
Ask HN: What's your #1 productivity hack? - lluis_m_ventura
This one works for me &quot;Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored.&quot; from Sam Altman. I take the time each day to prioritize my tasks, meetings, etc.
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kinkora
You probably hear all the usual productivity hacks like promodoro, start with
small things, constantly do it, switch off distractions, etc (which i do too
in some form) but let me tell you an unorthodox technique I came up with that
was inspired by this tweet -
[https://twitter.com/tkiramadden/status/1255516715502522370](https://twitter.com/tkiramadden/status/1255516715502522370)

For me, I don't always have an issue being productive when I am in the zone
but I have a problem of sometimes being unable to "jump-start" into that mode.
Its like the engineers/developers version of a writers block and I get the
occasional mental block when I need to create something.

So what do I do to overcome this?

I gave $1,000 to a really trusted friend and told him, if I dont show him the
thing I want to create by the end of the week, he can give that money to an
organisation that I absolutely against with on principle (think brainwashing)
and hate with my guts.

Boy, it was sure a motivator to my brain on day 5 or 6. :)

~~~
LaundroMat
Ha, I once considered using a variant of that one (don't remember where I read
it) to stop smoking.

I was planning to tell everyone I know that if they could show me a picture of
me smoking after I'd officially quit, I'd give a 1.000€ to the political party
I hated the most.

I quit on my own, but it's nice to see the method works :)

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davidvaughan
For many people, sleep seems to be the #1 productivity booster. Certainly, the
research seems to suggest focus suffers significantly thanks to lack of sleep
- not to mention IQ.

Needless to say there seem to be exceptions - Margaret Thatcher famously coped
with 4 hours a night. It's been suggested that some people's ADRB1 expression
continues while they're awake, which means they need less sleep. However, less
sleep is also associated with dementia late in life.

~~~
sradman
I never heard about the ADRB1 gene before. The expressed protein acts as a
receptor for epinephrine and norepinephrine so it sounds like it plays a key
role in regulating the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. It
makes sense that variations in the gene impact things like sleep and stress.

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TheRealBobDobbs
Kratom, vyvanse and coffee for breakfast! Makes me a relaxed, focused, alert
and efficient force to be reckoned with. As it gets closer to lunch time, I’ll
take a stack of l-theanine, gaba, black seed oil and ashwaghanda to take the
edge off the peak and prepare me for that trip to Pluto I take on my couch
after a couple bong rips at the end of the shift.

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kirubakaran
[https://crushentropy.com/](https://crushentropy.com/) It's like markdown for
planning your day in high resolution. The hours no longer just slip through my
fingers. I made it one weekend a couple of years ago and I've used it myself
ever since. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my productivity has massively
improved because of it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
What part of your days is marked "skim Hacker News"? Is there an entry for
that?

~~~
kirubakaran
Haha it's a struggle. On most days these days, I manage to time-box Hacker
News to about 15 minutes while I have my first cup of a coffee, plus an "as
long as I want" session in the late evening.

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architek1
I would go with keyboard hacks and short keys commands. Specifically, on Mac,
I use Hammerspoon, Karabiner, and Alfred. As we know the amount of time spent
moving, pointing and clicking on repetitive tasks is completely wasted time.
So, if I find myself doing the the same thing for a project or daily. I’ll
make a short key for it. Whether it’s tiling windows, command line (e.g. srbt
= sudo reboot), caps locks into super key/escape key... I’ve made it to where
almost all the keys are able to be accessed from home row using a layer keys.
Think something like SpaceVim for your keyboard.

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jdmoreira
doing it consistently over a long period of time. It took me years to realize
that all nighters and overwork were a big mistake.

What truly works is to show up everyday consistently for years.

Like Bill said, “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and
underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

~~~
jjeaff
I fully agree. This has become my mantra. You need to be relentless over the
long term, but to maintain that, you need to relax over the short term. And by
relax, I just mean, don't stress out, don't go too fast, and don't overdo it.

The parable of the totoise and the hair teaches this succinctly.

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sradman
My killer productivity hack is a combination of three techniques: 1. Pomodoro,
2. GTD (Getting Things Done), and 3. Spaced Repetition Learning.

Pomodoro Technique helps timebox tasks in addition to prioritizing them. Both
are required to stay focused and get into the flow.

~~~
majewsky
> [Pomodoro is] required to stay focused and get into the flow.

Can you elaborate on that? I've been hesitant about trying Pomodoro because it
appears like it would break the flow every 30 minutes.

~~~
RossM
Not OP, but I never got on with forced stops either. I had some success
treating it like a mini-deadline to achieve flow-state - work on something for
25 minutes, and if I don't feel like I want to keep going, take a break and
try again.

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jonnyrockit
Controversial, but get off Hacker News and get to work. Best trick ever.

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AndrewLiptak
In the last year, I wrote a nonfiction book (History of Cosplay, coming
sometime next year, if all goes well), and spend much of last summer
conducting research. When it came time to write, I kept stalling out. What I
ended up doing was shifting the font to Comics Sans, and boom! I ended up
writing quickly and efficiently.

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abendy
I organize everything I know I'll use daily or very often. I take it from the
French kitchen term "Mise en place" [0]. It suits my work style, and think it
will as well for anyone who primarily has a single workstation (I include your
smartphone in that definition, say when in traveling for example). I'm aware
that endlessly organizing can be a time waste, but over time I've learnt to
know when it's enough, to keep moving and execute on ideas or valuable work,
earning an income etc. I can always spend a few minutes re-configuring a
specific set up. Apps have configuration, so should your workstation, and your
operating environment in general.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_place)

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kratom_sandwich
On a meta level, I would say identifying the things that drain your battery
throughout the day (e.g. messy room, slow phone) and the tings that recharge
your battery (e.g. calling a friend, taking the bike to work) and acting
accordingly.

Also, having a nice computer. It's a bicycle for my mind, after all.

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raihansaputra
Not totally life changing, but I have a playlist on Spotify that's roughly a
pomodoro period long (~25 minutes). At the end of the playlist is a song that
is very different to the other songs. I put in effort to not listen to these
songs while not working and to play it when I want to focus. Audio triggers
work for me, and the "break" song can be a great non-distracting time marker.

I have Alfa Mist and BADBADNOTGOOD (idk the genre. fusion jazz? acoustic?) as
the main timer and Linkin Park's Session from Meteora as the time marker.

Here's my playlist if you want a try:
[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CZk671K0M11aNf4LuHFbD?si=...](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CZk671K0M11aNf4LuHFbD?si=Pq-
XyPHkQeGb6w4S5XzgiA)

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xscott
Fear. Nothing got me motivated to finish something like the fear of failing
and the shame that I'd feel as a result. Not my favorite technique, and
probably not what you're looking for, but I'm guessing half of my good
accomplishments at work were based on that.

~~~
m463
A deadline is my #1 productivity hack.

Ever start something literally the night before, and you finish at the last
minute and realize how MUCH better it would be with another day to work on it?

~~~
xscott
Definitely. It's also a really good (if painful) way to decide what things are
actually important to the delivery.

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hackandtrip
I think productivity enhancements are really tightly coupled with the domain
and type of activity you are doing.

For example, as a university student, I noticed that timing the number of
hours I pass on each topic is useful for 1. understanding if I'm doing too
little and fixing it 2. getting the idea where I'm spending most of my time
and trying to adjust accordingly

On the other hand, if the work is more project-based, I find it more difficult
to track time since I find myself switching more often to different things - a
solution I'm employing is writing a little todo list every morning on what I
want to work on and it's working a little better

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kmarc
As I already said here before...

Read through `man bash`. Thank me later :-)

But seriously, just take some time to read through manuals of software you
_really_ use a lot. Like git, vim (or any of your fancypants code editor),
shell, etc.

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aries1980
Hearing protectors. I use a 3M Peltor X5A -31dB and Flare Isolate Pro. Dead
silence, minimal bone hearing.

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ykevinator
This may sound preachy but I don't mean it to be. Turn your phone on dnd and
practice checking it and email from your desktop no more than hourly. Use dnd
on slack.

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rubyron
Something I recently built has helped me stay focused and productive more than
anything I've ever tried:

Timmy ([https://timmytimer.com](https://timmytimer.com)) is a free web app
that combines a Pomodoro timer with social accountability and a leaderboard.
The mix of those elements has been super helpful for me and a lot of other
devs and students.

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azhu
Mental flexibility. Oftentimes, people build their identities on hard and fast
beliefs. These have a way of eliminating entire directions of exploration when
the ingredients that cook into a decision are being gathered. Routinely
refresh your deepest beliefs and your mental architecture will be much, MUCH
more optimal.

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taf2
I drink coffee. Take a deep breath put headphones with noise cancellation
enabled and focus... is it a hack maybe ?

~~~
lluis_m_ventura
It is! :)

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netjiro
Make sure I can go undisturbed for long periods.

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tvalentius
The nature of my work right now requires me to attend a lot of meetings (20+
meetings per-week on average), so what I do is block 2 days in a week for no-
meeting days, which is Wednesday and Friday. I use these no-meeting days as a
time to work on the tasks that require deep work and to get things done.

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vivekd
Exercise at least once every other day. It does wonders for productivity and
focus.

~~~
kmarc
I see this so often. Yet....

I do this. In a good shape, healthy, strong.

I'm a moderately good runner on top of it, all the mental and physical
benefits of it.

Yet, I can squat out the whole day anxiously looking at the time at 5pm just
to realize I haven't delivered anything that day.

~~~
hiq
Would it be worse or better if you stopped exercising?

~~~
kmarc
Wow, that's actually the right question.

Honestly, I don't know. Maybe it would be even worse...

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synthc
the i3 tiling window manager

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_lazyfish
Freedom app has been super useful for me so far

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unicornfinder
Delete Facebook

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nopmat
Master org-mode.

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random_savv
noprocrast: yes

~~~
pestaa
And how many privilage escalation 0days before you have write access to such
system variables?

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gregjor
Wow, a great hack and profound insight. How did no one think of this before
now?

