

Ask HN: How do you keep your energy? - malbiniak

I've got a 60 hour/week job that's been doing a great job of draining me by end of the day, making it damn near impossible to find any energy to work on any side projects after hours.<p>Any tips, tricks, or suggestions?
======
patio11
60 hours? Slacker. ;) Sorry, Japanese salaryman humor.

I honestly was trying to write a blog post about this last night and just
couldn't sustain the mental effort required to make a good job of it. So I
stopped and will take a run on it another day. That is, ironically, one of my
tips.

Design your business to have smaller batch sizes. If, for example, you
typically ship software every 2 work-weeks (~80 hours), you might take two
months of work on your current schedule between shipping events. That can feel
like staring out to the horizon and still not seeing the finish line -- it is
depressing. Instead, if you were making visible progress _every single night_
you sat down, then you'd be happier and might find that you have much larger
reserves of energy.

Relatedly: cut scope, cut scope, cut scope. The less you need to write, the
less you need to test and the less you need to maintain. Every line of code
you write is an implicit claim on your time every day from here to eternity,
ensuring that that code doesn't break. Try to write as few time-debts into
your life as possible.

Process and systems: time invested in making yourself more efficient is some
of the best time you'll ever spend. Systems which work without your personal
intervention -- for example, any sort of self-help option for customers that
resolves a common support issue, or automation of recurring tasks like
backups, etc -- are worth their weight in gold. Formalized processes which
turn "Sit down at the computer for an hour and bang out something that might
or might not work" into "Follow the freaking checklist and have something
which absolutely will not break in 27 minutes" save you time and sanity. (If
you think you're tired now, wait until the system goes down at 3 AM and you
have work in 4 hours.)

Mix tasks which require your personal attention with those which require
calendar time, so that you can fire one of the longer tasks off, go away for a
week (Saturday through Saturday), and then come back and see what happened.
A/B tests work great for this. So does certain flavors working with
freelancers, if you're working with the right ones and have a habit of giving
them sufficient direction in advance. (Hold on to anybody who can work without
constant direction -- they're worth their weight in gold.)

I have found that exercise, church, and social activities are all net-
positives in terms of the amount of work I can get done, simply because
feeling like I'm actually living tends to improve my physical and mental
energy levels. By comparison, TV/games are generally a net negative. Adjust
appropriately for things which matter to you.

If you want to work, and you feel like you can't work, try doing another
flavor of task. Planning on programming but can't? Go work on e.g. marketing
or drafting the newsletter or what have you. If you still can't work, _clock
out_. There is no profit in throwing good time after bad, and your systems
will still be around tomorrow.

~~~
malbiniak
I knew that 60 hours was going to get dinged from someone. Trust me, I _know_
there are many out there that would dream of _only_ working 60 hours/week.
This is my bill paying job, not my business. I'm not able to find the
time/energy to to pursue that area.

While your points are seemingly applicable only to the startup crowd, I can
directly translate everything you shared here into my bill paying job.

For that, and the embedded sense of hope, thanks.

~~~
Poiesis
For what it's worth, he is referring to the bill-paying job when he says "only
60 hours?". And he has a successful product on the side, so much so that he's
quitting the day job. Pretty sure the intent wasn't oneupmanship there so much
as gallows humor.

But really, it's the reader's choice how to interpret something like that. I
prefer to look at differently, and think, "there are people with jobs that
require more time o them than mine--leaving them similar amounts of
discretionary time as I have--and they build a company with it! Awesome!".

I suspect I'll have to be making about double the day job in order to pay for
health care, etc. But first task is to start the product; its a bit premature
for me to plan my, ahem, "exit strategy".

------
wgj
Your instinct might be not to do some of these things because they take more
time, but in my experience (of doing it right and wrong) these habits work.

* Anything to reduce stress. That's a whole topic in itself, but stress saps your energy more than anything.

* Small consistent meals throughout the day. Just enough so that you're hungry again in a couple hours. Large amounts of food throw off your metabolism.

* Plenty of water throughout the day.

* B-complex vitamins. These help reduce stress.

* 15 minute breaks. Fresh air. Sun, if you can get it.

* Exercise every day. This will increase your overall energy level, metabolism, and stamina. It also helps reduce stress.

* Learn techniques to keep a positive mental state. This is also a big topic, but pessimism, negativity, and depression will definitely slow you down. Find ways to see the glass half full.

Edit: Almost forgot: Plenty of sleep.

~~~
ryszard99
Good tips. I get up at 0500 each morning, do weights or cardio, eat regularly
(every 2-3 hrs)and have a multi once a day and drink plenty of water..

i have much more energy now than i did before i started this routine about 3
years ago!

------
jacquesm
The size of your 'battery' may simply be 60 hours per week, pushing yourself
beyond what you can naturally do should be done slowly and with your finger on
the pulse looking for signs of trouble.

If you want to suffer what people call a 'burn-out' then try pushing yourself
harder and longer than your body can normally sustain, the results are not
pleasant, it can take years to recover from something like that.

Your body giving your a warning sign - tiredness - is a pretty good reason to
slow down a bit.

One thing that comes to mind is that you may have an iron deficiency or
something like that, that's easily checked.

------
scorpioxy
What works for me is the following: \- Exercise. I work out 3-4 times a week
weight lifting and cardio. But any rigorous exercise would do.

\- Break down tasks into small chunks. Write them down or put them on your
todo list. Work on one at a time.

\- Cross off one of your tasks a day. Even if it is very small, the point is
making progress.

\- Rest. If you're tired and can't work, then there's no point in trying. Take
a break, take a walk, go out, or get a good night's sleep. Try again the day
after.

\- Take vacations. Muscles adapt to increasing amount of effort if you give
them enough rest. Your mind doesn't shut down so take much longer to
recuperate. Do something fun every once in a while.

------
adrianwaj
Power nap in afternoon. Be warm, lie on your back, breath, and drift off. Have
an alarm go off after an hour in case you fall asleep. Will improve mental
clarity and energy.

Also, fresh dates, water, and walnuts for long programming sessions.

------
keefe
Regular exercise, a proper diet and a pretty strict schedule have helped me
maximize productivity. It's very easy to skip working out or push yourself to
just 7 hours or 6 hours of sleep, but really it catches up to you as another
poster says.

------
Mz
A) Work on taking better care of yourself so you have more stamina, mental
focus, etc (eat right, exercise, stay hydrated, take your vitamins, etc)

B) Streamline your life in terms of material things that need upkeep and the
like. If you have less housework and what not to do when you aren't "working",
you will have more time, energy and mental focus for side projects.

