9 ms·

Taking back Mondays and Tuesdays (2019)

182 points by tobr 7y ago

supdatecron 7y ago
That awful yellow background ruined the reading experience, and then hurt my eyes after I switched pages to a white background :(
- oefrha 7y ago
  Plus it’s the most janky site I’ve encountered in a while (reading on an iPad). Hijacking scrolling on a goddamn blog — thanks for the creativity.
  - wbazant 7y ago
    I like that people's personal sites don't have to be optimised for pleasing users and hence have so much variety to them, it's the one bit of the old internet that we still have with us
    - sk0g 7y ago
      I feel like scroll hijacking is a recent thing, or at least I've started noticing it a lot more in the last few years. It's honestly so jarring 90% of the time, that my initial instinct is to reassess how badly I want to read the content! I do not have a problem with it for full page scrolls though, which I know a lot of people hate. Or that one page that showcases the scale of the solar system by forcing you to scroll for ages!
      - oefrha 7y ago
        IIRC parallax scrolling on the web became a thing roughly a decade ago. Initially only the cool kids were doing it, and the reaction was usually: cool, didn’t know you could do that on a web page. Fast forward a couple years, everyone and their mom is doing it for all kinds of wrong reasons (like in this case it’s used to load the previous/next article — if I want more I can click on a prev/next link, thanks) with crappy implementations, it’s tiring and hostile.
- nunodonato 7y ago
  Firefox's reader view saves the day again
- camgunz 7y ago
  It's a little intense, but I like it, and I'm oh so bored of yet another black on white scheme. If we're gonna make the web a creative space again, there are gonna be some misses (I don't think this is one, but to each their own). Let's be a little charitable and keep our eye on the ball.
purerandomness 7y ago
Thank god Frefox Reader View exists. For the same reason browser vendors abolished the <marquee> and <blink> tags, this kind of unreadable color schemes should be reset by default by browsers, just like autoplaying videos, and pop-ups are suppressed. The Gopher renaissance can't arrive fast enough.
- frou_dh 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739
  - insertnickname 7y ago
    I don't mind it. It doesn't detract from the on-topic discussion, certainly not as much as terrible websites detract from user experience. Authors pay heed: Presentation matters. If you present your writing poorly, it will distract your readers from your ideas.
    - frou_dh 7y ago
      And yet I'm confident that inevitably no one actually cares enough to contact the author and tell them that they need to change their site for reasons a, b and c. This is a third-party news aggregator. It's very common that the submitter is not the author. So the author is usually not even in the vicinity to hear the complaining. All in all, just another manifestation of slacktivism.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Yellow and black is unreadable? It works for me.
  - xaedes 7y ago
    After all the gray on white text color schemes in the "modern web" my eyes where really pleasured by the high contrast and big font.
- 7y ago
tacheiordache 7y ago
It doesn’t load on my phone. Outline doesn’t work either so I guess the content is not important enough for the author to make it availabe for their readers..
- jakub_g 7y ago
  It fails to load for me due to uMatrix (white page because all content is fetched via third-party JavaScript). Maybe same for you
- AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
  > It doesn’t load on my phone > I guess the content is not important enough What a gross way to assess a person's creative expression. A lot of times, simply reaching out to an author and asking them to make their "content," available in your preferred manner is all it takes. Other times, the author, exercising their artistic merit, may say "hell no," to you, or perhaps "don't call my life's work 'content' you unsophisticated dweeb." Who are you to judge something's worth based upon how easily you personally are able to consume it?
  - tacheiordache 7y ago
    AndrewUnmuted, I am digging the article but I had to access it on my desktop. It's still not working on my phone and that was a comment of frustration and that happens to all of us. I am not calling anyone unsophisticated dweeb and that was really uncalled for.
timerol 7y ago
> This does not mean I don’t want to be around people, I very much do. I love collaboration, whiteboard sessions, small brainstorms, midday team coffees, and happy hour drinks. These things build community, make the work better, and are definitely needed. So no meetings, but still yes to the constant small interruptions that you can't plan around? Uh, okay. I think I'd rather have the reverse, though. Something like: On Monday only talk to me if we have a meeting planned.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  I agree although it takes me time to get back in the zone so I like to block out all interruptions to flow (meetings, whiteboard sessions, etc.). Worst thing is having a meeting every other hour since that just ruins a day for me. I can handle occasional slack messages since they require little concentration to punt. It's part of why I WFH a few days a week and schedule all my meetings early in the week.
- stetrain 7y ago
  Not sure how multiple people working on a shared task needing to collaborate / whiteboard / discuss what they're doing qualifies as constant small interruptions. In theory happy hour drinks and coffee breaks are things that happen when people aren't in the middle of productive working anyway.
exdsq 7y ago
Yellow is a great colour for many things but the background of a blog post? Not sold!
- toyg 7y ago
  It gives the feeling of a puff-piece for a vapid coffee-table magazine.
  - john-radio 7y ago
    Which is a shame because the author has great ideas about communal workflow
    - chapium 7y ago
      A new adage: Don't judge a blog by its jarring background and low contrast fonts.
      - delecti 7y ago
        That's not a great adage though. Sometimes the presentation is so poor that it impedes reading the content, and that line is going to be different for everyone.
- stanferder 7y ago
  It's a safety color.
- autarch 7y ago
  Here's a blob of JavaScript I use as a bookmark to quickly clean up hard-to-read colors: javascript: (function() { function R(w) { try { var d = w.document, j, i, t, T, N, b, r = 1, C; for (j = 0; t = ["object", "embed", "applet", "iframe"][j]; ++j) { T = d.getElementsByTagName(t); for (i = T.length - 1; (i + 1) && (N = T[i]); --i) if (j != 3 || !R((C = N.contentWindow) ? C : N.contentDocument.defaultView)) { b = d.createElement("div"); b.style.width = N.width; b.style.height = N.height; b.innerHTML = "<del>" + (j == 3 ? "third-party " + t : t) + "</del>"; N.parentNode.replaceChild(b, N); } } } catch (E) { r = 0 } return r } R(self); var i, x; for (i = 0; x = frames[i]; ++i) R(x) })(); javascript: (function() { var newSS, styles = '* { background: #f9f9f9 ! important; color: black !important; text-shadow: none !important } :link, :link * { color: #0000EE !important } :visited, :visited * { color: #551A8B !important }'; if (document.createStyleSheet) { document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'" + styles + "'"); } else { newSS = document.createElement('link'); newSS.rel = 'stylesheet'; newSS.href = 'data:text/css,' + escape(styles); document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS); } })(); javascript: (function() { var d = document; function K(N, w) { var nn = d.createElement(w), C = N.childNodes, i; for (i = C.length - 1; i >= 0; --i) nn.insertBefore(C[i], nn.childNodes[0]); N.parentNode.replaceChild(nn, N); } function Z(t, w) { var T = document.getElementsByTagName(t), j; for (j = T.length - 1; j >= 0; --j) K(T[j], w); } Z("blink", "span"); Z("marquee", "div"); })(); javascript: (function() { var H = ["mouseover", "mouseout", "unload", "resize"], o = window.opera; if (document.addEventListener /MOZ/ && !o) for (j in H) document.addEventListener(H[j], function(e) { e.stopPropagation(); }, true); else if (window.captureEvents /NS4/ && !o) { document.captureEvents(-1 /ALL/ ); for (j in H) window["on" + H[j]] = null; } else /IE/ { function R(N) { var i, x; for (j in H) if (N["on" + H[j]] /NOT TEXTNODE/ ) N["on" + H[j]] = null; for (i = 0; x = N.childNodes[i]; ++i) R(x); } R(document); } })(); javascript: (function() { var c, tID, iID; tID = setTimeout(function() {}, 0); for (c = 1; c < 1000 && c <= tID; ++c) clearTimeout(tID - c); iID = setInterval(function() {}, 1000); for (c = 0; c < 1000 && c <= iID; ++c) clearInterval(iID - c); })(); I did not write this and I do not remember where I got it from. There's also the Just Read extension (https://justread.link/ https://justread.link/), which is quite nice.
ravenstine 7y ago
Focus is woefully undervalued, I think. I haven't had a single job as a software engineer that didn't have a constant background of distractions and interruption that prevented work from getting done. My current job is great, but its biggest issue is the sheer amount of interruption and poor organization of information that makes it difficult to get work done in a timely way. When I have to switch contexts frequently, for lack of a less cliche term, it takes even more time for me to get back up to speed with where I'd left off. Some people are clearly better at this than others, but I'd bet that those who can handle context switching well would still do even better under a system that valued focus. I don't think this really has much to do with introversion(which everyone has a different definition of and, in my experience, everyone claims they are, making the term worthless IMO). This last weekend I did something that I normally refuse to do, which was to catch up on work. I still dedicated most of my time towards non-work, yet being able to work without interruption was not only a breath of fresh air but seemed to allow me to get more done in the same amount of time. My guess as to why organizations don't care about focus is that they value the perception of "getting things done"; when engineers that need focus are frequently interrupted by the process, they'll shift to getting smaller tasks done first so that management will know that they're working on something. Organizations will tend to tolerate a more complex task taking longer than estimated, but in my experience are less tolerant of engineers not pushing lines of code for days because they're taking time to implement said complex task in a good way. In essence, it's a spin on "butts in seats", except it creates the illusion of productivity when in reality it could mean counter-productivity. I'm not exactly sure that having the process wall people off from interrupting each other is necessarily a good thing. What would be better is a good planning process that limits unnecessary change combined with a working culture that values focus. EDIT: I'm not talking about legitimate interruptions like when someone needs help or wants to pair program. I'm talking about interruptions that are either environment related or are a result of process failure(e.g. new tasks and course corrections frequently added to the pile because of poor planning). Although I can imagine some would want to limit "good interruptions" to a window, if possible.
- chrisbennet 7y ago
  I think that open offices are great - for my competition. :-) One advantages of being the "little independent consultant" is that I can control my environment. I think you can reduce a geniuses output by a fair percentage just by adding distractions (like all sitting at the same table as your colleagues).
therealmarv 7y ago
I like the domain, haha! But cannot read the article because my eyes are bleeding from the yellow bright background color and huge fonts.
DanTheManPR 7y ago
I saw the John Cleese video about creativity years ago, and it completely changed my perspective for the better about how to actually achieve creative results reliably. In particular, I found very valuable the insight that you need to screw around in a focused way for a somewhat long period of time to really start the process. A 15 minute brainstorming session doesn't cut it.
- ptaffs 7y ago
  I thoroughly recommend watching the John Cleese video. As you say, these are instructions on carving out some time (90 minutes) for creative thinking and better decision making; https://youtu.be/bC-gBeQYHls https://youtu.be/bC-gBeQYHls
ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
I like this blog. As a "semi-retired old dude," I have been absolutely reveling in the productivity I have achieved, working at home. It's been awesome. It isn't just because I'm working at home. I suspect that a lot of it is because I'm working alone. I was a manager for a long time, and quickly realized that "team overhead" was the true enemy of productivity. This includes things like Slack convos, and water-cooler chats. It's a long topic, but all sorts of things are required to enable a good team integration; especially if we need to have a bunch of less-experienced team members on board. I was fortunate to lead a team of very experienced engineers. We shared a vocabulary and a common vision, so a great deal of "basic" overhead was avoided. The (big) downside of working alone, is that I need to keep the scope of my projects reasonable. I can get a lot more done than most lone developers, but it's still a great deal less than what can be accomplished by a tight team. As long as we have teams, we'll have overhead challenges.
- quietbritishjim 7y ago
  I think it is well accepted that the larger the team/company, the greater the inefficiency, and one person is the most efficient is all. But that it's only productivity per person, not the total amount produced. At the end of the day, some products (be they software, cars, or whatever) are complex enough that you need more than one person working on it. Even if that means moving from a signs person to a team of (say) four when your only wanted to double the amount of work done. Still, I can see why returning to working on one-person projects where you get loads done would be really satisfying.
  - treis 7y ago
    >But that it's only productivity per person, not the total amount produced. I'm not sure that's true because of differing expertise, bouncing ideas off someone, and help in getting unstuck. I'm guessing productivity peaks in a team of 3-5.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      Do you believe that Google or Microsoft would be more successful in aggregate as 10000 5person startups?
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lbj 7y ago
Its interesting, that he centers on him being a 'creative person' and thus he needs a 3-day-meeting-week to function. Im more an engineer, and I keep a strict 2-day-meeting-week to operate at peak effeciency.
chasedehan 7y ago
I wholly like the idea and is one that I preach and do my utter best to follow. As context, my company is 95% remote in engineering (I'm a remote manager with some IC responsibilities). Of course, there is some of that internal pressure of making sure I am able to respond to slack in a timely manner. SO, I continually stress to take the deep work breaks and do everything I can to make sure that my team is protected from meetings or other outside requests. Some explicit things we do as a team. - Have 3 standing meetings, M/W/F for 30 minutes each. We are fluid with these times making sure that they work for everyone and are blocked next to other commitments. We also change the context of the "standups" to incorporate planning/retros, etc - Thursdays are explicit "no meeting days" I fight back hard against anyone who tries to put engineers on my team in a meeting on Thursday. Unfortunately, I as a manager sometimes have no choice but to accept a meeting - Tuesdays are recommended no meeting days - It is ok to turn off slack/email. We all have each others phone numbers and will text if it is something actually urgent, which it almost never is. - Our team is measured by how much we hit our deadlines, which we have input into how those deadlines are set This is one of the best and most productive work environments I have ever been in -- it would be extremely difficult for me to move back to any office, especially an open one where productivity is proxied by seat time.
bachmeier 7y ago
Although this is primarily about "creative" work, the same is at least as true for mind-numbing administrative work, for two reasons: 1. If you don't really care that much for what you're doing (you have a worthless report due in three days) it's not as easy to get back in the zone as when you're doing something important. 2. You're happy to be distracted when doing something you don't care about. That makes sense - the distraction is most likely more important than what you're doing, so you're happy to have the excuse to meet with someone or answer an email. And no, not all administrative work qualifies as creative. It's generally metawork that at best is necessary for your employer to continue to operate. Nobody cares how well you do it.
matt2000 7y ago
In case you're not able to declare certain days off limits, I suggest a strategy that has worked for me in the past: schedule your work time. If you need two days to work on something, fill those two days on your calendar. It can be broken up into smaller segments (I sometimes do it in 3 hour chunks), or just the whole day. This causes an important psychological change when someone tries to book a meeting, they can see your time on the calendar and will need to ask you to make space for their meeting. This is a lot different than seeing a wide open, empty day. It forces consideration of the tradeoffs. If you work in a thoughtful company, this is usually enough to get you some space to work in a more focused way.
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
It’s a nice blog. I recently switched to a four day work week, which really takes back Mondays. I thought that’s what the author was going to say. I also only work 4-6 hour days, so it’s a 20 hour work week. I bill a tech rate but hourly. It’s enough to pay the bills (35yo, no family). I’d really like to see our conversations about the work week move towards a total reduction in hours. It has been life changing for me to work this schedule. Sometimes I think about working a normal job again, but I couldn’t stand the hours. Has anyone else here worked a shorter week regularly or considered it?
- nil-sec 7y ago
  Mind expanding on what exactly you are doing for work? Is this freelance work or are you employed? This work/life balance sounds fabulous.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    I’ve found a single employer with a project that is not time bounded, but he wants to spend as little as necessary on it. I’m building a solar powered farming robot. It’s kind of a side project for him that will hopefully turn in to more. So while my specific situation is rare, I can attest that this work life balance is fantastic. We really need to be talking about reducing working hours. In the past 8 months at this job I’ve built an autonomous solar powered vehicle from scratch which can drive over the tops of plant rows. I did this while working 15-20 hours a week. I’d say that’s pretty good productivity. Later in the year I will be adding weeding tools to the inside of the vehicle. I’m hoping we can open source it, but that depends on whether or not we can get philanthropic funding. If anyone sees this and could contribute financially to open source it please let me know!
- dpc_pw 7y ago
  I worked 4 days (8 hours though) for a year, and it was just great. It is one day, but it makes you feel like half of your week is off (3 days of weekend, 4 days of work). I also think that politically speaking, lowering standard working hours would create a much needed inflation, boosted consumption and employment at minor cost of material well being, so it's an interesting policy to pursue.
carapace 7y ago
Blank page with JS disabled, and no Reader Mode.
grumple 7y ago
I strongly suggest fixing the readability of your blog on larger monitors. Everything gets huge and unreadably large, including images.
pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
I wish I could take back my scrollbar.
somesortofsystm 7y ago
I do something like this already. I still go to the office on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I'm tuned out. I'm in Do-Mode. On Thursday, its build and demo and test, so I snap out of it and put things together for a releasable build. Friday, fix bugs, do a new release for the test user to play with over the weekend. Now, none of this is firm - break the rule if needed. But, generally, this helps keep a fat chunk of attention all the way up front, weekend->Thursday, that makes the magic happen. Oddly enough, done right, it means Friday can be a slack day too.

182 points by tobr 7y ago

That awful yellow background ruined the reading experience, and then hurt my eyes after I switched pages to a white background :(

oefrha 7y ago
Plus it’s the most janky site I’ve encountered in a while (reading on an iPad). Hijacking scrolling on a goddamn blog — thanks for the creativity.
- wbazant 7y ago
  I like that people's personal sites don't have to be optimised for pleasing users and hence have so much variety to them, it's the one bit of the old internet that we still have with us
  - sk0g 7y ago
    I feel like scroll hijacking is a recent thing, or at least I've started noticing it a lot more in the last few years. It's honestly so jarring 90% of the time, that my initial instinct is to reassess how badly I want to read the content! I do not have a problem with it for full page scrolls though, which I know a lot of people hate. Or that one page that showcases the scale of the solar system by forcing you to scroll for ages!
    - oefrha 7y ago
      IIRC parallax scrolling on the web became a thing roughly a decade ago. Initially only the cool kids were doing it, and the reaction was usually: cool, didn’t know you could do that on a web page. Fast forward a couple years, everyone and their mom is doing it for all kinds of wrong reasons (like in this case it’s used to load the previous/next article — if I want more I can click on a prev/next link, thanks) with crappy implementations, it’s tiring and hostile.
nunodonato 7y ago
Firefox's reader view saves the day again
camgunz 7y ago
It's a little intense, but I like it, and I'm oh so bored of yet another black on white scheme. If we're gonna make the web a creative space again, there are gonna be some misses (I don't think this is one, but to each their own). Let's be a little charitable and keep our eye on the ball.

purerandomness 7y ago

Thank god Frefox Reader View exists. For the same reason browser vendors abolished the <marquee> and <blink> tags, this kind of unreadable color schemes should be reset by default by browsers, just like autoplaying videos, and pop-ups are suppressed. The Gopher renaissance can't arrive fast enough.

frou_dh 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739
- insertnickname 7y ago
  I don't mind it. It doesn't detract from the on-topic discussion, certainly not as much as terrible websites detract from user experience. Authors pay heed: Presentation matters. If you present your writing poorly, it will distract your readers from your ideas.
  - frou_dh 7y ago
    And yet I'm confident that inevitably no one actually cares enough to contact the author and tell them that they need to change their site for reasons a, b and c. This is a third-party news aggregator. It's very common that the submitter is not the author. So the author is usually not even in the vicinity to hear the complaining. All in all, just another manifestation of slacktivism.
lostgame 7y ago
Yellow and black is unreadable? It works for me.
- xaedes 7y ago
  After all the gray on white text color schemes in the "modern web" my eyes where really pleasured by the high contrast and big font.
7y ago

tacheiordache 7y ago

It doesn’t load on my phone. Outline doesn’t work either so I guess the content is not important enough for the author to make it availabe for their readers..

jakub_g 7y ago
It fails to load for me due to uMatrix (white page because all content is fetched via third-party JavaScript). Maybe same for you
AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
> It doesn’t load on my phone > I guess the content is not important enough What a gross way to assess a person's creative expression. A lot of times, simply reaching out to an author and asking them to make their "content," available in your preferred manner is all it takes. Other times, the author, exercising their artistic merit, may say "hell no," to you, or perhaps "don't call my life's work 'content' you unsophisticated dweeb." Who are you to judge something's worth based upon how easily you personally are able to consume it?
- tacheiordache 7y ago
  AndrewUnmuted, I am digging the article but I had to access it on my desktop. It's still not working on my phone and that was a comment of frustration and that happens to all of us. I am not calling anyone unsophisticated dweeb and that was really uncalled for.

timerol 7y ago

> This does not mean I don’t want to be around people, I very much do. I love collaboration, whiteboard sessions, small brainstorms, midday team coffees, and happy hour drinks. These things build community, make the work better, and are definitely needed. So no meetings, but still yes to the constant small interruptions that you can't plan around? Uh, okay. I think I'd rather have the reverse, though. Something like: On Monday only talk to me if we have a meeting planned.

marcinzm 7y ago
I agree although it takes me time to get back in the zone so I like to block out all interruptions to flow (meetings, whiteboard sessions, etc.). Worst thing is having a meeting every other hour since that just ruins a day for me. I can handle occasional slack messages since they require little concentration to punt. It's part of why I WFH a few days a week and schedule all my meetings early in the week.
stetrain 7y ago
Not sure how multiple people working on a shared task needing to collaborate / whiteboard / discuss what they're doing qualifies as constant small interruptions. In theory happy hour drinks and coffee breaks are things that happen when people aren't in the middle of productive working anyway.

exdsq 7y ago

Yellow is a great colour for many things but the background of a blog post? Not sold!

toyg 7y ago
It gives the feeling of a puff-piece for a vapid coffee-table magazine.
- john-radio 7y ago
  Which is a shame because the author has great ideas about communal workflow
  - chapium 7y ago
    A new adage: Don't judge a blog by its jarring background and low contrast fonts.
    - delecti 7y ago
      That's not a great adage though. Sometimes the presentation is so poor that it impedes reading the content, and that line is going to be different for everyone.
stanferder 7y ago
It's a safety color.
autarch 7y ago
Here's a blob of JavaScript I use as a bookmark to quickly clean up hard-to-read colors: javascript: (function() { function R(w) { try { var d = w.document, j, i, t, T, N, b, r = 1, C; for (j = 0; t = ["object", "embed", "applet", "iframe"][j]; ++j) { T = d.getElementsByTagName(t); for (i = T.length - 1; (i + 1) && (N = T[i]); --i) if (j != 3 || !R((C = N.contentWindow) ? C : N.contentDocument.defaultView)) { b = d.createElement("div"); b.style.width = N.width; b.style.height = N.height; b.innerHTML = "<del>" + (j == 3 ? "third-party " + t : t) + "</del>"; N.parentNode.replaceChild(b, N); } } } catch (E) { r = 0 } return r } R(self); var i, x; for (i = 0; x = frames[i]; ++i) R(x) })(); javascript: (function() { var newSS, styles = '* { background: #f9f9f9 ! important; color: black !important; text-shadow: none !important } :link, :link * { color: #0000EE !important } :visited, :visited * { color: #551A8B !important }'; if (document.createStyleSheet) { document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'" + styles + "'"); } else { newSS = document.createElement('link'); newSS.rel = 'stylesheet'; newSS.href = 'data:text/css,' + escape(styles); document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS); } })(); javascript: (function() { var d = document; function K(N, w) { var nn = d.createElement(w), C = N.childNodes, i; for (i = C.length - 1; i >= 0; --i) nn.insertBefore(C[i], nn.childNodes[0]); N.parentNode.replaceChild(nn, N); } function Z(t, w) { var T = document.getElementsByTagName(t), j; for (j = T.length - 1; j >= 0; --j) K(T[j], w); } Z("blink", "span"); Z("marquee", "div"); })(); javascript: (function() { var H = ["mouseover", "mouseout", "unload", "resize"], o = window.opera; if (document.addEventListener /MOZ/ && !o) for (j in H) document.addEventListener(H[j], function(e) { e.stopPropagation(); }, true); else if (window.captureEvents /NS4/ && !o) { document.captureEvents(-1 /ALL/ ); for (j in H) window["on" + H[j]] = null; } else /IE/ { function R(N) { var i, x; for (j in H) if (N["on" + H[j]] /NOT TEXTNODE/ ) N["on" + H[j]] = null; for (i = 0; x = N.childNodes[i]; ++i) R(x); } R(document); } })(); javascript: (function() { var c, tID, iID; tID = setTimeout(function() {}, 0); for (c = 1; c < 1000 && c <= tID; ++c) clearTimeout(tID - c); iID = setInterval(function() {}, 1000); for (c = 0; c < 1000 && c <= iID; ++c) clearInterval(iID - c); })(); I did not write this and I do not remember where I got it from. There's also the Just Read extension (https://justread.link/ https://justread.link/), which is quite nice.

ravenstine 7y ago

Focus is woefully undervalued, I think. I haven't had a single job as a software engineer that didn't have a constant background of distractions and interruption that prevented work from getting done. My current job is great, but its biggest issue is the sheer amount of interruption and poor organization of information that makes it difficult to get work done in a timely way. When I have to switch contexts frequently, for lack of a less cliche term, it takes even more time for me to get back up to speed with where I'd left off. Some people are clearly better at this than others, but I'd bet that those who can handle context switching well would still do even better under a system that valued focus. I don't think this really has much to do with introversion(which everyone has a different definition of and, in my experience, everyone claims they are, making the term worthless IMO). This last weekend I did something that I normally refuse to do, which was to catch up on work. I still dedicated most of my time towards non-work, yet being able to work without interruption was not only a breath of fresh air but seemed to allow me to get more done in the same amount of time. My guess as to why organizations don't care about focus is that they value the perception of "getting things done"; when engineers that need focus are frequently interrupted by the process, they'll shift to getting smaller tasks done first so that management will know that they're working on something. Organizations will tend to tolerate a more complex task taking longer than estimated, but in my experience are less tolerant of engineers not pushing lines of code for days because they're taking time to implement said complex task in a good way. In essence, it's a spin on "butts in seats", except it creates the illusion of productivity when in reality it could mean counter-productivity. I'm not exactly sure that having the process wall people off from interrupting each other is necessarily a good thing. What would be better is a good planning process that limits unnecessary change combined with a working culture that values focus. EDIT: I'm not talking about legitimate interruptions like when someone needs help or wants to pair program. I'm talking about interruptions that are either environment related or are a result of process failure(e.g. new tasks and course corrections frequently added to the pile because of poor planning). Although I can imagine some would want to limit "good interruptions" to a window, if possible.

chrisbennet 7y ago
I think that open offices are great - for my competition. :-) One advantages of being the "little independent consultant" is that I can control my environment. I think you can reduce a geniuses output by a fair percentage just by adding distractions (like all sitting at the same table as your colleagues).

therealmarv 7y ago

I like the domain, haha! But cannot read the article because my eyes are bleeding from the yellow bright background color and huge fonts.

DanTheManPR 7y ago

I saw the John Cleese video about creativity years ago, and it completely changed my perspective for the better about how to actually achieve creative results reliably. In particular, I found very valuable the insight that you need to screw around in a focused way for a somewhat long period of time to really start the process. A 15 minute brainstorming session doesn't cut it.

ptaffs 7y ago
I thoroughly recommend watching the John Cleese video. As you say, these are instructions on carving out some time (90 minutes) for creative thinking and better decision making; https://youtu.be/bC-gBeQYHls https://youtu.be/bC-gBeQYHls

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

I like this blog. As a "semi-retired old dude," I have been absolutely reveling in the productivity I have achieved, working at home. It's been awesome. It isn't just because I'm working at home. I suspect that a lot of it is because I'm working alone. I was a manager for a long time, and quickly realized that "team overhead" was the true enemy of productivity. This includes things like Slack convos, and water-cooler chats. It's a long topic, but all sorts of things are required to enable a good team integration; especially if we need to have a bunch of less-experienced team members on board. I was fortunate to lead a team of very experienced engineers. We shared a vocabulary and a common vision, so a great deal of "basic" overhead was avoided. The (big) downside of working alone, is that I need to keep the scope of my projects reasonable. I can get a lot more done than most lone developers, but it's still a great deal less than what can be accomplished by a tight team. As long as we have teams, we'll have overhead challenges.

quietbritishjim 7y ago
I think it is well accepted that the larger the team/company, the greater the inefficiency, and one person is the most efficient is all. But that it's only productivity per person, not the total amount produced. At the end of the day, some products (be they software, cars, or whatever) are complex enough that you need more than one person working on it. Even if that means moving from a signs person to a team of (say) four when your only wanted to double the amount of work done. Still, I can see why returning to working on one-person projects where you get loads done would be really satisfying.
- treis 7y ago
  >But that it's only productivity per person, not the total amount produced. I'm not sure that's true because of differing expertise, bouncing ideas off someone, and help in getting unstuck. I'm guessing productivity peaks in a team of 3-5.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Do you believe that Google or Microsoft would be more successful in aggregate as 10000 5person startups?

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lbj 7y ago

Its interesting, that he centers on him being a 'creative person' and thus he needs a 3-day-meeting-week to function. Im more an engineer, and I keep a strict 2-day-meeting-week to operate at peak effeciency.

chasedehan 7y ago

I wholly like the idea and is one that I preach and do my utter best to follow. As context, my company is 95% remote in engineering (I'm a remote manager with some IC responsibilities). Of course, there is some of that internal pressure of making sure I am able to respond to slack in a timely manner. SO, I continually stress to take the deep work breaks and do everything I can to make sure that my team is protected from meetings or other outside requests. Some explicit things we do as a team. - Have 3 standing meetings, M/W/F for 30 minutes each. We are fluid with these times making sure that they work for everyone and are blocked next to other commitments. We also change the context of the "standups" to incorporate planning/retros, etc - Thursdays are explicit "no meeting days" I fight back hard against anyone who tries to put engineers on my team in a meeting on Thursday. Unfortunately, I as a manager sometimes have no choice but to accept a meeting - Tuesdays are recommended no meeting days - It is ok to turn off slack/email. We all have each others phone numbers and will text if it is something actually urgent, which it almost never is. - Our team is measured by how much we hit our deadlines, which we have input into how those deadlines are set This is one of the best and most productive work environments I have ever been in -- it would be extremely difficult for me to move back to any office, especially an open one where productivity is proxied by seat time.

bachmeier 7y ago

Although this is primarily about "creative" work, the same is at least as true for mind-numbing administrative work, for two reasons: 1. If you don't really care that much for what you're doing (you have a worthless report due in three days) it's not as easy to get back in the zone as when you're doing something important. 2. You're happy to be distracted when doing something you don't care about. That makes sense - the distraction is most likely more important than what you're doing, so you're happy to have the excuse to meet with someone or answer an email. And no, not all administrative work qualifies as creative. It's generally metawork that at best is necessary for your employer to continue to operate. Nobody cares how well you do it.

matt2000 7y ago

In case you're not able to declare certain days off limits, I suggest a strategy that has worked for me in the past: schedule your work time. If you need two days to work on something, fill those two days on your calendar. It can be broken up into smaller segments (I sometimes do it in 3 hour chunks), or just the whole day. This causes an important psychological change when someone tries to book a meeting, they can see your time on the calendar and will need to ask you to make space for their meeting. This is a lot different than seeing a wide open, empty day. It forces consideration of the tradeoffs. If you work in a thoughtful company, this is usually enough to get you some space to work in a more focused way.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

It’s a nice blog. I recently switched to a four day work week, which really takes back Mondays. I thought that’s what the author was going to say. I also only work 4-6 hour days, so it’s a 20 hour work week. I bill a tech rate but hourly. It’s enough to pay the bills (35yo, no family). I’d really like to see our conversations about the work week move towards a total reduction in hours. It has been life changing for me to work this schedule. Sometimes I think about working a normal job again, but I couldn’t stand the hours. Has anyone else here worked a shorter week regularly or considered it?

nil-sec 7y ago
Mind expanding on what exactly you are doing for work? Is this freelance work or are you employed? This work/life balance sounds fabulous.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  I’ve found a single employer with a project that is not time bounded, but he wants to spend as little as necessary on it. I’m building a solar powered farming robot. It’s kind of a side project for him that will hopefully turn in to more. So while my specific situation is rare, I can attest that this work life balance is fantastic. We really need to be talking about reducing working hours. In the past 8 months at this job I’ve built an autonomous solar powered vehicle from scratch which can drive over the tops of plant rows. I did this while working 15-20 hours a week. I’d say that’s pretty good productivity. Later in the year I will be adding weeding tools to the inside of the vehicle. I’m hoping we can open source it, but that depends on whether or not we can get philanthropic funding. If anyone sees this and could contribute financially to open source it please let me know!
dpc_pw 7y ago
I worked 4 days (8 hours though) for a year, and it was just great. It is one day, but it makes you feel like half of your week is off (3 days of weekend, 4 days of work). I also think that politically speaking, lowering standard working hours would create a much needed inflation, boosted consumption and employment at minor cost of material well being, so it's an interesting policy to pursue.

carapace 7y ago

Blank page with JS disabled, and no Reader Mode.

grumple 7y ago

I strongly suggest fixing the readability of your blog on larger monitors. Everything gets huge and unreadably large, including images.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago

I wish I could take back my scrollbar.

somesortofsystm 7y ago

I do something like this already. I still go to the office on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I'm tuned out. I'm in Do-Mode. On Thursday, its build and demo and test, so I snap out of it and put things together for a releasable build. Friday, fix bugs, do a new release for the test user to play with over the weekend. Now, none of this is firm - break the rule if needed. But, generally, this helps keep a fat chunk of attention all the way up front, weekend->Thursday, that makes the magic happen. Oddly enough, done right, it means Friday can be a slack day too.