[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Do you also alternate between super producti...
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Ask HN: Do you also alternate between super productive and slow
days?
I've realized that when I have a super productive day the next day
or two after that I'm not as energetic and can't do as much. Is
this something that other people face? If so is it because you
exhaust yourself on your energetic day and need rest? or is it just
random and some days you have a great night sleep and are well
rested therefore you have a lot of energy? I have nothing against
incorporating rest in my schedule to be more productive, but I'm
wondering if going all out and then resting and recharging is
better or worse than limiting yourself on your energetic day to not
exhaust yourself (kinda amortizing your energy). I'm also not sure
if the amortization strategy has the same effect. Maybe I need to
try it and see.
Author : ali92hm
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-09-27 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
| contingencies wrote:
| Go with the flow. When you're in-flow, block interruptions. When
| you're ex-flow, handle the other stuff so you're prepared for the
| next peak. If you're ineffective, uninspired, tired, demotivated
| or otherwise inoperable go do something else or sleep.
| treebog wrote:
| It sounds like you're trying to determine if your tiredness is an
| inevitable side effect of a productive day, if unproductive days
| are just random, or if your variation in productivity can be
| optimized. I don't know the answers for you, but you might be
| able to better understand your productivity by keeping a detailed
| time log of your work.
|
| For two weeks, keep track of every minute of your working time.
| Once you know where your time went, you can then try to
| understand why your less-productive days are less productive. Was
| it because you were too tired to concentrate? Did your "super
| productive" day involve 12 hours of focused work? You might find
| there's not as big a difference as you think between different
| days, except that some days feel productive because you happen to
| finish some task, when in reality the groundwork for finishing it
| was laid on a day that felt unproductive.
| ali92hm wrote:
| Yeah, I've been meaning to instrument my time to see how it's
| being spent on a more granular level. I do keep logs and notes
| from my daily work and tasks currently though. So I know when I
| started on what and when it was finished.
|
| But to answer your question, I don't think it's just the
| feeling of finishing a task. Yesterday, I woke up and felt well
| rested. I stretched, made breakfast and had some introspection
| time, started grabbing tasks one at a time from my side project
| and finishing them. Then I picked up a book that I've been
| reading and read for 2 hours and I also finished some random
| chores.
|
| This morning, I woke up and I cant get out of the bed (this is
| not just Monday effect, I've felted on other days). I don't
| know if this exhaustion is because of being too excited last
| night from all I've done and not being able to have a good
| night sleep, or just I've exhausted myself yesterday and don't
| feel like doing anything today. Or I would have felt this way
| anyways.
|
| I do think though the ground work is done on the less
| productive days in terms of restoration. My girlfriend got a
| dog about 10 months ago, and I can see the same behavior in the
| dog. She runs around and exhausts herself on a hike one day and
| then just sunbathes and chills the next day. It seems like our
| hunter gatherer ancestors behaved the same way.
| creakingstairs wrote:
| I've been wondering about the same thing for awhile, but I've
| been mainly focused on physical and mental health side of
| things.
|
| Of course it's easier to get up for a task that's exciting,
| but I found that my motivation seems to be strongly
| correlated with my physical well being. One part I've been
| looking at recently is what I eat and how that affects my gut
| health which affects my mood and motivation.
|
| That being said physical wellness is definitely the only
| factor as I still get quite big down time (had one yesterday)
| but not as often and long as I used to have.
| avgDev wrote:
| In my experience, I also need slower days otherwise I will simply
| burn out. I love having days full of code, but this is not
| sustainable. After 8 hours of coding and focused work, I
| typically need a day or two of recovery. I still can perform
| tasks and plan but not at the normal intensity. Another approach
| is 4 hours a day of code daily. This can become a problem if you
| have a 20 year old team mate willing to grind 12 hour days and
| just knock out all the tickets. This can create toxic behavior
| and resentment from that individual towards older and experience
| devs.
|
| In everything people do, there is time for rest or a task that is
| easier physically or mentally. A laborer cannot sustain moving
| shovel non-stop all day. A soccer player cannot sustain playing 8
| hours a day. This is part of being human.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Yes, it's normal. Don't stress over it. Ideally you can work on a
| team or with a partner so that your productivity cycles balance
| out each other.
|
| Probably when you're feeling unproductive you should just stop
| working and go do something else; it's better to recharge than to
| work inefficiently.
| ali92hm wrote:
| Yeah I've kinda come to the same conclusion. Seeing how I can
| get done in one day if I'm well rested.
| JohnFen wrote:
| An old mentor once told me a truth in life: everything comes in
| cycles. That includes productivity.
| ali92hm wrote:
| Right, so I think I should just take advantage of those days
| and rest or do low intensity work on other days. Kinda like
| strength training
| tylerscott wrote:
| This is exactly how I envision the process. My two passions
| in my personal life are writing code and lifting weights. If
| I squint hard enough, the shape of each is oddly similar.
| iflp wrote:
| The nice thing about the amortisation strategy is that you can
| e.g. exercise on the slow days, which improves your stamina and
| thus efficiency in the long run.
| anw wrote:
| Yes, I also alternate. But my ebb and flows are around
| motivation, not exertion.
|
| If I am working for someone else, and I put in a lot of effort,
| then I feel completely drained after N amount of days (or after
| project completion) - which requires me to mentally "unlink" my
| brain from anything related to that project.
|
| If I am working for myself, whether that be on my company, or for
| personal growth, then I can hit a wall day after day and still
| find motivation to continue forward, projecting even one little
| victory as something that can give me energy to keep going.
|
| The key for me is motivation. If I feel invested (and rewarded)
| in my own growth, then I am much more productive than just adding
| more to the bottom line of some faceless organisation.
|
| Good luck to you! I hope you find something worth while that both
| gives you energy and makes you feel like you're growing.
| ali92hm wrote:
| So this is one thing I'm trying to tease out. Do I feel
| motivated because I'm well rested and have energy? Or is it the
| motivation that causes the energy?
|
| From this morning I can say it's the former. I do feel super
| excited to work on my stuff, but just cant get myself to do
| them or start. Getting out of the bed this morning was tough
| major-_-havoc wrote:
| I alternate - but discovered my perception of productive days can
| be skewed. I came from physical, real world jobs like
| construction. When my day was done, I had something tangible for
| my efforts (fence, concrete, brick wall, etc.)
|
| When I started in computer work, some days I felt super
| productive, but others I didn't. On many of the days, I didn't
| feel productive. I was still brain dead from the work on these
| 'less productive' days.
|
| Back in those days, I printed a lot of stuff. I discovered that I
| felt more productive on the days I printed more things, because
| printed pages are tangible items. On the days I felt less
| productive, I was still doing a ton of work, but the lack of
| tangible evidence skewed my perception.
| junon wrote:
| Yes. This is pretty common, actually. People who force themselves
| to work on the days they aren't really motivated to work
| ultimately end up in burnout - sometimes career-ending burnout.
|
| Find an employer that understands this and stick with them,
| honestly.
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(page generated 2021-09-27 23:02 UTC)