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Comment by FWKevents | Hacker News Reader

-- Limit your time on social media to 20 minutes or less a day (LinkedIn/Facebook/Discord use that's related to work is an exception.) No studies exist yet to support this hypothesis, but it's my observation that longtime exposure to social media impedes overall focus.

-- Limit your TV watching to one or two hours on the weekends, per week

-- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week

-- Find an activity you like to do "offline" that you can do regularly such as walking, yoga, biking, etc, and do that more often. It will clear your mind and bring you back to center

-- Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am

-- Be kind to yourself when you lose focus and gently redirect your mind back to your tasks. If you get off track for hours or an entire day, wake up early the next morning and put your best foot forward without dwelling on the day before.

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-- Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am

I always hate this piece of advice, if i wake up early, even if I am able to struggle through getting 'something significant done' before 8am i'm going to feel terrible for the rest of the day since i got up early, it's not worth it at all. This advice is nonsense and not universal, yet the same nonsense is constantly repeated. I understand it can work for some, but that is because you are following your own rhythms and really that is what you should be doing and that should be the advice

or maybe taking your own advice more generally "Crave out a block of time for yourself dedicated to doing something significant, finding the time that works best for you in your schedule'

to me it's totally worth it. morning hours are very quiet. i usually do my daily flashcards session during that time. and sometimes a small workout as well.

if you feel terrible waking up that early - go to bed earlier as well. you need that sleep.

Some people find early hours to be very productive, some people find noon hours to be really productive, and finally some people find evening hours to be really productive. What works for you won't necessarily work for everyone else and pretending otherwise is harmful to all who don't fit your life/body/etc.

Personally I always don't feel great in the mornings, I usually need a few hours to fully wake up and function and I don't like going to bed early, why should I? Those hours are my quiet hours and are the hours that I like.

I get it though, it's what works for you. So you should do that, but it's not universal advice, people that find it works just think others should go to bed earlier and follow what they do and poof! like magic everything is amazing

I agree it might not work for you. But for most people, it is just a matter of never having put in enough effort. If you have tried waking up early with a good night's sleep consistently for a long period of time, and it still doesn't work for you, then sure.

Also it depends on your age. I remember seeing some research on why we shouldn't be waking up teenagers in early morning. So if you had a bad time waking up early as a kid, it might not be true as an adult.

Whether that works for you really depends on biological mechanisms you can't change. For some people getting up early works great, however others simply don't fall asleep as early. That getting up early is best is a myth made up by some Prussians who probably belonged to the first category.

night hours are very quiet too. what is your point?

I think it depends on the person.

I’m a “morning person.” My wife is definitely not.

For me, I enjoy getting up at 5 (actually, it takes a while to get to the “enjoy” part). I walk a couple of miles, take a shower, and often fix a number of issues before 8.

One of the most productive developers I ever knew (a former employee) was a “non-morning person.” He would amble into the office at noon. Drove HR crazy, but all attempts to get him to come in earlier, met with failure. He would often stay in past 2AM.

As his manager, I got flak for his schedule, but I put my own job in jeopardy, and did not enforce corporate policy on him. We worked together for almost 27 years. Japan loved him (so my job wasn’t actually in jeopardy). His schedule worked for them.

We tend to have a habit of projecting what works for us, onto others.

> We tend to have a habit of projecting what works for us, onto others.

I wish more people would understand this when giving advice -- what works for one case or one person is guaranteed to have many exceptions when you try to apply it to a larger population.

I'm a relatively new parent, and I've gotten to the point to where I hate when other parents give advice. Something that worked for your kid won't necessarily work for mine, and don't treat that case like it's my fault -- instead, qualify that your advice is based on your experience and your situation, not necessarily something universal.

Is it up to the giver of advice or the taker? In a way, the giver just wants to talk about their experience. The taker wants to use the advice. It seems more realistic to have the taker vet what's told to them online.

The issue I have specifically is that advice givers tend to give advice either in an unprompted way or as if it will apply universally. For the post at the top of this thread, while it wasn't unprompted, it's positioned as if following the rules _will_ lead to you having better focus, when the realty of the situation is that they won't work for everyone. Something as simple as prefacing these rules as "this is what worked for me, maybe it'll work for you too" is enough to counteract this.

Daniel Pink’s book “When” reviews some research on morning people and night owls (there’s also a 3rd type that is somewhere in between). It suggests morning people are usually better at analytical tasks in the morning and creative tasks at night. Night owls are better at creative tasks in the morning and analytical tasks at night. Both seem to hit a slump in the afternoon.

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735210632/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_FM...

> It suggests morning people are usually better at analytical tasks in the morning and creative tasks at night.

This describes me, exactly.

I enjoyed his A Whole New Mind book.

My interpretation of this is to accomplish something significant very early in the day, depending on your schedule. I wake up at 8:30AM, and I like to accomplish something significant before 10AM.

There's definitely benefit to having that block of time be in the morning where you have more energy though, if you're able to, shifting your sleep schedule to be earlier can help with productivity here.

I don't think it's nonsense at all. It sucks until you get used to it.

After you get in the habit of it, the time available in a day feels almost doubled.

And there's (I suppose) the benefit of working fasted which generally enhances focus.

I can attest that just waking up early had a big positive effect on my life. Its more about discipline: Be in bed phone less by 10 PM every night. Then you will easily wake up at 6 and accomplish quite a lot by 8. Note for me that is just going to the gym

> if i wake up early, even if I am able to struggle through getting 'something significant done' before 8am i'm going to feel terrible for the rest of the day since i got up early, it's not worth it at all

I don't think they're saying, "get up early tomorrow after staying up late tonight" What they mean is "get into a habit of getting enough sleep and waking up early." Yes, I get it, many people claim to be night owls. But honestly many of them just get terrible sleep and won't put the effort into developing healthy routines and instead write it off as something they can't change.

My situation is two parents working and two younger kids. The element of rising early that actually energizes me is control. It is one of the few things I can unilaterally do to shift productive time. The rest of my day is the fragmented or constrained, and my mental energy at the end is very low. I like the feeling of be able to decide that some random afternoon meeting gets me at 50% power, and items of my choosing get my full attention at 5am.

I'm not at all a morning person. I get interesting things done in the afternoon/night.

My job allows me to work whenever I want.

So, I wake up early and start work so that I'll be done by early afternoon. That leaves me plenty of time to get useful things done.

Because it's work, I'm kind of motivated to get up early. Had I decided to do some other activity in the morning — non-work coding, exercise, reading etc — I wouldn't get out of bed.

Maybe it’s a numbers game. I’ve met maybe two people in my life who rise late who actually seem to get stuff done, compared to at least a dozen or more examples of early risers who are successful. I am not a morning person but I’ve trained myself to wake up around 6am and found it helps me get a lot done. Used to wake up around 9am and stumble into everything. I think most of the humans around wake up early so having to adjust to the majority schedule is probably the issue.

This is at least in part down to societal structure.

Education runs on a "morning person" schedule from a young age, through early adulthood. After that, there's certainly more choice available in terms of life schedule, but the vast majority of people are corralled into a form of employment built on the same schedule. Even if not, all major services one interfaces with in one's life operate on that schedule.

Even if you managed against all odds to develop healthy daily habits during the 20-ish years of strict poorly suited scheduling that is the education system, applying those habits only becomes more difficult when you move into a more independent self-driven environment of providing for oneself financially. This absolutely kills any hope of developing productive habits for most people.

---

Anecdata: I'd classify myself as "not a morning person", but I don't find difficult to get up early. e.g. I don't need an alarm-clock. What I find difficult is functioning after getting up.

I don't have kids but I've a pretty demanding large dog that had a strong preference for 5am walks when he first arrived, which I adapted to reasonably easily. Walking a dog isn't really a "significant accomplishment" in the commonly understood sense, and more-importantly, isn't a mentally challenging or "applied" activity. I'm completely unable to function in the mornings when it comes to doing anything even mildly complex.

Also, getting up at 5am means I'm severely less productive from 6pm onwards, which is my peak productive period when I operate on natural rhythm. I'm reasonably successful (I think) and I work a remote job from Ireland on a US tz schedule, so that's particularly tough.

...it sounds like your dog is ruining your productivity. Are you doing anything to adjust your pet's schedule or otherwise deal with that?

He was. When he was a puppy. A temporary and worthwhile disruption, mitigated by familiarity, socialising and a small bit of training.

I'm a late-riser by nature.

Being early, however, is a superpower. If you show up to a meeting prepared or get correspondence out to your counterparties early in the morning, everything goes better. So, early rising confers a number of advantages that tend to compound. These days, I'm an increasingly early-riser.

The thing that matters is your phase relative to the rest of humanity. Getting pre-work done for the following day in an evening may also work for a late riser, but it doesn't work for me.

If you didn’t get a full night of sleep before rising early this advise is not for you.

That doesn’t invalidate it, though.

These are some pretty harsh restrictions. No using the internet for more than 20 minutes a day unless it's work related? Only playing video games for an hour or two per week? This feels like it'd set OP up to burn out...You can't even have a meaningful conversation with someone in 20 minutes. It may work for you but it's not going to work for everyone. Besides, sometimes when you're sad or tired or just need a break, you just want to relax and do something more mindless. And even video games aren't just "mindless" entertainment. What if you want to take a break in between work?

It does seem harsh compared to my recent reality. But I remember my internet usage in the 1990s... going to a library and signing up for a 30-minute slot to use the internet... or later using the internet from home, but only for a few minutes at a time lest I block the telephone line too much...

While definitely a shift from what I do today, maybe going back to that style of internet usage would not, in fact, be so intolerable!

> Besides, sometimes when you're sad or tired or just need a break, you just want to relax and do something more mindless.

There are plenty of options beyond social media. Take a walk. Do some hobby, read something physical, etc. The issue with social media is that compared to most alternatives, it's easier to lose track of time, and easier to get addicted.

Not sure how old you are, but as another commenter pointed out, many of us spent a good chunk of our life - even adult life - without constant-on Internet. The quality of life was not at all worse.

"No using the internet for more than 20 minutes a day unless it's work related? Only playing video games for an hour or two per week? This feels like it'd set OP up to burn out..."

The internet and video games didn't even exist for almost all of human history, and people didn't burn out merely for lack of access to them.

Unplug and enjoy the world.

HN for me is also a form of social media, especially if you find yourself checking it all the time.

HN is absolutely social media. Reddit and message boards, too. If you’re on a website socializing with other people or consuming socially-generated content from others, it’s social media.

It definite is for me, I think what's helped is forcing myself to read the article before I go the comments. At least some learning is happening.

Yeah it's always hilarious to me when conversations on here will talk about the effects of social media while clearly not intending to include HN.

Just because we have a socially enforced style guide and no infinite scroll doesn't mean it's not social media.

> Wake up early and try to accomplish something significant before 8am

I'm guessing you don't have young children?

For some reason just getting the kids ready, lunch packed and at school on time is a monumental achievement.

While I don't do only 20 minutes. I found that setting the digital wellbeing setting on my phone really helped.

Focus mode during the day time on weekdays, to prevent stuff while trying to be productive. And timers on a few apps.

I used to scroll through far too much twitter, but putting an hour cap on my phone helped with that a lot. It helped break the habit, and depending on what is happening in the world, I may not even hit the cap many days.

I sort of disagree on two things;

1. Video games, in moderation can be beneficial for focus in much the same way reading a book can. You have to concentrate on a single task for an extended period of time, and lack of concentration is often punished. Obviously playing for 8 hours a day is a problem, but an hour or two here and there is nothing to worry about.

2. I'm a morning person, so getting up early and doing something useful before 8am totally works for me. But a lot of people just can't function that early or don't have the luxury of being able to get up that early (shift workers, for example). I'd suggest instead of targeting 8am specifically, just target the first wakeful hour of your day as the time to get something done by. If that's 8am - great, if that's 6pm - that's cool to.

> Limit video game use to one or two hours per week

I would feel more focused and productive than usual if I spent a day on a video game. Games are usually focused time, whereas social media is a low level misery but not being able to stop, hoping between sites, looking for something entertaining but not finding it.

Deliberately act. If someone casually asks "whatcha doing?", you should never answer "nothing". Deliberately playing a game isn't doing nothing, taking a nap isn't doing nothing. Social media isn't necessarily doing nothing, but for me it usually is.

Ask yourself, did I decide to do this? What is my goal? If your goal is passing time, stop.

Adding to the offline thing - I think it's great to find a hobby or sport that you can set goals in outside of your main gig (I'm a programmer, I chose disc golf and indoor skydiving). For me this led to feeling more confident generally, getting exercise/out of the house, and being in a space where I'm the primary learner, not teacher. It can also help enforce routine. IMO routine is even better if it's not the same thing every single day.

> -- Limit video game use to one or two hours per week

I was doing really good with all of these until Elden Ring came out. Now my side project hasn't seen a commit in a few weeks :)

Self control, this is really what you are saying. (I agree) And I would add, you just have to start somewhere, it doesn't matter what or how you do it.

You just need to start, and get yourself to do something different to really see a difference with yourself. (seems redundant, but your actions have a direct relationship to your life experience)

Doing meditation also helps a lot too.

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