I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

https://simonberens.me/blog/i-hired-5-people

by sberens • 3 years ago

286 315 3 years ago

simonberens.me

germanNitro• 3 years ago

haha amazing there's gotta be an easier way to say productive

sberens9• 3 years ago

In terms of productivity per dollar probably, but in terms of absolute productivity I doubt it.

waynesonfire3• 3 years ago

Maybe delegating to them instead of paying them to watch you.

lostlogin• 3 years ago

Depends if you’re optimising society or optimising an individual.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

You can't delegate software engineering to a rando off Craigslist, especially if you're an employee. (If you're a contractor and your contract allows you to do that it's just irresponsible, if not, it's a fireable offense.)

ruborcalor• 3 years ago

How do you think this compares to coworking?

sberens9• 3 years ago

I feel it's hard to achieve consistency with coworking; I never had enough overlap with a friend's schedule to make a meaningful impact on my productivity. I actually made a tool (before the experiment) to try to coordinate coworking between a group of people, but it never took off.

phphphphp• 3 years ago

Pick any WeWork in a populated city and you'll find people there 24/7 and at least a few of them as will be kooky enough to engage in this performative nonsense (I say that mostly without judgement). Or pick any office building, really, because they'll have 24/7 security who do nothing but sit and watch movies or listen to podcasts. There's an entire world of people bored out of their damn minds in boring office buildings all night, and you wouldn't need to do things like schedule.

popotamonga• 3 years ago

I already have people in slack asking hows it going or is it done yet the whole time. incentive enough

waynesonfire3• 3 years ago

And standups

twelve406• 3 years ago

so especially for you he emphasizes throughout this is for his personal projects, even if it's fiction

Xeoncross• 3 years ago

This is fascinating, bravo for trying different things and sharing about it! Now I'm wondering if there can be a human or AI that can sit on calls for me so I can be working during the meetings where I'm just there in case higher ups have a question.

colechristensen• 3 years ago

I tend to do the dishes and laundry on those kinds of calls.

DaviNunes• 3 years ago

This reminds me of "This Guy Hired Someone To Slap Him In The Face Every Time He Got On Facebook" https://www.businessinsider.com/this-guy-hired-someone-to-sl...

strgrd2• 3 years ago

This comment reminds me of reddit, where people feel like reading a headline warrants a comment without actually reading the article

hutzlibu3• 3 years ago

(for context, in the article you could read, the story linked above, was the inspiration for this experiment)

khazhoux• 3 years ago

Why do you think he didn't read the article? There is clearly a strong similarity between the OP and the article he posted.

protoman3000• 3 years ago

I’m startled about what to say.

Did you try Buddhism?

eddsh19945• 3 years ago

What do you mean about buddhism?

busyant• 3 years ago

Universal Summarizer was making the rounds on HN recently (https://labs.kagi.com/ai/sum) and when I clicked on the link here (I hired 5 people), I decided I didn't want to read so much text.

So, in keeping with Simon Berens' theme of increasing productivity (or at the very least, increasing the throughput of my procrastination), here is a summary:

https://labs.kagi.com/ai/sum?url=https://simonberens.me/blog...

jnwatson• 3 years ago

That’s a fantastic summary.

suddenclarity• 3 years ago

Somehow this is a decent example to highlight the weaknesses of summaries. For example, all context about the challenges, the missing assistant and how he massaged the data is excluded. It sort of says the same thing but still misses everything.

layer8• 3 years ago

It’s missing all the weirdness of the original.

strgrd2• 3 years ago

This is unhinged

mjfisher• 3 years ago

This is a really interesting experiment, and the author did a great job of breaking it down and quantifying it.

I do wonder how much a measure of "productive time vs unproductive time" corresponds to actual outcomes though; it's very different than knowing you've spent that time on the right things.

sberens9• 3 years ago

I agree I don't know if I spent time on the best thing, but in general I think the things I classified as productive (writing, coding, fitness, etc...) are much better than the unproductive things (social media, youtube, hn, etc...).

da39a3ee• 3 years ago

I hope this is satire. If it is not, then the author is a disgusting narcissist with no understanding of people or of human dignity. It's very depressing that HN readers are genuinely responding with approval and encouragement.

netsharc• 3 years ago

There's a lot of negative comments here too. Funnily enough (from the article):

When I woke up, I put the finishing touches on a blog post I had started earlier in the week and published it. It hit the #1 spot on Hacker News; I couldn’t stop myself from constantly refreshing the post as it got more upvotes while chuckling at the classic Hacker News hate comments.

danesparza• 3 years ago

I'm sorry it's depressing. I think that just makes you older and wiser (and probably indicates you have different blind spots in your life compared to these commenters)

resource0x• 3 years ago

I looked into some other blog posts of the author - this is not satire. Something is seriously wrong with the guy. His parents have to convince him to seek medical attention.

HDThoreaun3• 3 years ago

Misguided sure, but disgusting? Nothing he did was disgusting. There's nothing undignified about being paid $20/hr to watch someone work, people do far worse for far less everyday.

rogers12• 3 years ago

I see a few comments responding with sputtering outrage. Could you explain why you experience such a reaction?

barry-cotter2• 3 years ago

He’s violating social scripts. That’s it. You’re not going to get any arguments without obvious counter examples that these people would let pass by without comment.

darth_avocado2• 3 years ago

I like how he concluded that $88 per extra productive hour is worth it and more people should consider it.

Here’s other ways you could introduce productivity: 1. Hire house cleaners @400/month for a large house to come in twice a month. 2. Get a grammarly or similar subscription @60/month to write documents faster 3. Personal trainer 2 days a week for $60/session 4. A dietitian for weekly sessions @100/session (you could also do virtual sessions with people abroad for a lot cheaper if you want) 5. $200/session for a monthly career coach

The list goes on and any of these would help you more than just the additional productivity. Interesting experiment though.

fho• 3 years ago

Just what you listed comes out to USD 1540 a month ... which (here in Germany) is more than half of what an average software developer earns [1].

[1] https://platri.de/informatiker-gehalt/

darth_avocado2• 3 years ago

Right I wasn’t suggesting you do all of the above. Plus in Germany, those costs are lower.

Johnny555• 3 years ago

Still a bargain compared to paying someone $20/hour for 16 hours/day 30 days a month, which would be $9600/month

eddsh19945• 3 years ago

Personal trainer 2 days a week for $60/session

Can't wait to leave Palo Alto where a personal trainer is way closer to $200 than $60 per hour. $120 a week for a PT is great.

jstx1• 3 years ago

This is one of the reasons why I'm more productive when I work from an office and not from home.

searchableguy• 3 years ago

Have you tried an entirely remote version of this?

I imagine someone could build an effective AI with face to watch over you to increase productivity/$ spent but it wouldn't have a physical presence.

sberens9• 3 years ago

I have not, but I'm looking at doing it down the line! One thing that I would miss is the homecooked meals; I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed them.

jsmeaton• 3 years ago

Any plans to start dedicating more time to cooking for yourself? You seem to think that working out is productive time would you consider eating well and spending time cooking to be productive?

trynewideas• 3 years ago

For context on the reference, Focusmate is $7/month. Just FWIW.

vuckin• 3 years ago

This is incredibly bizarre, to the point where I wonder if this isn't just a creative writing exercise.

Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day?

Why did he think the best way to deal with this was to hire a group of babysitters?

Why was he being so weird to his assistants?

It just doesn't add up. The whole thing is so damn strange.

Maybe this is an experiment on the readers of his article, to see how we will react to something on the borders of credibility.

sberens9• 3 years ago

Related the being productive 16 hours a day, I enjoyed this blog post by Dan Luu: https://danluu.com/productivity-velocity/

anonymoushn• 3 years ago

Achieving a lot per time spent working seems unrelated to achieving a lot of time spent working per day. Are you sure your comments are written by a human rather than a LLM?

4gotunameagain• 3 years ago

I hope that it is a parody of what the modern western manboy™ has become, otherwise it is a bitter window to the state of affairs of the west.

Apocryphon8• 3 years ago

I’d say it’s also the perfect marriage between the gig economy and techbro hyper-optimized productivity.

bspammer• 3 years ago

The whole time I was reading, all I could think of was this video.

https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U

granshaw2• 3 years ago

Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day?

Yeah after reading the post I’m like this guy must be a founder to value productivity so highly… NOPE, just works at Meta!

EDIT: Oh wait, he DID also start a company, during the experiment in fact, but of course it’s in stealth mode!

Can’t make this stuff up…

pcthrowaway3• 3 years ago

Wouldn't hiring people to sit behind you and watch you work be a breach of contract?

iamleppert• 3 years ago

Facebook will catch wind of this and add him to the next layoffs spreadsheet, for sure.

xyzelement• 3 years ago

I get it...

//Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day

When you are shooting for an outcome, you want to make sure you are working on it. Productivity is the means not the end.

// Why did he think the best way to deal with this...

I can relate. I am reasonably successful/ productive, but I am exponentially more successful and productive when focused. But focus is hard. If hiring someone to focus me was practical, why not?

barbarr• 3 years ago

He is into effective altruism.

braingenious• 3 years ago

Why does he feel the need to be 'productive' for 16 hours a day?

Dude wanted to hit the front page of HN so he wrote the most unhinged productivity porn he could muster.

I do not believe these events actually transpired.

windowshopping• 3 years ago

The bit about Rachel is truly the classic Craigslist experience. Anyone who's dealt with strangers through Craigslist would find this a very familiar type of strangeness.

12345hn6789• 3 years ago

I honestly cannot believe this. The porn part, the make me a smoothie request, dating dinners.

This guy seriously paid people to sit behind him and didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors until after the fact?

He didn't try blocking any non productive sites? No productivity software? No pomadoro technique-esq focus methods?

This guy should have paid $88/hour for therapy if we are being honest here

sberens9• 3 years ago

Therapy would take away productive time :)

I did actually use my own custom built productivity tools to block websites[0], and I used ActivityWatch[1] to track my time.

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webblock/jeahkphmd...

[1] https://activitywatch.net/

sam1r• 3 years ago

Did you ever consider building your own custom tools?

Or based on the ones custom you described aforementioned, which features or tools do you wish you had on top of it?

Just curious, and I respect the setup thus far.

viraptor• 3 years ago

Therapy would take away productive time :)

I'm not sure if that's a joke, or not. But if you sincerely mean it - I put it away for years and now I feel like an idiot for wasting a lot of my time fighting rather than actually addressing my issues. This would've been the most productive time investment I could've done a decade earlier.

chrisandchris2• 3 years ago

I think, it's quite obvious where the "productivity" goes:

In the morning session, I did yoga, went to the gym, started two blog posts, and did some work for my job.

If it's the 5th you mention, it's just not that important?

philosopher12345• 3 years ago

Therapy would take away productive time :)

1 hr a week for most people. Give up 1 of your 100 unproductive hours instead lol.

hutzlibu3• 3 years ago

While working out your data, have you considered, that you were basically doing a long sprint?

Meaning, I am pretty sure, your effective productivity would have declined after the month, with assistants, or not. And that you got Covid, might be a clear sign of that.

SanjayMehta• 3 years ago

Yoga takes away "productive time" too.

jonathanyc2• 3 years ago

I clicked on the "About" page and learned that the author is 21. For a minute that made the experiment make more sense. Then it stopped making sense again.

Sakos3• 3 years ago

I'm more confused by these comments. Like, he's 21. This is an interesting experience and a great story to tell. Sounds like money well-spent and I'm glad he's experimenting in unusual ways. That's what makes life interesting and worth living. Some of my most memorable and valuable memories stem from bad decisions or experimenting with different ideas that might be dumb.

Some of you need to touch grass.

simultsop• 3 years ago

Life hitting me with a brick.

d0zome• 3 years ago

The scant photos in the blog post are not convincing enough for me. I'm calling it fake.

moffkalast• 3 years ago

You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies? Smh, what a world.

sberens9• 3 years ago

I wish I was good enough of a fiction writer to fake this :/

twelve406• 3 years ago

I don't care either way actually, it was weird, fun to read and kind of thought-provoking

SunghoYahng2• 3 years ago

Some people don't respond to any treatment. I am one of them. If I were rich, I'd be the one writing and posting about this topic.

1270018080• 3 years ago

If he did that, then this blog and the clicks he is getting wouldn't exist.

Aaronmacaron• 3 years ago

He's got a 'Date Me' button on his website which takes you to a Google Form where you can apply to be his girlfriend. I can't decide if this makes the blog post more or less believable. Could it be that he's just a satirical character and doesn't really exist?

tryauuum3• 3 years ago

holy fuck it's smart

Aperocky• 3 years ago

This is in line with the content of the blog post and make me believe it is real. Author may have certain degrees of narcissistic personality, but I am no doctor or psychiatrist.

noduerme3• 3 years ago

The "apply to date me" form is something I've seen done in the past by female influencers (or whatever it's called when the line between influencer and sugarbaby is blurred). Everyone's hustling these days. The money flow seems to still go in the same old direction where man flaunts wealth and woman flaunts beauty (not saying this to be sexist; I wish it weren't so, but here we are). It's crude and distasteful and transparent and makes you think about all the animal display bullshit that still goes into the propagation of our species, but not really any more or less so than a DJ saying "hey babe, come over and check out my record collection".

lofaszvanitt• 3 years ago

He is a psycho.

tacotacotaco• 3 years ago

Maybe I’m too cynical but it just seems performative. It seems like any number of YouTube videos where some financially well off influencer spends their money doing something awkward to attract views. And it worked. Here we are gawking at the latest stunt. Like and subscribe. Don’t forget to smash that bell. Check out my patreon for access to my Discord.

fragmede2• 3 years ago

Oh no! The person I'm watching wanted to be watched!

Wait, what?

cactusplant7374• 3 years ago

This is a guy that has a "Date Me" link on his website that links to a google form. He seems quite unique.

throwaway6753092• 3 years ago

Yeah, I had the same impression after reading the blog post, it very much felt like a performance art piece rather than a practical experiment with any quantifiably measurable takeaway since there's no way this would be very financially sustainable as an actual applicable solution to the problem.

I think he could've saved a great deal of money by just going into a collaborative workspace environment.

jasmer• 3 years ago

Definitely performative, but even in that context still kind a fun.

thdespou3• 3 years ago

The only thing missing is a clickbaity thumbnail.

LegitShady• 3 years ago

He's got effective altruism and defi in his about me page - if he isn't a made up character he might as well be.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

"Date me" pages are actually quite popular in the effective altruist community, so this makes me update against him being a fictional character.

dan-robertson2• 3 years ago

The article strikes me as an amount of weirdness within the normal range for ‘rationalism’ people.

And the guy literally links to a website-blocker he develops.

I guess his being weird doesn’t particularly bother me. I liked that the post was frank and (seemingly) honest. Doing that sort of experiment and writing about it seems basically fine to me. Maybe he’ll be able to contrast it with other things, like maybe having one extra hour of productive work is worse than using the same amount of hours more productively by eg avoiding blunders.

travisjungroth2• 3 years ago

I doubt this 0%. I’ve hired people just to help me focus and also to help with chores. To me, this is someone with the same job in the same city as me just taking what I’ve done two steps further. Literally nothing in that post is unbelievable to me, including the behavior of the people he hired.

In the first paragraph he did mention tools for focusing, saying he went as far as making his own.

capableweb2• 3 years ago

I’ve hired people just to help me focus and also to help with chores

But were those people the same? Usually have have one type of person for each purpose, one psychologist/therapist to help you figure out why you can't focus and then one cleaner that helps you keep a tidy house.

mindslight• 3 years ago

The idea seems decently self-aware to me. All the systems and techniques in the world can't compensate for poor discipline, and social accountability is a strong pull.

The porn thing was most likely a generic "mind your own business" non-response. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBE4262nxkE

SMAAART• 3 years ago

Don't let the truth come in the way of a goods blog post that makes it to the front page of HN.

eertami• 3 years ago

didn't even think about them stealing his $1000 monitors

They would be doing him a favour I think, considering the complete crime against ergonomics that monitor setup is.

drewrv• 3 years ago

I’m certain she wasn’t actually watching porn. It’s a pretty common joke answer to say “porn” when someone asks what you’re browsing and you don’t want to share.

The fact that the author seems to take it as genuine adds to the bizarre nature of this blog post though!

dosethree• 3 years ago

yep. An awkward terrible joke to cover up whatever she was doing - social media, messaging, or looking up her employer

greenrd18• 3 years ago

I’m certain she wasn’t actually watching porn.

I think you're too certain about that. She has no responsibilities other than some occasional chores and keeping an eye on what he's doing. Maybe she thought looking at porn surreptitiously would be OK, on that basis. And I'm going to anticipate the "but women don't watch porn!" objection and counter with - no, some do. E.g. some bisexual women, some trans women...

With her comment about "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" it's also possible she was trying to seduce him at the start and was sexually frustrated when he didn't pick up on that...

jmcqk6• 3 years ago

Where are you finding therapy for $88/hour?

dinobones• 3 years ago

So... This is what the adderall shortage has come to?

unity1001• 3 years ago

He could have contacted his hood's local adderall mafia - like in the series Silicon Valley...

usefulcat2• 3 years ago

I have an endlessly growing list of projects I want to make, books I want to read, and skills I want to learn, so productivity means a lot to me!

If it really meant a lot, it wouldn't be a challenge to actually do it. It sounds like the real problem is a lack of interest in the particular books, skills, etc.

Apocryphon8• 3 years ago

I think there’s something to that. It could be that there’s no immediate interest, i.e. everything is tantalizing but roughly equally so, so they cancel each other out and all simply exist as vague desires rather than actual goals.

philosopher12345• 3 years ago

This sounds like a complex way of maintaining an identity as interested in things that are not actually interesting.

matthewfcarlson• 3 years ago

I somewhat identify with this. I have dozens of things I want to do and if I get started on something, I can happily work on it until 2-3 in the morning, even though I usually go to bed at 11. It’s the getting started on something that takes so much effort.

jmckib• 3 years ago

I have the same problem. For me what helps is having a schedule, you do your thing at a certain time automatically every day, which seems to lower the activation energy. For one-off tasks it helps to set myself a reminder that I intend to do whatever it is at a certain time.

But I still struggle with this for sure. I could always use more advice myself.

HDThoreaun3• 3 years ago

TikTok will always release more dopamine than doing basically anything else I can do. That doesn't mean I'm uninterested in doing other things, it just means tiktok has succeeded in optimizing content that immediately releases dopamine.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

The good thing about my type of ADHD is I get addicted to things and then lose interest in them. TikTok is no longer exciting for me now, now that I am just using it for live DJs and checking out the videos my best friend shares with me and not much else. Got addicted to Reddit and then Twitter for years but now my Twitter addiction has largely been replaced with Manifold Markets. The key is to find balance, or to impose a rule on yourself that you only go to the problematic site a little bit unless you have spare time, or to find something else more exciting.

Bjartr• 3 years ago

If it really meant a lot, it wouldn't be a challenge to actually do it.

Dear god I wish this were true. You have no idea. Hell, I would pay good money right this second to make it true for myself.

One of the major struggles of ADD is having things you actually care about being challenging to do. Doesn't matter how important, your brain just says "nope".

I struggle with this constantly. Things I truly care about, or which are exceedingly important are a huge uphill battle just to put any effort at all towards them.

In general in the replies here there are a lot of people who aren't aware that other people might experience life differently from them.

loganc23422• 3 years ago

I couldn’t have said any of this better myself.

Things I truly care about, or which are exceedingly important are a huge uphill battle just to put any effort at all towards them.

This is the sentence that hit the hardest for me. I’ve been struggling with this since before I can remember and it frustrates me to no end. The worst part to me isn’t even being less productive than I want to be, it’s my brain sometimes not even letting me do things that bring me joy, like spending time with my family or indulging in hobbies. Anything but what I want to be doing is what my brain wants to do.

usefulcat2• 3 years ago

I mean no disrespect to sufferers of ADD, or for that matter anyone who finds it difficult to do anything which is 'important' to them. I too have many things that I wish I had done that I think would be very worthwhile but which, for whatever reason, I haven't.

What I have observed repeatedly is that the best way to tell what is actually important to a person (myself very much included!) is to ignore what they say and look at what they actually do and don't do. That's where my comment was coming from--not a glib dismissal, but an invitation for frank introspection.

Often the things we want to be important to us are different from the things that are actually important, and it can be difficult to even be aware of that difference.

throwaway6753092• 3 years ago

Agreed, it reminds me of when people say "I've always wanted to learn <Insert foreign language here>". If you really wanted to learn Spanish, you'd learn Spanish.

twelve406• 3 years ago

there is nothing wrong with saying that. With all the things that must be done in adult life, learning a language is a luxury akin to getting a rare delicate plant or something. Maybe the person saying this will actually follow through when they retire, you never know.

nivenkos• 3 years ago

Alternate title: Wealthy gringo discovers domestic servants.

Keyframe2• 3 years ago

Also reads a bit like American Psycho 2.0 (or 3.0 NFT edition)

thrownaway89865• 3 years ago

Also reads a bit like American Psycho

My thoughts exactly.

I read this part using Patrick Bateman's voice in my head:

"The rest of the experiment continued in a similar fashion (albeit less hectic), with me doing yoga and working out in the morning, working my job, working on my company, reading books, doing my UI/UX course, writing blog posts, working on some side projects, all interspersed with ping pong and breakdancing classes."

thdespou3• 3 years ago

I think you will find this relevant https://youtu.be/uHt01D6rOLI

Apocryphon8• 3 years ago

I could’ve sworn I read a similar article to this years ago, except it was only one person hired to keep the author on track.

This one!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661940

hownottowrite• 3 years ago

I’m not sure what’s more shameful: the fact that this might have happened or that it is on the front page of HN.

birdyrooster2• 3 years ago

We have morbid variety of intrigue

trh0awayman• 3 years ago

This and things like FocusMate seem symptomatic of much larger, more serious latent problems. It reminds of the younger generations having to put YouTube on to eat a meal. I can't quite put my finger on the connection, but paying a person sit behind you and ask how you're doing, and make you a smoothie... it feels like you're hiring someone to be your mother. This entire experiment left me feeling unclean.

drivers99• 3 years ago

ADHD body doubling is a productivity strategy used by individuals with ADHD to finish possibly annoying jobs while having another person beside them. This person is the body double. The body double's duty is to keep the individual with ADHD focused on the task at hand to reduce potential distractions.

— add.org google extract

Sounds like a legitimate strategy.

mtgentry• 3 years ago

My thought as well. People with ADHD will appreciate the experiment. Productivity tools may help some people, but there’s something about having people in the room that greatly amplifies productivity for me.

beezlebroxxxxxx• 3 years ago

The loss of "public life" in NA is a fairly well documented phenomenon. Putnam's Bowling Alone was a famous warning shot that we never quite reacted to. For a whole host of reasons, many people nowadays, and especially many young people, are lonely in a way and scale that is hard to imagine 50 or 60 years ago.

Btw this doesn't just include young people. People needing youtube on to eat is just another variation on needing the TV on. I know and have read about some elderly people that keep the weather channel or 24hr news on all day out of sheer loneliness. Across the board people are just lonely in numbers that lead it could be called an epidemic by many health and mental health organizations.

This experiment left me feeling unclean for a different reason: this person essentially just hired a retinue of servants.

strikelaserclaw• 3 years ago

social media is the mcdonalds of feeling like you have a community, it robs individuals of the drive to go out and make real connections.

nvarsj• 3 years ago

This has got to be satire, right?

isoprophlex2• 3 years ago

Chop wood. Carry water.

Just do the work, or don't.

This is some bullshit.

Apocryphon8• 3 years ago

There’s something to be said that manual labor is probably less anxiety-inducing or at least less easy to shirk than abstract work.

k__• 3 years ago

I love procrastinate my "abstract work" with "manual labour".

Somehow it's more obvious that it will yield results (at all) and soon.

nickjj• 3 years ago

I think in a lot of cases manual labor is extremely ironed out because the workflow is defined before the work is done.

    - Pick up shovel
    - Move dirt from pile A to pile B

There's not much else to think about, you do it and you know you're doing the right thing so there's no opportunities to second guess yourself into not doing it.

Compare that to a vague action of "build xyz app". There's a million things to think about and you can easily talk yourself out of it because maybe you're doing what you think is the wrong thing (note: the "what you think" is a really important phrase here).

But if you break that down to "open up code editor" and "design user registration page" that at least starts to get less vague. Eventually you get into precise actionable tasks like "create user model with an email, password and username" which you can start progressing on without much distraction.

CuriousCosmic• 3 years ago

This isn't really helpful. I have ADHD and it's been a major limiting factor in my life. I have things I want or need to do and I'll easily spend 3-4x as long as the tasks actually end up taking just trying to do them.

Unless my brain happens to be "in the mood for work", the only way I can get things done is by being in a structured "you must do X now" kind of environment. Doubly so since shifting gears from something you are focused on to something new is essentially impossible.

It is shitty and stressful being forced to run 100% towards artificially imposed deadlines that I'm always just barely late for but unless I do that, I will never make progress regardless of how much I actually want to do the work. And this really hurts me for burnout as I constantly feel like a failure for not meeting deadlines that I knowingly set to be nearly impossible. So I'm stuck in a balance between not being able to do work because I'm not running against an impossible clock or feeling like a failure for not beating said impossible clock.

Even worse is the reality that if I start to recognise that the constraints I've placed are artificial or have consequences I control, any help they provide falls apart. So it's a constant struggle to find new, increasingly ratcheted constraints for myself so I can continue to do the things I enjoy or even basic day to day personal or work related tasks.

Because of this, I 100% get the author. I couldn't see myself doing what they did but the thought process makes complete sense to me. I'm practically doing the same thing but using friends, coworkers, or technology to do it, even if they aren't necessarily in the same room as me.

tronicdude• 3 years ago

Based king

TheLoafOfBread• 3 years ago

Absolutely. He identified a problem and figure out solution. The True Hacker among us. How can us, mere mortals, even come close to such unorthodox out of the box thinking?

tyfighter• 3 years ago

This is much more mental illness than productivity.

tiagod• 3 years ago

Well fuck. This is definitely the weirdest thing I've read this year. I doubt something will dethrone it before the end of the year.

isoprophlex2• 3 years ago

I miss updates on n-gate.com

They'd have a field day with this.

arein3• 3 years ago

I check the website from time to time. Hope it will start posting again.

vl• 3 years ago

First rule of n-gate you can’t talk about it on HN. Now we both broke the rule.

But honestly, his last updates stopped being fun. It became just too repetitive.

piazz• 3 years ago

sincerely hoping this is satire

siva72• 3 years ago

nah sorry that one is real

ianmcgowan• 3 years ago

It reads like the script for the Krazam "The Hustle" video: https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U, but over several weeks instead of one day.

rey0927• 3 years ago

ritalin is cheaper and more effective

888666• 3 years ago

This is very interesting, but this doesn't seem like a good thing to me. We don't need to be productive all the time. As he mentions, he had little time to introspect; I much prefer having downtime where I can stop and think for a while or run into something new and interesting within highly curated social media. If this truly made him happy, then good for him, but I would put more effort into being comfortable with being "unproductive" as long as my needs are being sufficiently met.

nickphx• 3 years ago

In my ~20 years of mashing buttons, I've found the primary driver of 'productivity' has been my interest in the problem/project/task. The skinner box comment gave me a hearty chuckle.

kodisha• 3 years ago

Is there a saas/browser plugin where you enter a name and then it alerts you if this name shows up in any hiring emails/slack conversation/twitter browsing?

Asking for a friend ;)

voakbasda• 3 years ago

Maybe curate a list of such names? One that can only be viewed using dark mode?

typhonius• 3 years ago

I use google alerts for this exact reason: https://www.google.com/alerts

steele• 3 years ago

Before I clicked I had expected a satirical humor piece about helicopter management and interruption work culture. What a sad realization as I read through it... that it was both serious, and somehow worse than what I expected this to lampoon at the same time.

anonymous344• 3 years ago

This must be lies and made up story. i mean the guy is not even making real work

darcys22• 3 years ago

I think the traditional way of doing this is just to make a team you work with.

Working solo with a fake “manager” is probably less productive then hiring a team member and sitting in the same room while they work for you

greenrd18• 3 years ago

No, that doesn't work. It has to be a person whose job is specifically to watch you. A coworker or a subordinate - that's not their job. And frankly that would be inappropriate for them to do that, especially if they were a subordinate.

dasil0032• 3 years ago

The obliviousness to the human element and power dynamics here is shocking. It would be one thing for an eccentric billionaire to do something like this; it would feel sort of par for the course and understandable that they don't really have to answer to anyone there's no downside in letting it all hang out. But a 21-year-old Meta engineer with big ambitions? It's sort of mind-boggling.

wuiheerfoj• 3 years ago

I‘m sure the assistants were happy to earn some easy, casual money - far more demeaning or difficult jobs pay a lot worse.

One assistant expressed interest in the experiment and honestly I’d have been open to helping a friend do this for science

philosopher12345• 3 years ago

You spent this entire comment shutting down self reflection. Bit weird.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

The bar for what is considered "problematic power dynamics" among the woke and/or left seems to be getting lower and lower.

Recently I've seen the claim that a meetup organiser shouldn't flirt with meetup attendees, because reasons... power differentials I guess? The idea that a fully-grown woman should be capable of noticing a power differential and making her own decision as to whether to enter into a relationship, with that in mind, didn't seem to have occurred to the poster.

But this really takes the cake. Someone is paid to sit at a desk with their laptop and do virtually nothing for >= 5 hours and cook at a basic level for <= 3, and that's problematic according to you? Dude that's like the easiest job in the world, if you can cook (I can't, but that's besides the point). And she can use her laptop so it's not even like she's going to be bored to death (and if she is, she should quit, simple, problem solved).

If he was the one "watching porn" then yeah, but it was one of his assistants! Or maybe she was joking.

I also note that there was not even a hint of flirting or "problematic" sexual/romantic behaviour from him in this account, so any problems in that arena would mostly likely originate from your own imagination.

dasil0032• 3 years ago

You're bringing your own axe to grind to this conversation. I did not say anything was "problematic" nor do I believe anyone's agency was infringed upon here. Frankly, it's much weirder than that.

throw14082020• 3 years ago

I really enjoyed this article because it was funny. The critical comments make it even funnier. Thanks for writing, sberens!

Now I wonder if I should get an assistant too: come in at 11AM for 2 hours: make lunch, do some cleaning and perhaps some tedious phone calls every day. And maybe a mini stand up.

gms7777• 3 years ago

The not-completely-bonkers version of this is called "body doubling". Especially for people with ADHD and other executive function disorders, just being in someone else's presence can be hugely beneficial for productivity. There are several body doubling apps out there that virtually pair you with people while you're working.

birdyrooster2• 3 years ago

Working Discord channels have worked well for me. When you share your screen and you are in a room with other people working it adds some level of motivation.

siva72• 3 years ago

Whenever the writers for "Silicon Valley" seek inspiration, i'm sure they're filling entire seasons straight from HN

SunghoYahng2• 3 years ago

What a great idea. I've been grappling with low productivity for 20 years, trying various solutions without success. I would love to emulate your approach, but don't have the means at present. Regardless, I'm eager to observe the outcome of your experiment, with hopes of replicating it in the future. Don't pay attention to detractors, as tackling productivity is a critical concern and worthy of pursuing with determination. Individuals who don't support or comprehend your experiment likely lack the same productivity challenges or are just mediocre.

urbandw311er• 3 years ago

I think the people who don’t support his experiment can probably justify their reasons for themselves without you insulting them.

mensetmanusman2• 3 years ago

Make the same Craigslist add but with $2/hr as a salary and increase it until you get applicants.

eddsh19945• 3 years ago

What sort of productivity challenges do you face that need $9,600 a month and five bodies to fix it?

dan-robertson2• 3 years ago

Somewhat related: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best but quite a different idea to this one.

zachwill• 3 years ago

Interesting read! Crazy that it was basically 3x increase/decrease in productive hours. Wouldn't try this myself, but found it interesting nonetheless @sberens.

RektBoy2• 3 years ago

As I saw his schedule with girls names I knew this will be a fun shii. I can imagine not mentioned interviews part, some guy shows up, sorry we're not a good fit, yeah right hahaha.

freitzkriesler2• 3 years ago

I like how this guy posted this twice in the same week.

dqpb• 3 years ago

Wow, what a creepy dude.

Mustache• 3 years ago

I'm not sure why there so many negative comments. I work from home for myself and I can say not having a boss to report to makes it easier to get bogged down in non productive tasks. When I used to go to an office and had a manager there was always that external pressure to get things done. I have to constantly remind myself to be productive and not spend time on time wasting websites so I can see how just knowing someone is watching would make you more productive. I remember a few years ago there was a website where you could be on a webcam with someone else while you both worked, sort of a productivity buddy type thing. Kudo's to the author for trying something new and sharing it with everyone. I think that's brave especially with all the keyboard critics in the world.

tomdekan2• 3 years ago

I agree. The amount of negativity on this post is bizarre. If you don’t like something informative that someone has written, ignore it.

I really enjoyed the post and found it useful.

boneitis• 3 years ago

Yes, I also find the overall cold reception unfortunate.

I'm enthusiastic about the topic and appreciated TFA, and I felt like most the people ripping on it here were just a couple steps away from turning their (IMO) unconstructive criticisms to constructive ones.

And yes, as it has been pointed out: a lot of the parameters had him practically crossing over into hiring servants, and I felt like it deeply undermined some aspects of the experiment, although I guess the main goal was just to strictly see increased work output as a fun experiment.

I would have found the experiment more interesting if the warm bodies were hired a little more strictly for accountability purposes in helping the author stay on task not only for work but also with tending to the basic Maslow tasks, especially in the area of home-cooked meals (or just sticking with ordering out/delivery if that is what they usually do). I've only recently acquired the space and wherewithal to be able to do this for myself, and it is a HUGE timesink.

dj_mc_merlin• 3 years ago

Most people would agree that having somebody keeping you accountable in the same room does tend to increase productivity in the short term. Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact.

Regardless, I think most people are rather reading between the lines, since there's some weirdness to hiring (from Craigslist) a "productivity manager" who watches you, does house chores and cooks for you. This is basically a servant with another title, and not acknowledging it makes it seem like the author is missing some common wisdom. There's other details like his assistant being caught watching porn, to which the author reacts in an.. even more awkward way than expected? It reads a lot like satire.

twelve406• 3 years ago

Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact

that's kind of a royal luxury because the things that need to get done today don't care about that.

For me personally I found that the longer i live on this planet, the more I'm drowning in a million stupid bureaucratic things like startup taxes, dealing with tenants, dmv, financial paperwork, etc etc. Maybe good problems to have, but whatever, all this still requires lots of diligent work. Taxes don't care if you are in the mood to do them, you just need to get the hell up and do them on time, correctly, otherwise you don't even qualify as a functioning human. So if there is some person there who gently nudges me to stay on track with all the inevitable, snowballing stupid daily crap, I'd count that as a win and I don't care if they mock it as a "proxy mom" if it's actually productive.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

Long term, not being micromanaged has a positive mental impact.

This isn't micromanagement, except to the extent that they are preventing him from visiting time-sink websites (unclear to me why his website blocking tech didn't work for that). They aren't actually directing his work activities in any way, so not only are they not micromanaging him, they're not managing him at all - in fact, he is managing them. All they are doing is making sure he's "on the clock".

I weep for the future of a world where zoomers have entered the workforce during covid lockdowns and think that remote work is normal and working in an office, with a boss sitting behind you or whatever, is what "micromanagement" means. Newsflash - it ain't.

RektBoy2• 3 years ago

Shouldn't this guy be fired from Meta, I mean he's revealing code to the third party, basically leaking stuff.

operatingthetan• 3 years ago

Right, this is the actual problem here that Meta is likely to take action against him for: breaking NDAs and posting about it on the internet.

praxulus• 3 years ago

My wife is my productivity assistant. It works great.

Since COVID started we've had our desks next to each other, and even though she's not constantly checking on me, I know she can see if I'm just wasting time. On days where she's not working, or if one of us moves to another room to take a call, my productivity falls off a cliff.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

You have to want this though. Otherwise you're just going to be saying "you're not my boss" and "stop nagging me" repeatedly, and that's not going to be good for your relationship. I've been there.

markus_zhang• 3 years ago

I'm actually seriously thinking about a similar service: Basically I pick an online course (say Berkely 61B 18spring) and a deadline (say 90 days), and I need to hire someone to make me study. It is not that I do not have the intellect to complete them, the thing is once I get bored I give up. Maybe I'm not that interested but I still need to complete it.

Probably can't do that right now as my toddler wakes a few times every night so the whole family is barely dragging. I'll probably wait until he reaches 5/6 and more independent.

trenning• 3 years ago

This reads like a Mike Judge pitch. And some of the comments in here read like this guys burner accounts trying to make it sound like any part of this made sense. I really hope it’s all real because it makes the comedy of it all so much better.

pcthrowaway3• 3 years ago

He says it tripled his productivity, then later says he got an extra 57 hours of work done for the month...

scotty79• 3 years ago

I'm quite surpised how many people here are strongly shocked by what for me looks just like self-organized ghetto co-working plus a bit of domestic service. There's also obsession with productivity but I think many of us have been there at some point. I don't think there's anything wrong with that guy, the whole thing is framed as an experiment and I don't think it brought any harm to anybody.

Btw ... Is 'ghetto' racist? What would be a better word insted?

tryauuum3• 3 years ago

I'm also shocked by the amount of people shocked. Guy chose the most straightforward action for his goals, good for him

greenrd18• 3 years ago

Is 'ghetto' racist? What would be a better word insted?

It is not a word we use in this context in the UK, I think, because ghetto for us doesn't mean what it means in the US, it means Jewish ghetto in WW2, i.e. it's a word we only come across in history classes.

But what does it mean? What are you trying to convey by using that word?

dougdonohoe• 3 years ago

This is idiotic.

l0rn• 3 years ago

Sounds hella neurotic. Probably very interesting guy, but just as insufferable. I think I know someone with a very similar personality.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

not a bad idea, or you could try to figure it out why you are procrastinating and try to do that. That’d give lasting results but you may or may not find out and use weeks and months as you also procrastinate on finding out why.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

Some of us procrastinate because we have ADHD. I hear there is a cure to ADHD procrastination, it's called quitting your job and becoming an enterpreneur, but that's a little extreme and may result in a huge loss in income and job security for someone who's currently working at Meta.

syndacks• 3 years ago

This is why San Francisco sucks.

eatkd• 3 years ago

This is one of the best blogs I have seen on HN ever

JuniorBalleg4• 3 years ago

Coming soon: "I hired 50 people to do damage control and write flattering comments about me on HN"

Nihilartikel• 3 years ago

Ah, to be young...

chris222• 3 years ago

One word comes to mind: cringe.

Please go live on a farm or something and do real work.

tomdekan2• 3 years ago

The amount of negativity on this post is bizarre. If you don’t like something informative that someone has tried and written about, why bother complaining about it?

In contrast, I enjoyed the post and found it useful.

simonebrunozzi• 3 years ago

When I woke up, I put the finishing touches on a blog post I had started earlier in the week and published it. It hit the #1 spot on Hacker News; I couldn’t stop myself from constantly refreshing the post as it got more upvotes while chuckling at the classic Hacker News hate comments. I only escaped the Skinner box when Sophia came in and I explicitly told her I wasn’t to be allowed on Hacker News.

Ah, the feeling! Nothing like it.

HL33tibCe7• 3 years ago

I read this entire article in the voice of Patrick Bateman

sjducb• 3 years ago

Whenever I'm in an office I pick the computer with the most visible screens, so everyone can see what I'm doing. It has the same affect, but it's much cheaper.

fencepost• 3 years ago

So hiring someone to be around you and enforce productivity - kind of like hiring a personal trainer and working out while they watch.

I'm pretty positive a lot of the folks around me in a late-night Starbucks in the Before Times (always packed but now closed, no drive-through) were doing exactly the same thing. There were a bunch of regulars working on side projects, they all knew each other, and if someone was screwing around they'd probably get a question "How's the project going?"

Second, you could probably do this for less by arranging a "study buddies" setup with college, grad or medical students but you'd also have to commit to keeping them productive as well.

Kibae2• 3 years ago

One thing I've done to increase my productivity after reading a comment from a Hacker News post [1] is recording my work sessions on OBS.

The benefits for me are two-fold:

1) It keeps me accountable while working and

2) I can rewatch my work sessions and recall my thought process from a future me perspective.

It's amazing how much you forget about a day, but by watching the recordings after the fact, you recall the micro lessons you learned during your work sessions and you have the opportunity to encode these lessons into your long-term memory.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32215277#32215958

megablast• 3 years ago

OBS - why do people use acronyms that most people have no idea about?

Benjamin_Dobell• 3 years ago

Because that's the name of the software. Google will return it as the first result. It is technically an acronym, Open Broadcast Software, but all the marketing material refers to it as OBS.

lbotos• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBS_Studio

Released in 2012, pretty popular software.

LogicWolfe• 3 years ago

I had to look it up too. In this case it’s Open Broadcaster Software, but they seem to treat OBS more as a name than an acronym so the usage seems appropriate. https://obsproject.com/

jzb• 3 years ago

I often feel the same, but I think OBS is the name here: OBS may be Open Broadcasting Studio, or Broadcaster Software, but it seems to mostly go by and be referred to as OBS…

twosdayz• 3 years ago

Because that’s the name of the software?

https://obsproject.com/

joaogui1• 3 years ago

It's how the software is known really (I think lots of people, including myself, don't recall the original meaning)

bookofjoe• 3 years ago

Concur. 95% of abbreviations I come across on HN are meaningless to me, I have no idea what they stand for.

mattfrommars• 3 years ago

Smart idea. I will give this a try.

For folks with AMD GPU. AMD Adrenalin software comes with it baked in.

Kibae2• 3 years ago

One thing to keep in mind is that it uses a lot of memory on the default settings. I've configured mine to use ~200MB/hour.

My video resolution is 1792 × 1120 and I record at 10fps.

timthelion2• 3 years ago

I do this too. And post the sessions publicly when I can, which you can see here:

- https://gradesta.com/blog/

- and here https://veganbuddies.org/blog/

Kind of funny when I record 2 hours of getting nothing at all done and screaming in frustration, but there we are. Call it radical honesty if you will.

I find it absolutely exhausting though. I max out at 5 hours a day if I talk the entire time.

I find adding a blog post for each screencast to be even better for productivity. I often find myself going back to them to reference something.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

People are saying the original post is weird but honestly I think this is weirder. There is no way I could do this. You must be super-extroverted to be willing to let it all hang out publicly, warts and all.

iKlsR• 3 years ago

I do the same thing and if I had some more brain power and free time I may just have invented https://www.rewind.ai/ as I thought of using ocr to find stuff after the fact. Leaving handbrake overnight to crush a 20gb file to throw in google drive is the sad part of this routine.

eddsh19945• 3 years ago

Of course the writer lists Effective Altruism as an interest. Could save lives with malaria vaccines but instead spends $5k of hiring babysitters.

throwaway378037• 3 years ago

What

nervysnail• 3 years ago

Mild Patrick Bateman.

moconnor• 3 years ago

INFO: did you make them sit on that hard wooden chair for eight hours and watch you recline in your aeron?

But seriously: are your graphs showing 21 productive hours a week? That’s like four a day? What _are_ you doing the rest of the time?

As someone else said: therapy would be an incredible productivity investment. Sharpen the saw. Babysitters are a hack for the symptoms, it’s long term more efficient to attack the cause.

thdespou3• 3 years ago

I think his employer at Meta would be furious right now for letting this guy jerk off for 4 hours every day when he was supposed to be going fast and be breaking things.

pnt122• 3 years ago

Facebook doesn't go fast and break things anymore - that's a decade old logo, it's outdated.

pnt122• 3 years ago

4 hours looks OK to me, even good if we are critical about productive VS non productive time.

Answering questions in slack, checking emails, going to meetings, waiting for ci/cd: all chew up your productive time.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

I can see therapy working well for someone who has unprocessed trauma or depression, but I have ADHD, and my ADHD specialist has told me that the medicine part is for the symptoms, and the future therapy part of the treatment is for unlearning coping mechanisms that I may have developed to work around my ADHD symptoms, that I would no longer need due to the medicine doing its job. I'm not sure what they would be exactly, but I don't see how they would be holding back my productivity that much.

P.S. most people don't have unprocessed trauma or depression to a clinically significant extent. If you think they do, you are living in a bubble (of melodramatic people perhaps? of therapists?)

owjofwjeofm• 3 years ago

Can someone directly explain the understanding he is lacking of what is wrong with this / what makes it off-putting, such as not understanding "the human element", "power dynamics" or "people or human dignity" Obviously many people in these comments sections don't seem to understand whats wrong with this, and there is such a thing as aspergers and the like. Maybe discussion can help people come to an understanding.

Is it that he is essentially valuing their time less than his and therefore not viewing them as equals? could someone who feels more strongly try to put their finger on whats so off-putting?

barry-cotter2• 3 years ago

Sure. There are people like the author, who respect the autonomy of other people and believe that if there are two people who come to a mutually agreeable arrangement on the exchange of goods and services that’s ok. Then there are some other people who have an aesthetic revulsion for people who violate social scripts. So if you hire a maid, secretary, therapist or other kind of service staff that’s ok, but if you do something that doesn’t follow a standard script these people feel a sense of revulsion.

pcthrowaway3• 3 years ago

I don't think that's what people are "objecting" to about this (well, not even objecting in many cases, just... flabbergasted).

The author appears to do very little work, while he pays someone to sit there and be his surrogate mother, so that he can be a bit more productive.

It seems somewhat attention-seeking (I personally believe it's honest, though it does invoke Poe's Law). That's fine too, people seek attention on HN, but they usually offer something insightful in return.

This is more the equivalent of the Tiktok user who posted her "day in the life of an employee at (Meta? Airbnb?)" that involved very little work.

Also fine, work isn't the point of life. But when you're showing off a flamboyantly eccentric "productivity hack" that got you to work 80 hours in a month instead of 25, so you could spend more time starting blog posts, breakdancing, doing yoga, going to the gym, "unironically starting a company (it's in stealth, sorry!)", doing online courses (at least this is at least somewhat related to the job they are presumably actually paid to do)... many people reading are going to be amused at the very least.

It seems like they have time management issues that make this "experiment" only potentially useful to people who also struggles to get anything actually done due to battling severe ADHD while balancing working at a very casual pace, and shooting off in 10 different directions at once all the time.

They would very likely benefit from some combination of a reality check, therapy, counselling, or medication.

This blog post is remarkable because it demonstrates a hyper-exaggerated jumbalaya of first-world-problems, out of touch, unchecked privilege, and the "hacker" mentality, with a side of attention-seeking.

It's like Lucille Bluth's character from arrested development[1] and Bill Gates trying to guess the price of groceries[2] conceived a baby with Krazam's "Hustle culture"[3] and delivered it right into this unbelievably glorious blog post

I know, I'm being uncharitable, and I feel a little bad about it. I can even relate to the author with a lot of their struggles, interests, and activities. Best of luck to him.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U

swyx• 3 years ago

this has to be parody right?

Tuesday morning—under Sophia’s supervision—I unironically decided to start a company (it’s in stealth, sorry!), wrote a random blog post, and did more work for my job. In the evening session with Hannah I picked up where I left off for my job and then went breakdancing. When I came back to my apartment, the internet was out so I read two chapters of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them until the internet came back on, after which I completed a lesson in the UI/UX course I’d enrolled in.

if so i applaud the author on achieving heights of tech satire not seen since HBO's Silicon Valley

karmakurtisaani• 3 years ago

This part immediately reminded me of The Hustle by Krazam.

mensetmanusman2• 3 years ago

Told my 11-yo daughter what I was laughing about:

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard”

amelius• 3 years ago

Perhaps work-from-home isn't such a great idea after all.

erenyeager• 3 years ago

So interesting and off putting at the same time, I’m wondering if there is a good word to describe this feeling.

That he’s 21, earning so much money, doing all these things, is interesting but also I hope he has some good influences around him to keep him grounded.

greenrd18• 3 years ago

I hope he has some good influences around him to keep him grounded.

That's what he paid all those assistants for.

ihm• 3 years ago

This could be straight out of American Psycho:

Saturday morning Hannah texted me she couldn’t make it, so I slept in and skipped the gym. When I woke up, I put the finishing touches on a blog post I had started earlier in the week and published it. It hit the #1 spot on Hacker News; I couldn’t stop myself from constantly refreshing the post as it got more upvotes while chuckling at the classic Hacker News hate comments.

nexoft• 3 years ago

Chill guys... I think this guy is being bullied because he is different, like many others. I hope he will hang tight.

SergeAx• 3 years ago

Fun fact: in his detailed descriptions of how was the day he mentions his job ("software engineer at Meta", according to About section) only twice. It seems like a tiny fraction compared to writing blog and working on own company. Is it normal practice in SF tech companies?

eddsh19945• 3 years ago

I think this has already won the annual prize for weirdest post ever. There's even a "Date Me" form on the site. Claims effective altruism while spending close to $10k to be productive at blogging/yoga.

JuniorBalleg4• 3 years ago

What a weird, weird man. I didn't need it anyway but this certainly confirmed the Early Life section for me:

In the evening session with Hannah I picked up where I left off for my job and then went breakdancing. When I came back to my apartment, the internet was out so I read two chapters of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them until the internet came back on, after which I completed a lesson in the UI/UX course I’d enrolled in.

What a weird, weird detail to include.

AnnikaL• 3 years ago

Confirmed the Early Life section? What do you mean? The blog post doesn't discuss the author's life before his current situation.

JuniorBalleg4• 3 years ago

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/early-life-wikipedia-section

radicalcentrist• 3 years ago

Okay this part has me convinced this post is satire. The hackernewsiness is simply off the charts. As the kids would say, ain't no way.

JuniorBalleg4• 3 years ago

Fitting username, I suppose. If you imagine mine is "radicalrightist" then the above comment might be less surprising.

asynchronous• 3 years ago

Anddddd that’s enough Hacker News for today. Bravo to the author, got me to stop procrastinating on this site lol

xkcd1963• 3 years ago

This guy reinvented the concept of hiring a personal butler.

EDIT: I think coming from a humble background helps to proud oneself to be able to do everything yourself. I guess the line of having (modern) slaves vs employing someone is complicated and intermingled with the amount of payment. I imagine, especially the first assistant, after knowing that OP earns a magnitude more than 20/h, and then goes on a date and expects me to stay since I'm on payroll, is rather unsettling.

ionwake• 3 years ago

I’m not sure why some of the HN commenters seem to be slightly in hysterics over this

I love the out of the ordinary experiment

I don’t care if the OP could be a narcissist he did a good write up and leveraged a social aspect to increase his productivity in unique way.

mikiem• 3 years ago

I'm a little surprised at the response here.

I feel like there is an element of "Body Doubling" here... a strategy used by those with ADD/ADHD. I recently looked in to this when curious about my own observation that I work longer and with better focus when working in close proximity of someone else.

noduerme3• 3 years ago

A cheaper version of this is:

- Have deadlines

- Make evening plans you can't get out of

- Ask your S.O. to cook dinner tonight so you can keep working, and expect them to notice if you're playing videogames.

ascotan• 3 years ago

Creepy.

sweetro17• 3 years ago

this must be a leaked nathan for you script

reagle• 3 years ago

Sethi did something like this in 2012 and his minder could slap him if he got distracted.

https://hackinglife.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/npc7g21v#quadrupled...

imron• 3 years ago

Reminds me of this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U

wodenokoto• 3 years ago

The “having someone around to keep you accountable” is definitely the real reason why managers want employees back in offices.

And it works.

You obviously don’t have to go crazy like the author, but it has a real effect.

Just sitting at the library as a student was way more effective than sitting at home.

cdogl• 3 years ago

This reads like a transcript of the Krazam video “The Hustle”

https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U

jameshush• 3 years ago

He started with the wrong goal in mind.

The goal shouldn't be to increase the number of personal productivity hours. The goal is to move a company vision forward.

The leverage you get by spending half as much money on a single full-time virtual assistant to handle tasks for you alone would easily be double the "output" as what he did here.

Hopefully, lesson learned on his end? :shrug:

Also looks like he's into standup comedy. If you ever want a spot in Taipei hit me up Simon!

gabrielhidasy• 3 years ago

Looks like the goal was to procrastinate less on hobbies and personal stuff, hiring someone to do that stuff would not solve anything.

eachro• 3 years ago

I believe the author could achieve the same result by working out of one of Meta's office. Plenty of coworkers around to mimic the effect of screen watching.

obruchez• 3 years ago

I'm doing this almost for free, by going to a café or tea room, and working on my laptop with its display visible to everyone.

darkwizard42• 3 years ago

What on earth. Amazing really.

amadeuspagel• 3 years ago

Strange to see the reaction to this. Of course hiring people to watch you is weird. Human psychology is weird and trying to motivate yourself to do certain things and not other things at the computer is weird. It's a hack.

I hired 5 people to sit behind me and make me productive for a month

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