Comment by bamboozled | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bamboozled | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

That, and being kind to myself when I have unproductive days, which is almost every day.

I suffer from Insomnia, I have for many years, I'm up at 1am after a day which I let me discipline slide. I didn't feel as productive as I should've been today, So you know what I did? I worked till 8:30pm. I punished myself. I broke my new golden rule of getting off the computer by 6pm, which was working so well for me.

Then what happened? I didn't have any wind down time, then I couldn't sleep and now I'm up stressed about everything I probably won't get done tomorrow because I'll be too tired to focus on complex tasks, it's now a compound fracture, a cluster bomb of issues.

I think you're 100% right. Just walk away while you still can, retreat, then come out on the attack the next day feeling better.

I wish I'd taken my own advice.

Thanks for sharing. I think everyone here will recognize themselves, at least occasionally, in what you just wrote.

No. This is just basic life skills. Taking care of yourself is your highest priority. This means keeping your company life and your personal life completely airgapped, using a specific work phone and a specific work computer so nothing bleeds over.

At 5 pm or earlier you stop working. Then you focus on relaxing as much as possible to recharge. If you have kids, it's harder but it's even more important you learn to relax and recharge because they depend on you.

I agree.

I find it incredibly odd how people can be absolutely bad at basic life skills and act as if it were some universal thing about mankind.

If they got some condition in their body or in their mind that makes then a permanent wreck, alright that's a thing. Or sometimes life just happens and your mother is dead - alright, you can be a wreck for some time.

This shouldn't be the norm.

Perhaps take a step back and ask yourself what you truly value in life. And then be “productive” maximising the time you have to do that instead of chasing goals that you actually, deep down, don’t care about.

100%. If you look at productivity weekly instead of daily it always pays to have deload time daily, eat correctly, sleep 8 hrs, and get a workout in on a regular basis!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com