The "Reitoff principle": Why you should add "nothing" to your work-life schedule | Hacker News Reader

The "Reitoff principle": Why you should add "nothing" to your work-life schedule

bigthink.com

129 pointsPaulHoule64 comments

My most productive periods in life was before I moved in with my girlfriend.

We'd live together on weekends, but not the weekdays. So I'd work on problems all week, and then go visit her, bringing no computer or anything like that.

I always came up with a bunch of solutions to hard problems I'd been working on during those weekends away from the keyboard. They'd just appear in my head one by one, throughout the weekend. All of my most inspired ideas came out of that period. It's as though working activley on a problem spawns a bunch of threads that, without serious time away from the problem, continuously get interrupted and never resolve.

How did you manage remembering or recording ideas and inspiration such that you could recall them sufficiently when getting back to work?

For me just jotting down four words in any notes app or email draft contains enough information to pick it back up later.

I eventually settled on a shortcut on my phone's home screen that opened up an email to my work email. So all I had to do was press that shortcut, write the note and send it. Then come Monday I would have a couple notes from my self waiting in my inbox.

I'm not the parent commenter, but no computer doesn't mean no access to writing implements, and writing something down physically can render it mentally ‘sticky’ in a way I've never been able to replicate in software.

I just write it down somewhere. Usually the solution is much smaller than the problem, so a 1-2 line note and a sketch goes a long way.

In general I make a habit of writing down anything I think I should do. It's easy to think you'll remember, but those types of thoughts are extremely fleeting, and you almost never remember then when it's time to get to work. Such note-taking is pretty much the backlog for my life and a principal key to getting a lot of shit done.

I send myself a message on slack with a reminder usually

Most of the ideas that came to me in similar times as OPs are like “actually we don’t need that new database at all, the data is already in the main db”-kind of ideas. So, notes are not really needed.

This makes me wonder what problem this was a solution to

Wake and sleep, workout and rest, prospers in balance. But this also means you can't just hang out in the showers and expect solutions. You have to work on it, then rest.

YES, exactly this.

My method in college ended up being explicit balance. Study, read, ingest as much knowledge on the topic as I could until I felt I was at either the point of diminishing returns or having sufficiently covered the subject, taking some, but not copious notes. Then just start doing idle things, specifically letting the "background processing" happen in my brain, things like running/hiking, going to dinner, etc. Mostly just waiting for the ideas to form and appear. At that point, I just started rapidly scribbling draft shards, in whatever order the ideas appeared. When that slowed down, it was time to wrangle the shards into a properly organized paper, which usually also included finding a smaller number of new connections among the shards.

The whole key was first feeding selected info in, then allowing — and trusting — my unconscious brain the space to work on it.

FWIW, I tend to find that it doesn't have to be a full brain idle. Some active component seems to be helpful, but I think it needs to be easy to pause and that there's a sweet spot on the amount of engagement.

Reading actual books or other longform documents is usually pretty fertile/generative. Watching youtube or a movie or listening to a podcast doesn't do the trick. Writing and editing are both also pretty good.

Walks are good, but biking/running/swimming don't seem to be.

Programming can be good in the sense that it regularly reveals missing tools/libraries, but I don't find the work itself all that generative.

My most productive time was when I was alone in my mid twenties. I did so much cool stuff that I look back fondly on between 10p and 2a. Once I found a wife and had a kid I have almost no productivity outside of work but I honestly don’t care. Life is good.

Early mornings can still be a possibility.

As well as breaking productivity of the past into really small steps.

Many such cases.

“When action grows unprofitable, gather information. When information grows unprofitable, sleep.”

Time away from the keyboard is as valuable, if not more as time at the keyboard.

‘The real gauge of friendship is how clean your house needs to be before they can come over.’

Back when we were "just" best friends, I'd get offended that my fiance would clean her apartment when casual acquaintances would come over, but would never bother to clean up for me. She finally explained the above to me..

I clean up thoroughly before any guests come. Not because I don’t want them to see a mess. But rather because I feel a lot better when things are tidy and clean and being in a better mood means more enjoyment when friends or family come.

My wife and I invite people over often because it helps us keep the house clean and benefits us overall :).

I agree with the sentiment of this quote though.

She keeps a cleaner house than ... some ...

An important aspect/variant of this is that it's better to do nothing than fill your time with low quality distractions.

By scrolling low signal/noise content we block ourselves from this fenomena.

Efficiency is brittleness. When you cram your time with this or that, you give up resiliency to random shocks, and you shut yourself off from random opportunities.

To a point. I'm not a workaholic by any means, I skew towards working 20 hours weeks. When everything is good, the time off allows me to be incredibly productive. Breakthroughs happen by themselves.

I am, however, prone to anxiety. When things start to become uncertain and I get anxious, I find it's much better for me to take the extra hours head-on and work however much is needed to dig myself out - 30,40, 50, or 60. Otherwise both work and rest become really low-quality as I can never truly procrastinate away from worry. Focused work is the only way through.

Which is one reason why I try to avoid work where there are many emergencies and sudden operational problems. It throws me off my game completely.

Edit: apologies for the typos, not used to posting from my phone :)

> sig myself out

What is meant by this?

I think it's a typo. He's talking about how many cigs (ciggies, cigarettes) he needs to get joy back into his life - 30, 40, 50 or 60 :)

No, clearly means zig. Writing 30, 40, 50 or 60 zig programs to solve the problem.

??? that's not the zig they are referring to. They mean by firing 30, 40, 50, or 60 rockets in a relaxing match of Quake, they'll de-stress

This is the interpretation I'll choose. You win. Muh-muh-muh-muhltikill

Likely typo for "dig myself out"?

I relate to this very much. If I've had an unproductive day, it really stresses me out and I can't relax until I make it for it later that night.

My most productive times at work were when I was bored. I worked a job that had a lot of downtime, and while most people spent all that time watching movies and browsing the internet (which I did a little of as well), it also gave me time to identify the problems that made the time I was working more painful. This led me to try to find solutions. I learned to write code to automate various repetitive tasks, wrote documentation to upskill others on the team, built tools that would allow everyone to work faster and easier... this kind of stuff eventually turned into my actual job once the boss saw the impact.

At one point he just told me to think of stuff that would help the team and do it; he then didn't really talk to me again for 2 years. For the first few months I was feeling lazy. I didn't really know wheat to do and felt like I was sitting around a lot. However, by the end of the first year I had more projects than I could handle. Eventually a whole team of 10 people was formed around me to help with all the stuff.

Current management wants to overload everyone with more work than they can handle, after they read the cliff notes about OKRs. Productivity has gone down, the solutions are worse, and chaos is the new normal. I think some time for everyone to take a step back, assess where we're at, and put some practical plans in place on how to move forward, would do the whole organization a lot of good.

I actively treasure my shower thoughts time and have been thinking of doing more of that. One issue is that if I'm in a bad mood, stressed, annoyed at some stupid coworker, etc. my mind will wander in that useless area instead of in the direction of cool problems.

I joked with a coworker the other day that if my shower thoughts are too dominated by workplace arguments, it's time to quit that job.

Did they disagree?

I saw something in their eyes... Something that makes me wonder if I'll see them again on Monday.

This hits home. Confirms my decision to decline future projects with a difficult client!

I wish I could enforce this at my current company. Everyone is always “busy” and in meetings and fighting fires from earlier short-term-thinking projects

Performative work is the most common type of work at all workspaces. As soon as promotions happen not on results but on subjective things which is basically all departments apart from sales, performative work becomes the norm.

I read this, took a shower and can now share my own shower thoughts.

Imagine explaining all of this to a person asking you why you're unavailable on a Sunday. It's much easier to just say "my god says so". Depending on the person, it also often gives much higher chances of them respecting your way of life.

I embrace the Christian concept of the seventh day of the week free from work, having arrived here in a completely non-religious way. It's one of the things that made me convinced that there is some value in religion, despite all the corruption and misguided dogmatism on the surface.

> the Christian concept of the seventh day

Jewish idea at its root.

Also (tangentially IT relevant), a stunning off-by-one error; as it seems people really can't agree what day of the week is the 7th.

>> You step into the shower, stand under the hot water, the aromas of your shampoo and soap lulling you into a relaxed state. Suddenly, your eyes open – the solution to some problem you’ve been struggling with is miraculously clear! [...] When the brain relaxes sufficiently, creative solutions do appear.

I'm getting the same effect with ... alcohol. Took me a while to realize it and it's not easy (winnings outweigh the losses but it's hard - hangovers that is). But so many times it happened that I got stuck trying with no solution to my ongoing problem (finding algorithms to make money in finance) and I tried walking, taking a break etc. Still nothing. Then in frustration, went on an alcoholic binge and out of the physical pain and mental void of the hangover it came out: a new approach that just occurred to me.

So in addition to Reitoff principle, I'm adding here "Michael's lemma" :) "When adding nothing still doesn't work, try 'filling the void'".

Basically a “Michael’s peak” deep into the right part of the graph https://xkcd.com/323/? :)

>> Basically a “Michael’s peak” deep into the right part of the graph

Exactly! Didn't know the comic strip but it's right on! :)

I have a lot more free time now, and I can't overstate how useful idle time is. Let ideas simmer!

I get a lot of my best work done when I travel. I spend days holding my bicycle or motorcycle handlebars, free to think but unable to act. All I get are short breaks with pen and paper. By the time I wrap up my vacation I'm eager

This is when I come up with my best ideas. This is when I fire a few emails that turn into lucrative deals. This is when I get to rethink my general position, and make life-altering changes.

I've tried to introduce those breaks in my normal life too. The morning coffee on the balcony, regular walks, cafe hopping. Anything that introduces time to think is good in my book.

Somewhat similar to Rich Hickey's talk:

Hammock Driven Development:

https://youtu.be/f84n5oFoZBc

I didnt know about this school of thought but came to this same realization after decades of beating myself up for not being productive all the waking hours.

Now I am starting to let go -- of evenings, weeknd days, and even some work days. The world turns all the same even when I fail to send that email before "end-of-day" (12 midnight)

The answers to my problems come when I'm sitting on the throne. The amount of solutions I've come up with....

Well, if you’re the King then you probably had a very enriched upbringing, so, I’m not surprised to hear you’re doing good at your job!

On average, a programmer who's staring off into space is working.

A programmer who's busy at the computer is goofing off.

I don't think the second's true, because average programming is thoughtless grinding stuff out.

The more you actually rest during rest time, the more it helps. Generally any time with screens strains you a little bit, even if you don't notice it. So if you're always spending time on screens, you'll eventually get really lethargic and worn out.

Love it. Rest is essential. Making time to just STOP the constant Doing, to just Be.

Isn't the idea more of a synergy between alternately doing and being? Do be do be do.

Sure - yes - but when the standard is go go go go go, introducing the break at all is the OP's main point.

> Do be do be do

    Solvers in the night
    Exchanging glances
    Wondering in the night
    What were the chances
    We'd be solving it
    Before the night was through

(anachronistic, but) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnPy7DmMHgQ&t=140

I mean this principle is literally the Sabbath....it's very very old concept.

Is it though? I think most people brought up in the Christian tradition would associate the Sabbath with rules about church attendance and Sunday best, dutiful visits to great aunt Agatha, etc.

Very much not doing nothing, just not doing financially productive work.

Sabbath includes letting land rest every seven years and forgiving debts every seven years (literally a write-off) so, yes, I think this "write-off principle" with a cute name is the same as the old Sabbath concept.

It does bring up the point that the long history shows us that in this case the spirit of the law is more important than the letter of the law because people push the boundaries of the rules.

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