

My (almost) perfect setup to stay focused - jlengrand
http://www.lengrand.fr/2012/10/my-almost-perfect-setup-to-stay-focused/

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CKKim
I've recently been thinking about the motives for people writing these kinds
of articles. A year ago I would have found this a weird question because when
the actions of blogging and sharing are so culturally ingrained it's very
difficult to step outside and ask "Why?". Now I find it instructive to do so.
Sincerely and unrhetorically: "Why did you write this?"

My belief at the moment is that such articles are validation-seeking. The
writer draws strength from committing their plans to a socially-viewable
document and subjecting it to discussion. Most of the likely responses to
posting the piece online (including no responses) can, with a little
squinting, be interpreted as positive reinforcement for the individual's
system, hence the incentive to share.

~~~
jlengrand
Here is the answer from "the writer" :)

Interesting question I think, seriously. Do I search for validation online? I
don't think so, I have enough of it around me, without having to turn to the
web :). What about tip (experience, hack, call it the way you want) sharing? I
see a lot of great posts written by really cool people around here; maybe is
it also a way to try to give something back (or in your words, probably try to
fit in the group in search for the reassuring feeling of being part of it ;)).
This is (IMHO) the most probable reason.

I use all those tools for a long time, and discuss about it with my friends
regularly. I think it is good for yourself to try to be good at what you do.
Writing such articles and sharing it in the open is a way to find people
having the same interests as me that I would never have found otherwise.
Hopefully, the post will lead to interesting interactions (exactly what I am
doing right now :). Can I call that peer-validation? Maybe, but not in the
exact way in understood it in your comment :).

As a non native English speaker, I might be wrong but I felt like
condescension in your comment. But this is probably my french nature speaking
:p

~~~
CKKim
Thank you, that's a good answer.

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walrus
Why would someone do this to themself? I find I enjoy life much more when I
take things slowly, but maybe that's just a difference in personality.

~~~
keithpeter
In my professional life/time (I'm a teacher) I like to make time to think
about how to present topics to students, and how to respond to their
responses.

To do that, I have to manage the crap (management inspired paperwork that does
not actually impact on teaching/learning/reflecting) and routine but very
important tasks like marking work. I use a Pomodoro timer (actually a cheap
one I got locally) to stay focussed on the mechanical things. I do actually
record the number of pomodoros I spend on crap, and I feed that back when
things get out of hand.

Students who don't like Maths much also find a kitchen timer helps them to
focus, so I break homework up into 'pomodoros' of each topic. Strangely, they
find the more pomodoros they do, the easier it all gets.

In non-pomodoro time, I do things like reflect on what kind of activity works,
make screencasts, quizzes and games, and make new ways of linking topics (e.g.
areas and perimeters of rectangles and simple factors and multiples).

Outside of work I too like taking things slowly! The turn of the year always
makes me think about time passing.

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ikhare
When I saw the title I half expected to be something akin to
[http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/famous-small-offthegrid-
work...](http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/famous-small-offthegrid-
worksp-140587)

My comments are entirely related to staying focused when coding. For the days
when I am in manager mode things are different, and I am not sure if "focus"
is always the right mode there.

I've always found myself preferring long unbroken periods of flow for coding.
That for me comes from a quiet space much like the writer's huts described
above. That to me has been my perfect setup to stay focused.

Though I have never tried Pomodoro, the idea of something disturbing me every
25 minutes sounds ghastly. When I really need to work I simply close all
programs on my computer that are non essential and close all tabs that are non
essential. No gmail, no twitter, no facebook. Then I go into a room, sometimes
turn off the lights and just code :-)

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zeteo
The link to www.getworkdonemusic.com by itself makes this article worth an
upvote. Looks like a good resource that I wasn't aware of before.

~~~
tejaswiy
So their song list seems to be at :
<http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/fast_tracks.json> . Does anyone know if this
list gets auto compiled using some bpm measure or if the person behind the
website populates them manually?

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S4M
I like the idea of avoiding distractions and avoiding the browser. When
working on personal projects I tried several times not to turn on the wifi or
to work directly in the terminal without running a Desktop application, but at
some point I have to use the browser again to look up for some docs or install
something.

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potomak
Did you try Tomato.es[1] to track your pomodoros? I'd like to get feedbacks
from GTD gurus.

About music I warmly recommend musicForProgramming();[2]

[1] <http://tomato.es>

[2] <http://musicforprogramming.net>

~~~
gbeeson
I've used Tomato.es for quite some time now (relatively speaking) and have
found it 'better' for my flow than pen and paper/mechanical timer (though I
have one as well).

~~~
jlengrand
I started with a mechanical timer also (mainly to get away from any device
that could distract me), but stopped because it was noisy. I solved the
problem by switching notifications off in my phone during work hours.

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septerr
Does the fact that we have to use techniques to make ourselves focus mean that
we do not like what we do?

~~~
dorkrawk
No, I think that it's natural to be tempted by immediate gratification
(watching stuff on YouTube, checking Twitter, reading xkcd archives) even when
you really care about the delayed and more satisfying gratification of
progress on a long term project.

When all those distractions are easily accessible from the same place you work
(your computer) it seems ok to take measures to offload the task of avoiding
them.

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andrew_wc_brown
5 hours a day, 5 hours a week. I track my time in a simple spreadsheet labeled
1 to 20 at 15 min intervals.

If you aren't getting enough sleep then you're not scheduling your time. You
need to create a schedule and stick to it and don't let others hold your time
hostage.

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pilgrim689
On the "not getting enough sleep" problem, why don't you incorporate
exercise/sleep/diet into your GTD (or what you're using to measure
productivity) ? Then, if you aren't sleeping enough, it will show up in your
tools.

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aed
I'm really interested in learning more about how use use FreeMind. I've been
using a collection of text documents as "cheatsheets" that I can refer to, but
it's less than perfect.

~~~
antidoh
FreeMind has been forked into FreePlane, which may be more recently
maintained.

~~~
urlwolf
Fonts are horrendous under linux. Any workaround? Pixelated as hell. And
scroll leaves dirty traces (awesomewm may be the culprit)

~~~
keithpeter
Freemind looking OK on Ubuntu 12.10 with stock Unity desktop. I've just
downloaded freeplane 1.2.20 from freeplane.org as the version in Ubuntu repos
is 1.1.3. Looks nice with useful additions to the mind map. Seems to run OK
with the same java and libraries as were installed for freemind.

Do you have other java based software installed? Does that look ok?

<http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/freemind>

Ubuntu repos show freemind depending on openjdk (or Oracle) and that has a
font package shown as a dependency.

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aioprisan
Check out TaskUp, a cloud task list with notifications, reporting, tags,
filters and many more! <https://taskup.com>

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geofft
When you say "70% productivity", how do you measure this? (It sounds like
there's a standard for this that I missed.)

~~~
jlengrand
HAve a look at rescuetime. It automatically calculates a % depending on the
time you spend on activities. Don't give too much thoughts about this number,
as any statistic, it is just indicative :)

<http://www.rescuetime.com/tour>

~~~
geofft
Ah, thanks. Sadly I don't use Windows or Mac OS either at work or on my
personal computer, so I haven't been able to try it out.

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suyash
I like the idea of creating temp branches,,,wehre you can actually see how
much your contributed every day!

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eisbaw
Brown noise!

