
I Spent 42 Hours Last Month on the Activity Most Critical to My Success - da5e
http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/05/10/lab-notes-i-spent-42-hours-last-month-on-the-activity-most-critical-to-my-success/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StudyHacks+%28Study+Hacks%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
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rglover
Not 100% sure what the author was trying to say, but I think it comes down to
two things: 1.) Identify that which is most important to you, your career, and
success and 2.) Develop a measure to check your performance on fulfilling the
thing that is most important to you. Essentially, try to focus less on the
menial and regrettable tasks of the day by keeping something around to remind
you "there's more important things to be done." That was my understanding at
least.

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jgrodziski
It also reminds me of the productivity tips “Don’t break the chain” from Jerry
Seinfield : [http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-
pr...](http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret-281626.php)

Never break the chain of working every day on your most important project,
even if it's one hour per day.

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michaelaiello
It believe he's got a bad kind of metric. Tracking "hours I spent thinking
hard about computer science research problems" will reward you for spending
more time, but not necessarily delivering results.

Why not put up all of your problems on a piece of paper and cross them out
when you've solved them. If you can solve all of your problems in one 30
minute block, you should.

~~~
efsavage
He never mentioned being productive. If you're confusing "focusing my
attention" with being productive, you've read too many lifehacker posts.

Now, "put up all of your problems on a piece of paper" is a great suggestion,
I've started writing down everything I want to look into, every feature idea I
have, or technique I want to try, along the lines of the idea files that get
posted here on HN, although more discrete and less focused.

I have hundreds of them that haven't been done, and may never get done, but
writing them down made me think of 2 or 3 more, and maybe one of those got
done, and is making me productive.

I don't keep track of how many there are, or how many I've done, that's not
important. Really, it isn't, I didn't even believe so myself until I tried it.
This list actually started out as a todo list and has grown into something far
more valuable.

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dreeves
I would have trouble with the criteria for making a hash mark. Is it like "ok,
here I go", start a timer, work for an hour, then mark the sheet? What if you
get interrupted, don't stay focused the whole time, or find yourself having
started working without having started the timer?

I have a possibly over-the-top solution to that problem that I just wrote
about here: <http://messymatters.com/tagtime>

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johndbritton
Google Cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fcalnewport.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F05%2F10%2Flab-
notes-i-spent-42-hours-last-month-on-the-activity-most-critical-to-my-
success%2F&btnG=Search)

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kamaal
Most of the productivity tips seem to be another way of describing David
Allen's 'Getting things done'. Some times the described method is either
close, a little different or some times badly.

The whole idea revolves around a few things. First being goal, goal itself can
be divided to lifetime, half life, 10 year, yearly, monthly all the way
granular to daily goals. In order to achieve the goal you need planning, hence
you make To-do lists or others forms of tracking mechanisms with deadlines.
Once this is done, the working on the list seems to be a matter of two things
discipline and tracking. Tracking implies some sort of measurement. And then
finally reviewing and course correction.Doing this in the intervals of your
goal periods. And there is always that 'next step' that David Allen describes
in his book.

That is all there is to productivity, the crux is to get organized. If you do
this simple stuff you can solve and manage most of the stuff that is out there
to manage.

~~~
ra
Certainly, writing down your goals is the first key to achieving them.

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vacri
Has this guy never seen a prison film or comic strip? Those hash marks are
done 'wrong'.

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syllogism
Seems like a worse version of the Paul Graham essay:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

