

Ask HN: Your Ideal Day? - patrocles

What would your ideal average day look like?<p>Like what would you do when you didn't have to do anything at all?<p>p.s. why put off solving till tomorrow what can be solved today?
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rkabir
It's pretty close to what I have right now:

* Wake up (and get up) at my leisure: no alarm - I'm able to maintain this for the most part, unless of course there are specific commitments.

* Catch up on info-glut _before_ breakfast - forces me to get through it all faster. Work-related email and information is included in this set. Anything not supremely important gets sent to Instapaper so I can get over my need to feel like I should read something, and promptly forget about it and move on with my life.

* 30-60 minutes of exercise (usually a jog or the treadmill, but swimming when convenient) that lets me digest the information I've just been exposed to if necessary, and think about what's important today. I take notes during.

* Shower / hygiene (also good for thinking)

* Breakfast (preferably alone and in quiet), while I outline my plan for the day.

* Work (repeat as necessary). I work while signed onto restricted IM accounts that make me available to very few people - namely, work associates and immediately close friends with whom I can be completely free to ignore or converse with at my leisure. When I need/want to focus, I ignore. When things are slower, I'll socialize more.

* Breaks - Sometimes I'll interrupt work with a longer form break. Sometimes a walk, sometimes a conversation. Never RSS/Twitter/Facebook.

* Stop for lunch / dinner when I'm hungry. Either meet up with people or read longer-form non-fiction if solo (picking off vignettes from Instapaper)

* Evenings (read: late night) before bed is for [optional] leisure. If I'm productive and enjoying my work, I won't stop and I'll cancel plans as appropriate. If I'm not enjoying my work but I'm behind schedule, I'll keep going if I can. Otherwise, I'll do any subset of {social, videogames, reading, watching, writing}.

* Sleep iff I'm at the point where I want to sleep more than whatever I'm doing.

Days of travel, guests, or otherwise special significance deviate from this
quotidian rhythm.

~~~
patrocles
I've been surprised at how seemingly minor changes in the relative cost of
doing something can have major impacts on behavior.

I'd like to exercise in the AM, however I keep failing at it because it costs
much more to go to work early, than to go to work, work until evening, and
then walk downstairs to the gym.

What are the "good" things we should target for cost-reduction?

Exercise, reflection/planning, socializing, projects. Anything else?

~~~
rkabir
Cost reduction is relative. I don't go to the gym, I work out at home if
possible, and supplement with music or audio streams that I find enjoyable.
And I'll prefer social physical activity (swimming, badminton) to sedentary
social activity.

I think it's important to make it easy to switch projects or life tracks. Some
would say that it makes too easy to sit in a pool of confusion - but on the
other hand it means when you're sticking with something, you want to stick it
out.

------
dools
Respond to pointless questions in Hacker News.

~~~
patrocles
why do questions about life seem pointless? or perhaps you mean best avoided?
;)

