15 ms·

Productivity Is About Attention Management

939 points by gotocake 8y ago

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
fuck agile
kumarvvr 8y ago
What the author means by "attention management" is, perhaps, the ability to concentrate for a long period of time. Personally, for work that i love to do, concentration is rewarding. For mundane, routine work, I usually go on auto pilot, getting work done, but, doing it while my attention is somewhere else. For mundane work that requires concentration, my output falls off the cliff. Its here that many tips and tricks ought to focus, but dont. And, frankly, its difficult too, to hack this type of work. Its human nature to be bored out and perhaps nothing can change it.
- marcv81 8y ago
  I used to think like you until I met a coworker. He could not code to save his life, nobody in the team liked working with him. Until one day we had a boring data entry task. He could do it for hours at a time, and barely made any mistake. This experience taught me something.
  - alexanderdmitri 8y ago
    What did it teach you? I'm having trouble seeing the relevance.
    - quickthrower2 8y ago
      Maybe don't autofire your 0.1Xers?
      - dlivingston 8y ago
        What's a 0.1Xer?
        quickthrower2 8y ago
        Amazingly it's hard to find a good link on this topic. Anyway it's from some study years ago that the most productive people are 10 times more productive than the least productive people. These are called 10x-ers (assuming they exist). 0.1xer is a play on that to talk to the least productive people in a team.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      That some individuals are better at concentrating on mundane tasks.
    - pm90 8y ago
      People have their competencies which may not often be evident. I do still think that, in the hyper competitive corporate world today, such kinds of people will get shafted regularly until they realize themselves what their great skills are and build on them.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - kumarvvr 8y ago
    To each his own I guess. Maybe that person is most comfortable in a semi- auto pilot mode. I have noticed that some people are very much averse to prolonged thinking / problem solving / creative work. These are the kinds of people, who, if stuck in a problem, go to their friends and family for advise and solve their problems. They usually have a lot of people / socializing / networking skills. I myself am an introvert and love to sit by myself and think of solutions for problems, be it work / life related. I am very bad at networking and usually go to a very very small set of people to discuss any problems I am facing, that I am unable to solve myself.
    - cgriswald 8y ago
      I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. I love to sit and think in a problem. I also love to turn off my brain completely and solve sudoku for hours on end while my mind is elsewhere.
      - kumarvvr 8y ago
        That's really interesting, about the sudoku thing. I love to do those puzzles but I go full into the stuff and can't think anything else while solving for them.
  - empath75 8y ago
    I literally learned how to code to get out of a single boring data entry task.
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  Perhaps but people can develop strategies that work for them. It helps if you can mix the mundane with more engaging work or some procrastination. This is where time management can be very useful. If possible I prefer short but intense bursts of mundane but high concentration tasks. I've been using timers to help train myself to spend a set amount of time fully concentrating on a task and then reward myself with a break (which could involve more engaging work or if might simply be spending time on HN).
- brandall10 8y ago
  Probably going to be controversial but I'll say it anyway - About 10 years ago I had a period of 6 months filled almost entirely with mundane work that required concentration. My gf at the time had a pretty hefty prescription for Vyvanse and well... I was shocked at the difference. I could get done in one morning what would normally take an entire week. And I did it about that often, usually a Monday or Tues depending on meeting load and would use my free time to get to other side projects that were important but not my main priority. I'm too old to have seen the ritalin craze in higher education (I used it a handful of times during all-nighters but it was fairly rare/hard to get), and I don't believe I've touched these types of drugs since, but I do understand their pull when one needs to grind.
  - QualityReboot 8y ago
    Yeah, people feel uneasy with this. It seems that amphetamines work for pretty much everyone at the right dose, and they have very few side effects. I've had a prescription for about 15 years and while I don't take it daily, it's incredibly helpful sometimes. It's a problem if everyone does it, but that hasn't really stopped me. It's unclear if I'm a rational actor, a bad person, or both.
  - rootbear 8y ago
    I was on Vyvanse for a while and it did seem to help, a little, but it had unacceptable side effects for me. Specifically, I started grinding my teeth! When I figured out it was the Vyvanse that caused it, I went off the drug and the grinding stopped. We tried some other drug, I forget which, but it wasn't as effective. I'm glad it worked for you and I wish it had worked better for me. I don't much like my current job and it's a daily struggle to stay focused on it.
    - brandall10 8y ago
      It worked for me specifically in that context, but I didn't have a desire to do much with it in ensuing years as it seemed to have a deleterious effect on my creative capacity (important for work I do like) + did have a negative impact on my ability to sleep and made me really hyper. The grinding happened for me too but didn't bother me much, I just chewed gum. Could see how doing that on a daily basis would be a drag.
- Bekwnn 8y ago
  The term "attention management" might not apply to everyone, too. I'm most effective when I'm in the zone, which usually comes easiest when I'm listening to music and rapidly flicking between things. My thought process works best when there's a fraction of distraction and when I'm in a playful mood, not when there are no distractions and not when the only thing in front of me is the task at hand. My thoughts slow down without something there to keep them moving. No known conditions or attention disorders and doubtful of having one. I just work best in a creative or playful mood, not a concentrated one. I'm surprised it's so alien and uncommon for programmers, it's not uncommon in other more traditionally creative fields.
  - kumarvvr 8y ago
    Very interesting. Are you in a digital creative field or traditional creative field?
    - Bekwnn 8y ago
      Games development as a programmer. Lots of writing new code. Parents were artists and I very nearly majored in English. There's a lot of lessons I took from traditionally creative fields.
      - kumarvvr 8y ago
        Great to know. Have a hobby game project lined up this year, using Unreal. Creative work is such a rush.
- douglaswlance 8y ago
  No work is mundane if you can find a higher reason why you're doing the task.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
> Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. This is exactly why I created Pony [0], an email platform that sends and receives messages once a day. The problem for me wasn’t managing my time, but managing my attention, which was really hard with everything coming at me constantly all the time. I observed that most things aren’t urgent, and further I observed that nearly all communication was improved when I had space and time to handle it, and most importantly, was able to compartmentalize and give it attention. [0] https://www.pony.gg https://www.pony.gg
- Jedi72 8y ago
  Please stop spamming your ads in every half-related HN thread. You are really annoying lots of people.
  - dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
    Hi Jedi72, I sincerely don’t see how this half is related: this is very much related. Isn’t it relevant that no platform exists that gives you space and time to have attention-full communication? Isn’t that the whole problem? This article and Pony, a solution to the problems described in this article, wouldn’t exist otherwise.
    - mhluongo 8y ago
      If you want HN to look at your stuff, post a Show HN ️
      - dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
        I considered that but at the same time I would like incremental feedback at this point. But maybe I should do a Show HN. I don’t want to bother people. Should we do a Show HN?
        dang 8y ago
ohaideredevs 8y ago
I have never been able to force true concentration. I arrogantly proclaim that I have strong willpower* - I have very little trouble forcing myself to do something I entirely don't want to do, whether it be study, workout, code, whatever. However, forced concentration completely blocks off my ability to think fluidly, and I memorize very little from reading topics that aren't of interest to me (I am looking at you GCP docs), even if I don't allow my attention to wander at all for more than a second. (Rote memorization still works, but it's very impractical for many topics). I have lately found that if I force myself to read something I hate for 3+ hours straight, my brain involuntarily starts wanting to know more. But I rarely have 3 hours to just get in the mood. * Research has shown that people who think they have strong willpower test the worst on willpower, but I am a special objective snowflake.
- pm90 8y ago
  Haha GCP docs do seem to be well written though, aren’t they? It seems like folks have their own way of learning how to concentrate effectively on things that may not immediately catch their attention. For me personally, it has been note-taking. Note taking seems to trigger a part of my brain that makes it think that the subject matter is worth paying attention too. Often my notes won’t be points but some doodles/diagrams to visualize what things look like. Others have pointed out that certain kinds of prescription drugs are useful too, which... tbh I’m a little wary of trying. If they turn out to be too effective my internal logic system might have me using them all the time.
  - ohaideredevs 8y ago
    The docs are very well written. I just know I won't use 95% of what I learn before I have forgotten it. I guess it's good to know what is and isn't available though. I am way of trying Adderall and such as well, for exactly the same reason as you. Things like trying to paraphrase in my own words help me way more than standard notes, but doing this is also very time consuming, and it's not necessary when I am into the subject. I think your strat of "doodles/diagrams to visualize what things look like" likely works on the exact same principle which forces the brain to pay attention since it now has to work with the information.
krosaen 8y ago
This article was a fun read as it playfully poked holes in some conventional wisdom but I'm not sure I'm left with coherent advice. Deep work doesn't matter? Working in 15 minute bursts is ok? Save rewarding work for after routine? Or maybe match it to my circadian rhythms? Work on what I love? Have a maker schedule? Maybe the best takeaway is that there isn't really a single coherent ruleset for productivity...
- mettamage 8y ago
  Somehow your comment reminds me of Mozart. There have been years where he didn’t compose much.
- pm90 8y ago
  The human mind is an amazing and complicated thing. I think we’re only beginning to scratch at the surface of truly unlocking its abilities. Seems like a lot of these “rules” are simply cargo cult like remedies.
- arendtio 8y ago
  I think it is something along the lines of... - don't care about time management so much - care about motivation (think about what can be done with the result) - choose the right time to have the mental state you require to focus on the task at hand
revskill 8y ago
For most of technical works i do, concentration only happens AFTER i figure out what i need to do to solve the problem. Else most of the time, the "researching phase" is the most daunting task.
- cven714 8y ago
  I have the exact same problem. When I know what needs to get done, even if it's tedious, it's not so bad to put my nose to the grindstone and work through it. But when I'm not sure how to approach a task, suddenly every distraction in the world is more appealing. You often see the suggestion to break up big tasks into smaller, baby step chunks to avoid this analysis paralysis. Doesn't help when I'm not even sure what to do yet.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    From my experience, try having enough projects in your belt that at least one of them has something actionable to do, and work on that while you ruminate on the other problem for a few days/weeks/months. Don't worry about getting anything done soon, prefer getting them done correctly and pick something else up when you get stuck. Also, don't forget that "staring into space for an hour while you think about a problem" is also a valid form of working.
    - ehead 8y ago
      This is my solution, but it feels like there should be a better way. I have replaced 'staring into space thinking' with taking a walk outside my office.
      - zikzak 8y ago
        Unless you are rich enough to have chosen it, or maybe a prisoner, you always have more than one thing to do. Laundry, groceries, complex engineering, it all needs to be done. I think our minds evolved to track all these things and, probably in a time sensitive way more than projected future value, to prioritize them. For this reason, I think having multiple projects is the natural state as the mind is optimized for this. So maybe this is the "best way" and explains a lot of the strange ways in which putting a problem aside can help solve it.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Interesting take on it, I certainly resonate with the "Michigan weather making work the only thing to do" anecdote. I struggle with productivity, and feeling productive. and when I look back on times when I felt productive the attention thing does stand out. It occurred to me when I thought of myself as a younger programmer that I used to love the time between midnight and 3AM, there was literally nothing on TV to distract me, the house was quiet, the kids and wife were in bed and asleep. I could spend the time thinking through the problem and then mindfully developing an approach to solve it. These days, not so much. There is always something distracting in a web browser. Too many times I find I go to check something and poof an hour has vanished as I've followed a bunch of paths that I wasn't intending to follow. As a result my current efforts focus on not leaving a bunch of tabs open on my browser and being mindful about getting done what I came to do for the task at hand and going back to the task. No extra checking of mail or twitter or HN or what ever ...
- mark_l_watson 8y ago
  Hey, I have enjoyed your comments over the years on HN, so I am happy to have some good advice to share with you: use something like Instapaper or a transient bookmark list to note interesting/useful things but do your reading just a few times a week. I find that this keeps me from link-following behavior that afterwards seemed like a waste of time. Make the saved link reading time special by setting aside reading time so I feel like I am doing just what I am supposed to be doing.
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    I use Pocket for exactly this purpose. I save interesting articles from my desktop or mobile browser to Pocket. Instead of reading random junk news or scrolling social media when I have a few free minutes on the go or at the end on the day, I have quality articles on my phone in my pocket. (Disclosure: I work at Mozilla and Mozilla owns Pocket.)
  - djakjxnanjak 8y ago
    iOS has a feature “save to reading list” that I use to save stories that seem interesting but that I don’t need to read for my current task. However, I haven’t taken to time to learn to access my reading list :)
kochikame 8y ago
Ironic to see this post on HN, the place where I go to procrastinate
randomacct3847 8y ago
I’ve found a lot of benefit from taking Piracetam or Noopept in the mornings with a daily coffee. I feel hyper-focused in a way that I don’t usually feel with just coffee alone.
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
As someone who's often asked about my productivity (and who also often feels unproductive anyway), I think this quote from the article gets at the heart of the issue: >A better option is attention management: Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. Progress is persistence + time. Nonzero values of both will lead to results. If you spend 1% of your time on a project which requires a hundred hours of work, it'll be complete in a little over a year. I don't shy away from projects which I know will take years to complete, and as a result they eventually get completed :)
netwanderer3 8y ago
There's a general misconception between being productive and being effective. One can fill their days by completing many mindless tasks and consider themselves as productive, but in the end hardly any of those tasks really matters. On the other hand, another person may only complete one or two tasks in a very short time during their day but these were critical tasks that could generate much higher values. This subsequently makes the person more effective than their peers. The output values must be weight in determining if one is really productive. Effectiveness triumphs mindless productivity. This is quite similar to the cognitive and decision fatigue principle which indicates that each of us only has a limited pool of cognitive resources and so we must be very selective in choosing what activities we engage in. To remain highly effective, not just being productive, particularly for a project manager, it's imperative to spend time only on tasks that require critical decisions to be made, and to delegate the rest. When you take on more tasks than you can handle, like some are misunderstanding this may help them appear as productive, it will undoubtedly affect the quality of each of your decisions and the project will suffer.
- tylerhou 8y ago
  > This is quite similar to the cognitive and decision fatigue principle which indicates that each of us only has a limited pool of cognitive resources and so we must be very selective in choosing what activities we engage in. Watch out — many of the studies which displayed “cognitive fatigue” (I assume you actually mean ego depletion) have not been replicated successfully. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...
  - mjburgess 8y ago
    The general idea even in a loose, more metaphorical sense, holds however. 'Mental fatigue' is well established, and your volition along with mental faculties generally become harder to exercise the longer they are used without break. The specifics are disputed, but we needn't be so specific for the advise to hold.
miguelmota 8y ago
Context switching really takes a toll on focusing. It sucks when executives in a company keep having 'new ideas' and switching the priorities.
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I liked his book “Power Moves: Lessons from Davis”. After listening to this book I followed Adam Grant for a couple weeks on Twitter. He does have interesting advice on deciding what to focus on. I am going to add a calendar reminder for a year from now to follow him again on Twitter for a while.
Lramseyer 8y ago
I really like where the writer is going with this, and I have had similar thoughts on the matter. I believe that a good user experience streamlines the flow of attention and tries to reduce "attention turbulence" for a given task. And I'm referring to more than just smartphone apps and web pages, though they make for great examples. I wish more people realized the value of human attention. I would even go as far as to say that the reason that the tech industry is so profitable is because of it's ability to provide shortcuts for the attention required to complete a given task.
dboreham 8y ago
You can learn about this by observing cats.
1e-9 8y ago
My most effective means of achieving a high level of work productivity is pleasure reading. It doesn't have to be anything deep. It just needs to be something I want to immerse myself in. The mental process I use to completely tune out the real world while reading for fun is the same one I use to reach a high level of productivity for work. Reading keeps it sharp. If I go too long without pleasure reading, my ability to focus on work suffers. Conversely, some of my most significant breakthroughs have occurred within a day or two of a crazy reading binge.
- sherkaner 8y ago
  I feel that I read in a wrong way. My productivity and ability to think often plummets after reading fiction. Could it be connected with vizualization? Do you visualize your characters, setting, predict what's going to happen, etc? Usually my eyes just skim over the descriptions of characters and scenery.
  - 1e-9 8y ago
    Yes, I think visualization provides the key benefit. When I read something good, my imagination recreates the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences in great detail and tunes out the real world. I lose all awareness of the book's text and everything around me. It's like I "live in the story." This mental state can persist for hours, even in loud environments with high levels of activity around me. After I sleep following some deep reading, I notice a heightened ability to visualize a problem and run mental simulations of potential solutions. It's like I "live in the problem." Interestingly, when I have played video games with similarly high levels of focus, I have not realized work improvement afterwards. In fact, video games seem to degrade my work performance. I think that is because video games generate stress and do not stimulate nearly the same level of mental world-building that good fiction does.
arleny 8y ago
> A fascinating or funny video makes the data entry task seem even more excruciating, the same way a sweet dessert makes a sour vegetable taste yuckier. For me it's the opposite. I often play videos in the background when I'm performing monotonous tasks and it seems to help me from getting completely distracted and abandon the task altogether.
theyinwhy 8y ago
Although interesting, I think the example is a sign of over self improvement. When your only way to do more work is going to the toilet less often you are overbooked big time and there will be no way to get more productive, no matter what angle you look at it. Quite contrary, you will be less effective (!) on the long run. It is a vicious circle.
- stdbrouw 8y ago
  The author uses the example as a cautionary tale, not as something laudable.
atemerev 8y ago
As a person with diagnosed adult ADD, this is one thing I cannot do — manage attention. Medication and meditation help a little, but I probably will never reach the productive capabilities of a regular person. Sigh.
- AnthonBerg 8y ago
  I know this sadness. However, one thing which has helped me has been the opportunity to work with supremely effective people. It somehow lifts your perspective or shapes your intuition. Somehow monkey see monkey do also works for monkey see high-level executive function and execution. I didn’t expect that. I thought it might just make the sadness worse. But immersion helped.
- GunlogAlm 8y ago
  I'm in the same boat; diagnosed with ADHD-PI (UK, so we don't use the term 'ADD') as an adult. I've improved vastly thanks to medication and good routines but it remains a constant effort, and improvement is a continual process. The book Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley helped me significantly.
  - atemerev 8y ago
    Just bought and read the book. For me, it was fantastically depressing: basically it says: “OK, so you have ADHD. Sucks to be you. Go through this huge laundry list of these and those things to do, don’t forget to take your medication, find a mentor — assuming anybody would want to deal with you, and who could blame them? — and if you are extremely lucky, and with heavy effort, maybe you can become half a normal man or woman who runs through all of this effortlessly, which you’ll never be. What a burden to society!” All of this is true perhaps, but now I just want to die.
    - toby- 8y ago
      Whilst I didn't get that exact impression from the book, Barkley is known for being "realistic" about ADHD: he doesn't hide the fact that, depending on severity, ADHD can levy a heavy toll on a person, significantly impacting their quality of life. ADHD sucks, but we can make it suck significantly less through good habits, good routines, healthy eating, exercise and, where appropriate, medication and other forms of psychological support. It's a cliché, but comparing yourself to others is a bad idea in this domain. I have yet to meet an ADHDer who makes these sorts of "upward comparisons" and derives anything useful from them; they typically just exacerbate feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness. Personally, I know I might never be as effective or productive as a person without ADHD is capable of being, but I can be the best version of myself — it's fruitless and unhealthy to ask more of yourself than this, right?
kayza 8y ago
„There is an 8th habit of highly effective people. They don’t waste time reading 7 habits of highly effective people.“ He got it.
iLemming 8y ago
I've tried many different things and I finally have a solution that (I think) works for me: It's Emacs' Org-mode in combination with Org-pomodoro - First, using org-capture I would create an org heading with a description of the problem. If there's a Jira ticket I would attach the ticket number (I have a trivial elisp function that converts a regular number into a complete jira-ticket link) - Then I would start a Pomodoro cycle. If I'm on a Mac - it would create an OSX menubar item with the title of the heading (using Hammerspoon). Org will "clock" me in for the task for the next 25 minutes - I just realized that I can probably even programmatically switch Slack to "do not disturb" mode while Pomodoro is active - Activated Pomodoro cycle is like a sacred ritual for me. I do not pick up my phone or check email or (if possible) even talk to anyone. After Pomodoro is done I would take a break, check email, get some water, etc. If I can get done 5-7 pomodoros during a day - I consider it a very productive day. - Org records everything. At the end of the day I know: exactly how long I worked on every single story, the number of pomodoros I did, notes that I took while working on each story. Whenever I changed the status of the story from "todo" to "in progress" and back to "to do" or when I flipped it to "done" or "canceled", reasons why the story was canceled, etc. And this is all done with a minimal context switching.
- tighter_wires 8y ago
  Do you ever find that Pomodoro doesn't leave enough uninterrupted time on your task? When you're knee deep do you ever just skip your breaks?
  - Narushia 8y ago
    I generally find pomodoro’s 25-minute work intervals too short for software development, I prefer the 52/17 method.
    - iLemming 8y ago
      Yeah, everyone is different. I tried experimenting with 20-30-40 minute intervals and decided 25 is the optimal for me. But it really has to be distraction free. I use brain.fm or instrumental music (no lyrics) or I just keep my headphones on so nobody bothers me. It doesn't sound very challenging, but after five pomodoros I truly can feel it, after eight - I am mentally exhausted. Ten pomodoros mean I either cheated or something else.
drinkcrudeoil 8y ago
This article is basically about the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
JrProgrammer 8y ago
> I’m pretty sure there’s an eighth habit of highly effective people. They don’t spend all their time reading about the seven habits of highly effective people. I think this is often overlooked. What works for other people might not work for you and the time spent looking for the right way is better spend on doing the tasks.
normalhuman 8y ago
My favorite anti-productivity introspections: - Remember that you are going to die. Time flies, have you noticed? Is that status symbol that you are pursuing really that important? Is it ever going to make you happy? - There is more wisdom in one of your cells than in all self-help and management books combined. Maybe you can't focus for a good reason? What could that reason be? - Remember the last time you felt glad to be alive? Was it related to being productive? No need to thank me.
- jakoblorz 8y ago
  You killed it
- Pimpus 8y ago
  I've always focused on being efficient, not productive. I want to get my work done as fast as possible so I can return to enjoying life.
  - Zeebrommer 8y ago
    I've been wondering whether framing it like that (work vs life) is making things worse. I do it myself too, but what if those 8+ hours a day could actually also be leisure? Coworkers with young kids actually joke about coming to work to relax.
- jatins 8y ago
  Good in theory, but less than ideal in real world. A lot of getting good deliberate practice even when you don't "feel like" it. like how the 7 year old Djokovic said "Tennis for me is a duty" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdOS0zCsJsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdOS0zCsJsg
  - ramblerman 8y ago
    > The real world... cites #1 tennis player in the world as an example. For the vast majority trying to shuffle Jira tickets faster or optimize your vim keybindings for the nth time, they would do better to listen to OP.
kulu2002 8y ago
...and then there are tools used in organisations (like ours) which track how many hours you been on PC (ON PC time) vs Off PC time (So called "Productivity tracking"). More the ON PC time means you are "highly productive". This metric is also usually taken-up during appraisal discussions and questions are put on one's productivity.
rygxqpbsngav 8y ago
To me, the best life hack for productivity is "Sleep". If I sleep good, the day will be productive enough. If I don't, it might not.
derrida 8y ago
Busyness is not a virtue. The consequences of your actions being good... that has always been the definition of virtue.
derrida 8y ago
Busyness is not a virtue. The consequences of your actions being good... that has always been the classic definition of virtue. Do good things. 1 small action can have massive consequences. Creating something good and useful to others, it does not matter if it took 20 minutes, for sufficiently good actions, if you did 1 a decade, nobody cares how busy you are or if you were "productive". This is called being constructive. Rather than productive or rather than optimizing busyness (a fake appearance of doing work or "good") instead we just do things that are good. This takes cultures of trust and requires belief products actually benefit people create viability & wealth. We can define a good action as one that has good consequnces. Busyness makes nobody happy... it doesn't even make your boss happy. It's just... something you're meant to be, I guess. It's stupid and dumb. Do good things. "make something other people want"... is a good description of viability, only problem is people also want crack and being a crack dealer is pretty stessful (I imagine) so if you don't want stress or to be to busy and still manage to do great stuff... let's narrow this down. Make something other people want... people want good stuff, don't they? :) Do good. Don't do not good. There, simplified everything.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  > Busyness is not a virtue. Funny, I've never heart anyone state it so succinctly. I ought to print that phrase out and paste it on the wall at my desk. (I work remote so it'd just be for me and not for management to judge)
tmaly 8y ago
On the idea that we need motivation, I have been practicing the concept of mini habits to overcome the barriers that the brain puts up when using motivation. https://tysonmaly.com/books/how-to-make-habits-the-easy-way/ https://tysonmaly.com/books/how-to-make-habits-the-easy-way/ I think keeping a few key concepts like Parkinson's law and Pareto's law as well as thinking about what is actually going to move the needle helps.
bump64 7y ago
I gave up on productivity long ago. It depends on the type of work that you do. If I am let's say on the assembly line and everything is already thought of and I have to follow well written guides, then I could try to be productive, avoid distractions and so on. On my job I have to research complex problems, that you can't simply google them and find an answer. It takes time to design a possible solution, trial and error, a lot of thinking and observing and in the end you feel that you have hit a wall. In such cases I simply need a break and to think for something else for a while. It is also very hard to put an estimate and set a deadline for a such thing, so productivity is the least of my problems.

939 points by gotocake 8y ago

fuck agile

What the author means by "attention management" is, perhaps, the ability to concentrate for a long period of time. Personally, for work that i love to do, concentration is rewarding. For mundane, routine work, I usually go on auto pilot, getting work done, but, doing it while my attention is somewhere else. For mundane work that requires concentration, my output falls off the cliff. Its here that many tips and tricks ought to focus, but dont. And, frankly, its difficult too, to hack this type of work. Its human nature to be bored out and perhaps nothing can change it.

marcv81 8y ago
I used to think like you until I met a coworker. He could not code to save his life, nobody in the team liked working with him. Until one day we had a boring data entry task. He could do it for hours at a time, and barely made any mistake. This experience taught me something.
- alexanderdmitri 8y ago
  What did it teach you? I'm having trouble seeing the relevance.
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    Maybe don't autofire your 0.1Xers?
    - dlivingston 8y ago
      What's a 0.1Xer?
      - quickthrower2 8y ago
        Amazingly it's hard to find a good link on this topic. Anyway it's from some study years ago that the most productive people are 10 times more productive than the least productive people. These are called 10x-ers (assuming they exist). 0.1xer is a play on that to talk to the least productive people in a team.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    That some individuals are better at concentrating on mundane tasks.
  - pm90 8y ago
    People have their competencies which may not often be evident. I do still think that, in the hyper competitive corporate world today, such kinds of people will get shafted regularly until they realize themselves what their great skills are and build on them.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- kumarvvr 8y ago
  To each his own I guess. Maybe that person is most comfortable in a semi- auto pilot mode. I have noticed that some people are very much averse to prolonged thinking / problem solving / creative work. These are the kinds of people, who, if stuck in a problem, go to their friends and family for advise and solve their problems. They usually have a lot of people / socializing / networking skills. I myself am an introvert and love to sit by myself and think of solutions for problems, be it work / life related. I am very bad at networking and usually go to a very very small set of people to discuss any problems I am facing, that I am unable to solve myself.
  - cgriswald 8y ago
    I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. I love to sit and think in a problem. I also love to turn off my brain completely and solve sudoku for hours on end while my mind is elsewhere.
    - kumarvvr 8y ago
      That's really interesting, about the sudoku thing. I love to do those puzzles but I go full into the stuff and can't think anything else while solving for them.
- empath75 8y ago
  I literally learned how to code to get out of a single boring data entry task.
ChrisSD 8y ago
Perhaps but people can develop strategies that work for them. It helps if you can mix the mundane with more engaging work or some procrastination. This is where time management can be very useful. If possible I prefer short but intense bursts of mundane but high concentration tasks. I've been using timers to help train myself to spend a set amount of time fully concentrating on a task and then reward myself with a break (which could involve more engaging work or if might simply be spending time on HN).
brandall10 8y ago
Probably going to be controversial but I'll say it anyway - About 10 years ago I had a period of 6 months filled almost entirely with mundane work that required concentration. My gf at the time had a pretty hefty prescription for Vyvanse and well... I was shocked at the difference. I could get done in one morning what would normally take an entire week. And I did it about that often, usually a Monday or Tues depending on meeting load and would use my free time to get to other side projects that were important but not my main priority. I'm too old to have seen the ritalin craze in higher education (I used it a handful of times during all-nighters but it was fairly rare/hard to get), and I don't believe I've touched these types of drugs since, but I do understand their pull when one needs to grind.
- QualityReboot 8y ago
  Yeah, people feel uneasy with this. It seems that amphetamines work for pretty much everyone at the right dose, and they have very few side effects. I've had a prescription for about 15 years and while I don't take it daily, it's incredibly helpful sometimes. It's a problem if everyone does it, but that hasn't really stopped me. It's unclear if I'm a rational actor, a bad person, or both.
- rootbear 8y ago
  I was on Vyvanse for a while and it did seem to help, a little, but it had unacceptable side effects for me. Specifically, I started grinding my teeth! When I figured out it was the Vyvanse that caused it, I went off the drug and the grinding stopped. We tried some other drug, I forget which, but it wasn't as effective. I'm glad it worked for you and I wish it had worked better for me. I don't much like my current job and it's a daily struggle to stay focused on it.
  - brandall10 8y ago
    It worked for me specifically in that context, but I didn't have a desire to do much with it in ensuing years as it seemed to have a deleterious effect on my creative capacity (important for work I do like) + did have a negative impact on my ability to sleep and made me really hyper. The grinding happened for me too but didn't bother me much, I just chewed gum. Could see how doing that on a daily basis would be a drag.
Bekwnn 8y ago
The term "attention management" might not apply to everyone, too. I'm most effective when I'm in the zone, which usually comes easiest when I'm listening to music and rapidly flicking between things. My thought process works best when there's a fraction of distraction and when I'm in a playful mood, not when there are no distractions and not when the only thing in front of me is the task at hand. My thoughts slow down without something there to keep them moving. No known conditions or attention disorders and doubtful of having one. I just work best in a creative or playful mood, not a concentrated one. I'm surprised it's so alien and uncommon for programmers, it's not uncommon in other more traditionally creative fields.
- kumarvvr 8y ago
  Very interesting. Are you in a digital creative field or traditional creative field?
  - Bekwnn 8y ago
    Games development as a programmer. Lots of writing new code. Parents were artists and I very nearly majored in English. There's a lot of lessons I took from traditionally creative fields.
    - kumarvvr 8y ago
      Great to know. Have a hobby game project lined up this year, using Unreal. Creative work is such a rush.
douglaswlance 8y ago
No work is mundane if you can find a higher reason why you're doing the task.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dmitryminkovsky 8y ago

> Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. This is exactly why I created Pony [0], an email platform that sends and receives messages once a day. The problem for me wasn’t managing my time, but managing my attention, which was really hard with everything coming at me constantly all the time. I observed that most things aren’t urgent, and further I observed that nearly all communication was improved when I had space and time to handle it, and most importantly, was able to compartmentalize and give it attention. [0] https://www.pony.gg https://www.pony.gg

Jedi72 8y ago
Please stop spamming your ads in every half-related HN thread. You are really annoying lots of people.
- dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
  Hi Jedi72, I sincerely don’t see how this half is related: this is very much related. Isn’t it relevant that no platform exists that gives you space and time to have attention-full communication? Isn’t that the whole problem? This article and Pony, a solution to the problems described in this article, wouldn’t exist otherwise.
  - mhluongo 8y ago
    If you want HN to look at your stuff, post a Show HN ️
    - dmitryminkovsky 8y ago
      I considered that but at the same time I would like incremental feedback at this point. But maybe I should do a Show HN. I don’t want to bother people. Should we do a Show HN?
      - dang 8y ago

ohaideredevs 8y ago

I have never been able to force true concentration. I arrogantly proclaim that I have strong willpower* - I have very little trouble forcing myself to do something I entirely don't want to do, whether it be study, workout, code, whatever. However, forced concentration completely blocks off my ability to think fluidly, and I memorize very little from reading topics that aren't of interest to me (I am looking at you GCP docs), even if I don't allow my attention to wander at all for more than a second. (Rote memorization still works, but it's very impractical for many topics). I have lately found that if I force myself to read something I hate for 3+ hours straight, my brain involuntarily starts wanting to know more. But I rarely have 3 hours to just get in the mood. * Research has shown that people who think they have strong willpower test the worst on willpower, but I am a special objective snowflake.

pm90 8y ago
Haha GCP docs do seem to be well written though, aren’t they? It seems like folks have their own way of learning how to concentrate effectively on things that may not immediately catch their attention. For me personally, it has been note-taking. Note taking seems to trigger a part of my brain that makes it think that the subject matter is worth paying attention too. Often my notes won’t be points but some doodles/diagrams to visualize what things look like. Others have pointed out that certain kinds of prescription drugs are useful too, which... tbh I’m a little wary of trying. If they turn out to be too effective my internal logic system might have me using them all the time.
- ohaideredevs 8y ago
  The docs are very well written. I just know I won't use 95% of what I learn before I have forgotten it. I guess it's good to know what is and isn't available though. I am way of trying Adderall and such as well, for exactly the same reason as you. Things like trying to paraphrase in my own words help me way more than standard notes, but doing this is also very time consuming, and it's not necessary when I am into the subject. I think your strat of "doodles/diagrams to visualize what things look like" likely works on the exact same principle which forces the brain to pay attention since it now has to work with the information.

krosaen 8y ago

This article was a fun read as it playfully poked holes in some conventional wisdom but I'm not sure I'm left with coherent advice. Deep work doesn't matter? Working in 15 minute bursts is ok? Save rewarding work for after routine? Or maybe match it to my circadian rhythms? Work on what I love? Have a maker schedule? Maybe the best takeaway is that there isn't really a single coherent ruleset for productivity...

mettamage 8y ago
Somehow your comment reminds me of Mozart. There have been years where he didn’t compose much.
pm90 8y ago
The human mind is an amazing and complicated thing. I think we’re only beginning to scratch at the surface of truly unlocking its abilities. Seems like a lot of these “rules” are simply cargo cult like remedies.
arendtio 8y ago
I think it is something along the lines of... - don't care about time management so much - care about motivation (think about what can be done with the result) - choose the right time to have the mental state you require to focus on the task at hand

revskill 8y ago

For most of technical works i do, concentration only happens AFTER i figure out what i need to do to solve the problem. Else most of the time, the "researching phase" is the most daunting task.

cven714 8y ago
I have the exact same problem. When I know what needs to get done, even if it's tedious, it's not so bad to put my nose to the grindstone and work through it. But when I'm not sure how to approach a task, suddenly every distraction in the world is more appealing. You often see the suggestion to break up big tasks into smaller, baby step chunks to avoid this analysis paralysis. Doesn't help when I'm not even sure what to do yet.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  From my experience, try having enough projects in your belt that at least one of them has something actionable to do, and work on that while you ruminate on the other problem for a few days/weeks/months. Don't worry about getting anything done soon, prefer getting them done correctly and pick something else up when you get stuck. Also, don't forget that "staring into space for an hour while you think about a problem" is also a valid form of working.
  - ehead 8y ago
    This is my solution, but it feels like there should be a better way. I have replaced 'staring into space thinking' with taking a walk outside my office.
    - zikzak 8y ago
      Unless you are rich enough to have chosen it, or maybe a prisoner, you always have more than one thing to do. Laundry, groceries, complex engineering, it all needs to be done. I think our minds evolved to track all these things and, probably in a time sensitive way more than projected future value, to prioritize them. For this reason, I think having multiple projects is the natural state as the mind is optimized for this. So maybe this is the "best way" and explains a lot of the strange ways in which putting a problem aside can help solve it.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Interesting take on it, I certainly resonate with the "Michigan weather making work the only thing to do" anecdote. I struggle with productivity, and feeling productive. and when I look back on times when I felt productive the attention thing does stand out. It occurred to me when I thought of myself as a younger programmer that I used to love the time between midnight and 3AM, there was literally nothing on TV to distract me, the house was quiet, the kids and wife were in bed and asleep. I could spend the time thinking through the problem and then mindfully developing an approach to solve it. These days, not so much. There is always something distracting in a web browser. Too many times I find I go to check something and poof an hour has vanished as I've followed a bunch of paths that I wasn't intending to follow. As a result my current efforts focus on not leaving a bunch of tabs open on my browser and being mindful about getting done what I came to do for the task at hand and going back to the task. No extra checking of mail or twitter or HN or what ever ...

mark_l_watson 8y ago
Hey, I have enjoyed your comments over the years on HN, so I am happy to have some good advice to share with you: use something like Instapaper or a transient bookmark list to note interesting/useful things but do your reading just a few times a week. I find that this keeps me from link-following behavior that afterwards seemed like a waste of time. Make the saved link reading time special by setting aside reading time so I feel like I am doing just what I am supposed to be doing.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  I use Pocket for exactly this purpose. I save interesting articles from my desktop or mobile browser to Pocket. Instead of reading random junk news or scrolling social media when I have a few free minutes on the go or at the end on the day, I have quality articles on my phone in my pocket. (Disclosure: I work at Mozilla and Mozilla owns Pocket.)
- djakjxnanjak 8y ago
  iOS has a feature “save to reading list” that I use to save stories that seem interesting but that I don’t need to read for my current task. However, I haven’t taken to time to learn to access my reading list :)

kochikame 8y ago

Ironic to see this post on HN, the place where I go to procrastinate

randomacct3847 8y ago

I’ve found a lot of benefit from taking Piracetam or Noopept in the mornings with a daily coffee. I feel hyper-focused in a way that I don’t usually feel with just coffee alone.

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago

As someone who's often asked about my productivity (and who also often feels unproductive anyway), I think this quote from the article gets at the heart of the issue: >A better option is attention management: Prioritize the people and projects that matter, and it won’t matter how long anything takes. Progress is persistence + time. Nonzero values of both will lead to results. If you spend 1% of your time on a project which requires a hundred hours of work, it'll be complete in a little over a year. I don't shy away from projects which I know will take years to complete, and as a result they eventually get completed :)

netwanderer3 8y ago

There's a general misconception between being productive and being effective. One can fill their days by completing many mindless tasks and consider themselves as productive, but in the end hardly any of those tasks really matters. On the other hand, another person may only complete one or two tasks in a very short time during their day but these were critical tasks that could generate much higher values. This subsequently makes the person more effective than their peers. The output values must be weight in determining if one is really productive. Effectiveness triumphs mindless productivity. This is quite similar to the cognitive and decision fatigue principle which indicates that each of us only has a limited pool of cognitive resources and so we must be very selective in choosing what activities we engage in. To remain highly effective, not just being productive, particularly for a project manager, it's imperative to spend time only on tasks that require critical decisions to be made, and to delegate the rest. When you take on more tasks than you can handle, like some are misunderstanding this may help them appear as productive, it will undoubtedly affect the quality of each of your decisions and the project will suffer.

tylerhou 8y ago
> This is quite similar to the cognitive and decision fatigue principle which indicates that each of us only has a limited pool of cognitive resources and so we must be very selective in choosing what activities we engage in. Watch out — many of the studies which displayed “cognitive fatigue” (I assume you actually mean ego depletion) have not been replicated successfully. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...
- mjburgess 8y ago
  The general idea even in a loose, more metaphorical sense, holds however. 'Mental fatigue' is well established, and your volition along with mental faculties generally become harder to exercise the longer they are used without break. The specifics are disputed, but we needn't be so specific for the advise to hold.

miguelmota 8y ago

Context switching really takes a toll on focusing. It sucks when executives in a company keep having 'new ideas' and switching the priorities.

mark_l_watson 8y ago

I liked his book “Power Moves: Lessons from Davis”. After listening to this book I followed Adam Grant for a couple weeks on Twitter. He does have interesting advice on deciding what to focus on. I am going to add a calendar reminder for a year from now to follow him again on Twitter for a while.

Lramseyer 8y ago

I really like where the writer is going with this, and I have had similar thoughts on the matter. I believe that a good user experience streamlines the flow of attention and tries to reduce "attention turbulence" for a given task. And I'm referring to more than just smartphone apps and web pages, though they make for great examples. I wish more people realized the value of human attention. I would even go as far as to say that the reason that the tech industry is so profitable is because of it's ability to provide shortcuts for the attention required to complete a given task.

dboreham 8y ago

You can learn about this by observing cats.

1e-9 8y ago

My most effective means of achieving a high level of work productivity is pleasure reading. It doesn't have to be anything deep. It just needs to be something I want to immerse myself in. The mental process I use to completely tune out the real world while reading for fun is the same one I use to reach a high level of productivity for work. Reading keeps it sharp. If I go too long without pleasure reading, my ability to focus on work suffers. Conversely, some of my most significant breakthroughs have occurred within a day or two of a crazy reading binge.

sherkaner 8y ago
I feel that I read in a wrong way. My productivity and ability to think often plummets after reading fiction. Could it be connected with vizualization? Do you visualize your characters, setting, predict what's going to happen, etc? Usually my eyes just skim over the descriptions of characters and scenery.
- 1e-9 8y ago
  Yes, I think visualization provides the key benefit. When I read something good, my imagination recreates the sights, sounds, smells, and experiences in great detail and tunes out the real world. I lose all awareness of the book's text and everything around me. It's like I "live in the story." This mental state can persist for hours, even in loud environments with high levels of activity around me. After I sleep following some deep reading, I notice a heightened ability to visualize a problem and run mental simulations of potential solutions. It's like I "live in the problem." Interestingly, when I have played video games with similarly high levels of focus, I have not realized work improvement afterwards. In fact, video games seem to degrade my work performance. I think that is because video games generate stress and do not stimulate nearly the same level of mental world-building that good fiction does.

arleny 8y ago

> A fascinating or funny video makes the data entry task seem even more excruciating, the same way a sweet dessert makes a sour vegetable taste yuckier. For me it's the opposite. I often play videos in the background when I'm performing monotonous tasks and it seems to help me from getting completely distracted and abandon the task altogether.

theyinwhy 8y ago

Although interesting, I think the example is a sign of over self improvement. When your only way to do more work is going to the toilet less often you are overbooked big time and there will be no way to get more productive, no matter what angle you look at it. Quite contrary, you will be less effective (!) on the long run. It is a vicious circle.

stdbrouw 8y ago
The author uses the example as a cautionary tale, not as something laudable.

atemerev 8y ago

As a person with diagnosed adult ADD, this is one thing I cannot do — manage attention. Medication and meditation help a little, but I probably will never reach the productive capabilities of a regular person. Sigh.

AnthonBerg 8y ago
I know this sadness. However, one thing which has helped me has been the opportunity to work with supremely effective people. It somehow lifts your perspective or shapes your intuition. Somehow monkey see monkey do also works for monkey see high-level executive function and execution. I didn’t expect that. I thought it might just make the sadness worse. But immersion helped.
GunlogAlm 8y ago
I'm in the same boat; diagnosed with ADHD-PI (UK, so we don't use the term 'ADD') as an adult. I've improved vastly thanks to medication and good routines but it remains a constant effort, and improvement is a continual process. The book Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley helped me significantly.
- atemerev 8y ago
  Just bought and read the book. For me, it was fantastically depressing: basically it says: “OK, so you have ADHD. Sucks to be you. Go through this huge laundry list of these and those things to do, don’t forget to take your medication, find a mentor — assuming anybody would want to deal with you, and who could blame them? — and if you are extremely lucky, and with heavy effort, maybe you can become half a normal man or woman who runs through all of this effortlessly, which you’ll never be. What a burden to society!” All of this is true perhaps, but now I just want to die.
  - toby- 8y ago
    Whilst I didn't get that exact impression from the book, Barkley is known for being "realistic" about ADHD: he doesn't hide the fact that, depending on severity, ADHD can levy a heavy toll on a person, significantly impacting their quality of life. ADHD sucks, but we can make it suck significantly less through good habits, good routines, healthy eating, exercise and, where appropriate, medication and other forms of psychological support. It's a cliché, but comparing yourself to others is a bad idea in this domain. I have yet to meet an ADHDer who makes these sorts of "upward comparisons" and derives anything useful from them; they typically just exacerbate feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness. Personally, I know I might never be as effective or productive as a person without ADHD is capable of being, but I can be the best version of myself — it's fruitless and unhealthy to ask more of yourself than this, right?

kayza 8y ago

„There is an 8th habit of highly effective people. They don’t waste time reading 7 habits of highly effective people.“ He got it.

iLemming 8y ago

I've tried many different things and I finally have a solution that (I think) works for me: It's Emacs' Org-mode in combination with Org-pomodoro - First, using org-capture I would create an org heading with a description of the problem. If there's a Jira ticket I would attach the ticket number (I have a trivial elisp function that converts a regular number into a complete jira-ticket link) - Then I would start a Pomodoro cycle. If I'm on a Mac - it would create an OSX menubar item with the title of the heading (using Hammerspoon). Org will "clock" me in for the task for the next 25 minutes - I just realized that I can probably even programmatically switch Slack to "do not disturb" mode while Pomodoro is active - Activated Pomodoro cycle is like a sacred ritual for me. I do not pick up my phone or check email or (if possible) even talk to anyone. After Pomodoro is done I would take a break, check email, get some water, etc. If I can get done 5-7 pomodoros during a day - I consider it a very productive day. - Org records everything. At the end of the day I know: exactly how long I worked on every single story, the number of pomodoros I did, notes that I took while working on each story. Whenever I changed the status of the story from "todo" to "in progress" and back to "to do" or when I flipped it to "done" or "canceled", reasons why the story was canceled, etc. And this is all done with a minimal context switching.

tighter_wires 8y ago
Do you ever find that Pomodoro doesn't leave enough uninterrupted time on your task? When you're knee deep do you ever just skip your breaks?
- Narushia 8y ago
  I generally find pomodoro’s 25-minute work intervals too short for software development, I prefer the 52/17 method.
  - iLemming 8y ago
    Yeah, everyone is different. I tried experimenting with 20-30-40 minute intervals and decided 25 is the optimal for me. But it really has to be distraction free. I use brain.fm or instrumental music (no lyrics) or I just keep my headphones on so nobody bothers me. It doesn't sound very challenging, but after five pomodoros I truly can feel it, after eight - I am mentally exhausted. Ten pomodoros mean I either cheated or something else.

drinkcrudeoil 8y ago

This article is basically about the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

JrProgrammer 8y ago

> I’m pretty sure there’s an eighth habit of highly effective people. They don’t spend all their time reading about the seven habits of highly effective people. I think this is often overlooked. What works for other people might not work for you and the time spent looking for the right way is better spend on doing the tasks.

normalhuman 8y ago

My favorite anti-productivity introspections: - Remember that you are going to die. Time flies, have you noticed? Is that status symbol that you are pursuing really that important? Is it ever going to make you happy? - There is more wisdom in one of your cells than in all self-help and management books combined. Maybe you can't focus for a good reason? What could that reason be? - Remember the last time you felt glad to be alive? Was it related to being productive? No need to thank me.

jakoblorz 8y ago
You killed it
Pimpus 8y ago
I've always focused on being efficient, not productive. I want to get my work done as fast as possible so I can return to enjoying life.
- Zeebrommer 8y ago
  I've been wondering whether framing it like that (work vs life) is making things worse. I do it myself too, but what if those 8+ hours a day could actually also be leisure? Coworkers with young kids actually joke about coming to work to relax.
jatins 8y ago
Good in theory, but less than ideal in real world. A lot of getting good deliberate practice even when you don't "feel like" it. like how the 7 year old Djokovic said "Tennis for me is a duty" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdOS0zCsJsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdOS0zCsJsg
- ramblerman 8y ago
  > The real world... cites #1 tennis player in the world as an example. For the vast majority trying to shuffle Jira tickets faster or optimize your vim keybindings for the nth time, they would do better to listen to OP.

kulu2002 8y ago

...and then there are tools used in organisations (like ours) which track how many hours you been on PC (ON PC time) vs Off PC time (So called "Productivity tracking"). More the ON PC time means you are "highly productive". This metric is also usually taken-up during appraisal discussions and questions are put on one's productivity.

rygxqpbsngav 8y ago

To me, the best life hack for productivity is "Sleep". If I sleep good, the day will be productive enough. If I don't, it might not.

derrida 8y ago

Busyness is not a virtue. The consequences of your actions being good... that has always been the definition of virtue.

derrida 8y ago

Busyness is not a virtue. The consequences of your actions being good... that has always been the classic definition of virtue. Do good things. 1 small action can have massive consequences. Creating something good and useful to others, it does not matter if it took 20 minutes, for sufficiently good actions, if you did 1 a decade, nobody cares how busy you are or if you were "productive". This is called being constructive. Rather than productive or rather than optimizing busyness (a fake appearance of doing work or "good") instead we just do things that are good. This takes cultures of trust and requires belief products actually benefit people create viability & wealth. We can define a good action as one that has good consequnces. Busyness makes nobody happy... it doesn't even make your boss happy. It's just... something you're meant to be, I guess. It's stupid and dumb. Do good things. "make something other people want"... is a good description of viability, only problem is people also want crack and being a crack dealer is pretty stessful (I imagine) so if you don't want stress or to be to busy and still manage to do great stuff... let's narrow this down. Make something other people want... people want good stuff, don't they? :) Do good. Don't do not good. There, simplified everything.

ravenstine 8y ago
> Busyness is not a virtue. Funny, I've never heart anyone state it so succinctly. I ought to print that phrase out and paste it on the wall at my desk. (I work remote so it'd just be for me and not for management to judge)

tmaly 8y ago

On the idea that we need motivation, I have been practicing the concept of mini habits to overcome the barriers that the brain puts up when using motivation. https://tysonmaly.com/books/how-to-make-habits-the-easy-way/ https://tysonmaly.com/books/how-to-make-habits-the-easy-way/ I think keeping a few key concepts like Parkinson's law and Pareto's law as well as thinking about what is actually going to move the needle helps.

bump64 7y ago

I gave up on productivity long ago. It depends on the type of work that you do. If I am let's say on the assembly line and everything is already thought of and I have to follow well written guides, then I could try to be productive, avoid distractions and so on. On my job I have to research complex problems, that you can't simply google them and find an answer. It takes time to design a possible solution, trial and error, a lot of thinking and observing and in the end you feel that you have hit a wall. In such cases I simply need a break and to think for something else for a while. It is also very hard to put an estimate and set a deadline for a such thing, so productivity is the least of my problems.