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This. Always see so many "I've been doing X lately and I'm so productive!" How long you been doing it? "Oh, about 2 weeks" I'm guilty of the same thing. We p

This. Always see so many "I've been doing X lately and I'm so productive!" How long you been doing it? "Oh, about 2 weeks" I'm guilty of the same thing. We probably all are. But it makes me all this stuff with a sceptical eye.

nefitty 6y ago
I created a Notion doc (instead of in my huge Evernote notebook, and right after abandoning workflowy and right before I discovered Roam...) to list out all the productivity methods I’ve tried and ones I have yet to try. After several hours, I had listed dozens and dozens of tactics I’ve tried with specific examples of how I used them. I had not been faithful to any of them for longer than six months. This stresses me out. Is there something wrong with me? Do I have some problem with my “internal authority”? Maybe bucking it so many times and so often is contributing to its influence on me...
- purplerabbit 6y ago
  There is nothing fundamentally wrong with you -- many of us are in the same boat. It's a problem you can make progress on, not an inescapable curse. When you're addicted to novelty, mechanical approaches like pomodoro or the one described in this post aren't good long-term solutions. I would suggest checking out more mindfulness-based approaches. Here's my current recipe: 1. Notice when I feel the pull of a distraction. 2. Stop what I'm doing. Literally stop everything for as long as I need to clear my mind. This usually takes about 15 seconds, but sometimes it takes more like 10 minutes. This part is really hard -- when I started doing it, I would feel guilty for "wasting time", even though getting distracted often meant 20 minutes, an hour, or even more completely wasted, and in the worst, most guilt-inducing way. 3. Once my mind is clear, ask myself this question: "What do I truly _want_ to do with this moment of my life?" 4. Do that thing. If I want to cruise Reddit for half an hour, I'll cruise Reddit for half an hour, and feel good about it. If I want to go back to my original task -- that's great. If I want to call up my dad and see how he's doing, or write a nice note to my wife, that's even better. Never do anything you don't want to do. It's the _guilt_ that's unhealthy and addicting. Do what you _want_ to do -- and that doesn't have to look like being a programmer/working prodigy all the time. I regularly fail at this, but over the past year, I've gotten better. And I promise you can, too. Learn to be happy, and you'll be more productive :)
  - nefitty 6y ago
    Thank you for your thoughts! This is very insightful.
- james_s_tayler 6y ago
  The only productivity hack that ever worked for me on a multi-year basis was just to do what is intensely interesting to me. Everything else will fall by the wayside sooner or later. There has been no magic in finding those things either. It has been luck of the draw. Though they're usually challenging and provide near endless amounts of novelty for years on end. Once the novelty or challenge wears off the spell is broken.
  - nefitty 6y ago
    Good point. I've recently gone from "management techniques" to cryptocurrency trading, to systems thinking, and so on. It's a good point that a lot of the things that catch me have some promise of making me more powerful (intellectually, materially, socially, etc.) and along that path it is an intense ride of novelty. Besides constant novelty, have you noticed any other similarities amongst the areas that hook you?
    - james_s_tayler 6y ago
      >Besides constant novelty, have you noticed any other similarities amongst the areas that hook you? They're difficult. Challenging.

nefitty 6y ago

I created a Notion doc (instead of in my huge Evernote notebook, and right after abandoning workflowy and right before I discovered Roam...) to list out all the productivity methods I’ve tried and ones I have yet to try. After several hours, I had listed dozens and dozens of tactics I’ve tried with specific examples of how I used them. I had not been faithful to any of them for longer than six months. This stresses me out. Is there something wrong with me? Do I have some problem with my “internal authority”? Maybe bucking it so many times and so often is contributing to its influence on me...

purplerabbit 6y ago
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with you -- many of us are in the same boat. It's a problem you can make progress on, not an inescapable curse. When you're addicted to novelty, mechanical approaches like pomodoro or the one described in this post aren't good long-term solutions. I would suggest checking out more mindfulness-based approaches. Here's my current recipe: 1. Notice when I feel the pull of a distraction. 2. Stop what I'm doing. Literally stop everything for as long as I need to clear my mind. This usually takes about 15 seconds, but sometimes it takes more like 10 minutes. This part is really hard -- when I started doing it, I would feel guilty for "wasting time", even though getting distracted often meant 20 minutes, an hour, or even more completely wasted, and in the worst, most guilt-inducing way. 3. Once my mind is clear, ask myself this question: "What do I truly _want_ to do with this moment of my life?" 4. Do that thing. If I want to cruise Reddit for half an hour, I'll cruise Reddit for half an hour, and feel good about it. If I want to go back to my original task -- that's great. If I want to call up my dad and see how he's doing, or write a nice note to my wife, that's even better. Never do anything you don't want to do. It's the _guilt_ that's unhealthy and addicting. Do what you _want_ to do -- and that doesn't have to look like being a programmer/working prodigy all the time. I regularly fail at this, but over the past year, I've gotten better. And I promise you can, too. Learn to be happy, and you'll be more productive :)
- nefitty 6y ago
  Thank you for your thoughts! This is very insightful.
james_s_tayler 6y ago
The only productivity hack that ever worked for me on a multi-year basis was just to do what is intensely interesting to me. Everything else will fall by the wayside sooner or later. There has been no magic in finding those things either. It has been luck of the draw. Though they're usually challenging and provide near endless amounts of novelty for years on end. Once the novelty or challenge wears off the spell is broken.
- nefitty 6y ago
  Good point. I've recently gone from "management techniques" to cryptocurrency trading, to systems thinking, and so on. It's a good point that a lot of the things that catch me have some promise of making me more powerful (intellectually, materially, socially, etc.) and along that path it is an intense ride of novelty. Besides constant novelty, have you noticed any other similarities amongst the areas that hook you?
  - james_s_tayler 6y ago
    >Besides constant novelty, have you noticed any other similarities amongst the areas that hook you? They're difficult. Challenging.