
How do you manage / plan your life? - nextos
I think having the right priorities, and a constancy of purpose is key towards a successful and happy life.<p>But I often find myself using most of my efforts in vain, on unimportant problems. This is partly due to working on chaotic organizations, receiving an overwhelming amount of daily information to process and, ultimately, my incompetency at staying focused on tasks worth doing.<p>How do successful HNers manage their lives? What are some principles and methods that have made your success possible?
======
stinos
_a constancy of purpose is key towards a successful and happy life_

Doesn't work like that for me though. I'd just be unhappy if I'd constantly be
setting big life goals and not reaching them when planned, or at all. I don't
do much long term planning at all. I just let things happen as they come by
and manage fine with just shorter term planning (e.g. 'next week I'll work on
that, week after that maybe on that'). I never planned for a job or a certain
hobby or a girlfriend or a house. Yet I do have all of that. A lot of it due
to mere coincidence. I thought of those things, of course, but never actively
took up any long term plans to steer my life into some direction. That feels
too limiting for me, I like to keep possibilities open. Which leads to me now
doing and liking things I couldn't even imagine doing even a couple of years
ago. No idea if that's a causal effect, but I also don't really care. And by
society's measures I'm succesful. Though a bit weird.

~~~
zo7
> I'd just be unhappy if I'd constantly be setting big life goals and not
> reaching them when planned, or at all.

This is key, I think. You need to have some acceptance that you actually have
very little control over your life. Plan for and manage the parts of your life
that you do have control over, and keep an open mind about the rest. Some of
the unhappiest people I know are those with lofty goals that they either fail
to meet, or have unrealistic expectations about what they will get for meeting
them.

~~~
stingraycharles
But this isn’t true. You have a lot of control over your life. You just should
keep your goals realistic, which is a completely different thing.

If you set a goal to be your own boss, to save money to travel the world, to
reach financial independence / retire early, those are all “big” goals that
can give purpose to your life.

You have a tremendous amount of control over your own life, to shape it and
achieve happiness. It’s just that many people are too busy with distractions
to see the bigger picture and plan accordingly.

~~~
zo7
You could strike out on your own only to find out there's not enough of a
market to support yourself with your skills and you have to get a job again.
You could set a goal to save money to travel the world and have it all be
depleted recovering from a medical emergency that leaves you disabled. You
could invest all of your money for retirement only to see it vanish in an
economic crisis.

These are more realistic but there's still an element of chance that could
wrestle control away from you. If you use goals to give purpose to your life,
what will you do if you discover that you absolutely cannot meet them? If it
was the source of your drive, will you be able to laugh it off? What if you
get there and discover that meeting your goal was not something that you even
wanted at all?

My point was that you could instead focus on things immediately under your
control: you could learn skills and network which may help you become your own
boss, but it may also help you get a better job or start a new career if you'd
rather. You could save money which would allow you to possibly travel the
world one day, or it might allow you to indulge in some other nice experience
or simply help reduce stress in your life. You maintain control over your life
and can seize opportunities as they come, but you're not constrained by stuff
outside your control, or even your past self who was setting the goals to
begin with.

------
Jeff_Brown
There's the tech question and the choice question.

Tech: I use an open-source knowledge graph system, Semantic Synchrony:
[https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki](https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki)
It uses Neo4j, so it's fast and it scales enormously; it offers a true graph,
not a tree; it offers full-text boolean search via Apache Lucene; it lets you
connect public and private notes in the same graph, and lets you merge (some
or all of) your graph with someone else's.

Choice: I believe in introspection and sharing, and not willpower. If I feel
like I have to force myself to do something, it is because I am at war with
myself. Instead I meditate, journal (using SmSn), do "knowledge gardening" of
the earlier things I've journaled (using SmSn), try to talk to different kinds
of friends, for different kinds of perspectives.

I studied economics, and it changed my life, and I recommend it to everybody.
It's hard to make good decisions in the labor market, for example, without a
deep understanding of it. But econ is not just about money; it's about
constrained optimization generally, and applies to time management, reading,
travel, love, literally everything we do.

~~~
borroka
"It's hard to make good decisions in the labor market, for example, without a
deep understanding of it."

\- Can you provide an example? Last job I took I considered money, job
specifics, hours, vacation, career growth, the usual stuff. No deep
understanding of the labor market.

------
s0rin
Separate your life into things that give you energy, and things that take
energy. For introverts, going out to a bar or party may take away energy, for
extroverts, it may give them energy. It doesn't really matter whether
something gives or takes energy, but it's important that you're realistic with
yourself about it. Socializing with friends may be good, but it may be an
energy-taker.

Once you know what gives/takes energy, create a mock schedule that provides
balance between the two. Then, play with the numbers to create an ideal
balance.

For me, work is an energy-taker, but it's essential so I can do things that
give me energy, like play games, volunteer, work out, etc. I've found that
when I work 50-60 hours per week, I really just need about a solid day where I
can just do things that give me energy, so Saturdays I keep free to play, hang
out, and only do things that give me energy. Sundays I balance my time with
things that give me energy (like watching football) and things that take
energy (like chores).

That's sort of the high-level planning I do. On the micro-level, whenever I do
something that gives me energy, I devote as much time to it at once, in bulk.
This allows me enough time to become bored with it (if it's video games or
working out), and make me _want_ to spend my energy that I've accumulated.

When doing something that takes energy, I do the pomodoro technique, where I
spend 25 minutes working, 5 minutes off. I do email, get some water, stretch
during that 5 minutes, and then immediately get back to work. That essentially
gives me 16-20 "buckets" of time to work on my projects (8-10 hours), so I
break my work out into those buckets, and plan accordingly.

I'm an accountant, so this may be different. I know some people love their
work and work gives them energy, so they could have a totally different style.
But I'm happy :)

------
codingdave
Don't make the mistake of thinking life goals will play out the same as
work/project goals. Setting deadlines on major life goals leads to increased
stress and can make you feel like a failure. (I'm 30 and haven't started my
own company! 28 are haven't started a family! 35 and haven't saved for
retirement!) Forget all those types of timings. Do set goals. Do move towards
them. But only worry about the direction you are going.

Life is both long and short. Live long enough, headed in the right direction,
and you'll get where you want to be. But life can also end suddenly,
unexpectedly. And will some day. So be happy on the path... because
ultimately, you will live your entire life on your own path... and then die.
Make sure you are enjoying the journey.

------
mbrock
I like the metaphor of gardening.

It's almost so literally applicable to everything that it seems like a
fundamental principle.

By gardening, I mean something like... tending lovingly to a system of
interconnected complex tree-like structures.

Is personal life anything like that? Yeah, because friends and loved ones are
plants with roots and offshoots, subterraneously connected to one another yet
also independent life forms, dependent on light, warmth, and nutrition to
stimulate their growing complexity.

Is work anything like that? Well, look at GitHub and say it isn't a garden of
interdependent tree structures.

There's growth but also death and decay, and both are necessary. My little
palm tree always has a couple of leaves that are dying, and for its health, I
have to rip them off. Programs too need pruning—and relationships too.

~~~
emerged
Hierarchy is everywhere, for this same reason I've found hierarchical note
taking tools to be the most effective by far. No matter what you're doing, no
matter how complex, it can be broken down into manageable pieces and executed
on bit by bit.

~~~
mbrock
I'm a little bit disappointed with the static hierarchies that organizational
tools seem to encourage. Though I use org-mode lovingly, my system isn't yet
to a point where it's fully sustainable...

I really wonder how to cultivate a notes ecosystem in a healthy way, and what
would be the byproducts of that. I think it has to do with different
temporalities: chats, threads, notes, essays, books...

It should also have to do with pruning, weeding, rearranging, combining...
maybe the occasional forest fire...

~~~
ellius
I have been thinking of a knowledge system with two linked guiding principles:

1\. Every element is owned by a person. 2\. Every element has a “decay rate”
or automatic time to be trashed.

I think this would make it a lot easier to track knowledge in organizations.
When something becomes outdated, its owner can just let it die without having
to go out and proactively prune every bit of old documentation. When a person
leaves the company, his “knowledge items” can be flagged as “soon to not have
an owner.”

Ultimately I’d actually like to build code projects this way. It probably
seems insane to a lot of people to think of the idea of letting little pieces
of the code base die and stop functioning, but the benefit I perceive is that
our systems would always be tied to some degree to a human understander.

~~~
mbrock
Right on, I'm a huge fan of the idea of decay in information systems!

------
cryptica
It's really easy: You just need to get very lucky once - After that, the luck
will keep coming on its own.

Before I got lucky, all my plans were essentially useless - But on 12 Jul 2017
at 12:35 PM I got very lucky and now good things keep happening to me.

Making plans and being good at something is not that useful. As Woody Allen
would say "I'd rather be lucky than good."

~~~
1337biz
I understand this is not in line with the hn planability mindset, but there is
some truth to that stody. I am also follow this idea - you need ambitious
projects which have a low predictability of success. But if you try often/hard
enough occasionally one actually works out. To me this makes life a lot more
exciting than working/achieving small predictable goals. Life is too short to
play it save.

~~~
borroka
I agree. When they ask me where I see myself in 5 years, I answer that while I
appreciate where the question is coming from, my life was so different since 5
years ago and the changes have been so unexpected, that I would lie to you and
myself if I gave you the impression of having any sort of roadmap.

Being very competitive and quite unsatisfied is enough for pushing forward.

------
markshead
Most people focus on trying to fit more things into their day. The people I
see who are massively successful are very good at choosing what things they
_don 't_ do. Just like you have to remove items from your budget that aren't
providing value, you must remove items from your schedule and commitments.

Winnowing your commitments in this way creates the space you need to learn,
grow and try new things. Most of those new things will turn out not to be
valuable and you'll drop them, but some may turn out to be immensely valuable.
When you see people that appear to be very lucky, often they have a way of
increasing their chances of discovering things they find valuable.
Intentionally stopping things that fall below a certain threshold of
value/importance is a great way to give yourself room to discover things that
are above the threshold.

~~~
ck425
I like this answer. It's the same in essence as Derek Sivers 'Hell yeah, or
no' rule.

------
d_burfoot
I don't have a good answer to the big-picture question, but one trick I've had
a lot of success with over the years is building my own suite of life-logging
tools.

I have my own system for food tracking, TODO list management, pomodoros, chore
reminders, clothing and stuff management, contact tracking, a mini-Wiki, link
management, and many others. They all connect to and cross-reference each
other in helpful ways. If you are a good coder and have a simple web
framework, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to build a new
widget, and in principle the benefit will accrue for years.

My theory is that off-the-shelf life-logging and productivity tools don't work
very well because people actually have very different lifestyles, work habits,
and so on. So to actually boost productivity you need something very closely
tailored to your own life.

------
cjsuk
My life whirls around in a pool of chaos and everything sort of lines up at
the end via a galactic coincidence.

I tried managing and bringing order to it etc but it takes a lot of work and
the outcome is the same anyway.

This doesn't stop you from achieving goals which is important.

Not defining a metric for success is important. Be happy with the small steps,
not the large leaps.

------
pcblues
Someone to love, something to do, something to hope for. I keep lists that I
add to when I have inspiration because I know my memory is faulty. I meditate
on the knowledge that most success is hereditary, the rest is luck, luck
favours the hard-working only a little, but it also favours the lazy. We can't
all be everything we want to be, and happiness = satisfaction / desire.

------
hkmurakami
First, know who you are. What you like. Who you like. How you tick. Whether
you like change or routine. Those are your first principles.

Then you build the tactics from there. The specifics should match your
personal quirks and needs.

------
jasonkester
Step One: Identify the thing you enjoy most in life.

Step Two: Arrange your life so that you can do as much of that thing as
possible.

For me, that "thing" was climbing and traveling. So I got good at writing
software and spent the time and effort to shift into contracting. That let me
work short gigs in high cost-of-living places and sock away enough to travel
most of the year, setting up shop at various good climbing spots as and when
necessary.

Step Three: As your priorities shift, alter the above as necessary.

Eventually, having wives and kids seemed to also be a good idea, so we're
living in a place where, in addition to having the best concentration of high
quality bouldering in the world, they also have an international airport and
good schools. (And patisseries).

Find the thing you want to do, then arrange life so you can do it.

~~~
thinking_errol
Absolutely!

btw Fontainebleau rules! I have a couple of friends who are avid climbers
earning money by programming, or like me, born with a VR headset on, and only
getting back into the body by bouldering.

Good climbing and good coding require / nurture similar skill sets: choosing a
problem wisely, working slow and steady, recovering from setbacks.

------
inopinatus
At the end of every working day, I type up a short list of what I intend to
achieve tomorrow.

When tomorrow rolls around, I divide my work into periods with a minor variant
of the Pomodoro technique, using a tool that locks my screen every 25 minutes.

This has really helped constrain my tendency to become distracted by
Interesting Things. It’s a bi-hourly opportunity to mentally review what I’ve
just achieved, and consider what I’m doing in the next timeslot.

This has proved incredibly valuable over the course of a working day. Since
adopting it, my productivity has been consistently improved an order-of-
magnitude w.r.t. my intentions.

I’m also better hydrated.

------
ck425
A good technique is to design life so you're efficient by default. For example
I live 2.5 miles from work on the other side of the city centre, so getting a
bus takes an age, thus I run or walk everyday to and from, because it's the
easiest, fastest option. It's a small thing but 5+ miles walking everyday
keeps you relatively fit and because it's the easiest option it's my default.

Similar idea is to delete your newsfeeds and stop posting on social media.
You'll find yourself looking for distraction and having nothing you do. So
you'll get back to work. Or if at home you'll do dishes, read that book etc.

Another side of it is perception. As much as we try not to we compare
ourselves with our peers we all do to an extent. A good technique to defeat
this is to have hobbies or side projects completely unrelated to your main
career. For me my career is engineering and my hobby theatre. If I'm ever
jealous of a peer at work I remind myself that I can sing and act far better
than them. On the flip side If I don't get a cast in a show I remind myself I
have a great career, at one of the best employers in my city. Admittedly it's
healthier to try not compare in the first place but if you do give into it
that's a way to do it. :)

------
borroka
I agree, having the right priorities and a sense and constancy of purpose is
key for a life that is more than asking yourself and other people what you are
going to do this weekend.

It follows that if you keep your priorities straight, most of your efforts
will be directed toward those priorities and won't be in vain. However, that
is a neverending struggle against the desires of other people, society, and,
ultimately, entropy.

Personally, I never used any pomodoro, GTDs etc., and I have been pretty
successful in my personal and professional life. I think keeping your
priorities straight is difficult enough and I trust that if I am successful
there, everything else will fall into, more or less, the right place.

Let me add an example. Sports and physical activity have always been very
important to me, in part because of my personality and in part because I
believe prowess in both physical and intellectual activities make the person I
aspire to be every single day. It means that, apart from once-a-year
exceptions, 6 pm Mondays and Wednesdays are training time. Conflicts? I know
where my priorities are and everything else will fall into place.

------
pcblues
Beware of False Hope Syndrome - if you don't break down your hopes/goals into
realistic steps you won't know if they are achievable.

------
briga
At any given time I have goals for the next week, the next month, the next
year, and the next four years. Periodically I'll spend some time reflecting
and update the goals as new opportunities appear or major life transitions
occur. Keeping the long-term goals in mind alongside shorter term goals is
surprisingly helpful. So far this strategy has been pretty successful for me.

------
mindB
I've been using taskwarrior [0] along with some shell scripts allowing me to
keep separate notes on tasks/projects as my "life management tool" for the
past couple years, and it's helped tremendously. I don't follow any particular
methodology, but since I'm constantly looking at my todo list, I'm constantly
tweaking it, reprioritizing things, and removing unimportant tasks.

I think the most important principle for me has been to make sure that I
capture new tasks or ideas immediately. If I do that, I end up interacting
with my todo list so much, that prioritization falls out kind of naturally.

[0] [https://taskwarrior.org/](https://taskwarrior.org/)

------
nikivi
I use 2Do app on macOS for actionable GTD tasks together with Ship app for
managing GitHub issues.

And finally I just write everything else I need to reference at any point in
my blog and wiki.

Wiki :
[https://nikitavoloboev.gitbooks.io/knowledge/content/](https://nikitavoloboev.gitbooks.io/knowledge/content/)

2Do app : [https://www.2doapp.com/](https://www.2doapp.com/)

Ship app : [https://www.realartists.com](https://www.realartists.com)

------
oatmilk
While it's easier said than done, find what makes you happy. Most people think
this means "find a job you somewhat like / don't hate", but I'd apply it much
more broadly. Find a mode of earning your living expenses that makes you happy
(work remotely; manage an AirBnB; do consulting work), everything else will
fall into place.

------
a_t48
Wing it!

------
Numberwang
I try to think about how my life goals and ambitions would look like in
Material Design. This usually resolves all of my issues.

~~~
ak39
This is the most intriguing HN post I've ever read.

~~~
nextos
Same here! It'd be great if Numberwang could clarify this.

------
toutouast
Using Evernote: * I have a note for things I want to learn. * I have a note
for books I want read. * I have notebook for school. * I create a new note for
every project.

GDocs:

* Sheets for finances.

Trying notion soon!

------
ak39
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-0XEOGTvc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-0XEOGTvc)

------
grondilu
> a constancy of purpose is key towards a successful and happy life.

Shouldn't your purpose have a meaning per se? You don't want to be Don
Quixote.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> You don't want to be Don Quixote.

It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall Don Quixote as
being particularly unhappy. If anything, he was significantly happier than
those around him, because he had a purpose.

If you choose to make your purpose in life to solve a problem that matters and
is in fact solvable, then perhaps choosing the right problem is a large part
of your life's meaning.

~~~
grondilu
Disclaimer : I never read the book, but it's so famous the character seemed to
me like a decent analogy to what I was trying to say.

Don Quixote has a goal, but he's also completely delusional.

Is it ok to live in delusion if that brings you happiness? Shouldn't happiness
be grounded in some sort objectivity?

Otherwise, what's to stop people from seeking a chemical path to happiness?
Like with drugs, as with the soma in "brave new world"?

------
dogruck
I abide by David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) method. I use OmniFocus as
my tool.

I also think the ideas in Extreme Ownership are useful to stay motivated.

------
braymundo
Habitica (habitrpg.com).

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
Bullet journal technique in a paper book.

------
gexla
We start out playing, I don't think we should ever stop doing that.

If more knowledge was the answer, then all the super smart people of the world
would have everything. But it's often total idiots who end up having the most
fun.

But we're all idiots, nobody knows what they are doing.

All knowledge has a thread which goes back through history. For example, all
this Bitcoin stuff is new and nobody knows what's going to happen with it. But
the whole is made up of pieces which have a long thread of history. Each of
these threads themselves contains key pieces and key people. Rather than
reading that new best selling book, look at the sources and read those sources
instead. Then follow the trail of sources to find the keys to the subject.
Ignore all the surrounding noise.

Your brain can do maybe 4-ish hours of hard work and in maybe 1.5 hour-ish
bursts. You will likely have a few times per day where your energy is high.
Your day of productivity is that quiet burst in the morning. You only get one
of those each day. You probably get another nice high productivity chunk in
the evening. Maybe you get another in between. Make those periods your most
brilliant creative periods. Take some time to play. Take some time to read
from that key list you put together from the last point. Then fill remaining
time with whatever.

Once you get the effort and the creative part right, then it's luck which does
much of the rest. That's why idiots who create, play and put in the effort are
able to have so much fun, they get lucky too.

You don't get lucky unless you fully jump in and just start trying things.

Constraints are good. Read into people who have done well with debilitating
injuries. Read about people who have done well with lots of kids. If you are
single and have a difficult time managing 16 hours of your day, imagine
yourself as only having 4 hours per day.

Much of the problem with moving forward in the face of overwhelming
information is just picking something. How many threads have you read in which
someone is asking about Ruby vs Python. Months later this same person hasn't
done anything because he or she still hasn't been able to make a decision. We
can't move forward because we're afraid of committing. We instead might spend
time on low commitment actions such as browsing news. The key is that it
doesn't matter and that you should just get moving. The most important
information isn't what you are looking at when you are trying to decide, but
that information which comes when you are on the road. A heavy effort is a far
better gain in life tokens than you lose by making the wrong decision. You
will make wrong choices all the time, but you will overcome those decisions
with a solid and consistent effort.

Just choose. Get moving. And have fun.

------
timrichard
Personally, that's note taking.

I've been using Evernote quite heavily over the last few years. Originally as
a replacement for Google Keep and Pocket/SaveForLater. Lots of notebooks and
an organised tagging system seem to be the key for me.

I use it for jotting random thoughts on the train, as well as a variety of
journalling purposes (everything from tracking training courses watched to
having little retros after cooking something - so I can memo tweaks to make
next time). I also use it to help me internalise keyboard shortcuts of the
things I use the most of the time. Random memories from childhood as they
occur to collate and print, in case my memory isn't so great when I get much
older.

More relevant to the question, I use tags like "#StartDoingThis" in a variety
of contexts, which are different notebooks. Could be related to programming,
household stuff, music, health - anything really. I set an alarm at the
weekend to review the stuff that received that tag during the previous week.

Also tried using Evernote for a 'Return on the day' sort of note, where I jot
down a few worthwhile things I'd like to have done by the end of the day to
have felt there was some sort of gain.

Taking a quick glance, I also have notebooks for things I tried differently
that made a noticeable difference, old habits that I should bring back that
were better, resources I've noticed that have been overlooked (that book on
Kindle, a saved training video), technical videos I saw on YouTube that made
an impression. A list of positive things as they happen, to reflect on later
and feel happy about... Activities that made me feel particularly enthusiastic
or engaged, so I can dig that out and try the same sort of thing again if
stuck in a rut.

I'm really into playing instruments and home recording, so if I hear a piece
of audio I like, I record a ten second snippet of it, and put it in a notebook
with tags detailing what I liked about it (arrangement, production, effects,
bass part, groove, riff, solo, harmonies, technique) so that I can dial in on
one particular tag and listen to all the clips if I need some inspiration.

All sorts of things, really. It's good to periodically drill down on a tag or
notebook and see there's some worthwhile content or good insight there.

During my working day, I use a program called Marxico that's a great Markdown
editor that stores notes within Evernote organised by notebook and one or more
tags. I like it because it's based on the Ace editor, so the Vim keymap works
really well. Writing well structured documents in Markdown is really easy now.
When I start a new Scrum or Kanban story, I have a note associated with it. I
first define sections for things like 'objective', 'reference notes',
'problems' and 'tasks', and use bullet points obsessively to structure
hierarchies. I used to try and do this with mindmaps, but it's much quicker
with Markdown and bullet points - especially when you're tearing around with
Vim expressions. That task sheet really dictates how I work on a story, and
it's incredibly quick to take quick screenshots and paste them into various
levels of the document as and when needed. When the story's over, it will be
automatically synced to Evernote for future searching. Really helps me to keep
focussed on important details.

Will have to keep looking at some way of automatically backing it up locally
in a neutral format, though, to offset the vendor lock-in.

~~~
lzy
>> Will have to keep looking at some way of automatically backing it up
locally in a neutral format, though, to offset the vendor lock-in.

[http://nixnote.org](http://nixnote.org)

[https://cellard0-0r.github.io/whatever/](https://cellard0-0r.github.io/whatever/)

------
draw_down
I try to focus on what I like doing and who I like spending my time with. I
have found that doing things with the aim of one day being a better or
different person than I am just leads to distress. You’ll change anyway, but
planning it out doesn’t work so well in my experience.

------
ben_jones
I write unit, integration, and behavioral, tests that fail for their first
dozen runs. Then I fix everything until the tests pass. Then I write more
tests.

~~~
biot
Did you misunderstand the question, or do you have an interesting take on
"test-driven living"?

~~~
oliv__
Isn't living test-driven _by design_?

