How to murder your productivity

http://www.dextronet.com/blog/2012/04/how-to-murder-your-productivity/

by jirinovotny • 14 years ago

73 23 14 years ago

bemmu• 14 years ago

Adding everything to a to-do list isn't so bad, as long as you consider it a "rough list of ideas it might be a good idea to do, but need to be seriously prioritized" instead of a MUST do list.

jirinovotny• 14 years ago

What you describe is not a to-do list. It's a list of ideas. And if you start putting urgent stuff into your list of ideas, you are in trouble.

Have two lists. It's that simple, really.

oscilloscope• 14 years ago

If you have two lists, why not three? Maybe you should just have a list of lists.

tluyben2• 14 years ago

It depends on the work you do. The bad chair obviously not and besides that I have most of these things. I'm very productive for what needs to be done by me in the position I hold currently. As developer, this would be a great way to destroy my productivity indeed.

coffeecheque• 14 years ago

It does indeed depend.

I work in the media, so it's my job to react to what is happening. Information comes through to my email and if I miss it, we are behind competitors.

Notifications at essential to immediate communication between colleagues who need me to certain things for program output.

That said, I would like a new chair...

vbtemp3• 14 years ago

Quite simply, the best way to strangle your productivity and toss it in the bay is to work at an office with a regular 9-5 weekly schedule. For innovative types (e.g., software engineers) and people with my temperament, what ends up happening is that you build a lifestyle based around the daily schlep to work, and you end up doing just enough to get by.

dansingerman• 14 years ago

Absolutely true. I have recently changed my career from mostly office-based to mostly working at home. I think the days I now spend at home are about 200% more productive.

The typical office environment is the antithesis of what you need to achieve 'flow'.

vbtemp3• 14 years ago

I'm not sure if it's the "office environment" per se. It's the lifestyle built around the daily routine. The problem is, in big organizations, it isn't really fair to everyone. A receptionist, for example, has to be there during work hours, or many managers, and many other types of engineers such as RF guys or mechanical guys. It wouldn't be fair to yield tremendous flexibility to the software engineers, despite higher productivity.

jpdoctor• 14 years ago

> and you end up doing just enough to get by.

The old saw (from the days when you worked for the same company for decades and retired with a pension):

Companies pay employees just enough not to quit; Employees work just hard enough not to get fired.

RollAHardSix3• 14 years ago

I guess I'm just an outlier. My work is just one part of my life. I work anywhere from 7 - 3, 8 - 4, 9 - 5; 10 4's if I want, or some crazy mix. When I'm not at work I take BJJ lessons, work on my freelance consulting and graphic design, read / write / spend time with my daughter. Catch movies; go out with friends occasionally on the weekends to see a UFC fight, that type of 'stuff'.

And I am still talking about productivity here in the way that because my life is organized into such organized blocks of time it's easy for me to go 120% during each time. I know I can't pay my mortgage, take Jiu Jitsu, have the quality of life I do if I don't work hard. So my job gets me 100% 8 hours a day, for 5 days a week. It's a compromise and one I'm willing to make.

Working at home or on flexible schedules (and again I have a pretty flexible schedule) sounds great until you realize that teams can't collaborate together as effectively; deadlines still need to be achieved, and so on. Really if you're having problems with productivity or with work not being finished in-time; then check what you're expecting of your team.

My .02.

Zanon2• 14 years ago

I'd prefer fewer self-post spam blog entries on HN. Seriously. http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=jirinovotny

DenisM• 14 years ago

So if a person has something to say to HN that does not fit small text box, he should not say it at all?

Zanon2• 14 years ago

It becomes pretty obvious when a person views HN as just a SEO fountain. Occasional self-posting is fine. This is extreme. Especially when you consider he seems to be involved in both componentowl and dextronet. That's blatant continuous self-promotion.

mainguy• 14 years ago

I don't care so much about self-posting (I do it all the time), but it was a little bit of a shill (and I'm guilty of that too, so I can't be too critical). I think the overall article was amusing and made sense... I see no problem with it (other that the plug at the end which wasn't a big deal IMHO).

dfan• 14 years ago

According to Jiri Novotny, 'As popularized by Tim Ferris, according to Josh Waitzkin, “A study at The British Institute of Psychiatry showed that checking your email while performing another creative task decreases your IQ in the moment 10 points." '.

Only three levels of indirection from the (purported) original source! I'm convinced.

I tried tracking down the original study, because I have access to the internet, and eventually found http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002493.h..., in which the guy who ran the original "study" says how ridiculous the reaction to it is.

Too late now, though - every other blog post about productivity mentions how Tim Ferris mentions that Josh Waitzkin mentioned that he heard about it. The next one I see will probably use this post as its source.

chhantyal• 14 years ago

This is so true. Is there any post just opposite of this one: How to save your productivity?

How to murder your productivity

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