
How to be more productive - rhapsodyv
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity
======
31reasons
great thoughts.

loved this part:

But if you’re trying to do something worthwhile and creative, then shutting
down your brain is entirely the wrong way to go. The real secret to
productivity is the reverse: to listen to your body. To eat when you’re
hungry, to sleep when you’re tired, to take a break when you’re bored, to work
on projects that seem fun and interesting.

~~~
freework
It reminds me of a saying they have in show business: You need to go away
before you can make a comeback.

~~~
jakerocheleau
I have never heard that before but it is a very truthful proverb.

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pyre

      | Life is short (or so I’m told)
    

Truer words...

~~~
jamesbritt
Not only is life short, it's shorter than you think.

~~~
swah
jamesbritt's law: life is shorter than you think even when you consider
jamesbritt's law

------
sporkologist
"So the secret to getting yourself to do something is not to convince yourself
you have to do it, but to convince yourself that it’s fun. And if it isn’t,
then you need to make it fun."

This one woke me up.

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gdonelli
Funny he mentioned TV? These days my problem is Twitter and Facebook. I even
wrote a tool to reduce my Twitter intake (essenceapp.com)

~~~
jakerocheleau
I try to convince myself Twitter is for wasting time and that getting work
completed is 10x more fun.

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realrocker
Ok, It's just plain scary how much I identify with this article.

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jasallen
Speaking of 'lists of things to go back to read', I really need to go and read
every essay he's written. Every time somebody links one on HN, I'm blown away.

~~~
robertskmiles
If you have a reader, download the ebook from
<https://github.com/joshleitzel/rawthought>. I read it not long ago, and it's
one of the most interesting books I've ever read.

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mikeroher
RIP Aaron.

~~~
ZirconCode
It's interesting how technology leads to immortality, no?

He's dead, yet we still read his words, listen to his thoughts, think of him
as a person.

~~~
hzay
The written word leads to immortality. Although one could argue that writing
and preserving writings are products of technology, I think you mean internet
and such 21st century stuff, not the printing press or ink.

I don't mean to find fault - only replied because it never ceases to amaze me
that people can talk to me across centuries.

~~~
dmoney
The written word is immortal, but websites are not. Eventually your domain
name and hosting will expire, your server will die. Presumably someone is
keeping Aaron's site alive, but by default, things you write on your own
website will go away when you're gone.

Maybe someone should do a kickstarter for large buildings where printed
websites can be stored for posterity.

~~~
alecdbrooks
The Internet Archive[0] is an organization that is working to preserve
websites and online content, albeit not in printed form. In fact, they have an
archive of Aaron's website[1] and a collection of other digital artifacts from
his life[2].

[0]: <http://archive.org/>

[1]: [http://wayback.archive-
it.org/3492/20130113003702/http://www...](http://wayback.archive-
it.org/3492/20130113003702/http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/)

[2]: <http://archive.org/details/aaronsw>

------
sneak
How to be more productive: don't intentionally and permanently stop producing
things forever. :(

I have little tolerance for people that are hypocritical on that scale.

~~~
roflc0ptic
> I have little tolerance for people that are hypocritical on that scale.

What are you going to do, write him a nasty letter? It's not even necessarily
hypocritical. He didn't make the claim that one should value productivity over
all other things. As can be said of all suicides, he lived his life as well as
he knew how and then he ended it when he didn't know how to live it anymore.
Let's enjoy what there is to enjoy about his legacy and let his mistakes,
minor as they are, fade.

~~~
sneak
I do not subscribe to the common belief that it is better to minimize the
shortcomings of people to a greater degree after they have died.

I'm not sure why dying confers greater respect upon people. Perhaps it's the
fear of death in the minds of the living?

[https://mobile.twitter.com/sneakatdatavibe/status/2901109457...](https://mobile.twitter.com/sneakatdatavibe/status/290110945760534528)

~~~
jwdunne
I don't necessarily believe that respect is due unconditionally after death,
e.g Hitler and Stalin are definitely not deserving.

I don't agree that Aaron was hypocritical at all though. He has been far more
productive in his tragically short life than most. I know that he has done
more combined than myself and all that I know in person.

The fact he has achieved what he has with severe depression makes him far less
of a hypocrite. It's very hard to get yourself to do anything with depression.
I couldn't and it wasn't half as bad as Aaron's.

Fact is Aaron died because he lost a battle to an illness, much like all those
who have died from physical diseases. Depression is a mental illness and a
suicide due to that is not the resposibility of the victim, much like when
someone with severe schizophrenia wouldn't be responsible if they had killed
someone based on their delusions.

He is not a hypocrite. It actually makes this advice far more powerful.

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cs648
His point about a dissertation is interesting, having just finished one
myself, I had never thought that it could have been inspired as a task to
focus (not distract) our attention on studying.

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theorique
It's a shame that his site is not updated more often nowadays. :(

~~~
stiff
He died...

~~~
theorique
That is why the frown :(

------
ricardobeat
(2005)

