3 ms·

I Spent 42 Hours Last Month on the Activity Most Critical to My Success

64 points by da5e 15y ago

rglover 15y ago
Not 100% sure what the author was trying to say, but I think it comes down to two things: 1.) Identify that which is most important to you, your career, and success and 2.) Develop a measure to check your performance on fulfilling the thing that is most important to you. Essentially, try to focus less on the menial and regrettable tasks of the day by keeping something around to remind you "there's more important things to be done." That was my understanding at least.
johndbritton 15y ago
Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fcalnewport.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F05%2F10%2Flab-notes-i-spent-42-hours-last-month-on-the-activity-most-critical-to-my-success%2F&btnG=Search http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...
vacri 15y ago
Has this guy never seen a prison film or comic strip? Those hash marks are done 'wrong'.
syllogism 15y ago
Seems like a worse version of the Paul Graham essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
kamaal 15y ago
Most of the productivity tips seem to be another way of describing David Allen's 'Getting things done'. Some times the described method is either close, a little different or some times badly. The whole idea revolves around a few things. First being goal, goal itself can be divided to lifetime, half life, 10 year, yearly, monthly all the way granular to daily goals. In order to achieve the goal you need planning, hence you make To-do lists or others forms of tracking mechanisms with deadlines. Once this is done, the working on the list seems to be a matter of two things discipline and tracking. Tracking implies some sort of measurement. And then finally reviewing and course correction.Doing this in the intervals of your goal periods. And there is always that 'next step' that David Allen describes in his book. That is all there is to productivity, the crux is to get organized. If you do this simple stuff you can solve and manage most of the stuff that is out there to manage.
- ra 15y ago
  Certainly, writing down your goals is the first key to achieving them.
jgrodziski 15y ago
It also reminds me of the productivity tips “Don’t break the chain” from Jerry Seinfield : http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-pr... Never break the chain of working every day on your most important project, even if it's one hour per day.
dreeves 15y ago
I would have trouble with the criteria for making a hash mark. Is it like "ok, here I go", start a timer, work for an hour, then mark the sheet? What if you get interrupted, don't stay focused the whole time, or find yourself having started working without having started the timer? I have a possibly over-the-top solution to that problem that I just wrote about here: http://messymatters.com/tagtime http://messymatters.com/tagtime
michaelaiello 15y ago
It believe he's got a bad kind of metric. Tracking "hours I spent thinking hard about computer science research problems" will reward you for spending more time, but not necessarily delivering results. Why not put up all of your problems on a piece of paper and cross them out when you've solved them. If you can solve all of your problems in one 30 minute block, you should.
- efsavage 15y ago
  He never mentioned being productive. If you're confusing "focusing my attention" with being productive, you've read too many lifehacker posts. Now, "put up all of your problems on a piece of paper" is a great suggestion, I've started writing down everything I want to look into, every feature idea I have, or technique I want to try, along the lines of the idea files that get posted here on HN, although more discrete and less focused. I have hundreds of them that haven't been done, and may never get done, but writing them down made me think of 2 or 3 more, and maybe one of those got done, and is making me productive. I don't keep track of how many there are, or how many I've done, that's not important. Really, it isn't, I didn't even believe so myself until I tried it. This list actually started out as a todo list and has grown into something far more valuable.

64 points by da5e 15y ago

Not 100% sure what the author was trying to say, but I think it comes down to two things: 1.) Identify that which is most important to you, your career, and success and 2.) Develop a measure to check your performance on fulfilling the thing that is most important to you. Essentially, try to focus less on the menial and regrettable tasks of the day by keeping something around to remind you "there's more important things to be done." That was my understanding at least.

johndbritton 15y ago

Google Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fcalnewport.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F05%2F10%2Flab-notes-i-spent-42-hours-last-month-on-the-activity-most-critical-to-my-success%2F&btnG=Search http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...

vacri 15y ago

Has this guy never seen a prison film or comic strip? Those hash marks are done 'wrong'.

syllogism 15y ago

Seems like a worse version of the Paul Graham essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

kamaal 15y ago

Most of the productivity tips seem to be another way of describing David Allen's 'Getting things done'. Some times the described method is either close, a little different or some times badly. The whole idea revolves around a few things. First being goal, goal itself can be divided to lifetime, half life, 10 year, yearly, monthly all the way granular to daily goals. In order to achieve the goal you need planning, hence you make To-do lists or others forms of tracking mechanisms with deadlines. Once this is done, the working on the list seems to be a matter of two things discipline and tracking. Tracking implies some sort of measurement. And then finally reviewing and course correction.Doing this in the intervals of your goal periods. And there is always that 'next step' that David Allen describes in his book. That is all there is to productivity, the crux is to get organized. If you do this simple stuff you can solve and manage most of the stuff that is out there to manage.

ra 15y ago
Certainly, writing down your goals is the first key to achieving them.

jgrodziski 15y ago

It also reminds me of the productivity tips “Don’t break the chain” from Jerry Seinfield : http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-pr... Never break the chain of working every day on your most important project, even if it's one hour per day.

dreeves 15y ago

I would have trouble with the criteria for making a hash mark. Is it like "ok, here I go", start a timer, work for an hour, then mark the sheet? What if you get interrupted, don't stay focused the whole time, or find yourself having started working without having started the timer? I have a possibly over-the-top solution to that problem that I just wrote about here: http://messymatters.com/tagtime http://messymatters.com/tagtime

michaelaiello 15y ago

It believe he's got a bad kind of metric. Tracking "hours I spent thinking hard about computer science research problems" will reward you for spending more time, but not necessarily delivering results. Why not put up all of your problems on a piece of paper and cross them out when you've solved them. If you can solve all of your problems in one 30 minute block, you should.

efsavage 15y ago
He never mentioned being productive. If you're confusing "focusing my attention" with being productive, you've read too many lifehacker posts. Now, "put up all of your problems on a piece of paper" is a great suggestion, I've started writing down everything I want to look into, every feature idea I have, or technique I want to try, along the lines of the idea files that get posted here on HN, although more discrete and less focused. I have hundreds of them that haven't been done, and may never get done, but writing them down made me think of 2 or 3 more, and maybe one of those got done, and is making me productive. I don't keep track of how many there are, or how many I've done, that's not important. Really, it isn't, I didn't even believe so myself until I tried it. This list actually started out as a todo list and has grown into something far more valuable.