[HN Gopher] A Simple Math Equation Can Transform Your Productivity
___________________________________________________________________
A Simple Math Equation Can Transform Your Productivity
Author : productivetom
Score : 106 points
Date : 2022-01-19 19:09 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nextbigideaclub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nextbigideaclub.com)
| deetz wrote:
| 80% of 20% = 16% does that make your "feel" of the math better?
| RedShift1 wrote:
| > Dreams are written in disappearing ink.
|
| Beautiful writing.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _When people meet a great leader, they often say, "She made
| me feel like I was the only person in the room." Imagine giving
| that type of complete attention to everything you do--and making
| that thing the only thing in the room._ "
|
| "Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while
| one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the
| potatoes." -- Alan Watts.
|
| (In the sense that physically doing nothing else, but secretly
| thinking about other things, is also distraction).
| b5n wrote:
| I don't dislike Alan Watts, but by his own admission he is an
| entertainer. If you're actually interested in zen the best
| place to start is with the texts:
|
| Da Dao Wu Men The Great Way is gateless,
|
| Qian Chai You Lu Approached in a thousand ways.
|
| Tou De Ci Guan Once past this checkpoint
|
| Gan Kun Du Bu You stride through the universe.
|
| https://sacred-texts.com/bud/zen/mumonkan.htm
| dalmo3 wrote:
| > Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes
|
| But if you're ascribing a higher meaning to the act is it still
| Zen? Maybe true Zen would be not even knowing it existed in the
| first place.
| lanstin wrote:
| If you are peeling the potatoes and have a bit of whole-
| hearted potato peeling and then immediately go off "wow, I
| was really focused there, what Zen potato peeling!" for a
| minute, well, those thoughts are not Zen spirituality. It's a
| common problem with reading or listening to stories about
| whole-hearted activity - one fills up with "Zen thoughts" for
| a while.
| mynameisash wrote:
| I never really considered myself a 'true' zen practitioner,
| but years ago I did regular zen retreats. It included sitting
| meditation, walking meditation, a mindful lunch with other
| practitioners, and... chores. (Maybe they used a different
| word - I don't recall.) One time I spent our ~hour washing
| dishes. Another time, sweeping the zendo.
|
| The point of it, beyond contributing to the greater
| community, was to do these chores mindfully. There was no
| higher spirituality to it; just be present. When washing
| dishes, I was only focusing on washing, rinsing, drying, and
| putting them away. When sweeping, I was _only_ sweeping the
| floor to collect dirt. When I collected the dirt, I was only
| collecting it. And so on. It sounds a bit silly, but it was a
| tremendous practice to force yourself to only do one thing
| and to _think_ about that thing while you 're doing it.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| Idk, I already know that 0.8 * 0.2 = 0.16 and i'm not very
| productive
| rob_c wrote:
| The rest of us spell it mathS...
| simplestats wrote:
| But our way is easier to say with braces.
|
| (I'm not going anywhere with this...)
| mocana wrote:
| Learn from the article: If you focus on one Math at a time you
| will do better in each of them.
| boc wrote:
| I don't go on British message boards and "correct" their
| spelling. Try to extend the same courtesy here.
| rob_c wrote:
| Then I will then attack your use of equation to include
| addition and subtraction. Not a single differential, exponent
| or integral? Please ..
| doovd wrote:
| How can you "correct" English from England?
| Flankk wrote:
| While you're in front of your old english dictionary, look
| up dialect.
| starwind wrote:
| idk but I won't correct English from Britain if you won't
| correct American from America
| productivetom wrote:
| The takeaway from the article is the same either way :)
| rob_c wrote:
| That some people think numbers are magical equations?
| zwieback wrote:
| I thought that was yesterdays thinking, last I heard
| "mindfulness" as-in forcing your brain to fully concentrate on
| just one thing is not good for our brains and they are not good
| at it.
|
| I was shoving a sandwich in my mouth while I was reading the
| article.
| mempko wrote:
| Another great saying I always use 'Productivity is waste'.
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| And the rock keeps rolling down
| zerop wrote:
| Reminded me of Buddha quotes on Live in the moment fully
| (mindfulness).
| slingnow wrote:
| This is some top-notch clickbait coupled with some serious
| fabrication. I have serious doubts this guy dreamt about this,
| but boy it made a really "gripping" introduction to this
| breakthrough on productivity!
|
| Also, first he's an astrophysicist, and then later, he's a rocket
| scientist. Which one is it? My money is on neither, but I'm sure
| he has a fancy degree.
| c1505 wrote:
| This mentality seems like a recipe for procrastination. Yes it
| would great if I always could be at my optimal functioning for
| whatever task is at hand. This never happens and my brain tries
| to convince me that I am too tired, hungry, or whatever else
| before starting an important task.
|
| On the very important areas of my life, it is much more helpful
| that I do something each day to try to make progress. On the
| busiest or hardest days, this might just be watching 5 minutes of
| a video on that topic. That keeps up my habit of doing something
| and makes it less likely that I will forget things.
|
| If I am 100% productive at doing something that isn't important,
| the result on my life is no progress.
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| This title is very misleading. I'm a fan of the message, but not
| the clickbait.
| Centmo wrote:
| He must be one of the few that can recognize numbers and language
| while dreaming.
|
| https://www.inverse.com/science/can-you-read-in-your-dreams
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| > If you multiply two numbers together, shouldn't the result be
| greater than each part?
|
| Well, it is. 0.16 is bigger than 0.2 and 0.8, because it has 3
| digits instead of 2, and 16 is bigger than 2 and 8. (and 4/25 is
| obviously bigger than 1/5 and 4/5 too)
|
| The problem actually is to (really) understand that the opposite
| is true. As soon as the denominators are different enough, we
| can't easily (just by looking at the numbers) compare two
| fractions like 26551/3690 and 26545/3689
| kvhdude wrote:
| i dont know about this. i cant get on the treadmill/elliptical
| unless there is some soccer match or action film streaming on the
| tv.... I could focus on the pain of doing exercise but that seems
| to be counter productive...
| RedShift1 wrote:
| Focus on your breathing. Correct breathing takes effort but
| pays dividend in endurance.
| pjerem wrote:
| I think it depends on your goals. If what you want is achieve
| better movement, you'd better turn off that TV.
|
| But if you just want to burn fat, well I'm not sure that
| focusing on it would change anything.
|
| Proprioception is a nice thing to exercise, though.
| poxwole wrote:
| Next Level Bullshit
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I think "productivity tricks" and stuff like this are similar
| to regular diet and exercise. There is a _vast_ market of
| people willing to sell you whatever you want to hear as it 's
| much easier than, you know, just doing the thing you're
| supposed to do. Every time I see some "crazy new diet" or "8
| minute abs" style thing I always mutter to myself: "anything
| but a conservative diet and regular exercise"
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| And who said that "output" is multiplicative? What a useless,
| unscientific article...
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| This is meta, but I'm not a fan of this trend of adding a pull
| quote to add emphasis to a sentence that was never really lost in
| the text to begin with, _e.g._ ,
|
| A short sentence. A second short sentence.
|
| > A second short sentence.
| enobrev wrote:
| function_seven wrote:
| Pull quotes in general usually irritate me. I'm sure there's a
| place for them, when done correctly. But usually I'll see
| things like you pointed out. Or worse, the pull quote will come
| from a paragraph far above it (and so no longer relevant to the
| section I'm currently in), or far below it (so way out of
| context; I haven't even got to that part yet!)
| josho wrote:
| I think they made sense in a world filled with paper
| magazines. You could quickly pickup a magazine flip through
| pages and see if anything caught your eye, if so then you buy
| the magazine.
|
| On the internet it only makes sense if people scroll through
| an article to decide if it's worth reading. Does anyone do
| that? I generally don't. The scroll bar tells me how long the
| article is, and the heading and subheading usually tells me
| if it's something I care about.
| maininformer wrote:
| They are very useful for skimming; I usually only read pull
| quotes first and then the actual article.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| > Ozan Varol is a rocket scientist turned law professor
|
| > "If you multiply two numbers together, shouldn't the output be
| a larger number?"
|
| Glad this guy isn't building rockets anymore :-)
| ksubedi wrote:
| I think you missed the whole point there. (Or maybe you only
| got a fraction of the point ;)
| erwincoumans wrote:
| Indeed. And even if you don't involve fractions, and multiply
| with either 0 or 1, the output won't be a larger number.
| LeonB wrote:
| Several comments take issue with that same quote but fail to
| grasp the context: it was his naive dream-self who had this
| thought.
|
| > But in the dream, I was staring at this equation as a
| mathematical beginner, completely befuddled by the result. How
| could that be? If you multiply two numbers together, shouldn't
| the result be greater than each part?
|
| When people share stories online and forums such as HN take
| parts out of context to insult the author, it's a horrible
| experience.
| boringg wrote:
| Seriously. Yeesh.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| It gets better!
|
| > and bestselling author
|
| > Click here to download a free copy of his eBook
| tpoacher wrote:
| I have a similar "math" equation; who knows, I might write a
| blogpost about it one day.
|
| It relates Boyle's law to productivity. It goes something like
| this:
|
| Boyle's law, or the ideal gas equation is: PV = nRT
|
| Pressure, Volume, and Temperature. n is the number of 'moles' of
| the substance in question R is a constant which is specific to
| the gas in question (whose pressure, volume and temperature one
| might fluctuate)
|
| I find that this equation also describes nicely 'academic' work
| (or software work, or this kind of work)
|
| and for the sake of using the same letters, even though other
| letters might have been better, hahah
|
| we'll define
|
| P = Professionalism (i.e. Quality of output, or personal
| standards of quality)
|
| V = Volume (or amount) of work that can / is expected to be done
|
| n = Number of projects one is undertaking at the same time
|
| R = A 'constant' unique to the individual
|
| T = time available / allocated for the work
|
| First, let's define R exactly. It is a constant, unique to the
| individual (under constant circumstances), describing the quality
| that can be expected, for a single unit of work (on a single
| project), for a unit of time allocated.
|
| While R is a 'constant', this does not mean that it cannot change
| - indeed it can change due to circumstances ... but that means
| that your R has changed. E.g. burnout, psychology etc. Or
| motivation on the other end.
|
| But for the purposes of studying your work output as a closed
| system, it is a constant.
|
| And this is a very important part of this realisation.
|
| So
|
| the main parts of the system, are P, V, and T.
|
| In boyle's law, this says that, given constant pressure, an
| accompanying increase in temperature must be accompanied by an
| increase in volume. Or given constant volume, increase in
| temperature must be accompanied by an increase in pressure, etc.
|
| When it comes to work:
|
| An increase in volume of work, must necessarily lead to: - either
| an increase in time allocated for the work - or a reduction in
| expected quality.
|
| This, btw, was the insight that kickstarted this analogy, because
| there's a famous dilbert comic effectively saying the same thing
| (let me try and find it quickly...)
|
| https://assets.amuniversal.com/fa5edf906d5101301d7a001dd8b71...
|
| So. Let's examine keeping the other variables constant.
|
| Expected professionalism / quality of output needs to improve.
| This necessarily means that - Volume of work needs to be reduced,
| given for the same deadline. - Time allocated needs to go up for
| the same amount of work
|
| Let's examine time. The deadline has been pushed forward: -
| Volume necessarily must go down, or - Quality must go down.
|
| The other directions also lead to nice insights.
|
| You just got an extension. If you choose to use up this allocated
| time, you can choose to: - Try to improve quality of already
| existing material (i.e. procrastination, lol) - Try to improve
| amount of work at the same quality
|
| Your volume has gone down (an unexpected project is now off the
| table). Do you: - Choose to finish things up on time - Improve
| the quality, but stick to the same deadline (i.e. Parkinson's Law
| / Procrastination) :p
|
| Your boss has told you that you can afford to not be so nitpicky.
| Do you - Do more work at a lower quality. - Finish things up
| faster.
|
| etc etc
|
| Now. Let's attack n
|
| When talking about Boyle's law, there are two versions (kinda).
| PV = cT vs PV = nRT the difference being, in the latter case, we
| assume we're dealing with n moles of the same gas, whereas the
| former is general enough to assume generic volume, which may be
| of a mixture of gases
|
| Therefore
|
| If one is talking about n 'projects', which can be interpreted to
| all carry more or less the same volume of required work
|
| e.g. "how many experiments do I need to conduct for my PhD"
|
| then PV=nRT is appropriate.
|
| otherwise you should be a bit more generic and treat 'volume' as
| a more generic "amount of work" situation
|
| however, the n offers another insight into this work model.
|
| meaning
|
| "One way to improve quality / reduce workload / save time, is to
| stop bloody accepting every project you're offered"
|
| (guilty as charged )
|
| which could totally also mean personal projects, such as learning
| monads for absolutely fuck all reason
|
| or
|
| conversely
|
| the case of increasing n - "by all means take up more projects,
| as long as you feel you can handle the increase in volume, or the
| increase in time you will have to spend, or the reduction in
| quality on all your other projects"
|
| or something like that
|
| now, here's where it all comes together.
|
| I would like to believe, that in any reasonable employment, one
| is hired for their (perceived) R
|
| at least as perceived at the time of interview :p
|
| which, can be considered a "constant" in closed system terms.
|
| however
|
| the system is not really 'closed'.
|
| E.g. burnout will invariably reduce your R. This means that for
| the same expectation of quality, and allocated time, you will be
| able to produce less volume of work (or alternatively, for the
| same deliverables, you'll only be able to do less work)
|
| UNFORTUNATELY, for someone like me, this is an emotionally
| negative path
|
| which risks reducing your R even further in a vicious cycle of
| psychological negativity
|
| therefore, what we tend to consider first, is increasing T as a
| counterbalance
|
| i.e. "I'll work more hours than I should"
|
| problem is, this is not sustainable, and often serves to reduce
| your R even further, compounding the problem
|
| Furthermore, if you have made the mistake of creating false
| expectations in your bosses about a high R
|
| but this high R comes (possibly unbeknownst to them) from an
| artificially inflated T, rather than from a genuinely organically
| high R constant
|
| then this will lead to more V, or possibly a higher expectation
| of P ... even when time T is suddenly unavoidably low
|
| etc etc ... I'm sure you can think of similar scenarios /
| cautionary tales
|
| In any case, what PV=nRT has done for me is the following:
|
| If my bosses ask me to increase V, with no increase in T, I am
| now unashamedly willing to reduce my P
|
| rather than steal T from personal time and suffer consequences
| that at the end of the day make things worse by 'opening' the
| system and affecting my R
|
| and in fact, people seem to expect this
|
| I have battled with my psychological aversion of low P for a
| while, but this thought helps me do it without suffering the
| negative thoughts so much.
|
| "It will not reflect badly on me if my quality drops. I should
| simply point out it's a natural cause of the reduction of the
| other variables in a closed system"
|
| And my employer should NOT expect me to change my R
|
| In other words, they should not expect me to:
|
| "Do better work (without giving me the right ammunition to do
| so)" "Increase my workload (without giving me the time and
| resources required for it" "Finish this quickly" (without helping
| me mitigate my workload, or expecting the same effort and
| quality)
|
| And also, it has made me a bit more pragmatic about saying no to
| projects, even though they could benefit me (genuinely or not).
|
| Or at least, it has taken away much of the guilt for not doing
| those projects even though they're on my list etc.
|
| That is all.
| tpoacher wrote:
| btw! I forgot the best part!
|
| How does technical debt fit into the whole PV=nRT framework.
|
| The story goes like this. "We have n tasks. Unit tests are an
| extra task. We don't have time for n+1 tasks"
|
| In reality, technical debt is not an additive, it's a modifier.
| It applies a modifier a to the current task, and a modifier b
| to all related tasks after it.
|
| So it's more like having E[n] = 1 * a + (n-1) * b, where a > 1,
| and 0 < b < 1
|
| E.g. if writing a unit test makes your task double, but your
| remaining tasks now take half the time, then you didn't really
| make n into n+1 with unit tests, you made n become 2 + (n-2)/2
|
| So, for the above (admittedly unrealistic) modifiers, if you
| have 8 projects to do, and you're thinking should I do unit
| tests
|
| In your mind you may be thinking, fukit, I can't afford to do
| 16 tasks instead of 8 (i.e. 8 tasks plus 8 unit tests)
|
| But because geometric processes are so hard to reason with,
| it's hard to see the benefit, but the benefit is massive!
|
| octave:16> f = @(n) 2 * n;
|
| octave:17> g = @(n) 4 - 2 .^ (2-n);
|
| octave:18> [ f(1:8); g(1:8) ]
|
| ans = 2.0000 4.0000 6.0000 8.0000 10.0000 12.0000 14.0000
| 16.0000 2.0000 3.0000 3.5000 3.7500
| 3.8750 3.9375 3.9688 3.9844
|
| Not only is it not 16, but actually it will save you so much
| time, that you'll spend even less than the original 8 time
| units!
|
| (assuming related tasks and compounding effect paid from
| technical debt)
| decebalus1 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but this sounds like some hardcore NXIVM science..
| melissalobos wrote:
| I am not very familiar with the cult, but this just seems like
| regular self-help advice. Could someone explain how this
| relates to a sex cult(based on the wikipedia article)?
| decebalus1 wrote:
| > In 1998, Raniere and Nancy Salzman founded NXIVM, a
| personal development company offering "Executive Success
| Programs" (ESP) and a range of techniques for self-
| improvement
|
| The leader used all sorts of mathy pseudologic to make
| connections between equations and human feelings. It managed
| to gain some pretty smart members in spite of the bullshit.
|
| https://artvoice.com/2019/05/27/guest-view-keith-
| mathematica...
| erwincoumans wrote:
| His math literally doesn't add up. If you multi-task you need to
| ADD multiple multiplications, one for each task. For example, if
| you perfectly divide all attention, time and effort in two tasks,
| you ideally get:
|
| 0.5 * 0.2 + 0.5 * 0.15 (given that the value of the first task is
| 0.2 and the value of the second task is 0.15)
|
| One important point is likely, that there is overhead in
| multitasking, so the actual formula becomes 0.45 * 0.2 + 0.45 *
| 0.15 + 0.1 * 0 where 0.1 of the time is wasted in useless (value
| = 0) overhead (of switching tasks, getting into the zone and so
| on).
|
| You may or may not enjoy spending time in this 'useless'
| overhead...
| devnull255 wrote:
| Unless you consider the result of two tasks performed
| simultaneously a product of two tasks rather than the sum of
| two tasks.
| deetz wrote:
| it makes sense if you read it as: I'm working at 80% of my
| capacity for 20% of the time, I get 16% of my possible
| productivity
| LambdaTrain wrote:
| Right. It feels like Op uses wrong math but gets a good
| conclusion in the context of doing daily job: focus on one
| shit.
|
| However, in general sense, the return of an investment is
| considered as random variable, so the problem is not just max
| value, but max value while minimizing risk, and the solution is
| multitask/portfolio
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Multitask repetitive or time consuming tasks only. When I was
| in college I worked for a mom and pop type PC repair store.
|
| Doing PC re-imaging, I set up 6 stations and would kick off one
| refresh and while it was running, start up the next one and so
| on. Using disks to install took ages, so I figured out how to
| make bootable USB sticks, so I would have all 6 or occasionally
| more (by stealing bench seats) stations humming away while I
| was also doing part upgrades or builds on another station, only
| pausing to check up on progress.
|
| That is ideal multitasking, where you need to pay a small
| amount of attention to one arduous group of tasks and the
| remainder of your time is free to focus on fine detail high
| mental demand tasks with ease.
| _jal wrote:
| All the productivity cliches I needed I learned in Kindergarden.
| rob_c wrote:
| Yup, sit down, keep quiet and don't disturb others and do as
| your told/asked.
| mellavora wrote:
| You forgot about naptime. Huge productivity boost, and a
| central part of most kindergarden curriculum's.
| porb121 wrote:
| one of the worst posts I've ever read cheers mate
| playdead wrote:
| > If you multiply two numbers together, shouldn't the result be
| greater than each part?
|
| I appreciate the metaphor, but... multiplication is not repeated
| addition.
| jaqalopes wrote:
| I was never a strong math student but this is the kind of math I
| can get behind--not strictly logical, but also analogical. It
| tells a story, and the significance is partly up to the reader.
| For the specific case of "when we operate at a fraction we
| compromise output" I find it to be extremely true in my own life.
| This is about more than focus, it's about intention, and
| beginning with the end in mind. When I approach a task with an
| "ugh guess I have to do this" attitude, I inevitably slack off,
| take too many breaks, and end up with a worse experience than if
| I had simply begun with the attitude of "this is what I will do
| now and I will use the powers available to me to do it correctly
| and as quickly as is reasonable." I suspect most people could
| benefit from something like the author's post-it by their desk to
| remind them at every moment of the very real power they have to
| create better outcomes in everything they do.
| sugarfreerussia wrote:
| Little's Lemma directly relates work in process to throughput.
|
| Replace customer with "work" and you have a simple equation to
| transform your productivity, not some millenial woo-woo resume-
| boosting nonsense like in this post.
|
| L = Lambda * W L = Avg. number of customers in system Lambda =
| Avg. customer arrival rate W = Avg. time customer spends in
| system
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Let us learn from Ron Swanson:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6hZ9KdG1QU
|
| "Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing."
| starwind wrote:
| It's a good feeling. Sense of accomplishment and pride.
| Damnit... I just love it so much.
| [deleted]
| dpicco wrote:
| deltaonefour wrote:
| >As a result, our output suffers. What we produce becomes less
| than what we put in. We achieve only an iota of what we're
| capable.
|
| This is assuming output is multiplicative. Output is usually
| additive if you're an employee as you only reap benefits in terms
| of salary. Thus it is in your best interest as an employee to
| apply 0.8.
|
| For an entrepreneur output is multiplicative because your output
| scales with customers. As an entrepreneur it is in your best
| interest to apply all your effort as when more customers use your
| product you gain more benefit.
| damiankennedy wrote:
| I was thinking of something more like Drake's equation.
|
| P = T * Hbar * Cbar^Dh * E * (Po)^N
|
| P = Productivity T = Tiredness Hbar = 2 _PI /(HackerNews posts
| read) Cbar = 2_PI/(speed of light) Dh = Disruptions per hour E =
| Environment Po = Productivity of people you work with N = Number
| of people you work with
| rob_c wrote:
| Yeah that was my assumption as to what would have been an
| "equation", but then I suppose we don't work in HR...
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(page generated 2022-01-19 23:00 UTC)