9 ms·
Life Hack - The 30/30 Minute Work Cycle Feels Like Magic
- Void_ 16y agoI don't know if I could get back to work easily after 30 minutes on Facebook or playing World of Warcraft. Probably not.
- adorton 16y agoThis sounds like an interesting idea for personal projects. My boss might raise an eyebrow if he saw me playing games or surfing the web for half of my day.
- krschultz 16y agoI think you specifically don't want to play games or surf the internet. I work in a big building, so about once an hour I get up and go for a 5 minute stroll and come back to my desk. Though I do a lot of work with other people in the building so I guess people just think I'm going to talk to someone I'm working with.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoI did 50-10s for many years -- and was productive as hell doing it. I think the numbers vary depending on the person and the project, but absolutely, having the discipline to push away from the desk and change context puts your productivity in warp gear. It works by allowing you mind to work on the problem while you play. By the way, to let another secret out of the bag, this process of engineered distraction also works very well with teams. Many times we confuse stubbornness with determination. Sitting there staring at the screen does not a work product make. But I'll add one caveat -- the reason I got away from this (and am now only getting back to it) is because the internet itself has become the "getting away" activity. This leaves you at your desk checking emails, updating twitter, etc. In such a case, you're not allowing your subconscious to work on your problem at all. Instead, you're throwing a bunch more stuff at it. So in retrospect I think its critical to physically detach yourself from your technology. A stand-alone game would be fine. Sitting at the terminal listening to your email and IM chimes while you play a flash game would not. EDIT: It's also interesting to note how hard it is to pull away from your work -- both when you're loving it and when you're hating it. I don't think it's ever easy, but after a while you get into a "rhythm" and it all just kind of flows.
- lotharbot 16y agoI've found 50-10 works well for me for housework. In that case, 10 minutes on the internet is fine, because the other 50 are spent offline.
- jonhendry 16y agoI think my high school classes were on a 50/10 schedule.
- spicyj 16y agoMine are on 51/5.
- aik 16y agoWhere do the 4 missing minutes go?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- swaits 16y agoWhy do you think it needs to add to 60? Those "4 missing minutes" are probably the first four minutes of the next period.
- scw 16y agoMany US high schools don't rely on hourly scheduling, so classes may end at arbitrary times: I finished at 2:11pm daily.
- golgo13 16y agoI thought it was just our school district. We got out at 14:32. Why not 14:30??
- lukeschlather 16y agoClasses are scheduled by hours / semester, not hours / day. Adjust for how many days you can fit in around the major holidays, remodeling, and so on, then divide the number of days by the number of minutes and you have the required course time. (Of course you tweak it a bit if the course session lengths are odd.)
- andrewce 16y agoI use this work pattern when I'm doing particularly distasteful work, and it generally works well. The only thing I'd advise is that if you're in a state of flow (in which the passage of time just disappears and your focus zeroes in completely), don't worry about maintaining a rigid time schedule. Every so often, when I'm writing, I forget to check the clock and then it is 3 hours later and I realize that I've missed a meal. I wouldn't trade those times for very many things.
- chetan51 16y agoThat's a really good point, and I should have mentioned that in the article. Thanks for the comment!
- jamesjyu 16y agoPeople who know my previous comments might think I sound like a broken record -- but, this is the exact reason why I love having a table tennis table at the office. It's the perfect distraction to coding that focuses on pure reflexes and hand-eye coordination. After a game of ping pong, my mind is usually cleared and can tackle the next problem. Lots of +1's to the idea of zoning your brain out of the problem area for a while to get your subconscious working.
- crizCraig 16y agoWe have a ping pong table at work, but I can't say it helps me feel refreshed. I often need a breather and to cool off after one of our grueling five game matches. Of course, we might go a little overboard since we have a professional player coach us every Friday and hold our own charity tournaments. haha. work hard, play hard or something like that ;)
- trafficlight 16y agoA professional ping pong coach? You guys are dedicated.
- zackattack 16y agopart of the mastery process, bro
- crizCraig 16y agoYes. We are. Sometimes the coach is the only reason we play for a whole week though. Needless to say, our coach does not approve. :)
- jamesjyu 16y agoWow! That is awesome that you get a coach. I get coaching every once in a while.. but definitely not at work :) Where do you work? If you're in the bay area, i'd love to drop by sometime for a game.
- 16y ago
- amanuel 16y agoThis reminds me the Pomodoro Technique. http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ I bought a pomodoro iphone app and tried it for about a week or so, alas 25 mins was just too short for me. I generally find 45/20 to be about right balance for me. I now use Vitamin-R (Mac App) to track time/goals.
- kacy 16y agoI'm currently using Concentrate (http://getconcentrating.com http://getconcentrating.com), and I love it. Checking out Vitamin-R tonight! Thanks for the suggestion! :-)
- guynamedloren 16y agoWow, that looks amazing. Website blocker and everything. Now that I see it, that just seems like such an obvious solution. Why am I not using this already? Just looked closer at the rocket company and software, and they do awesome work.
- mistermann 16y agoLooks great.....but there doesn't seem to be anything similar for windows. Selective blocking of the web (HN, reddit) would be important.
- stoney 16y agoI generally save the Pomodoro technique for when I've got something I really need to do but really don't want to do. The shortness of the 25 minutes can be quite useful in those situations. Sometimes I find the shortness of 25 minutes blocks of time works well as a kind of challenge - "holy crap, only 2 minutes to go... got to finish..."
- steveklabnik 16y agoI've been trying this with http://focusboosterapp.com/ http://focusboosterapp.com/ . It's pretty solid.
- silentbicycle 16y ago
- manish 16y agoDefinitely worth a try. I am concerned about my discipline to come back to work after playing a game for 30 mins. May be playing TT would be better idea, since I feel playing physical games refreshes me more that video games.
- devmonk 16y agoTo start with, the author says he switched to Colemak keyboard layout. Interesting, but about as useless as Dvorak. Unless you get everyone to switch to it, you will be disabled whenever you switch to someone else's computer, a kiosk, etc. Why bother? He mentions having switched to biphasic sleep. If he said- I don't use electricity at night and just go to bed and wake up with the light, then if he got up during the dark hours, that's fine. But scheduling it and forcing your body into a strange deprived sleep pattern is bad for you. Napoleon slept ~4 hrs a night. He was successful for a time, well- except for attempting and failing to conquer the world. Poor decisions may not have been made with more sleep. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_sleep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_sleep So, that leads us up to the 30/30 work cycle. This actually doesn't sounds that bad. But, it is totally not something that would work in a professional setting. When you are in the middle of an important meeting with the board, or working on getting a product feature out that day, you can't walk out of the meeting or walk out on your team to go play video games. I take time out periodically for a walk, but seriously- grow up.
- BCM43 16y ago> Interesting, but about as useless as Dvorak. Unless you get everyone to switch to it, you will be disabled whenever you switch to someone else's computer, a kiosk, etc. Not true. I learned Dvorak a few years ago, and I can still sit at a Qwerty keyboard and type reasonably fast. It's really not that difficult to go back and forth.
- wanderful 16y agoYeah, the brain has a built in ability to identify context and fit the expression in those parameters. It uses the pre-frontal cortex. This is the same 'functionality' that allows bilingual people to identify which language is being spoken and respond in that one. People don't trust themselves. You can learn to switch back and forth the same way you learn to talk in different style to your grandparents than your friends, and so on.
- techiferous 16y agoWhat I do is touch type with dvorak (max about 90 wpm) and look at my hands on those rare instances when I'm using qwerty (probably about 20-30 wpm).
- JimmyL 16y agoI did an hour-on/hour-off cycle when I was in school studying for exams each semester, and it was great. Working for an hour meant that I could nail a solid two concepts, and then go do something else for an hour, and then come back and spend an hour on some practice problems that used those concepts. I remember initially trying a shorter 30-30 cycle, but when a problem takes 20 minutes to do (by design) subbing out at 30 didn't really get much done. I also found it let me work much longer. I'd get to the library at 10am, work one-on/one-off until 11pm or so, go home and watch a bit of TV, and repeat - for three weeks straight, only interrupted by days when I had actual exams, on which I'd do about four hours off after the exam and get back to work.
- tnt128 16y agoI use a similar pattern, but instead of 30/30, I do 75/30, here are the reasons, 1. I need at least 5 to 10 mins to pick up what's left. 2. Work without distraction never happen(people talk to you, have to open the door for someone, answer the office phone etc). If that happens, I need another 5 mins just to remember I was doing. 3. My productivity picks up after the initial 20mins, and it lasts about 45 to 60 mins. 4. A few things could happen after 75mins of coding a) feature done or bug fixed - checkin code, git push. done take a break b) encounter a problem, internet searching - stop and take a 30 mins break, helps a lot. c) starting checking facebook, hacker news, email etc - stop and take a break. d) feature is not done, and I have not encountered a problem - this is the only time I might not take a break, but every time I didnt, I found myself ended up checking email and facebook a lot :) 30/30 sounds great, for me, 75/30 give me enough time to finish a feature or fix a bug. 4.
- edw519 16y agoThe concept is excellent, but the ratio doesn't work for me. I prefer 42/18. 42 because it is the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s... and 18, because it is the Gematria for the word "life": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_%28symbol%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chai_%28symbol%29 If I'm going to adopt a system, my inner nerd insists upon increasing efficiency by using components with multiple purposes.
- jrockway 16y agoI also do the 42 minute thing. A good amount of time to concentrate, but not so long that you are "out of touch" with people that you are communicating with.
- silentbicycle 16y agoThe Pomodoro Technique(TM) is essentially the same, but waltzing in 25/5 time. A longer interval makes more sense to me too, though. Maybe 45/15 or 50/10; either way, it helps block out distractions - "No, self, I committed to working on this for another fourteen minutes." I wrote an Emacs work / rest timer (http://github.com/silentbicycle/zwiebel http://github.com/silentbicycle/zwiebel) for that sort of thing, if anybody's interested. (I hooked it up to an XOSD (http://ignavus.net/software.html)-based http://ignavus.net/software.html)-based alert.)
- amjith 16y agoI wrote a PyQt timer for doing the same thing. http://code.google.com/p/ptimer/ http://code.google.com/p/ptimer/
- sandGorgon 16y agoThere is Chromodoro plugin for Chrome (not very useful unless doing web work) Pomodoro Timer applet for Gnome (http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/Pomodoro-Timer-55822.shtml http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/Pomodoro-Timer-5582...) RsiBreak for KDE (http://www.rsibreak.org/ http://www.rsibreak.org/) Pomodoro Tasks for Android (currently using)
- ojbyrne 16y agoIf you're flexible about the second 30, I find this works really well with working from home, because the second 30 can be typical personal chores. Wake up, work for a bit, then make coffee. Work some more, then eat breakfast. Work some more, then have a shower. Work some more, go for a walk. Etc, etc. Sometimes 5-10 minute breaks, sometimes an hour or more.
- amadiver 16y agoI'd be worried about intermixing work + life like that. I've recently tried to be better about keeping my mornings and nights work-free, and I feel better because of it. Do you find that to be a problem at all, and if so, how do you deal with it?
- mike_esspe 16y agoWhen your work is fun, that is not a problem at all.
- ojbyrne 16y agoYeah its an issue. But if there are personal chore-like things you have to anyway, you'd be allocating time out of your non-work hours for them anyway.
- cullenking 16y agoDon't mix personal life (people) and work this way, but for random chores it's fine. I try to give the dog three walks a day this way, which really helps both our sanity. Additionally, I try to get some stretching/pushups/situp breaks mixed in this way. I am not strict (meaning, don't at all) about following a particular timing, just when I feel my brain start to wander. I'll be trying to follow something more strict this week to see if there is something to it.
- ojbyrne 16y agoI've been a programmer of one sort or another for close to 30 years. Personal life?
- topherjaynes 16y agoDefinitely, this model did wonders for me in Gradschool, but I am wondering if anyone has tried doing this in a corporate environment? I just started my first gig at a large company. I take "walking breaks" to circle the block several times a day to clear my mind and people seem incredulous that I am not tolling at my desk. Wonder how they would feel if I was devoting 4.5 hours of my day to "fun."
- maukdaddy 16y agoI take walking breaks around the block as well (downtown Chicago). Definitely helpful. If others question, just remind them of the total time smokers get during the day. No one questions them.
- Dramatize 16y agoI'm going to give this a try for my after work side projects.
- dpatru 16y agoThis just reinforces the suspicion I've had for some time now that time working is not tightly related to accomplishment, especially if the work is intellectual.
- JoelMcCracken 16y agoFor a long time now, I have wanted to code in a cabin in the country. Just imagine going outside and chopping wood, hauling it back in, and setting your fire correctly. I can hardly imagine a more ideal alternative activity to coding for that second length of time.
- joeyh 16y agoI'm there, solar powered cabin, wood stove. Works great, my concentration is much better here. I couldn't hold to a strict time-based rule though. I prefer not to interrupt flow when I'm in flow. Anytime I get stuck I go chop wood or haul water, or at night, look at the stars.
- JoelMcCracken 16y agoWhere do you live? If you'd rather chat personally use first.last@gmail.com. Where my name is within my username.
- gcv 16y agoFor people who do something like this: how do you manage logistically? Do you set an alarm? Do you just know when your 30 minutes (or 42, or 50) are up? Do you always keep an eye on the time? I'm curious because the concept seems like it could work, but I lose track of time easily.
- kentosi 16y ago+1 because I think that this is an important question. It seems that the intent of this method is to increase productivity. In saying this, nothing kills productivity more than deadline tension. Having to constantly look over at the time would no doubt have this effect.
- pyre 16y agoI'm a little baffled by why people feel that finding a device (hardware or software) that will countdown a specified interval of time and announce the conclusion of that interval is so hard. The venerable egg-timer has been around for a long time, and would work just fine. You can even setup OS X to use text-to-speech to announce the time on the hour and the half-hour (if you are doing the 30/30). Not to mention that 'countdown clock' software is practically a 'hello world'-level programming project (if you throw out all of the bells-and-whistles like sexy notification animations, etc). On Linux, you could setup a script using 'at' and 'zenity' to remind your of time intervals... etc ...
- chetan51 16y agoI personally find that having a deadline increases my productivity. If I feel like I have unlimited time to work on something, it rarely gets done until the last minute.
- merijnv 16y agoWell, this morning after reading this I threw together a script in 5 secs to do this for me. I'm using OS X and like everyone this means I have Growl installed for various applications. I figured that it should be easy enough to announce my times using that. Looked around, found the commandline tool growlnotify and 5 seconds later... #!/bin/sh while true; do sleep $((30*60)) growlnotify -swn Timer -m Playtime! Timer sleep $((30*60)) growlnotify -swn Timer -m Worktime! Timer done ...was born.
- rguzman 16y agoI like the concept and I personally use variations of it. However, I find that 30/30 is not only the wrong ratio (1:1) but also the lengths don't work too well for certain types of activities. c.f. http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
- nikster 16y agoThis is why smokers have a huge advantage. They go out for a smoke break every hour. Doing _nothing_ but smoking. I will try this, sans the smoking, starting now. Goodbye.
- corin_ 16y agoThe smoking is what makes it so enjoyable ;)
- hackoder 16y agoThe real magic? Learn your body/mind's rhythm. Sometimes you'll do productive work for hours. Sometimes you'll need frequent breaks. Intrinsic (type of work, work environment, deadline, depth) and extrinsic factors (such as food, relationships, etc) will affect this rhythm and you'll have to be smart enough to realize when to respect your body's wishes and when to ignore them (feeling bored may have to do with not getting enough sleep, or maybe you just feel like procrastinating. Learn to figure out which).
- anon8712 16y agoA question to all the excellent commenters here. I work at a place where the company culture considers developers the same way as Macy's employees. 10 minute breaks for every 4 hours you work. Surf the net, chat on IM, everything counts as work....except stepping away from the computer. Be seen away from your desk more than necessary, you get warned of 'not being available during core hours of business'. I am a contractor and I get paid very well to care too much about the company culture. My productivity is not the best but according to them, I am a star performer. I, personally can't sit longer than an hour without needing a break. I worked for startups with ping pong tables and one large workstation vendor that recently ceased to exist. I miss the culture at those companies. The company culture where I work has gotten to me, where I am considering leaving my contract to focus on my personal projects. What would you do?
- mattm 16y agoI am the same way. I need a stretch break every hour. When working in an office, I will take my stretch break and no one has said anything to me yet. If I was in your situation though, I would leverage the fact that they consider you a "star performer." Talk to your manager that you believe the breaks are what make you productive and see if he will turn a blind eye to them. If he doesn't agree, then maybe that tells you your productivity is not really valued there as much as it would be someplace else.
- seejay 16y agoup voted for the statement: "Time is now my bitch" :D The idea itself sounds pretty awesome too... will definitely try it.
- mkramlich 16y agoSounds like the key is to (1) really work when you're supposedly working (don't check email, don't read RSS, etc.) and (2) take breaks to refresh. Both of these are very old and well known techniques for maximizing health and productivity. Whether there's something magical about the 30/30 split, and forcing yourself to always switch hats like that, regardless of the actual specific situation: that, I'm not so sure of the general applicability of. I often find it takes me a while to get in The Zone, and when I'm Hot it's best to keep Pounding Out The Code and not force myself to stop and go play a game or whatever.
- javan 16y agoI would really like a timer app that blocks social, distracting sites during the work sprint so I'm reminded if I start to stray and then unblocks them during the rest.
- jat850 16y agoI'm not sure if by "app" you meant app specifically for a smartphone, or if you meant for a PC - but I believe RescueTime might do what you're looking for (and they're a YC company I believe): http://www.rescuetime.com/ http://www.rescuetime.com/
- latentflip 16y agoIf you are on a Mac, SelfControl (http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/ http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/) is perfect for this.
- JimboOmega 16y agoI really don't see how you can do this in a normal work setting. If I work for 30, take 30 off... an 8 hour work day takes 16 hours... Even if I got 16 hours of work done in that time, it does not matter really to my employer, who would still see it as 8 hours. Because we bill by the hour, what matters is the # of hours that are worked, not how much work gets done in them. That said breaks in a lot of tasks are immensely useful. I can't remember how many times I've given up after getting stuck on a work task to come in the next morning and figured it out in 30 minutes. I wish productivity mattered more :(.
- mattm 16y agoWell this is a problem with the system. Sure, in the short term you are billing by the hour, but in the long term you are really getting paid for results. Just try going a few weeks sitting at your desk without getting any work done if you don't believe me. Recently on HN, I read a comment suggesting to bill by the week instead of the hour. An hour is too short of a time period to actually produce anything meaningful but you can get a lot done in a week. I think this method of billing would work much better. I haven't used it yet but I will propose it for my next contract.
- JimboOmega 16y agoWhen your customer is the government, indirectly, by way of a fixed-fee contract, the actual impact of your quality is often hard to see. In the typical model, a manager's highest priority is to reduce indirect charges and make sure as much as possible is charged to a contract. Now I'm not saying anyone is out to defraud, or charge time inappropriately, or etc. But what makes the company money is time it can charge to the gov't. Therefore if they see you spending half your time goofing off, but still getting more done - from their point of view, their legal obligation is to make sure they are charging correctly. I cannot imagine trying to justify charging half of your time indirectly, with the caveat that "hey, I'm getting even more done". Financially that would be a disaster for them. The only way for it to work out would be to bid double for contracts, which, given how bidding works... doesn't work.
- MarkNederhoed 16y agoThe great debate: Do you start with 30 minutes of twittertime or do you start your day working?
- khookie 16y agoI guess any rational sounding justification will do eh - 30mins work and 30mins break? Gimme a break... you're wasting so much time it's not funny. But I guess you are what you want to believe - http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/willpower-resource-study-101410.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/willpower-resourc... Not saying the principle is bad, you just need to make the reward significantly cheaper than what it is now.
- egb 16y agoFor those who use Merlin Mann's (10+2)*5 ratio (http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-1025 http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-102...) and have an iPhone, check out my timer app for it: http://itunes.apple.com/app/10-2-x5-procrastination-hack/id314598572?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/10-2-x5-procrastination-hack/id3...
- craigbellot 16y agoAlready using this. Can't stay off facebook for more than 30 min anyway...
- sdizdar 16y agoThe concept is excellent. And here is what I use to achieve the exactly same thing: http://senadreport.com/post/1472323819/how-to-stay-focused http://senadreport.com/post/1472323819/how-to-stay-focused The ratio for me is maybe 15/45.
- BweezySearch 16y agoRight. I'm sure all employers will now tell their employees to go have fun for 30 out of every 60 minutes. I don't think so...