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1. Silence. I'm not smart enough to get anything done with a lot of noise or music going on. 2. Distracting my mind. I read long, complex fiction novels for 30
by jdlegg 17y ago
1. Silence. I'm not smart enough to get anything done with a lot of noise or music going on.
2. Distracting my mind. I read long, complex fiction novels for 30-60 minutes at night before bed. This is the most valuable part of my day because it acts like a shutdown script for my mind. Afterwards I feel completely disconnected from what I'm working on, worrying about, or struggling with. Some novels that I've used in the past: War & Peace, Ulysses, As I Lay Dying, Moby Dick.
3. Frequent breaks. While working I make sure to pause regularly and often stop altogether, walk-around, etc. This helps and hurts because it can interrupt flow, but the big benefit is that I find myself less tired at the end of the day when I stick to this.
4. Pen & paper. I buy spiral-bound notebooks at Walgreens for $0.35 and fill one every 3-6 months or so. I use pen and paper to plan programming projects, do class designs, brainstorm ideas, draw diagrams, almost everything.
5. Org-mode. I also use org-mode to more formally track things. I consider my notebook an "informal" workspace, while my org-mode files are more "formal". I utilize the agenda feature to produce to-do lists and calendar.
6. Diversity of projects. I try to always have some toy or pet project to play with when I find myself lacking motivation or hitting dead-ends on my primary work.
7. Try to keep it to 8 hours per day. This often seems (or "is" depending on your management) impossible, but it really does make an enormous difference in your ability to stay consistently productive and creative.
- mattdennewitz 17y agowe differ only at #1, but i think this is a great list. if i may, 8. group tasks into small units and imagine the end result before touching a keyboard. nothing revelatory, but i find it brings a bit of balance.
- gte910h 17y ago>a lot of noise or music going on. Yay, someone else who gets destroyed by music. I thought I was the only one. I was told by a boss once upon a time to "put on earphones", but he didn't like the protective earwear I brought in (they were from home depot for using loud machines) and was unsympathetic to the fact music really makes me not do well at coding. >This is the most valuable part of my day because it acts like a shutdown script for my mind. You know what, I did not realize how the reading could actually be helping there. I like long series of works that are interconnected because they're typically much longer than even classics. The 1632 series is excellent and long, for that reason. >Try to keep it to 8 hours per day. Do you mean at least 8? At most 8? Exactly 8?
- jdlegg 17y agoI would say at most 8. I don't necessarily believe in working less than 8 hours per day has a particular benefit, but I don't really have evidence, even anecdotally, for that belief. 10 or 12 hour days are OK as one-offs, once-in-a-blue-moon (I mean that literally). But doing that for many days in a row has major negative impacts on my productivity and my general mood.
- BjornW 17y agoWith regards to point 2: I read something in a foreign language instead of just complex fiction. It forces me to slow down and it helps me keep up with my foreign languages. Usually this meant English (I'm Dutch), but since I read a lot of English during the day already, I started with reading German at night. I