
Jerry Seinfeld's Productivity Secret - shawndumas
http://lifehacker.com/#!281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret
======
smalter
Coincidentally, fellow HNers rguzman, peng and I recently built a simple web
app which was inspired by this article.

It's called <http://idonethis.com>.

We email you on a daily basis asking you what you got done today. We put your
email response into a calendar and check off the day. Look at your calendar to
see your streak from yesterday to motivate you today.

We posted the site on HN back in January and got some great feedback which we
incorporated (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2064038>) along with some
nice press coverage ([http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/01/03/idonethis-
have-yo...](http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2011/01/03/idonethis-have-you/)).
We're at a few hundred users, a good proportion of whom email us on a daily
basis and tell us that that the site is helping their productivity, helping
them quit smoking, reminding them to exercise & diet, etc.

~~~
Ygor
My chain of thought while reading this article:

1\. "It would be cool if I had a web app for this."

2\. "Hey, I can build a web app for this."

3\. "There must already be an app like this"

4\. "In fact, I bet someone has already commented on HN about having built an
app inspired by this."

I couldn't have been the only one with similar chain of thoughts, right?

~~~
mechanical_fish
Here's the one for programmers:

<http://calendaraboutnothing.com/>

------
edw519
Right next to my monitor in plain sight is my dedicated low tech $8.95 yearly
wall calendar like this one

[http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_05083134000P?sid=ID...](http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_05083134000P?sid=IDx20070921x00003a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=05083134000P)

I color every day either black (1 or more things _completed_ ) or red (0
things _completed_ ). Then I have to look at it all day every day for the rest
of the year. Very humbling.

[EDIT: A monthly calendar doesn't work as well. Redemption comes too soon. I
need to suffer much longer to affect my long term work habits.]

~~~
6ren
What do you count as a "thing" completed?

In dividing up complex overwhelming tasks into small doable tasks, they can
become quite small - where do you draw the line, for what counts? Do you also
include things from different projects or categories, or from all aspects of
your life? as an extreme example, do you include daily chores?

Maybe making it as broad as possible would be effective, because completing
_anything_ gets you started, and into a productive frame of mind.

~~~
edw519
_What do you count as a "thing" completed?_

Anything.

It could be anything from "Add one comment line to function x" to "Read
Chapter 7" to "Get sorting in Module 17 working".

Obviously, I like breaking up tasks into smaller and smaller _doable pieces_ ,
doable in hours, not days, weeks, or months. The entire point is the
_binaryness_ of it all. Finishing a one hour task completely is better than
finishing a one month task 50% (which really means that 90% is still left).

I learned this approach years ago from my hero of project management, Tom
DeMarco

[http://www.amazon.com/Controlling-Software-Projects-
Manageme...](http://www.amazon.com/Controlling-Software-Projects-Management-
Measurement/dp/0917072324/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1298653811&sr=8-7)

Every task is either complete or not complete. In spite of what many bosses of
mine have thought, there is no such thing as "partially complete".

Even when I break things down like this, I still have many "red days". Amazing
how easy it is to go through a whole day and achieve nothing. That is the
outcome that each of us should be trying to avoid.

~~~
derefr
> Every task is either complete or not complete.

Say you task yourself to "fix the leaky pipe under the sink." You get down
there with some pliers, check it off, and then the pipe starts leaking again.
That probably means you didn't "fix" it. Do you avoid that by only using
definitionally-finite verbs (e.g. " _tighten_ the leaky pipe under the sink")
or can some days retroactively go from black to red?

~~~
JanezStupar
Its about putting effort into something of worth. The act of putting effort
into something and maintaining discipline, even if you stretch the definition
a bit, is what counts.

Even Seinfeld doesn't write a good joke everyday the point is to at least take
a shot at writing a good joke everyday. You know how we procrastinate from
exercising by saying - I don't feel like doing a full hour workout. Doesn't
matter you can go and do it for 30 minutes or even only 5. Not feeling like
doing what you "should" be doing is normal. Nobody is on top of their game
24/7. But you should prevent yourself from quitting by putting in some effort
while waiting for good wind to return.

The size of daily goals depend mostly on individual long term strategy and
ambition.

------
jasonkester
Sweet. My very first LifeHacker "entire site replaced by the homepage"
sighting.

As a result of their genius idea to use hashbangs instead of proper URLs, in
conjunction with their use of 3rd party (and therefore guaranteed thoroughly
debugged and awesome) ad-serving javascript, that link takes me to the
LifeHacker homepage with no Seinfeld article in sight.

Opening Chrome's inspector, I see this:

    
    
      Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL 
      http://uk.lifehacker.com/#!281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret from frame with URL
      http://www.facebook.com/extern/login_status.php?api_key=82da475aae3dff17ef28332d6a2f9501&extern=2&channel=http%3A%2F%2Fuk.lifehacker.com%2Fmodules%2Fblog%2Fxd_receiver.html&locale=en_US. 
      Domains, protocols and ports must match.
    

Note to self: Keep using actual _URLs_ for URLs.

~~~
factotvm
When I clicked the link I saw a indeterminate progress bar which spun (and
spun, and spun). Then I recalled this little gem about Gawker's redesign:
Remove the hashbang and prepend domain with "ca":

[http://ca.lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-
productivity...](http://ca.lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret)

Dunno how long this trick will work... Though if I were them, I'd take the
hard-learned lesson and revert.

------
InfinityX0
Read Stephen King's "On Writing". It'll change your game, even if you don't
write.

<http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Stephen-King/dp/0743455967>

~~~
SwellJoe
Speaking of authors on the subject of productivity, one of the most prolific
popular writers in history, Isaac Asimov, said that the key to productivity
and avoiding writers block was simply to write every day, no matter what.
Asimov's autobiography, memoirs, and letters are absolute goldmines of wisdom.
And pretty funny, too.

I recently downloaded King's _On Writing_ in audio book form for my next long
drive (I travel full-time, so I drive a lot), in hopes that it would offer
similar inspiration. Sounds like I made a good choice.

Also, I think writers have a lot in common with programmers, and that's why
there's so much overlap in the sorts of tactics that work for each group.

------
ChristianMarks
This has been on HN before. Keep reposting and don't break the chain.

------
slapshot
Instead of ordering on Amazon, I just printed my own hardcopy calendar
(starting this week) at <http://www.pdfcalendar.com/12-weeks/>

I set it to start this week and to put the next 6 months on the calendar (I
don't need a full year). Mine is now next up to my desk. Thanks! (NB: I have
no affiliaton with the site; just found it Googling.)

~~~
Roboprog
run "cal 2011" into a file, then print it from your word processor, using a
largish fixed pitch font.

------
hbt
If I may, here are my productivity tips:

\- find/build a good todo system using GTD (Getting Things Done) methods
(capture, organize, review)

\- use it to capture all your thoughts and things you have to do. Get it out
of your head.

\- make weekly and monthly reviews of your work. The things you have
accomplished.

\- keep a daily log/journal not necessarily of things you have done but make
side notes of things that affected you. New articles, a movie that changed
your perspective on things, a new idea etc. If it comes back over and over,
consider writing more about the subject

\- clarify your long term goals vs the short ones. That's the difference
between being busy doing client work for money to pay bills and being busy
working on projects that will change your life (i.e scratching your own itch)

\- track your progress: I track it using three columns. What I have planned
for today, what I actually did and what I failed to do. My TODO system
automatically assigns a score to that day and reschedules tasks. In my
calendar, I do not have "completed" days, I have scores tracking my
performance.

\- define what is important to you and develop the habits you want to have:
Exercise every day? (20 points), Work for clients (20 points), work on your
weekly/monthly personal goal (e.g learn zsh) (50 points). Obviously, the
number of points is subjective and based on what you believe is important

I'm sure there is more but that's the basic idea. I see my productivity as a
system consistenly looking to be improved and become more efficient

------
marknutter
The thing about productivity hacks is that their mileage varies pretty wildly
from person to person. That's why there are literally hundreds of thousands of
GTD apps out there. It's as bad as informercial exercise equipment. People
love the idea of being productive, not the actual act of being productive.

------
harscoat
We are in not-complete Beta but if you are signed up to
<http://www.Quantter.com> (log in via twitter for now) you can record things
you do just by including in your twitter message this microsyntax:
#label:xMetric eg. #run:5miles or #thingsdone:2 ...

If you go to your Quantter settings (top left of profile page), select your
"favorite activity" (=the hashtag you 'Quantt'/quantify) and you will seen a
green check each time you do that activity at least once. The number of
consecutive days you did this activity is your streak (given at the top of
your Quantter profile page).

Finally you can follow 5 other people's streak, just by going on their
Quantter page (while being logged in):
<http://www.quantter.com/user/TwitterUsername> (eg.
<http://www.quantter.com/user/egadenne>) and you click on "Follow Username"
link under the grid.

As mentioned here, another very good implementation of Seinfeld "don't break
the chain" is Kyle Bragger Streak.ly.

------
stevejalim
O/T but ARGH -- the 'hashbang' URLs are failing for me here every other time,
and my wife (who I sent the link to) got the wrong page too. Anyone else
suffering similarly?

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Yup - consistently. I now never bother with hash-bang URLs. It's helping
reduce my tendency to procrastinate which, ironically in this case, is helping
to improve my productivity.

------
Hovertruck
This is what <http://calendaraboutnothing.com/> is about. Which reminds me, I
haven't committed anything in a while...

------
petercooper
Trivia HN: Kyle Bragger (now of Forrst fame) did a Show HN about a service he
developed using this technique several months ago -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1665467>

~~~
nudge
Recently (unsold) on flippa: [https://flippa.com/auctions/118288/Streak-ly---
motivation-we...](https://flippa.com/auctions/118288/Streak-ly---motivation-
webapp-with-game-mechanics)

~~~
guywithabike
There's an iPhone app called Streaks that does this very thing. It's pretty
nice.

------
orky56
I admit this does accomplish the motivation to routinely complete certain
tasks. The problem I have with productivity tools is that they can't take into
account all the constraints that are important: type of tasks (routine tasks +
1-time tasks), categories of tasks (project-related, home, work, hobbies),
priority of tasks (most important to least important), time sensitivity of
tasks (now, today, tomorrow, whenever) as well as size, scope, yada yada yada.
Various tools seem to accomplish some but not all of these. What I am left
with is a handful of tools that I get notifications for and am feverishly
trying to check and manage. Productivity has now become managing all these
productivity tools. Still waiting for that killer app that can match my (and
I'm sure others') complicated mental model.

------
matthew-wegner
<http://www.joesgoals.com/> is a great web app for tracking daily tasks
(including longest/current chain).

~~~
slig
+1. I'm a pro user and I love it.

------
sharadgopal
Previous Discussion of the same article:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033433>

------
saturdayplace
When I'd heard about this, I found <http://dontbreakthechain.com/>. Once I get
a streak going, it's a pretty powerful motivator.

~~~
Strom
I've been using this method and this specific site for a bit over a year now
and I'm extremely pleased with the results.

Also I've found that things that I can tick-off every single day get huge,
almost never breaking streaks, while things that I need to do 1-2 times per
week aren't solved that well by this method.

------
veidr
Although not of interest to most here (sorry), I'd just like to point out that
if you are in Japan when you click that hashbang URL--or any lifehacker URL
that comes up in e.g. a google search recently--the server pukes on itself and
redirects to www.lifehacker.jp. I'm guessing their links are broken anywhere
in the world where they have a localized site? Kinda sad.

------
acavailhez
It's a very good piece of advice, it has a "gaming" feeling in it.

It reminds me of the automated test suites you have in IDEs such as Netbeans,
which display a huge green bar when 100% of your tests pass. It's such a goog
feeling to see this green bar that you work harder to make tests pass again.

------
khill
That doesn't work for me. If I don't take a day off here or there, I get
burned out - my creativity starts to fail me and I end up making mistakes.

Maybe it's just me but I find that I sometimes need a break of a day or two to
solve certain problems or put tasks in perspective.

------
dalys
A quick PHP script just to generate a printable calender
<http://pastebin.com/zrHCRAQH> (just HTML <http://pastebin.com/vi8FWybe>)

------
zach
For tasks with an "every few days" nature, it would be handy to have a
calendar with, say, a box for each three days.

But you can adapt this method to a regular calendar by marking X's on that day
_and connected days_ when you do the action.

So for something like resistance training that you want to do every four days,
you can "catch up" on the second, third or fourth unmarked day, but if you go
more than four days, the chain is broken.

Note that you can potentially go a week between sessions by being early once
then late the next time, so it's a little different than a calendar with
multi-day intervals. But that extra flexibility might be helpful for some
tasks.

------
scrame
I did this with a set of projects (mostly writing / creative) for all of 2010.
It was pretty effective at first, but I definitely hit a few stretches of
burnout. I was sure to record an entry for each day, but would occasionally
fall behind.

At the beginning of this year, I moved away from it because I felt like it was
a bit too much: it was forcing me to just output and quality generally
suffered. I am still trying to find a good balance for it, but the calendar
method is really a great way to motivate you to work and also shows you that
you really can just keep moving forward.

------
scrrr
The key here is doing things every day. You don't need a special calendar on
the wall.

Humans are creatures of habit. If your habit is to slack off five days of the
week then you will find it difficult to be productive on the remaining two
days. If on the other hand you just start doing things, after a couple of days
it's normal. I've been there, I've done that. Whatever you want to do, just
start doing it. Even if you suck at first.

It's like quitting smoking. First few days are a little difficult. After 3
weeks you don't think about it.

And put a nice picture on your wall instead. ;)

------
EGreg
I would also suggest marking every day that you spoke to at least 3 people on
the phone.

Because often, it's good to recognize that we need to involve other people and
relationships in getting stuff done, and not just do everything solo. This
rule of talking to 3 people a day means you probably won't be talking to the
SAME 3 people every day, so you have to keep up your relationships and meet
enough new people. Also a great measure of success.

------
ptm
This very article was the inspiration for my recurring todo app -
<http://www.dailytodo.org/>

~~~
golfga
I like the simplicity of your app.

------
thecoffman
Two of the github guys: kneath and technoweenie I believe, implemented exactly
this for measuring contributions to open source projects.

site: <http://calendaraboutnothing.com/> blog post announcing it:
<http://techno-weenie.net/2008/10/6/calendar-about-nothing/>

------
alexophile
Not only is this good advice for getting your own things done, but it's good
to keep in mind if you're building an app that helps other people get things
done. When I was writing "full-time" I loved using 750words.com - it's a sort
of freeform journal platform that does a great job implementing measurement-
based incentives like this.

------
rootein
We saw this article around an year ago and it inspired us to build Rootein
<http://rootein.com/> It's a web app, a Facebook app, has a mobile optimized
version, features reminders and Twitter alerts as well. </ShamelessPlug>

------
tlvince
How do you track of multiple tasks/projects with this technique? One calendar
per task? A key/value mapping to replace the cross (e.g. a "G" for every day
you go to the gym)? Simply merging them into one "meta" task? Or does it _just
not work_ for more than one task?

~~~
tlvince
I since stumbled upon Giles Bowkett's variation whereby he uses a colour-coded
horizontal line for each task. I like it. It emphasises the "chain" aspect and
works well within the space constraints.

[http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/02/calendar-win-
rapid-...](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/02/calendar-win-rapid-course-
correction.html)

------
tmcw
This tends to work pretty well - I got into it via Joe's Goals, but got sick
of the interface and tech, so built a command-line tool to do the same kind of
thing - <http://tmcw.github.com/habiter/>

------
VladRussian
similar, yet distinctive approach - especially about when to stop:

[http://www.secondactive.com/2009/08/boost-your-
productivity-...](http://www.secondactive.com/2009/08/boost-your-productivity-
with-hemingways.html) :

"The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what
will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always
stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until
you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it
all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will
kill it and your brain will be tired before you start."

------
6ren
A deep truth, though literally "daily" doesn't work for everything e.g.
weight-training.

~~~
srgseg
I tried this streak method, and I had a bad shoulder for a couple days meaning
I had to break my streak.

And the problem with the streak is that once you break it, you no longer have
an unbroken streak to motivate you to return to the habit. If anything, you
don't want to look at your calendar any more because it hurts to look at the
broken streak.

So disappointingly, the streak calendar is as powerful at demotivating you to
restart the streak as it was at motivating you to continue an unbroken streak.

~~~
6ren
Similar for me. You make me think of a special-purpose calendar, that shows
pairs of days. Then, your streak remains unbroken by just doing it every
second day. One could improvise this, by marking off two days at a time. Could
generalize to _n_ days (e.g. 3 days, or weekly).

The demotivation of an "unbroken streak" is a kind of perfectionism, of noting
what has not been done rather than what has. Interesting, because I think the
idea itself is a way to combat perfectionism, in that Jerry notes done having
written _something_ (not how much).

When it does work, perhaps it works by turning perfection against itself.
Perhaps there is a way to do the same judo trick on the demotivation you note?

------
mannicken
The general time period for building up an addiction, breaking an addiction,
or a habit is three days. After you've done something daily for three days,
you are more likely to continue doing it.

------
dhughes
My productivity pretty much consists that today is not today it's a day two
weeks from today, it's March 12 not Feb 26, if something needs to be done it
should be done "today".

------
xyzzyb
TwoShay has a great writeup of this technique: <http://www.two-
shay.com/articles/habits-calendar>

------
consultutah
This quote was exactly the motivation behind my Unbroken Chain app for iOS:
<http://goo.gl/u4W93>

------
zeteo
If he shares it freely with people he barely knows, it's not a secret. It's
dishonest to call it a "secret" just to bait the headline.

~~~
buckwild
Welcome to the world of marketing and sales :-D

------
Dramatize
I made this poster a while back: <http://dailycheckbox.com>

------
wastedbrains
for those that don't know the awesome Calendar About Nothing tracks your
commits to open source code. The whole goal is to get the longest chain

<http://calendaraboutnothing.com/>

------
galuggus
see the iphone app streaks

and a new site

tasksmash.com

~~~
kloncks
Usually a fervent supporter of technology over anything, but I think I'd
rather have that "huge calendar on the wall with a big red marker" than an
iPhone (or web) app.

It's big. You wake up every day looking at it. And it brings us back in a
connecting way to the real life.

Semi-unrelated: Same reason I'd still rather use a Moleskin to gather and
write out my thoughts and ideas over TextMate, Photoshop, etc.

~~~
guygurari
Streaks has been pretty effective for me; I used it to get myself to meditate
every day. There's a little detail that makes all the difference: The app
shows a badge on its icon that tells you the length of your streak. Skipped a
day? No badge for you.

I put it on the home screen, so I get to see that badge many times a day, much
more often than I would see a physical calendar.

------
TimothyBurgess
Man Jerry Seinfeld is a freaking genius. I'm going to start doing this every
day for multiple habits. Maybe a few different color markers for everything.

This article just changed my life.

Thank you!

------
triggercityFL
So his productivity secret is calendars and Xs? Weak sauce.

