
Tell HN: My best productivity hack - z3t4
I bought a CO2 monitor. They are a bit expensive but very worth it ($100 DIY or more for a ready product). Even if you have ventilation, it might not be good enough. My office often goes up to 1000 ppm and I start to feel a bit drowsy. But there&#x27;s a simple solution, just open a window.
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isaiahg
The single thing that has had the largest impact for me has been simply making
a list of things I need to do the next day on the night before. In the
morning, often the hardest thing to do is just to get going. Having a ready
made list takes out a lot of the factors that lead me to procrastinate.

~~~
movedx
I create two lists: needs and wants. I prioritise them as such:

1 = no harm if not done; 2 = annoying if not done; 3 = disappoint someone if
not done; 4 = financial or emotional harm if not done; 5 = financial and
emotional harm if not done.

This is applied to both sets of items on each type of list.

Now I know what I NEED to do above all else, and then I can get to what I WANT
to do later.

~~~
mayreck
awesome!

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tunesmith
A while back I set a goal to have a happy, fulfilling life, and then asked
what five elements were individually necessary and collectively sufficient to
produce that. Then I went one level deeper, taking care to be strict with the
boolean logic. I eventually got to actionable items.

The surprising part was the amount of priorities I had in my life that _weren
't_ in that life graph. Stuff that was urgent but not important, and
counterintuitively unnecessary when subjected to first-principle analysis. As
I started letting those things go, I started to feel more productive since I
had more confidence that my actions were aligned with my purpose.

It was tedious and time-consuming, and the closer you get to the leaves, the
easier it is for the graph to feel "out of date" as your priorities and
circumstances change. But the root of the graph (or the top... for me the
actionable stuff was at the bottom) has hardly changed at all since those were
my core principles. So I'm still not sure it is worth the time to keep it
"accurate", but it was a good exercise to do at least once.

~~~
aditij
Any chance you'd be willing to share more details on what your life graph
ended up including?

~~~
tunesmith
Any time you break something down into a collection of "mutually exclusive,
collectively exhaustive" elements, there's going to be a bunch of different
ways you can slice and dice that. What worked for me was something that was
kind of like maslow's hierarchy. I think mine broke down into physical
environment, financial security, being socially well-rooted, being healthy,
and working on "meeting my greatness" (kind of like actualization).

If I were to redo it now, I'd probably collapse being socially well-rooted
into being a subcomponent of something else that would include service, giving
back, etc. But at the time I created it I was very much invested in developing
friendships after moving to a new place for a new romantic relationship.

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jasonpeacock
Don't multitask.

I work a task until blocked, then switch. Work the next one until blocked,
then switch again.

You'll be surprised at how much you can deliver when you focus on delivering
one thing at a time!

~~~
fairpx
This. I've been a multitasker most of my life, but the moment you organise
task one after the other, and keep your focus, you'll just get so much more
done. Uni-tasking gets you more done than multi-tasking, no matter how
counterintuitive that may sound.

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client4
Coffee in the morning, hike in the afternoon, beer in the evening.

~~~
kgwxd
That's great for you, but the rest of us have to put "work" somewhere in that
list :)

~~~
client4
Haha I work during coffee, conference call during hiking, and then work during
my first two beers :)

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mrmondo
> I bought a CO2 monitor.

We did the same, it's very noticeable, what we sometimes do is cover it and if
people are feeling drowsy only then reveal it so we could be sure it wasn't a
placebo (it wasn't).

I hacked up (I'm _not_ a programmer!) some code to log the data to CSV, which
I then presented to the business as a case to change our aircon system:
[https://github.com/sammcj/airqualitylogger](https://github.com/sammcj/airqualitylogger)

~~~
tortasaur
In both the OP and your comment I initially interpreted "CO2 monitor" as a
computer display that emits CO2. I was wondering how this would boost your
productivity for a confusing 10 seconds.

~~~
mrmondo
Ha! Never considered that, thanks for the interesting feedback.

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marikio
Step 1: sudo nano /etc/hosts

Step 2: Type at bottom:

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

127.0.0.1 twitter.com

127.0.0.1 instagram.com

Step 3: ctrl+"O"

~~~
ci5er
I see this kind of thing from time-to-time, and it baffles me. Surely, I know
how to restore access. Why not ... just not go there? And if it's a problem
(again, this baffles me, but no judgement - I binge drink on weekends which is
surely worse), delete your accounts there?

~~~
Trundle
Having to restore access gives you many more seconds of time between impulse
and gratification where you can catch yourself in the process and have the
internal "the fuck are you doing? Is that video even going to bring you a
modicum of happiness? Get back to work and we can do something actually fun
later you adhd fuck" talk.

~~~
ci5er
Does that work for you? Do you think it works in general? I do get the impulse
to click on a link - and you are claiming that having to activate something
(like I would do with uMatrix, I suppose?), makes you cognitively pause?

I guess we're all wired differently. That one doesn't seem to be a challenge
to me (although, I can assure you that there are other unhealthy things that I
wish I could figure out how to stop doing).

~~~
Kluny
Adding friction doesn't work for me. But I can just say, "I don't facebook
anymore. It's not a thing I do." And I stop. Fine, but there's still an itch
that needs scratching. I bounce to instagram, reddit, imgur, news sites, then
my favorite bloggers, in that order. There's always something. And as for
facebook - I can't quit altogether. I manage a page for a small business, I
have to test things for work, I want to promote my blog. So I can't do cold
turkey, and I keep coming back. Fuck, I hate it so much.

~~~
ci5er
I do that with politics, so I can't point fingers. I don't know why - it's not
like I can change anything...

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Kluny
I wonder if that was the problem at my old office. I felt drowsy all the time
there. Just figured I wasn't sleeping right or something. Two-three cups of
coffee every day. Right now I'm working remotely from my parent's living room.
Most days I'm the only one here and it's a decently big, drafty house. There
are many things I don't like about it, but I'm always wide awake.

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jamestimmins
Mind explaining what the significance of CO2 is? I'm unclear how this relates
to drowsiness.

~~~
tlarkworthy
[https://www.treehugger.com/interior-design/who-knew-
excess-c...](https://www.treehugger.com/interior-design/who-knew-excess-
co2-bad-our-brains.html)

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welder
This is similar to a post back from 2013 titled "Ask HN: Which daily habit has
affected your productivity the most?"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6851384](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6851384)

I'll repeat my answer from back then:

1\. If you're a programmer I recommend looking at
[http://wakatime.com](http://wakatime.com)

2\. I know a guy who swears he is more productive by starting his mornings
with: coffee, restroom, have something ready to work on

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arx1422
I stopped reading productivity p*rn, optimizing task managers, finessing my
setup, and just did the work.

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reubenswartz
Changed my eating habits to something I never, ever thought I'd do-- \- black
coffee for breakfast. \- no simple carbs for lunch. I feel great and get more
done in the morning, and then I also feel great and don't want to fall asleep
in the afternoon.

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rajacombinator
Can you share some more info about your office? Small space, old building,
what kind of heating, etc? Hard to know if there’s anything to your hack
without more info.

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inthewoods
Schedule your todo list on your calendar. Identify the tasks you want to
complete for the day or week, and block out time on your calendar for each
task.

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jefflombardjr
Getting consistent, good quality sleep.

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gkya
I'm finding out that using Org mode's clocking combined with recurring tasks
for long running tasks that should be done in bits helps me progress on them.
I've only recently started using it, and seeing since how many days I haven't
read some pages from that 2500 page book which I was supposed to have finished
reading a year ago, and how little time I've spent on it than I'd otherwise
believe I had, definitely has a positive impact. No revolution, at least in my
case, but certainly an improving transformation.

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KirinDave
My personal best hack is giving a damn about what I'm working on.

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wxuan
Pomodoro, for sure. Work and play do not mix but are both important.

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czottmann
For me it was taking a very long and very hard look at all the different
notifications I was getting, and then cutting them down as much as possible.
It sounds like a minor thing to do, but in effect I became more focused, as I
spend almost no mental energy on useless distractions. I have only so much
mental juice per day to begin with, and not wasting it on unimportant notices
allows me to allocate more of it on stuff that actually matters.

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beilabs
Installed a chrome plugin that restricts my access to all social media, Reddit
and some news sites between 8am-6pm only allowing a total of ten minutes
access through out the day. Massive time sink.

Also, got a whiteboard which I mark out the important tasks for the day. It's
a bit messy at the moment though. If everything is important then nothing is
important.

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ArcticUnicorn
I've recently started using
[http://www.beeminder.com](http://www.beeminder.com)

I'm finding it very helpful for sticking to my goals. Their blog is a
wonderland of productivity research and knowledge, as well. I highly recommend
checking it out.

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BryBran
There are two things I like to do: 1) Avoid reading the news in the morning --
it's a rabbit hole that can suck you in and crush productivity. And, 2) Move
my phone from my pocket to the deep part of my bag -- this helps me avoid the
desire to check it every 15 minutes.

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dnoberon
My office is an addon, taking the place of some cubicles. The offices are
frigid and I've often wondered if the ventilation wasn't corrected for the new
layout.

I'm going to pick up a monitor and see what I run in to. Easy fix for now is
to get up and walk :P

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mzitelli
Started to replace coffee after lunch for a short (from 15 to 30 minutes) nap.
I usually would have good energy levels just with coffee, however napping
brings me more clarity of mind and focus.

~~~
andreyk
Interesting - I have recently started doing my 20 min meditation roughly after
lunch, and that has helped my energy a lot in a way that is slightly akin to
napping.

~~~
hiaux0
I nap 20 min after lunch and sometimes I don't fall "asleep" at all but still
feel energized afterwards. I always wondered how both had kinda the same
effect. Now that you mention this, it definitely makes sense that I was
meditating in some form.

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bluewalt
I Found a job in which I'm not forced to set an alarm to wake up, and can take
a nap at any time. I feel a lot more alert and productive all day long this
way.

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workona
Set up what you're going to work on next before you take a break. So much
easier to jump right back into being productive.

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mrdavid
Which model? I've looked into a couple of models on Amazon but the reviews
were quite mixed regarding their accuracy.

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tmaly
recently, it has been trying to implement GTD with an app. having all your
tasks setup in a project context has helped to weed out the stuff that should
not be a focus.

