

How to be productive instead of inane - unalone
http://unalone.net/2008/07/how-to-be-productive-instead-of-inane/

======
biohacker42
_make sure that what you’re doing is worth it_

That's the most important tip for me. I never had trouble with productivity
when working on stuff that mattered. On the other hand, when I'm just a clog
in a huge machine, sitting in the middle of an ocean of cubicles.... I'm
posting here.

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nickb
With the exception of IM (since we're all over, IM's the best way to
communicate), I agree with everything you've said.

In general, the less options the app has, the better. The less you can twiddle
and waste your time on, the better.

~~~
unalone
Yeah. I'm doing some intern stuff for Aviary right now and really, Skype is
the only efficient way to talk back and forth. But for most people, long-
distance communication is not going to happen often, and I didn't think it
necessary to write a more long-winded clarification in the article itself.

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grhino
"You could try to avoid cutting leisure altogether...".

It's an admirable ambition to cut out distractions and focus only on being
productive, but leisure is for relaxing the mind. Even if you don't plan for
leisure, you're gonna engage it anyways. Even if it's something simple like
staring at a dancing flame or watching the clouds pass by.

Separating your productive environment from your fun environment is a good
idea. Now, if only I could eliminate distractions for long enough to do such a
thing...

~~~
unalone
Yeah. Hence what I said about avoiding cold turkey.

Though it also helps if your leisure is something that gets the mind working,
like engaging in debate on a site like this. I've rarely found myself wasting
much time here, thanks to the tight little community. I stop by a few times a
day and then I'm done.

------
Hexstream
Don't use Firefox because most of its add-ons aren't worth it?! Why not just
use Firefox but don't install add-ons then?

~~~
unalone
Because Firefox doesn't offer anything of real advantage beyond add-ons. If
we're not talking open browsing, Opera beats it hand-down feature-wise, and
Safari beats it hands-down design-and-efficiency-wise.

~~~
timcederman
What about usability-wise? Much nicer to use than either Opera or Safari.

~~~
unalone
Safari is by far the most usable. You've got to be joking. And what does
Firefox have in terms of usability that Opera doesn't have?

~~~
timcederman
"Got to be joking." Always a good way to start an argument.

I would say the main two problems I have with Safari and Opera is their
unexpected actions. They are radically different from previous browsers, and
still have strange, divergent keyboard shortcuts, etc. I think the main thing
for me is that neither handles tabs as nicely as Firefox, and for a heavy
user, tabs are everything.

~~~
unalone
I like inciting arguments, as an aside. It means people are more likely to
think during a debate. And that means that there's a better chance of my
learning along the way. this only works in online news sites, of course.

Safari's got a comfortable tabs system - on OS X, anyway. It's got tab
shifting, rearranging for windows, and double-clicking to make an ew tab if
you're too lazy to CMD-Tab it. Though yeah, it's partly a matter of what
you're used to.

------
richtaur
This article just reads as whiny and bitter.

... also it wasted my time. I could have been productive!

~~~
unalone
I'm sorry.

...Though you might have been warned off when you saw links to Maddox, Tucker
Max, and The Angry Drunk in the sidebar.

------
unalone
I think, actually, that HN users need some of these reminders the least. This
is more-or-less a productive community. But I thought some people might enjoy
this article anyway.

~~~
kylec
The article takes unfair stances against Windows/Linux, Firefox, and ad
blocking. However, the last item, "manage your leisure time", is important
enough that the whole article is a net positive. It's important to take time
for leisure, otherwise it creeps into your work time and you end up getting
nothing done.

~~~
unalone
I understand why people use Windows, and I understand why they use Linux. I'm
a big fan of the Linux community, but I laugh at the notion that Ubuntu comes
even close to rivalling OS X. Windows users are a lot less arrogant than
either Linux or Mac users, and so while I'd advise them to switch, I don't
like the constant anti-Windows crusades going on.

Firefox I really dislike. It's better than IE. No doubt about that. But it
progresses with ideas slowly, it's a terribly cluttered browser, I dislike the
idea of building a super-powered web browser, and the developers and the
community are both extremely distasteful. While I'm not not a huge fan of
using Opera myself, it's a much better browser and I absolutely respect the
devteam. And I think that if you genuinely want just a speedy, damn fast web
browser, Safari's the one to pick. It discourages mass fiddling, and that
helps me stay on task a lot.

Ad blocking I'm fine with, but people put such emphasis on it. People who use
AdSense spend more time telling me how great adlessness is that I find myself
wasting more time ignoring them than I do ignoring ads. And, of course, for
Safari the adblockers cost money, and I find that paying to remove ads is just
immensely silly. I mentioned adblockers just because that's a feature that a
lot of people seem to spend their time on.

(Sorry if I write long responses to small statements. It's a bad habit.)

~~~
kylec
I think it's funny that the article discourages installing an ad blocker
because it would take too much time, yet encourages switching operating
systems and browsers without regard to the time it takes to learn a new
system.

As far as ad blockers for Safari, I use
<http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net>, which seems to be completely free and
does a decent job.

~~~
unalone
It's just a little tic that I have: pretty much every conversation site I've
been to, this one included, has a vocal minority that will smatter gobs of
AdBlock vitriol into any conversation. Considering most conversation sites are
a bit of a time-waster anyway, I felt it was prudent to mention.

Thanks for the link, though: I didn't know there was a free adblocker for
Safari. I might check it out. </hypocrisy>

------
Jem
A "this will make you productive" article with a disclaimer that it doesn't
actually apply to everyone because we all have different requirements? Seems a
tad pointless to me.

What do I know though; I'm a Windows/Firefox/Adblock user who listens to
last.fm while answering emails and chatting on IRC.

~~~
unalone
Well, you know, it's kind of true. Depending on what you want to you, you need
radically different things to stay productive.

And that's why I dislike the idea of productivity blogs. They assume there's
some universal standard of being productive, which there isn't. Then, in
search of this standard, they actually tell you to do things that make you far
less productive.

~~~
Jem
Indeed. I don't disagree with the gist of the article. I think that it was
somewhat hypocritical lecturing about productivity weblogs and then writing an
identical entry yourself but you do raise some good points.

Of course, it could all be summarised as "Get off your butt and get on with
your work" but that's nowhere near as interesting to read ;)

~~~
unalone
There was a site called "The secret to productivity" or something, that was
just big black letters that said "CLOSE THIS FUCKING WINDOW AND SO SHIT." It
inspired me so much.

I promise to you that this shall be the last productivity article I ever
write. Unless I find some good Greasemonkey plugins.

------
rufo
Erm... I've wasted far more time fiddling with Linux trying to get it to see
things like the mirrored RAID in my PC than dealing with Windows. (Yes, even
Ubuntu.)

~~~
unalone
I've had the same problems with Ubuntu. I recommend using it if ou're trying
to create a productive work environment solely because of the apps directory.
I feel much less of a need to fiddle when I can download everything from one
small box.

That said, if you want to use Ubuntu to replicate Windows, it's better off
just sticking with Windows.

------
motoko
This post is sloppy, but the core message is good: to be productive, make
something. Preparing to make something doesn't make anything.

~~~
unalone
I tend to rerevise things I write, but this one I liked loose. Another thing I
was writing against (not in terms of content, but in terms of "reasons for
writing" was the overpolished blog post. The sorts of people who pack bits of
advice into tidy little boxes are the ones who are never worth reading.

So consider this more a "rant" than a "post."

------
dschoon
While switching operating systems or avoiding email/IM in the modern workplace
is more than a little unrealistic, the core message is good.

Distraction undermines productivity.

------
mantas
Definitely yes. I started doing some stuff few weeks ago - no rss, (almost) no
im, email twice a day only. And it really helps! Much more than reading
'productivity' blogs ;)

------
babul
So, in summary, don't talk to people or look at things you don't have to and
focus on the task at hand?

------
william42
Is this guy serious?

~~~
unalone
What part doesn't seem serious to you?

I spent two years reading RSS feeds of productivity blogs, trying to take
their good ideas and get them to work for me. Yet, for some reason, I found
that when I stopped trying to be productive and started working on things, my
productivity skyrocketed.

~~~
volida
Well saying that Windows kill productivity is too much I think.

Most of your points refer to someone who can't focus. So the problem is not
Firefox nor Windows nor any music player.

~~~
unalone
I'm very pricky in terms of the items that I use, so for me, not using Windows
fixed a lot. I'm very sensitive to the things that I use: when something
doesn't work logically, I'm just immediately set at edge. And of the three OS
designs (Ubuntu = Linux, in my amateur mind), Windows is the one that most
bombards me with things like that. Ubuntu, for all its I-can't-get-my-audio-
to-work, has a very tight little design, and Macs run just absolutely
beautifully. I've found that the OS I use defines my mentality regarding
productivity. Thought that may be just me.

------
mynameishere
_that sites like Lifehack are absolute bullshit_

Okay, so we start with a neghead tone, which I'll duplicate.

 _OS X is the only operating system designed to actually be productive_

Moron. More _productive_ work has been done on probably any given System 360
installation than every OS X system combined, but don't let that keep the
bullshit from spewing.

 _Don’t use an IM client. I mean, come on._

No, really. _Come on_. Moron.

 _Anything you need to IM somebody for work can be sent more efficiently as
email_

Oh, really? _Come on_. Do you think perhaps that communications that require
high-speed conversation-style back-and-forth responses might be more suitable
for IM than email? And that the quiet, recorded nature of IM might make it
superior to talking? No? Didn't think of those extremely obvious use cases?
No? Jesus Christ.

 _Avoid plugins._

Whoops. I just realized I was reading satire. Please disregard my criticism.
Thanks for wasting my time.

~~~
unalone
-OS X is designed to do whatever you want to do as efficiently as possible. The fact that it lets you do a ton of things can be distracting, but I've found that I never impulsively open up GarageBand while I'm, say, replying to snarky critics.

-I like how you rebut my IM claim twice. It shows that you have a very focused mind.

-Very few essential communications actually REQUIRE back-and-forth responses. And, frankly, I think that the phone is a great way to have discussions. It means actually communicating, which is something a vast amount of people today ignore. I was going to mention using Campfire if you were really going for efficiency, but then I decided that most people just don't care.

-Yeah, because plug-ins really... I mean... plug-ins... Like, what would my life be... without, you know... plug-ins? Man?

So out of five rebuttal points, you attempted to rebut me... never. Nice.
You're a real thinker, you.

