Ask HN: What's your #1 productivity hack? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's your #1 productivity hack?

This one works for me "Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored." from Sam Altman. I take the time each day to prioritize my tasks, meetings, etc.

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You probably hear all the usual productivity hacks like promodoro, start with small things, constantly do it, switch off distractions, etc (which i do too in some form) but let me tell you an unorthodox technique I came up with that was inspired by this tweet - https://twitter.com/tkiramadden/status/1255516715502522370

For me, I don't always have an issue being productive when I am in the zone but I have a problem of sometimes being unable to "jump-start" into that mode. Its like the engineers/developers version of a writers block and I get the occasional mental block when I need to create something.

So what do I do to overcome this?

I gave $1,000 to a really trusted friend and told him, if I dont show him the thing I want to create by the end of the week, he can give that money to an organisation that I absolutely against with on principle (think brainwashing) and hate with my guts.

Boy, it was sure a motivator to my brain on day 5 or 6. :)

Wow, a radical one! But I'm sure it works! :)

Ha, I once considered using a variant of that one (don't remember where I read it) to stop smoking.

I was planning to tell everyone I know that if they could show me a picture of me smoking after I'd officially quit, I'd give a 1.000€ to the political party I hated the most.

I quit on my own, but it's nice to see the method works :)

For many people, sleep seems to be the #1 productivity booster. Certainly, the research seems to suggest focus suffers significantly thanks to lack of sleep - not to mention IQ.

Needless to say there seem to be exceptions - Margaret Thatcher famously coped with 4 hours a night. It's been suggested that some people's ADRB1 expression continues while they're awake, which means they need less sleep. However, less sleep is also associated with dementia late in life.

I never heard about the ADRB1 gene before. The expressed protein acts as a receptor for epinephrine and norepinephrine so it sounds like it plays a key role in regulating the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It makes sense that variations in the gene impact things like sleep and stress.

Kratom, vyvanse and coffee for breakfast! Makes me a relaxed, focused, alert and efficient force to be reckoned with. As it gets closer to lunch time, I’ll take a stack of l-theanine, gaba, black seed oil and ashwaghanda to take the edge off the peak and prepare me for that trip to Pluto I take on my couch after a couple bong rips at the end of the shift.

https://crushentropy.com/ It's like markdown for planning your day in high resolution. The hours no longer just slip through my fingers. I made it one weekend a couple of years ago and I've used it myself ever since. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my productivity has massively improved because of it.

Wooah! Killer. Did you previously did the same but on your Calendar?

Thanks! I didn't do it for very long on my calendar as that got annoying fast. I did it with pen and paper for a while (few weeks) before I decided to just write this simple app.

What part of your days is marked "skim Hacker News"? Is there an entry for that?

Haha it's a struggle. On most days these days, I manage to time-box Hacker News to about 15 minutes while I have my first cup of a coffee, plus an "as long as I want" session in the late evening.

That's interesting, I'm making something similar (https://getartemis.app). A lot of calendars don't seem to solve the issues of using tasks as events, as one does with time blocking. Then, tasks can't be easily moved around, duplicated, and so on, they're rigid on the calendar. It annoyed me so much that I wanted to make something myself.

I would go with keyboard hacks and short keys commands. Specifically, on Mac, I use Hammerspoon, Karabiner, and Alfred. As we know the amount of time spent moving, pointing and clicking on repetitive tasks is completely wasted time. So, if I find myself doing the the same thing for a project or daily. I’ll make a short key for it. Whether it’s tiling windows, command line (e.g. srbt = sudo reboot), caps locks into super key/escape key... I’ve made it to where almost all the keys are able to be accessed from home row using a layer keys. Think something like SpaceVim for your keyboard.

doing it consistently over a long period of time. It took me years to realize that all nighters and overwork were a big mistake.

What truly works is to show up everyday consistently for years.

Like Bill said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

"Long term consistency beats short term intensity"

I fully agree. This has become my mantra. You need to be relentless over the long term, but to maintain that, you need to relax over the short term. And by relax, I just mean, don't stress out, don't go too fast, and don't overdo it.

The parable of the totoise and the hair teaches this succinctly.

My killer productivity hack is a combination of three techniques: 1. Pomodoro, 2. GTD (Getting Things Done), and 3. Spaced Repetition Learning.

Pomodoro Technique helps timebox tasks in addition to prioritizing them. Both are required to stay focused and get into the flow.

> [Pomodoro is] required to stay focused and get into the flow.

Can you elaborate on that? I've been hesitant about trying Pomodoro because it appears like it would break the flow every 30 minutes.

Not OP, but I never got on with forced stops either. I had some success treating it like a mini-deadline to achieve flow-state - work on something for 25 minutes, and if I don't feel like I want to keep going, take a break and try again.

You can either take a 5 minute break every 30 minutes or accumulate them for a maximum of 15 minutes in a 90 minute window. There is no magic; most of the benefit comes from the feedback. Tracking highlights how often you are interrupted and the timer gives a visual reminder to stay on task. When you get a feel for how many Pomos you typically do in a day, it helps set realistic expectations and helps prioritize commitments.

In the last year, I wrote a nonfiction book (History of Cosplay, coming sometime next year, if all goes well), and spend much of last summer conducting research. When it came time to write, I kept stalling out. What I ended up doing was shifting the font to Comics Sans, and boom! I ended up writing quickly and efficiently.

Controversial, but get off Hacker News and get to work. Best trick ever.

As I already said here before...

Read through `man bash`. Thank me later :-)

But seriously, just take some time to read through manuals of software you _really_ use a lot. Like git, vim (or any of your fancypants code editor), shell, etc.

I organize everything I know I'll use daily or very often. I take it from the French kitchen term "Mise en place" [0]. It suits my work style, and think it will as well for anyone who primarily has a single workstation (I include your smartphone in that definition, say when in traveling for example). I'm aware that endlessly organizing can be a time waste, but over time I've learnt to know when it's enough, to keep moving and execute on ideas or valuable work, earning an income etc. I can always spend a few minutes re-configuring a specific set up. Apps have configuration, so should your workstation, and your operating environment in general.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place

On a meta level, I would say identifying the things that drain your battery throughout the day (e.g. messy room, slow phone) and the tings that recharge your battery (e.g. calling a friend, taking the bike to work) and acting accordingly.

Also, having a nice computer. It's a bicycle for my mind, after all.

Not totally life changing, but I have a playlist on Spotify that's roughly a pomodoro period long (~25 minutes). At the end of the playlist is a song that is very different to the other songs. I put in effort to not listen to these songs while not working and to play it when I want to focus. Audio triggers work for me, and the "break" song can be a great non-distracting time marker.

I have Alfa Mist and BADBADNOTGOOD (idk the genre. fusion jazz? acoustic?) as the main timer and Linkin Park's Session from Meteora as the time marker.

Here's my playlist if you want a try: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CZk671K0M11aNf4LuHFbD?si=...

Fear. Nothing got me motivated to finish something like the fear of failing and the shame that I'd feel as a result. Not my favorite technique, and probably not what you're looking for, but I'm guessing half of my good accomplishments at work were based on that.

A deadline is my #1 productivity hack.

Ever start something literally the night before, and you finish at the last minute and realize how MUCH better it would be with another day to work on it?

Definitely. It's also a really good (if painful) way to decide what things are actually important to the delivery.

I think productivity enhancements are really tightly coupled with the domain and type of activity you are doing.

For example, as a university student, I noticed that timing the number of hours I pass on each topic is useful for 1. understanding if I'm doing too little and fixing it 2. getting the idea where I'm spending most of my time and trying to adjust accordingly

On the other hand, if the work is more project-based, I find it more difficult to track time since I find myself switching more often to different things - a solution I'm employing is writing a little todo list every morning on what I want to work on and it's working a little better

Hearing protectors. I use a 3M Peltor X5A -31dB and Flare Isolate Pro. Dead silence, minimal bone hearing.

This may sound preachy but I don't mean it to be. Turn your phone on dnd and practice checking it and email from your desktop no more than hourly. Use dnd on slack.

Something I recently built has helped me stay focused and productive more than anything I've ever tried:

Timmy (https://timmytimer.com) is a free web app that combines a Pomodoro timer with social accountability and a leaderboard. The mix of those elements has been super helpful for me and a lot of other devs and students.

Mental flexibility. Oftentimes, people build their identities on hard and fast beliefs. These have a way of eliminating entire directions of exploration when the ingredients that cook into a decision are being gathered. Routinely refresh your deepest beliefs and your mental architecture will be much, MUCH more optimal.

I drink coffee. Take a deep breath put headphones with noise cancellation enabled and focus... is it a hack maybe ?

It is! :)

Exercise at least once every other day. It does wonders for productivity and focus.

I see this so often. Yet....

I do this. In a good shape, healthy, strong.

I'm a moderately good runner on top of it, all the mental and physical benefits of it.

Yet, I can squat out the whole day anxiously looking at the time at 5pm just to realize I haven't delivered anything that day.

Would it be worse or better if you stopped exercising?

Wow, that's actually the right question.

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe it would be even worse...

Make sure I can go undisturbed for long periods.

The nature of my work right now requires me to attend a lot of meetings (20+ meetings per-week on average), so what I do is block 2 days in a week for no-meeting days, which is Wednesday and Friday. I use these no-meeting days as a time to work on the tasks that require deep work and to get things done.

the i3 tiling window manager

Freedom app has been super useful for me so far

Master org-mode.

Delete Facebook

noprocrast: yes

And how many privilage escalation 0days before you have write access to such system variables?

Wow, a great hack and profound insight. How did no one think of this before now?

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