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Comment by iSnow | Hacker News Reader

In the long run, this is unhealthy.

Yes, it makes you more productive, but what if you fall in love, get sick, have a child...? Then you feel guilty about not catering to your side projects and guilt breeds procrastination.

I learned how to break down work into small pieces and rather finish one small piece and then call it a day instead of leaving something half-working for the next day. Because of this, I left projects dormant for 3 months and then picked them up again.

Granted, my side-projects are for-fun and not for-money, that makes it easier...

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I think you might be conflating things a bit. The guilt about a lack of productivity already exists (daily work, or not). Doing daily work helps to mitigate it to a large degree. Naturally if I get sick I'll be comfortable enough to "let it slide". If anything I'll be eager to get back to work right when I can.

I do agree that breaking things into tiny tasks is the best way to go, it's helped me tremendously. More than anything else though it seems that passion is the largest "secret ingredient". If you're not passionate about the work it just won't happen, regardless of what happens in your life.

>The guilt about a lack of productivity already exists (daily work, or not).

This is what I think is unhealthy. If you want to spend a lot of time coding in your free time, go for it. If you notice guilt because you are slacking, you should revisit your priorities and earnestly think about why you are coding that much.

There's a time and a place for both.

If you are a constant procrastinator, forming good habits, even on trivial stuff, reconnects you with why you need to do the work, and prepares you for getting started.

But after awhile, you find that you're just working, and need to produce. So it switches to deliverables.

My only life hack addition: instead of calling it a day, pick what you are going to set for your next completion goal before you quit. This was a Hemingway hack to make sure he could get up the next morning and start writing immediately. I've found that even the most informal mental commitment the day before solves the starting problem and ends up producing more positive streaks. It is great at overcoming (and preventing) any kind of "block".

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