How to be productive instead of inane | Hacker News Reader

How to be productive instead of inane

unalone.net

43 pointsunalone37 comments

make sure that what you’re doing is worth it

That's the most important tip for me. I never had trouble with productivity when working on stuff that mattered. On the other hand, when I'm just a clog in a huge machine, sitting in the middle of an ocean of cubicles.... I'm posting here.

With the exception of IM (since we're all over, IM's the best way to communicate), I agree with everything you've said.

In general, the less options the app has, the better. The less you can twiddle and waste your time on, the better.

Yeah. I'm doing some intern stuff for Aviary right now and really, Skype is the only efficient way to talk back and forth. But for most people, long-distance communication is not going to happen often, and I didn't think it necessary to write a more long-winded clarification in the article itself.

"You could try to avoid cutting leisure altogether...".

It's an admirable ambition to cut out distractions and focus only on being productive, but leisure is for relaxing the mind. Even if you don't plan for leisure, you're gonna engage it anyways. Even if it's something simple like staring at a dancing flame or watching the clouds pass by.

Separating your productive environment from your fun environment is a good idea. Now, if only I could eliminate distractions for long enough to do such a thing...

Yeah. Hence what I said about avoiding cold turkey.

Though it also helps if your leisure is something that gets the mind working, like engaging in debate on a site like this. I've rarely found myself wasting much time here, thanks to the tight little community. I stop by a few times a day and then I'm done.

Don't use Firefox because most of its add-ons aren't worth it?! Why not just use Firefox but don't install add-ons then?

Because Firefox doesn't offer anything of real advantage beyond add-ons. If we're not talking open browsing, Opera beats it hand-down feature-wise, and Safari beats it hands-down design-and-efficiency-wise.

What about usability-wise? Much nicer to use than either Opera or Safari.

Safari is by far the most usable. You've got to be joking. And what does Firefox have in terms of usability that Opera doesn't have?

"Got to be joking." Always a good way to start an argument.

I would say the main two problems I have with Safari and Opera is their unexpected actions. They are radically different from previous browsers, and still have strange, divergent keyboard shortcuts, etc. I think the main thing for me is that neither handles tabs as nicely as Firefox, and for a heavy user, tabs are everything.

I like inciting arguments, as an aside. It means people are more likely to think during a debate. And that means that there's a better chance of my learning along the way. this only works in online news sites, of course.

Safari's got a comfortable tabs system - on OS X, anyway. It's got tab shifting, rearranging for windows, and double-clicking to make an ew tab if you're too lazy to CMD-Tab it. Though yeah, it's partly a matter of what you're used to.

This article just reads as whiny and bitter.

... also it wasted my time. I could have been productive!

I'm sorry.

...Though you might have been warned off when you saw links to Maddox, Tucker Max, and The Angry Drunk in the sidebar.

I think, actually, that HN users need some of these reminders the least. This is more-or-less a productive community. But I thought some people might enjoy this article anyway.

The article takes unfair stances against Windows/Linux, Firefox, and ad blocking. However, the last item, "manage your leisure time", is important enough that the whole article is a net positive. It's important to take time for leisure, otherwise it creeps into your work time and you end up getting nothing done.

I understand why people use Windows, and I understand why they use Linux. I'm a big fan of the Linux community, but I laugh at the notion that Ubuntu comes even close to rivalling OS X. Windows users are a lot less arrogant than either Linux or Mac users, and so while I'd advise them to switch, I don't like the constant anti-Windows crusades going on.

Firefox I really dislike. It's better than IE. No doubt about that. But it progresses with ideas slowly, it's a terribly cluttered browser, I dislike the idea of building a super-powered web browser, and the developers and the community are both extremely distasteful. While I'm not not a huge fan of using Opera myself, it's a much better browser and I absolutely respect the devteam. And I think that if you genuinely want just a speedy, damn fast web browser, Safari's the one to pick. It discourages mass fiddling, and that helps me stay on task a lot.

Ad blocking I'm fine with, but people put such emphasis on it. People who use AdSense spend more time telling me how great adlessness is that I find myself wasting more time ignoring them than I do ignoring ads. And, of course, for Safari the adblockers cost money, and I find that paying to remove ads is just immensely silly. I mentioned adblockers just because that's a feature that a lot of people seem to spend their time on.

(Sorry if I write long responses to small statements. It's a bad habit.)

I think it's funny that the article discourages installing an ad blocker because it would take too much time, yet encourages switching operating systems and browsers without regard to the time it takes to learn a new system.

As far as ad blockers for Safari, I use http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net, which seems to be completely free and does a decent job.

It's just a little tic that I have: pretty much every conversation site I've been to, this one included, has a vocal minority that will smatter gobs of AdBlock vitriol into any conversation. Considering most conversation sites are a bit of a time-waster anyway, I felt it was prudent to mention.

Thanks for the link, though: I didn't know there was a free adblocker for Safari. I might check it out. </hypocrisy>

I have been called many things in my time, but more-or-less productive is not one of them. I challenge anyone to out procrastinate me.

I'd meet your challenge - but I guess I'd just start wasting my time instead of procrastinating for the challenge.

A "this will make you productive" article with a disclaimer that it doesn't actually apply to everyone because we all have different requirements? Seems a tad pointless to me.

What do I know though; I'm a Windows/Firefox/Adblock user who listens to last.fm while answering emails and chatting on IRC.

Well, you know, it's kind of true. Depending on what you want to you, you need radically different things to stay productive.

And that's why I dislike the idea of productivity blogs. They assume there's some universal standard of being productive, which there isn't. Then, in search of this standard, they actually tell you to do things that make you far less productive.

Indeed. I don't disagree with the gist of the article. I think that it was somewhat hypocritical lecturing about productivity weblogs and then writing an identical entry yourself but you do raise some good points.

Of course, it could all be summarised as "Get off your butt and get on with your work" but that's nowhere near as interesting to read ;)

There was a site called "The secret to productivity" or something, that was just big black letters that said "CLOSE THIS FUCKING WINDOW AND SO SHIT." It inspired me so much.

I promise to you that this shall be the last productivity article I ever write. Unless I find some good Greasemonkey plugins.

Erm... I've wasted far more time fiddling with Linux trying to get it to see things like the mirrored RAID in my PC than dealing with Windows. (Yes, even Ubuntu.)

I've had the same problems with Ubuntu. I recommend using it if ou're trying to create a productive work environment solely because of the apps directory. I feel much less of a need to fiddle when I can download everything from one small box.

That said, if you want to use Ubuntu to replicate Windows, it's better off just sticking with Windows.

This post is sloppy, but the core message is good: to be productive, make something. Preparing to make something doesn't make anything.

I tend to rerevise things I write, but this one I liked loose. Another thing I was writing against (not in terms of content, but in terms of "reasons for writing" was the overpolished blog post. The sorts of people who pack bits of advice into tidy little boxes are the ones who are never worth reading.

So consider this more a "rant" than a "post."

While switching operating systems or avoiding email/IM in the modern workplace is more than a little unrealistic, the core message is good.

Distraction undermines productivity.

Definitely yes. I started doing some stuff few weeks ago - no rss, (almost) no im, email twice a day only. And it really helps! Much more than reading 'productivity' blogs ;)

So, in summary, don't talk to people or look at things you don't have to and focus on the task at hand?

Is this guy serious?

What part doesn't seem serious to you?

I spent two years reading RSS feeds of productivity blogs, trying to take their good ideas and get them to work for me. Yet, for some reason, I found that when I stopped trying to be productive and started working on things, my productivity skyrocketed.

Well saying that Windows kill productivity is too much I think.

Most of your points refer to someone who can't focus. So the problem is not Firefox nor Windows nor any music player.

I'm very pricky in terms of the items that I use, so for me, not using Windows fixed a lot. I'm very sensitive to the things that I use: when something doesn't work logically, I'm just immediately set at edge. And of the three OS designs (Ubuntu = Linux, in my amateur mind), Windows is the one that most bombards me with things like that. Ubuntu, for all its I-can't-get-my-audio-to-work, has a very tight little design, and Macs run just absolutely beautifully. I've found that the OS I use defines my mentality regarding productivity. Thought that may be just me.

that sites like Lifehack are absolute bullshit

Okay, so we start with a neghead tone, which I'll duplicate.

OS X is the only operating system designed to actually be productive

Moron. More productive work has been done on probably any given System 360 installation than every OS X system combined, but don't let that keep the bullshit from spewing.

Don’t use an IM client. I mean, come on.

No, really. Come on. Moron.

Anything you need to IM somebody for work can be sent more efficiently as email

Oh, really? Come on. Do you think perhaps that communications that require high-speed conversation-style back-and-forth responses might be more suitable for IM than email? And that the quiet, recorded nature of IM might make it superior to talking? No? Didn't think of those extremely obvious use cases? No? Jesus Christ.

Avoid plugins.

Whoops. I just realized I was reading satire. Please disregard my criticism. Thanks for wasting my time.

-OS X is designed to do whatever you want to do as efficiently as possible. The fact that it lets you do a ton of things can be distracting, but I've found that I never impulsively open up GarageBand while I'm, say, replying to snarky critics.

-I like how you rebut my IM claim twice. It shows that you have a very focused mind.

-Very few essential communications actually REQUIRE back-and-forth responses. And, frankly, I think that the phone is a great way to have discussions. It means actually communicating, which is something a vast amount of people today ignore. I was going to mention using Campfire if you were really going for efficiency, but then I decided that most people just don't care.

-Yeah, because plug-ins really... I mean... plug-ins... Like, what would my life be... without, you know... plug-ins? Man?

So out of five rebuttal points, you attempted to rebut me... never. Nice. You're a real thinker, you.

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