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Comment by d0 | Hacker News Reader

You dont need to do any of this. Walking away from a problem and doing something else ends up in faster more elegant solutions every time than avoiding distractions on the machine. I'll tap out a tune on my piano, play with the kids or sit in the garden for a bit whilst working from home. Then I'll do an hour or two of work and repeat.

I deliver more finished higher quality code and solutions than anyone else chained to the keyboard all day.

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I'm glad you found a routine that works for you. If doing particularly grueling work (hey, who doesn't here and there?) or I'm in a mental slump, your methods don't work for me. I don't think productivity has a turn-key solution

Holidays are a turn key solution from experience. Even if its a weekend sleeping in a tent somewhere. I go like a machine after them for days.

Productivity isn't something that can be forced; there's some good books out there on the subject. The 'grueling work' you described (and likewise) remind me of Stephen Covey's quadrants [1] (and similar); being in one quadrant (grueling work being 'urgent but not important') too much will cause someone to go to another for escape (not important, non-urgent tasks; distractions). It's important to find a balance there, for both personal planning and if you're a resource planner / project manager / scrum master / whatever

http://sidsavara.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/merrillcovey...

> You dont need to do any of this. Walking away from a problem and doing something else ends up in faster more elegant solutions every time than avoiding distractions on the machine.

I am not talking about what I do when I take breaks, I'm talking about keeping those breaks from turning from "a short 5 minute break" to "oh shit I just spent four hours in a wikipedia rabbit hole about nuclear energy and now the day is over and I'm tired and my work isn't done".

<snark mode on> You mean taking breaks from work like every profession ever does / requires of its employees? </snark>

I don't know where this 'being chained to the keyboard all day' mentality came from, even if I experience and have seen it a lot in the industry. Take breaks; in a lot of countries, the law or health & safety regulations even make it obligatory. And don't feel guilty over it.

I feel some of this is based on personality. It's great that you're able to step away from work periodically and then focus again (I do the same thing working from home). A lot of people have trouble getting back into the work mode again after taking that break. That's what the "work account" idea is designed to help.

To be fair, I've had that trouble but I found out that I just wasn't happy doing what I was doing so changed it. You have to want to do it before focus comes naturally.

Telling someone with attention/focus issues "you just have to WANT IT" is like telling someone with depression "first you have to WANT to be not depressed!"

It doesn't work that way.

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