Think you work hard? Think again.

http://markmaunder.com/2007/think-you-work-hard-think-again/

by mmaunder • 19 years ago

23 20 19 years ago

Buy a watch with a stopwatch. Turn it on when you're actually doing your work - coding, writing, whatever, and turn it off when you're not. My experience is that most people are utterly shocked to find how little they do in a day.

To get improvement, record the results (and a 7-day average) in a spreadsheet, graph the results, and pay attention!

mmaunder• 19 years ago

Or buy 5 stopwatches - one for each of the 5 apps you use most often. Then flip between them to track each app individually.

...and you should probably get a sixth to track how much time you spend flipping between stopwatches and work.

ivankirigin• 19 years ago

a chess timer should work well.

work vs. not work.

webwright2• 19 years ago

This is kinda why we built RescueTime. We found the stopwatch solution to be awkward and, if you fail to remember to turn it on or off, it's VERY hard to recover that information.

I've done the time management exercise (the manual log) and found it to be incredibly useful. Just the act of paying attention made me more productive. But (like 99.9% of the people who try) I stopped keeping a log-- it was just too much damn work. :-)

So I guess we're trying to take the work out of it.

kingkongrevenge• 19 years ago

> most people are utterly shocked to find how little they do in a day.

I disagree. I think most people know how much they're getting done. I think tools like this and over-complicated productivity "systems" are actually just another form of time waster. Simply set deadlines that don't allow for wasted time and then meet them.

palish2• 19 years ago

One reason RescueTime looks really cool because it's passive. It seems passive products (Last.FM, targeted ads, RescueTime, etc) instead of active products (Every application that only performs its functions only when you interact with it) could become pretty big. Targeted advertisement is a huge success story.

danw• 19 years ago

Lazy people can be web 2.0 users too!

byrneseyeview2• 19 years ago

Lazy people or people who hate needless effort?

zach• 19 years ago

It's great that there's some movement in this market. I used to keep a work log of all the little problems I ran into so I could remember how I fixed them and analyze my effectiveness. From there I started doing full spreadsheet time logs, but it's just plain difficult to keep up. Technology that makes this unobtrusive is very much needed -- I considered making a Google widget just for my own use but it was clearly unproductive to do so!

byrneseyeview2• 19 years ago

It's best to use either a constant simple log or an occasional detailed log: I occasionally note nearly everything I do during a single day, so I know how I use my time. But most days I use a brutally simple time-log: one sheet of paper, divided into two sides. One side gets a tick-mark every time I do something I'd normally procrastinate on; one side gets a mark every time I procrastinate instead.

That's as complicated as it needs to be (but I have a pretty simple job).

vidar• 19 years ago

This is a great way to monitor your personal work rhythm but plain nasty when your boss is the one checking the charts and micromanaging.

webwright2• 19 years ago

We totally agree. Rescuetime is combating Big Brother in a few ways:

1) It's hard to install without someone knowing. 2) You can pause the data collector at any time. 3) If you're clever enough you can edit your data before it leaves your machine.

In short, we're making it EASY TO CHEAT. Hell, I'll publish a GUIDE to cheating at RescueTime.

We're also going to make it against ToS to use as an individual scrutiny tool. We think this level of individual scrutiny is a crappy way to manage people-- we refuse to be a part of that.

Jd2• 19 years ago

Wish it would run on something other than the proud platforms (mac & windoze)

richcollins• 19 years ago

working hard != working a lot of hours

palish2• 19 years ago

Yeah, there's a certain warmup time to working hard, and total time spent on it is proportional to how many times you try to work hard. So if you're in an environment where you're interrupted a lot, a brute-force way to be more productive is to work a lot of hours. I'm hoping RescueTime will get me to pay attention to how long it takes me to warm up to 100% effort and minimize it.

dhouston• 19 years ago

rescuetime looks really cool guys. would love to give it a shot (i just signed up for the beta using frenetic at gmail dot com).

joshwa• 19 years ago

yeah, how about giving a beta invite to everyone who signed up with a news.yc referrer?

daniel-cussen• 19 years ago

I've always wanted to be able to measure how much time I spend actually working. I wish this wasn't a closed beta.

This reminds me of that IBM philosophy, that you can only improve what you can measure. This could seriously help me improve my productivity.

Jd2• 19 years ago

No, I don't think I work hard. Why else would I be here?

horatio05• 19 years ago

I don't think continuous work means continuous productivity. I can sit and stare at my code editor for hours and write little or no code at all. I am more like a Cheetah. I sprint, take down my prey, and feast on it for days.

Think you work hard? Think again.

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