500 Words before 8am | Hacker News Reader

500 Words before 8am

informationdiet.com

143 pointsphreeza17 comments

My productivity rules:

    1) Produce, don't consume.
    2) Achieve small goals.
    3) Say no.

I used to work at a place that had a 10 am stand up meeting (once headed by the author of the Information Diet, incidentally). My trick was that I'd try to get in a code commit before that stand up. If I was able to accomplish that I'd be more likely to have a productive day.

Rules are meant to be broken :-)

1) You must consume in order to be exposed to new things. If you're just producing you will tend to be limited, the world is much larger than what you're producing

2) having BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) is helpful to keep you going and not just do small goals for small goals'sake

3) Say yes to new opportunities

The 10AM code commit is a good trick. Might be helpful to resist the urge to check Twitter & HN at 9AM "just for 10 minutes".

A better phrasing for 1) would be "Produce more than you consume."

In my experience, hyperbole serves me well in my goals. "Produce more than you consume" is more defendable in terms of online critique, and you ARE right. But I have enough forces bombarding me with reminders to consume (advertising, internet, TV, procrastination...) In this tug-of-war, these rules are the only thing pulling in the opposite direction. I want my rules to be strongly worded enough to pull me back to the right mindset/goal.

'Start your day with producer, not consumer mindset.' > pure gold.

Do an 80/20 analisys of your distractions an loop until a few essentials are reached (mail etc). Than postpone interacting with procrastinators until 1-2 pm (that's when most people are sleepy and least productive). Iterate over each nuance,eat,rest and by 4 pm, you should be back to 'killer mode'. If this kind of routine is achieved, you're one focused and unstoppable behemoth.

Wonderful advice. These past few weeks I've been trying to write a few articles, but have yet to finish one concretely and I wonder if this has something to do with it. As I look back I go through a perpetual loop of research, and the fact that my brain has been wired towards consumer mindset from doing the same routine for 3-4 years is probably a huge part of that.

Trying this tomorrow.

I agree. I'm in the process of trying to finish a journal on my research and have struggled with workimg on it at night. I keep falling int consumption mode by researching probably more than i need to. I definitely will consider this method.

For anyone wanting to pick up a writing habit, I heartily recommend 750words.com.

If the point is to write honest and uncensored thoughts, never meant to be published (basically mental stretching), why on earth would you send them to this website?

I love the intent, but find it doesn't work for me so well.

I find my best writing comes an hour or so in after immersion into the rhythm of what I'm writing. I'm just not warmed up at 8am.

I like to start my day with a moment of silence, even if it's brief. I go outside if it's not freezing cold , or just sit quietly with some tea or coffee and smile.

Perspective makes the things I do produce more worthwhile.

Every morning before I start work I write a brief paragraph on what I am planning to work on today, and what I need to achieve to call the day a success. Keeps me focused and acts as a trigger to immediately launch into work: "Right, I've got that out of the way, what's next?"

I actually have the completely opposite problem.

If I start my day producing, (which I often do). I get too distracted doing work to eat until well after lunch time.

One of my new years resolutions was to eat breakfast more often. So if I want to do things that aren't work, I basically have to force myself to not open my laptop until I've completed them. I.e. if I start the day doing work, the odds of be going running diminish quite a bit, as does the chances that I'll eat breakfast.

As a caveat, I am not doing that much writing for external audiences, I could imagine some benefits to starting writing first thing in the day before their are as many distractions.

Why would you force yourself to eat breakfast? The whole "most important meal of the day" has no scientific basis.

I can only speak from personal experience, but since I have gone back to my "student" eating pattern, just following my appetite, and skipping breakfast my energy has gone up significantly.

"The warrior diet" on amazon, discusses this better than I do

This is very very loosely related, but if anyone wants to track the amount that they type there's an awesome project called Whatpulse that has been running since about 2004 that tracks your keys typed (only the totals, doesn't log the individuals keys in order) that is fun to run. You can easily compare what you typed in the morning vs. the evening, day to day: http://whatpulse.org/

I'm still doing the 5am thing I posted here about a month ago[0], and I have definitely found the "be a producer not a consumer" mindset does change how I go about things. The article is totally spot on in that you tend to consume things that help your production.

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3498860

starting your day in a creative mindset does frame your day in a different way. Not sure this is panacea, but optimizing for production rather than consumption seems like the right framework. dying to try it!

Excellent! I bookmarked that article. I often make the mistake of being a "consumer" first thing in the morning, and yes, that is a big productivity hit.

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