharing bar for a client. Showed client. Client ecstatic. Used opportunity to remind client to pay me for last month. Received money, transferred to bank account. Separately, did a wire to Japan for my monthly "salary." Broke for lunch at 1230. Returned to apartment at 2:00. Felt woozy, so slept. Woke at six, resumed work for second client. Bragging elided due to confidentiality, but I think after this engagement my rates get a new digit. 10:00, realized it was late. Went to dinner, gym. Home at 11:30. Wanted to play Starcraft but had an email from a BCC customer. Spent an hour doing a one-off feature to knock her socks off. (She works for somebody I like. It is not usually worthwhile to do customizations for an audience of one.) After that, I would have gone to sleep, but there was a very interesting live video from CapitalFactory. Watched their Demo Day pitches. One, for Smackages, is the best I have ever seen and should be taught in rhetoric for how to deliver a persuasive speech. Seriously not joking. Get a video copy, watch it, if three lines don't blow your mind you are not watching the same video. Then Dave McClure had a presentation. He is always funny and insightful, so I watched that, too. Went to bed at 5 Am, slept through morning, no EpicWin points for me today.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Are you doing freelance development work for clients? Why? I would have expected you to just focus 100% on BCC and AR.
- patio11 16y ago
  Scaling it back after September is over. Consulting pays a lot up front, which I can use to buy my way around my graphical inadequacies for AR. It will probably also underwrite employee #1 eventually, in much the same fashion that it paid my salary in the dry summer months. BCC I am keeping up with decently. Did my work on it in summer, now I just reap what I sowed pretty much. Cross your fingers for me in October - the upside is, ahem, very up. My main issue at present is that juggling all these things makes heavy greenfield dev for AR harder than it would be if it were my only project.