by alexallain on 1/27/19, 3:57 AM with 49 comments
by abainbridge on 1/27/19, 9:01 AM
Of course not.
I've tried working on pet projects for 10 minutes before going to work each day. The problem I find is that while I might only do active work on the task for ten minutes, my brain is thinking about it for much longer.
Spending those ten minutes in the morning reduces my ability to do my day job because I've used up a significant fraction of my day's useful thinking budget. I find I can only sustain these pet projects when my day job is in a boring/easy phase. (This might have something to do with getting older - I'm 42, or it might be because my job isn't boring/easy much these days).
by SingAlong on 1/27/19, 4:46 AM
* Reading: I take my Kindle to the toilet.
* Solve quiz on Brilliant.org during office commute
* Listen to audiobooks before sleep
* When waiting for the next meeting, I read bookmarked articles.
--- My Lessons: ---
* It is very important to stop doing something once I realize I have no more juice.
* My total learning time per day is around 1hr on best days.
* Takes 1hr to reach office. So during cab rides, after a quiz is done (10-15min), I nap.
* When zoned out in and realize I'm doing random wild-wild-internet-reading, I immediately turn tech off. I just talk to people (work or casual chat).
* During times of silence, I observe things around me. I learn new things about stuff that has been around me for a long time. I put these observations to use when I draw (I use Procreate app on iPad). For example: I observed reflections in water and attempted to draw a reflection https://www.instagram.com/p/BrxmF1enz87/
by tapanjk on 1/27/19, 4:46 AM
This sounds like the main takeaway. Even though the direct time spent on an activity may seem small, the total effective time spent on that activity shoots up if it is performed daily (v/s weekly or longer).
by melenaos on 1/27/19, 10:14 AM
To go for an hour in the gym it's much harder because it take +30 mins to commute +15 min to shower. After 1 hour of gym I feel exhausted and I don't want to do it again next day.
But with 10 mins per day, I don't have to convince myself to do it, it's such an easy task and I feel better after doing it. I don't lose my time in commute and I do it every day which is much better than 3 times per week.
Most days I do 10 mins of meditation and with that I have two great habits that takes most 30 min from my time.
by Adamantcheese on 1/27/19, 8:47 AM
by beatgammit on 1/27/19, 5:03 PM
10 minutes seems like not enough time to really get meaningful work done since it often takes me a few minutes to get back into whatever it is.
I think 10 minutes just isn't quite enough time, so I think I'll just include it as a pomodoro internal. I like the idea of forcing myself to do something everyday, so perhaps I'll schedule two small tasks for the internal, and if I'm making really good progress on one, I'll reschedule the other task.
But I definitely like the main idea here, since I often let things languish because I'm worried about them taking too long.
by nefitty on 1/27/19, 5:30 AM
The author has sewn together the concepts of non-zero days, the Seinfeld method plus a tweak to the pomodoro technique and then measured his progress. This could work for anyone, it's a good combination, simple to implement and with a little patience almost certainly leads to powerful results over time.
by klyrs on 1/27/19, 5:45 PM
I uninstalled all of the games from my computer, except one. I embarked on a weird quest in the online game I was playing; which was accomplished by running a daily script on a cron job and effectively shut me out of the game. The game I left on my computer was XCOM: Terror from the Deep -- which I was playing on the hardest mode.
That XCOM game is frikkin impossible. So I hacked the save games, extracting them into spreadsheets. My spouse would ask, "Are you playing the spreadsheet game again?" So that wasn't very engaging for long. I'd get bored and go back to work on my thesis.
All that was a success, in the end. When the content was finished, I spent about a week on minor tweaks. I got sick of that, and turned my thesis in two weeks before the deadline. And to be honest... once we got internet hooked up, all my bad habits came flooding back. sigh
by LawnboyMax on 1/27/19, 4:39 AM
by maheart on 1/27/19, 12:06 PM
On an unrelated note, like the author, I also keep track of how much time I've spent on these FOSS projectss. But it's disheartening to see how much time I've spent on FOSS, and while I have users (they want support/features :) -- potential employers spend almost no time looking at my work, but will still ask me to spend hours on their tech challenges (averaging ~20 hours per challenge).
by ocdtrekkie on 1/27/19, 8:00 AM
When I fall off of the routine, sometimes I have a gap in working on my code for months.
by a-saleh on 1/27/19, 10:39 AM
It kinda worked when I was attempting to write a blog, but even then I never really figured out how to make the routine stick and often it took me half of the designated time to even start writing.
This time-to-start was even worse when programming.
Well, one day!
by Tempest1981 on 1/27/19, 6:43 PM
> The other thing that really helped is that I didn’t allow myself to check my email until I worked on the book.
by nevster on 1/27/19, 11:48 AM
by jungletime on 1/27/19, 5:09 PM
by pacomerh on 1/27/19, 6:38 AM
by roryisok on 1/27/19, 4:36 PM
I do find myself shower-coding most days, but I never talk to people about it. There's never anyone else in the shower.