
Don't Waste a Single Moment - dmor
http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2012/06/dont-waste-a-single-moment/
======
Swizec
You _must_ waste time. As Aftershock21 notes, it is the only way you can be
creative rather than productive.

It's also important not to burn out. You are roughly infinitely more useful to
your startup when you are well rested than when you are burnt out.

Wasting time helps a lot with that.

Wasting time also gives you a great opportunity to take a step back and gain
some perspective on everything and see whether you're working in the right
direction, otherwise how do you know you're being productive rather than just
doing busywork?

If there's one thing founding a startup has taught me, it's to avoid busywork
like the plague and that when you are busy busywork looks the same as being
productive.

tl;dr: from the trenches being busy and being productive look the same. You
need to waste time to be able to tell the difference.

~~~
BrandonM
From the article, she mentions that she goes for an early-morning walk and
watches the sun rise over Oakland. That seems to fit your definition of
"wasting time."

Her definition of wasting time seemed to refer instead to realizing what's
important to you and what's not, then spending less time on that unimportant
stuff. Her "getting up and checking email/Twitter/Facebook" was an example of
unimportant stuff. But she gave plenty of examples of taking creative time
instead of just staying busy.

"Don't waste time" is not the same as "don't take creative time".

~~~
Swizec
It's important to keep reminding everyone (including myself) that creative
time most often looks like wasting time when you feel the weight of the world
is on your shoulders.

I've gotten some of my best ideas and insights by farting around on twitter.
Or on a four hour coffee with a random friend.

It would be _extremely_ difficult to justify either of those as anything but
wasting time.

------
ajlburke
On the topic of getting up early and finding that time between 6 and 9 when
"nothing happens in the tech world": I happen to live one time zone over from
most of my clients (I'm in Halifax and my clients are mostly in Toronto),
which means that the emails/phone calls/meetings/etc. doesn't start until at
least _10am_ my time. I never use an alarm clock, usually have a real
breakfast, and walk to work.

If you already work remotely, it's worth considering a time zone shift. It's
even better if you can live in a place with a lower cost of living than where
you bill. If you have a lot of California business, try living in Denver.
Chicago business? Try Montreal or Columbus Ohio. Customers in London? Try
Berlin.

Obviously, this won't work for everyone - but in certain situations it can be
a great way to get an extra hour in the best part of your day.

~~~
polyfractal
This works great in my experience as well. I work remote (full time) for my
company, but several employees are on the West coast while several are on the
East cost (myself included).

We find it works great. I can take my time in the morning, having some coffee
and reading Hacker News. Then I get started, make some progress and by time I
run into needing to collaborate, my colleagues on the West coast show up for
work. At the end of the day, I sign off informing them what I've finished and
still need to do, and they can keep working without having to to talk to me.

------
Aftershock21
More time doing work does not translate to more creative output. Wasting time
is the most effective way to come up with ideas. Its been proven and written
many times over. But I guess when you are in a startup and taken funding from
external sources, its hard to explain why you waste time!

The post also needs a TLDR;

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kamaal
I don't know why programmers consider themselves as a separate bunch of lot
which considers that nothing in the world that applies to others, really
applies to them.

There are a lot things that are similar to programming, and sometimes
difficult too. Things like Surgery, Music, Some mind based games like chess
all come under a similar category. Some times you have to play with intensity.

If there is something I have learned over the years. People who burn out, who
are under burden of chasing tough deadlines constantly. People who are always
sprinting towards their goals and have desperateness in completing what they
have will inevitable end up doing more work. Sure they will be stressed, they
will burnout, they will go through some pain.

But I would love to experience such a sweet pain often. The best sleep I've
have is when I'm too tired. Athletes, boxers and other sportsmen experience
happiness after going through a rigorous regime. They will be undergoing pain,
but it still makes them happy. They are also getting stronger and better than
everybody else. This is called 'Going the distance'. Ever heard of runners
high? Every time I felt like I have been stressed or burn't out I feel happy,
Because I have clocked more work than anybody else around me.

You don't need a ocean of creative ideas or a storm of opportunities to be
successful, what you need 1 or 2 good ones,and then you need throw all you
have to chase them and work on them make them happen.

Sure you need to rest well, but you need to do it properly and then start over
again.

Its not going to be easy, Its going to be difficult. There are too many people
working 9-5. And commonly done things, bring common results and make you look
common. Getting some distinction will require you to 'Go the distance', it
will painful, stressful, you will burn out on the way, it will test your will
power to persist.

What else where you thinking?

~~~
dmor
I'm not sure if this was directed at my post or other comments in this thread.
I'm not advocating a "common" or 9-to-5 life or work style, I'm advocating
getting up at 6am, getting mentally organized and physically prepared to meet
the day, and then work my ass off from 9am to 11pm. This is very particular to
startups and how I work at startups, and I would not recommend it for
everyone.

Further, there is a time to ease off from this style - probably worth another
future blog post

~~~
rwallace
Whereas I do advocate 9 to 5. Not literally, of course. 6 to 2 is fine, or 12
to 8, or whatever suits your situation and style. But eight hours a day five
days a week is sustainably productive. If you're trying to work a fourteen
hour day, you might be productive the first few days. After that, you're going
to end up getting _less_ done than somebody who works intelligent hours.

Human intuition says the universe works by trade, that if you make a
sacrifice, the gods will reward you. If we destroy our lives working fourteen
hour days, surely the mere fact of paying such a high price must confer some
blessing. One of the hardest lessons is that the universe doesn't actually
care, and sacrifices can have negative payback just as easily as positive. But
it's a lesson that has to be learned if you want to actually accomplish
anything.

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mtraven
I wasted a moment clicking on the link only to get a server error page...I
guess there are a lot of people wasting moments checking out why they should
not be wasting moments.

~~~
dmor
I'm sorry, working to fix it now

~~~
bfrs
If people take your advice too seriously, then maybe most marketing folks
would be out of a job ;)

~~~
dmor
Nah, there's always something else for marketing people to do. The best of
them are terrifyingly clever.

------
benjaminwootton
I thought this was quite insightful:

 _"I had another habit I wanted to break – checking my phone for texts,
emails, Facebook, Twitter, and news as soon as I woke up. I wanted to stop
doing this because it pulled me into the reactive world of other people’s
needs, focuses, and demands on my sacred morning hours."_

I have to keep battling to avoid falling into the consumer mindset. As soon as
I start reading Facebook, Twitter, Hacker News etc, I can almost feel
switching out of creator mode and into a consumer.

There's so much interesting accessible content out there nowadays, and it's
all optimised to hold your interest. Usually, reading this will be more
immediately gratifying than the work that goes into actually building
something.

I definitely think there would be a productivity boost to saving all of that
consumption till the end of the day.

------
larrys
"I’ve seen the incredible power of time passing and the importance of the
small choices we make every day. Its crazy to realize the success or failure
of a company is a collection of days and the things we decided to do or not do
on those days. But that’s it. It really is like poker or chess – trying not to
make mistakes"

Well for the sake of others here as well as yourself let me point out
something that you need to take action on for a choice you have already made.

You've chosen to name your site and use "refer.ly" because you don't have
"referly.com".

Now the name "referly.com" is owned by someone in Mountain View so maybe
that's your partner and you simply haven't forwarded it to your site. But I've
seen this happen so many times I have to point out that it's a huge mistake to
not lock up the .com name and to go by a .ly name. Not that people haven't
done it. Not that people who have done it haven't been successful. But unless
there is a super compelling reason it's definitely something you want to
avoid. It's just going to cost you money and/or problems down the road when
you need to buy the name.

I understand that there is an entire group of entrepreneurs out there that
think domains don't matter for this or that reason. But they do matter and
it's not that difficult to keep that in mind before you get to attached to
your branding.

~~~
dmor
Thank you, I have been working on that for quite awhile now. I have owned
refer.ly for 3 years and began pursuing the .com domain as soon as I decided
to turn it into a business.

Also, our product is (currently implemented as) a link shortener so the .ly
domain choice has served us well

~~~
quellhorst
The iphone virtual keyboard has a button for '.com' that is much easier than
typing .ly

------
rdl
Waking up early, having a set routine immediately on waking up (so you don't
need to worry about making decisions while half-awake), etc. is one of the
best hacks. Particularly if you have to manage other people or otherwise do
non-maker work, it's quite likely you'll get more actual work done between
waking up and 10am than for the rest of the day.

(5:46am is a particularly good time, especially to the sound of a pager)

~~~
alabut
I'm about to find out if this is true because I'm kicking off a "work out
every morning" routine as we go through YC. I figure when I first wake up is
the best time to sneak in something that I don't need all the gray matter for
anyway and that will serve double duty by kicking the noodle awake more than a
cup of coffee would.

------
rehack
The article has a lot of positive points and good that it works for the
author. But must point out some important experiences that I had:

 _> I always believed I was one of those people who just needs 9 hours of
sleep, but I am now easily rested on 6-7 per night and reclaiming 2-3 hours a
day_

Those rewards are only upto a point. There was a period, I reduced my sleep
from 6-7 hours to about 4-5 hours. And I didn't feel anything. Or if I felt
anything I would shake it off. I would go for my normal run of about 5 KMs,
and do stretching/strength exercises after wards. The only problem was the
next health checkup showed a higher BP and I had to go on meds. And please
note all this while I did not feel anything out of the ordinary.

So learnt the hard way, that there are no simple gains, there are trade offs.
I would not recommend any sudden change to life style, few exceptions apart
like kicking a proven bad habit.

------
spiredigital
Being intentional about creating frequent - even if brief - sanctuaries from
business is crucial. As much as I and many here love their
jobs/startups/companies, you have to step back occasionally. It's not healthy
to be 100% consumed be something all the time, even if you're madly in love
with it. You need little breaks to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with other
important parts of your life occasionally.

Love the early mornings. I need to muster up the discipline to make that
happen, too.

------
Aftershock21
Whether you are working or wasting time is decided by the pre frontal cortex,
which is responsible for the decision making process in the brain. However the
creativity is a whole-brain process, it takes many brain regions to come up
with insights and inspirations. So it makes sense not to depend on your pre-
frontal cortex to decide activities of the whole brain. It almost like
uninformed non-technical manager deciding the technology stack for the
programmers.

------
andrewpbrett
I've found this to be absolutely true as well. It's astounding what a boon
it's been to get on an early schedule where I 1) wake up without an alarm, 2)
watch the sun come up, and 3) deliberately avoid mail, news, twitter, etc. for
the first several hours that I'm awake.

The most recent experiment has been a regularly scheduled nap in the
afternoon, which I find allows me to get to bed later but still feel rested
when I wake up.

------
dmor
Thanks Aftershock21 I agree, tldr version: if you have a crazy sense of
urgency you might try reclaiming some hours by waking up earlier, and make
room in your life for a couple of hours of low pressure introspective stuff
every day in the early morning hours instead of just reacting to what the
outside world asks of you

I wonder if this post is mis-named, curious what those who read it through
think

~~~
Aftershock21
Thanks. Meditation would be great in the morning.

~~~
njx
It is great before sunrise or just after sunset. Stillness of mind is the key
to creativity. Stillness is achieved through long meditative practices

------
AznHisoka
I used to go through a period where I felt I had to squeeze every minute of
the day, and not waste any time. After a month, I got mentally exhausted,
burnt out, and hated working.

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bestest
Question is, are you actually HAPPY when trying not to waste time? I would not
be able to feel free and happy whilst trying to artificially fill up my
schedule.

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danso
Anyone else on an iPad see the text momentarily pop in before disappearing?

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carsongross
That's a lot of "I"'s in an essay.

