Re:Ask HN: What's your way to keep being productive day by day?
by dredmorbius on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @07:36AM
(#22297951)
Disclaimer: I in no way make any claims of success.
1. Find a reasonable tracking and logging system. I've trended strongly to paper/pen systems, heavy on index cards (POIC / Zettlekasten inspired), Bullet Journal, and 43 folders / tickler-file based.
2. Be gentle with yourself. Project focus is much like meditation. Allow your mind to still and focus on the task at hand. If it wanders, guide it gently back. Know when you've had enough.
3. Know when you've had enough. There's only so much focus you have, attempting to prove more is all but certainly counterproductive.
4. The role of play and diversion, even in adulthood, suggests something primal about these. It may be freedom for the mind to wander without consequence.
5. Reassess goals. Change or discard the ones which no longer suit a purpose.
6. One trick for maintaining the apearance of productivity is to have a list of goals far longer than your ability to meet them. Creative procrastination (slacking on task A by tending to task B) may give outsiders the illusion you are infinitely productive. You will see things differently.
(The outsiders' view is the correct one.)
7. If you possibly can, seek a supportive environment. This means a space, tools, resources, and most of all, people, which and who support and facilitate your goals. I say "seek" because odds are strong you won't find this, or at least not in any single or rapid manner, but consider "a better productivity environment" a goal in itself. Working early or late, regular hours or irregular, clean or messy, seems to matter less than having agency over your working conditions.
Saps to productivity -- environmental, resources, or, most of all, people -- are the biggest impediments to progress.
8. You are your own worst enemy.
Be gentle with yourself.
9. Start now, or soon. It's never the right time, it's never the right place, you never have the right books or information. Start with what you have, do the best you can.
10. I honour virtually all of this advice in the breach. What we do wrong is in thinking there's a single method. There are many paths.
Have some method. Note what you want to accomplish, how you attempt to do so, what succeeds, and what does not. Don't forget to ask yourself if what you think needs doing actually does or not.
1. Find a reasonable tracking and logging system. I've trended strongly to paper/pen systems, heavy on index cards (POIC / Zettlekasten inspired), Bullet Journal, and 43 folders / tickler-file based.
2. Be gentle with yourself. Project focus is much like meditation. Allow your mind to still and focus on the task at hand. If it wanders, guide it gently back. Know when you've had enough.
3. Know when you've had enough. There's only so much focus you have, attempting to prove more is all but certainly counterproductive.
4. The role of play and diversion, even in adulthood, suggests something primal about these. It may be freedom for the mind to wander without consequence.
5. Reassess goals. Change or discard the ones which no longer suit a purpose.
6. One trick for maintaining the apearance of productivity is to have a list of goals far longer than your ability to meet them. Creative procrastination (slacking on task A by tending to task B) may give outsiders the illusion you are infinitely productive. You will see things differently.
(The outsiders' view is the correct one.)
7. If you possibly can, seek a supportive environment. This means a space, tools, resources, and most of all, people, which and who support and facilitate your goals. I say "seek" because odds are strong you won't find this, or at least not in any single or rapid manner, but consider "a better productivity environment" a goal in itself. Working early or late, regular hours or irregular, clean or messy, seems to matter less than having agency over your working conditions.
Saps to productivity -- environmental, resources, or, most of all, people -- are the biggest impediments to progress.
8. You are your own worst enemy.
Be gentle with yourself.
9. Start now, or soon. It's never the right time, it's never the right place, you never have the right books or information. Start with what you have, do the best you can.
10. I honour virtually all of this advice in the breach. What we do wrong is in thinking there's a single method. There are many paths.
Have some method. Note what you want to accomplish, how you attempt to do so, what succeeds, and what does not. Don't forget to ask yourself if what you think needs doing actually does or not.