
I Don't Have Time - mileszs
http://swanson.github.com/blog/2012/10/28/i-dont-have-time.html
======
padobson
You may have heard of paying yourself first to gain success in personal
finance. Well, if you're looking to expend your energy on some passion
project, you need to dedicate your first energy of the day to that passion
project.

If you have to go somewhere you're not passionate about for your 9-5, it's
unlikely you'll be excited about working on anything when you get home. If you
wake up on Saturday and go straight to the yard work or laundry or other
domestic tasks, you're not going to want to skip that family picnic in the
afternoon to work on your novel.

Expend your first energy every day on your project. This is even easier if
you're a consultant or similar entrepreneur and you can set your own schedule.
30 minutes, 2 hours, whatever, take your best and most productive work and put
it into your passion. Then give your leftovers to the other stuff you do to
get by.

~~~
kamaal
>>You may have heard of paying yourself first to gain success in personal
finance.

Can you elaborate more on this.

~~~
s_henry_paulson
This comes from a book called The Richest Man in Babylon

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_(boo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_\(book\))

It's a very quick read, and you can probably find it online for free, as it's
nearly 100 years old.

Everything you need to know about being financially successful, in parable
format.

~~~
GFischer
Other resources in similar vein but modernized are the Get Rich Slowly and I
Will Teach you to be Rich websites.

In particular, Get Rich Slowly definitely resonates with me. The blog is not
well organized for someone who just jumps in, but Forbes has a good getting-
started reading list:

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2012/04/19/six-
year...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2012/04/19/six-years-of-get-
rich-slowly/)

The site:

<http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/>

Start with this article:

[http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/09/28/money-is-
more-a...](http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/09/28/money-is-more-about-
mind-than-it-is-about-math/?WT.qs_osrc=FBS-GRS-58)

Disclaimer: I'm not rich and I don't apply most of the tenets above !!! but at
least I'm self-aware (which I guess is a step 1 to recover, I hope).

------
swanson
Author here - I'd be keen to hear if anyone has had success with different
productivity systems for breaking done the big goals into smaller items. I've
had varying amounts of success with pomodoros and personal kanban - but always
interested in trying out something new.

~~~
vineet
What works for me is trying to find the right way of 'tricking' myself. Every
few months I feel like I have a week that is not as productive as I believe I
could have been, I then basically try a trick (often something that worked for
me in the past, but sometime a new trick that I might find on a site like this
one).

Some tricks that have worked have been:

1\. Pomodoro (actually more specifically: <http://tomato.es/>).

2\. Redefining what I wanted to get done: For example, I used to want to run
30 minutes 5 days a week, but found that I was not able to start doing it
because of being busy, tired, or for some excuse. So, I chose a distance that
I could easily do in 20 minutes and decided that no matter what I had to do
the distance, if only by walking. Not only did I do it with this new
definition, but my excuse of being busy driving me to actually run instead of
walk.

3\. Making a commitment with a friend on a similar topic: This would mean
reading at the same time, cooking, sleeping, etc.

4\. Getting a new toy related to the task to get me to do something slightly
different. This could be buying a new book on the topic, or a pad to take
notes.

5\. Making a commitment to much smaller sub goals when doing the task.

6\. Trying to list and prioritize the easier sub-tasks so that I fool myself
into making progress.

7\. The carrot and the stick: I let myself get a nice breakfast outside when I
wake up earlier (or do something that I have been needing to do), and I
sometime say that there has to be some penalty (like not sleeping until I
finish atleast one task).

8\. First thing in the morning: Trying to do a quick version of the task
before I do anything morning. This to me means before making any decisions
(involved in serious tasks), as well as before consuming any content (blog
posts, e-mails, etc).

To add a little more to the above, I take pride in me persevering, so if I
actually do try a new 'trick', I work at it - often taking a few weeks to make
it happen. And I often get it into my routine if only for a few more weeks.

~~~
swanson
Awesome! Thanks so much for this list.

I really like the one about waking up earlier, I think I'll try that out
sometime.

------
unimpressive
If you have time to be reading HN, you have time to do a chunk of work on
_something_.

~~~
sharkweek
While I definitely spend too much time on HN browsing casually, it has on
numerous occasions acted as a spark in my own creativity for personal side
projects

------
prezjordan
Easy to say for starting a project, but I find the "finishing touches" are
always discouraging.

~~~
Firehed
I can count the number of software projects I've finished on zero hands,
unless you define "project" as a meaninglessly-small component of something
larger (e.g. tweaking some copy). Even for software that you write to solve
your own problems, your requirements tend to change over time so even that
seems to never be done. With personal projects its worse, as (at least for me)
they're not a way to make money so I have almost no incentive to add that last
bit of polish and call it a day.

To combat this, I like to occasionally do projects with a more concrete finish
- almost certainly NOT something software-related. Even something as mundane
as cleaning my bedroom or some trivial home improvement type task. The more
visual the result, the better.

It's so easy to get lost in this ongoing big picture that you feel like you're
never accomplishing anything. I'm sure by breaking it down into smaller
projects some people will better recognize their progress, but I find that
doesn't work consistently enough. Maybe I'm not breaking stuff down far enough
- definitely less than a day, probably a couple-hour task.

~~~
TeMPOraL
"Indeed, there is even a saying among painters: "A painting is never finished,
you just stop working on it." This idea will be familiar to anyone who has
worked on software."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/desres.html>

------
john2x
I first heard about Jonathan Hardesty and his journey in when I was still in
high school. I started drawing everyday for about a year, but sadly I'm not as
focused as him and shifted gears towards programming.

I have his thread bookmarked and show it to people who want to learn something
new and what is possible with enough dedication.

I'm planning on revisiting art via "generative art", this time with code mixed
in. Already bought Generative Design[1], and can't wait to get started.

[1]: <http://www.generative-gestaltung.de>

------
kiba
Absolutely true that gradual progress is very powerful.

I write 500 words a day on my personal site at <http://kibabase.com>. Some
articles are not as good as others, but they can get better though mericeless
editing. I estimated I have 19K words of content thus far.

------
expralitemonk
A famous writer was asked to give a speech at a conference for people who were
trying to get published. He agreed. On the appointed day he walked to the
front of the auditorium, stood at the podium, and asked "Why aren't all of you
home writing?" and sat down.

------
henrik_w
There is also the cases where you are so interested in something that you
can't keep away from it. The 10,000 hours of practice happens by themselves.
You don't need to "trick" yourself to do it, because it's so much fun so you
do it anyway.

------
jorts
I love this idea. I have a few side projects that I'm working on, and while I
can't work on them full-time, I still try to dedicate a small portion of time
daily to help them progress.

------
donniezazen
Any form of art specially something like writing can't come out of shallow
thinking. In age of productivity, we do thinking out of doing and less based
in "calling."

------
slaundy
True, but you're missing the main thrust of the "I could never do that, I
don't have time!" comment.

It's an excuse for not trying. If you don't have time to try, you can't fail.

------
chorola
'I don't have time' is just an excuse!Just do it right now!

~~~
LaRakel
Don't go to work and abandon your family! That book won't write itself. Think
positive!

------
nicky0
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