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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad that works for some people.

It would never work for me, though. I can't imagine how spending 15 min/day on a screenplay would be productive at all -- when I sit down to program, or write, it takes me that long just to "restore state" and remember what I was in the middle of previously. I only really find myself becoming productive at things after the first hour -- plenty of people call this being in the "zone", etc.

This might be a good thing to do with fairly menial/brainless tasks, but is it really useful for more than that? But even with cleaning the house... it seems so much more efficient to spend an hour every week, when you've got spare time, than vacuum a room and a half one day, dust half the house the next...

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You've heard the phrase "perfect is the enemy of good enough?"

I think it applies here. There may be better ways of doing things, but I'd rather get something done than do nothing, lamenting the fact that the method at hand isn't the most perfectly efficient way possible.

I find that the more often my mind is in a certain context, the shorter it takes to switch to that state.

For example, when I work on a programming project every single day, then every time I sit down to work on it, it takes a mere 5 minutes to remember where I was previously. But if I come back to it after, say, a week, it can take up to 20 minutes.

This isn't based on any kind of science whatsoever though. Just an observation I made about myself.

Your no different than the people this normally works well for. Being in the "zone" for most people is a very pleasurable activity. If one could sit down or start running and immediately be there, procrastination would be a much smaller problem. It is precisely this unproductive, introductory stage that this method is compelling you to complete in order to get past. By forcing 15 or however many minutes a day you are hoping that more times than not this period will transition into one of productivity in which you don't need to time or force yourself to do more. Some days this won't happen and you can quit after 15 minutes. But for some it equate to more long term productivity sessions per week than strictly scheduling each long term session.

Same for me, and if you want to exercise in any way that actually makes a differnce, it's more like 1 hour minimum with packing for the gym, going to the gym, showering, getting back home. Doing a couple of pushups at home doesn't do much good in the long run.

The mistake you are making is that you think it'll take you 15 min/day to "restore state" every day. If you end up doing the same thing several times you'll get better at it. It's much harder if you skip days.

Another thing is that 15 min/day is pretty easy and it's main purpose is to lure you in. It's much harder to devote an hour or two or more. But 15 min is easy peesy. Once you are in, you tend to stay in for longer.

As for efficiency about cleaning the house, there is more to it than how much time it takes you. Having a clean home all the time is beneficial in ways that you miss when you only clean it once a week. You may not even be aware of the negative effects of the mess.

One of the benefits for me has been that I have got quite a bit better at getting into the zone faster. The daily practice of getting started of course me better at it.

so one day you spend 15 mins and just read over the previous day's work, and the next day you spend 2 hrs. the point is you're sitting down in front of your screen play. i had a friend who said he went to the gym every day even if on some days all he did was putter around for 20 mins. the point is that you show up every day.

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