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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
by 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 agoHe 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.