

Ask YC:  Why?  The more time I spend here the more I get done. - edw519

Last night, my other half said, "Are you on that hacker news again?  If you spent as much time on your software as that web site, you'd be done already."<p>Got me to thinking.  I DO spend a lot of time here lately.  But I've also gotten a lot of work done.  Yesterday was a great day, with several major breakthroughs and lots of new code.  Yet I was here off and on all day long.  I can't explain it.  It seems like it's the opposite of what you'd expect.<p>The only explanations I can think of is that reading and discussing interesting stuff here gets my juices flowing, almost like "stretching" before the real workout.  Maybe being among others who are achieving the same things as me keeps me going.  Also, it tempers the loneliness.  Anyone else with similar experience?
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gms
I can't help feeling that you're only saying this to comfort yourself.

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yters
Alternatively, it could have a similar effect to taking a break and going for
a walk.

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gms
How many times does one take a break and go for a walk, per day?

Also, being here is nothing like taking a walk. More like chatting at the
office water cooler.

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pg
Depends where you work. This was one of the more alarming things about getting
bought by Yahoo. When Viaweb was in Harvard Square we used to leave the office
2-4 times a day. When we moved to Yahoo, which was in the middle of nowhere,
we never left.

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gms
2-4 is still probably less than the number of times people visit this site.
It's my mistake for not being more clear about this, but I also feel it's less
harmful to go out than to visit here. At least going out constitutes a
concrete block of time, leaving you with a big block of time to get work done
when you get back. On the other hand, many small visits to this site only
serve as interruptions to your flow, never allowing you to have a big block of
time for work.

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DaniFong
A friend once remarked to me that one of his 'cures for procrastination' is to
do something only mildly distracting, and mildly amusing, after sitting down
to work and both taking on any big problems. He says it takes some time to get
settled, but he needs to feel a sort of mental presence of a problem before he
can really tackle it.

Perhaps the right type of break is the same way: perhaps it lets you cool it
and evaluate your issues before tackling them, instead of following the path
of least resistance.

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DaniFong
*before.

I seem to be highly susceptible to spelling issues and one word omissions
while sleep deprived. PG, if you're reading this, consider allowing very small
(~one word) edits after posts have persisted.

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pg
What would the UI for that look like, though? Let people do arbitrary edits,
and reject them if they changed too much? That would make people mad.

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DaniFong
It's only a hunch, but perhaps after a certain point in time, you could change
'edit' to correct. Upon clicking correct, each word or space (to insert a word
or two) becomes hyperlinkable, and if you click on it, you can do inline
edits. Validate the changes in javascript, apply when a button is pressed, or
focus is lost.

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abstractbill
Hacker News does bring out my usually quite dormant competitive streak. If I'm
not feeling very inspired about anything, all I have to do is read a bunch of
stories here and then I quickly feel the need to create something better than
all the amazing things I've just read about.

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llimllib
Yes. My employer's approximately as enthused about it as your girlfriend is,
though.

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jrsims
I can agree.

I think a lot of us geeks - as smart as we claim to be - have a difficult time
executing our ideas because we're so in love with the ideas themselves, that
often they suffice for the actual thing. Many of us want our products to be
perfect at launch. It's a totally insane way to be.

Hacker News helps me get real and break through my self-imposed reality-
distortion field (you know what I'm talking about!). I discovered Hacker News
two weeks ago and I've done more actual work on my product since then than in
the last 3 months. Loving it.

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nostrademons
I think there may be a limit to the amount of productive work you can get done
in a day, and whether you hit that limit after 3 hours or 14 hours, it's still
there. So there may be some truth to your impression that news.YC isn't really
hurting your real productivity.

OTOH, I've found that going out and getting some exercise, or turning off the
computer and reading a book, or watching a movie tends to clear my head a lot
quicker than social bookmarking sites or blogs. I feel like I get "stuck" in a
low level of activity when I read too much, like all that incoming information
is still taking up cycles that would otherwise be used for my startup. So
maybe it's not the best procrastination activity. ;-)

I certainly have noticed that the biggest bottleneck for my productivity is
the time it takes for my brain to adjust to and assimilate new architectural
decisions. And letting my brain relax and switch off seems to make that go
faster. (So does getting lots of sleep...again, sleep is not something to
shortchange.) I'm just not certain that news.YC or other programming-related
websites really let my brain switch off all that well.

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wallflower
I think it is the threads of discussion that help jog/stimulate/kick-start
your brain after it stalls on a non-YC related problem...

If you want to cut back (definitely not cold turkey)... 8aweek.com - just
started yesterday and I'm shocked at how quickly 30 minutes (of usage) goes...
Now they just need an iPhone version (so I don't cheat)

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lg
I just tried it, and I love that it starts off with Hacker News on the
restricted list :) I guess they know their audience.

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thorax
I can't be here (or much of anywhere) for more than 30 minutes each day.
8aweek won't let me!

And I am absolutely far more productive because of it. :)

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Alex3917
It makes logical sense that time spent on news.yc would somehow correlate with
time spent working, since there is a limited amount of time in the day. In
practice though I doubt there is much (if any) relation between the two.
Either you're in the mood to get work done or you're not. In 95% of cases time
spent on news.yc is probably replacing other non-work activities.

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mattjones
Here's a possibility:

I've noticed that the more time I spend here, the less tolerance I have for
other sites. So while I spend more time here than I used to, I spend much less
time on other, less relevant sites than I used to. The time I have to do work
is actually the same or greater.

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Xichekolas
I'm right there with you. Reading here just gets me in a technical mood to
start my day.

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TFrancis
Get back to work Drew!

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Xichekolas
I hope you are who I think you are, because if not, that is creepy as hell.

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Tichy
I think reading news is like drinking coffee. I'd prefer to not be addicted,
though.

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jib1123
Flattery is getting you more karma ;)

