
Tired of productivity “hacks”. What long term techniques have worked for you? - codeknight11
Honestly tired of sensational blogs, youtube videos where 20 year old &quot;influencers&quot; or youtube celebrities propagate bullshit about producitivity.<p>I would like to hear more from HackerNews crowd about techniques they&#x27;ve been using for a long time that helped them improve their productivity.
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alexmingoia
Do less and develop habits.

Every day I wake up, meditate for an hour, exercise, and then drink coffee
while writing down 2-3 things I want to accomplish that day. Sometimes just
one thing.

At the end of the month I review what I did, and think about what I want to do
next month.

I don’t read news or anything online until after dinner. I don’t open my phone
at all during the day. Leisure is strictly for after dinner. If I take a break
during the day its to go for a walk or sit outside and drink a tea with no
phone.

If you constantly feel behind it’s probably because you’re trying to do too
many things. Focus on one thing to do each day and do it after your morning
routine.

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karmakaze
Productive toward what goal?

I found it hard to stay on-track when developing side-projects. Then I needed
an efficient way to find call-stacks for a good number (~100) of code lines
from endpoints (REST, GraphQL, or module public) endpoints in a huge Ruby
codebase. I hacked together some ripgrep scripts and put a web front-end on
it. It was super hacky but done in a day and a half, got the job done and
didn't look half bad. Now I want to wrap that with a script so I can automate
a bit more.

The point of the story is that for developing software, you have to know the
problem you are trying to solve. If you yourself are experiencing the exact
thing, then you know what matters and what doesn't. If you're solving it for
some other folks, you have to understand exactly what matters and doesn't for
them.

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kstenerud
Habits are by far the most important thing. Making a habit is hard. Keeping a
habit not as hard, but it's easy to fall off. But so long as you can keep a
habit going, you'll do much better than without it.

Environment is very important. Make sure you're comfortable in your
environment. You're far more productive when you don't have stressors or
anxiety cluttering your mind.

Stick to at most 5 rules to life. Any more and you'll end up chasing your tail
more often than not.

For example, mine are:

\- Eat right, sleep well, and get plenty of exercise.

\- Communication makes or breaks almost everything.

\- Guard jealously your friends and family time.

\- If you're putting something off or avoiding someone/something, ask yourself
why.

\- Take pride in what you do, or else find something else you're better suited
to.

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gtsteve
I think the biggest game-changer for me is writing down my plan for the next
day in the evening.

Also, using extensions like TomatoTimer to make sure I don't get distracted by
impulsive browsing. It's amazing how frequently I'll go through a cycle of
browsing to HN, getting blocked, browsing to Reddit, getting blocked, and so
on before realising what I'm doing on autopilot. That happens a lot when I've
got something boring to do, not so much when I'm coding.

Otherwise, I think others have covered it well, regarding eating, moving and
sleeping.

~~~
raindropm
This is also my go-to technique when I’m too tired to think at the end of the
day. I just pick a marker and write 3 things I want to do tomorrow — just
write it down with your gut feeling. The feeling in the morning when you see
what you wrote in previous night gives you a boost to your willpower and gives
you a sense of direction in your day. It’s just something so small, but it
works great for me.

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tanin
For me, the big one is sleep. My productivity seems to increase in general.
Here are some techniques:

\- If we go to bed late, just wake up late

\- Sleep in a dark room. Close all curtains. Reduce the sunlight in the
morning. Actually, don't let external triggers to wake us up (e.g. morning's
sunlight, alarm clock). If our bodies want to wake up, they'll wake up by
themselves. My current theory is: if our bodies need sleep, we need to sleep
more. It's almost impossible to sleep if our bodies don't need sleep. So, we
should acquire more sleep until our bodies don't need more.

\- Sleep with bedroom's doors open. We want more oxygen. The bedroom with bad
ventilation is a CO2 hotspot.

\- Reduce caffeine intake little by little every day

\- Make ourselves comfortable e.g. use humidifier if you feel dry in your
throat during night time, adjust foot/leg position, maybe add a pillow, so
your foot stays at a comfortable orientation, add mattress topper. Comfort is
personal... so we need to experiment.

(of course, there are exceptions.. sometimes we need to wake up early. But it
shouldn't be a norm)

Another somewhat big one is to setup my working desk properly. I avoid working
directly on the laptop. The screen is too small to sustain long working hour.

I tried meditation. Somehow it isn't for me (e.g. I am bothered that I have to
meditate and etc.). But the recommendation on meditation is extremely strong,
as in everyone in the world suggests it. I might try picking it up again.

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10xRich
Sounds like you're looking for more hacks.

habits, routines, mindfulness, mantras, mindsets... you're going to hear it
all

Maybe it would be first helpful to better understand your problem? Are you?

\- Digitally Distracted? You can't stay off HN, Twitter, FB

\- A Chronic Procrastinator? You can't will yourself to start work

\- Scatterbrained? You jump from thing to thing, never finishing important
things?

Assumptions are inherently built into advice, so if you’re looking for some
guidance, it may help to be as clear and specific about your problem.

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shahbaby
Drugs.

Serious. See if you have any level of ADHD and if so, get medication for it. I
somehow managed to get through most of my 20s without medication. With the
meds, my productivity is on an entirely different level.

I lived through most of my life without it and I can tell you the difference
is night and day.

(To be clear, you'll still need good habits, routines and motivation but all
those things come a lot easier with the right brain chemistry.)

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was_boring
You need habits that reward your dopamine triggers in a sustainable way. Some
people that's big projects being done and they can ride that high. Others need
small tasks and a checklist. Still others are in between and require both.

I require small dopamine hits throughout the day. Big projects mean nothing to
me.

(Dopamine in this case is stuff that makes me feel good. I care not to debate
if that's the right word.)

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raztogt21
I tried a bunch of stuff that some worked and others didn't.

Recently I got an idea. "Laziness is not an emotion, is a reaction. I'm
choosing to be lazy right now". By taking accountability that I'm in control
of feeling lazy, I can shut it down, get up, and start doing.

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vira28
Donald Knuth, for example, don't use email [https://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html](https://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html)

Not telling you should stop using it. Just to give a thought.

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rawgabbit
1\. Prioritize - what is my primary task for today?

2\. Focus - say no to everything that distracts from #1

3\. Unless you're my primary task today, I will only communicate with you via
chat/email, not via voice/webcam.

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afarrell
Schedule deep conversations with friends so you feel less tempted to scroll
facebook.

If applicable, get actual psychiatric treatment for ADHD and work with a
coach.

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lmiller1990
Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is king. Just figure out what you want to
do, and stick to a plan - even if it's just a few minutes a day.

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factorialboy
Shambhavi kriya / meditation.

Writing. And re-reading what I wrote as a method to refine my thoughts.

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notomorrow
could you provide some links on YT productivity influencers?

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battery_cowboy
I write things I need to do down, I do things that take 5 min or less right
now, and I don't read about current events more than once per week for about
30 minutes, and I limit myself to HN for social media and turn no 'noprocrast'
so I can come here only once per day for 60 minutes. I find that if I follow
these rules, I get things done at a reasonable pace since I am limited from
the time sucks.

