[HN Gopher] I need structure in my life
___________________________________________________________________
I need structure in my life
Author : memorable
Score : 175 points
Date : 2022-10-03 14:55 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (janellsihay.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (janellsihay.com)
| Daunk wrote:
| I wish I had the option to have... any kind of flexibility in my
| life. I'm forced to go to work at a certain time, which means I
| have to get up at a certain time. I also eat at work, both lunch
| and dinner, so if I skip those then there's almost no time for me
| to eat. I have to do chores when I get home for about an hour or
| two, then I have about 2.5 hours of "free time" before I have to
| go to bed and repeat the process. Being able to have any kind of
| flexibility is an extreme luxury I think people take for granted.
| balfirevic wrote:
| > I have to do chores when I get home for about an hour or two
|
| What chores take up 1-2 hours each and every day, considering
| lunch and dinner are taken care of at work?
|
| Edit: didn't sound to me like you have kids from your comment,
| if you do then it makes sense.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| You're forced to go to work at a certain time?
|
| Which country do you live in in which this is the case?
| Everywhere I've lived there have been jobs that are 9-5 and
| jobs that are less rigid, ranging all the way to self
| employment.
| brailsafe wrote:
| I would think they meant that their current job is suitable
| but requires they be in at a specific time
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Ah, right.
|
| So like how I'm forced to commute two hours a day to work.
|
| (if I get an in person job in a different town from the one
| I live in).
|
| This is just daft.
| apetresc wrote:
| Yeah, obviously he meant "forced" as in "within the
| context of this job, if I want to keep it".
|
| Taking too broad a view of what "forced" means just
| nullifies the term. Of course nobody could then ever be
| "forced" to do anything when suicide is an option.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| It's hardly a luxury to pick a different job, this is
| complete and utter bollocks. There are people up and down
| the income and educational spectrum that do it, of every
| race, etc.
|
| The narrative that people are forced to work a specific
| job is false and should not be reinforced.
| jcpst wrote:
| You seem surprised by this.
|
| I have worked for years and made great efforts to get to a
| point in life where I have a say in what time I do my work.
| Most jobs I have had I did not have a choice. In the United
| States.
| [deleted]
| doix wrote:
| Do you have kids or otherwise responsible for anyone? If not,
| one or two hours of chores per day is insane. Take a step back
| and examine if the chores you are doing are actually worth
| doing.
|
| Obviously if you have kids or are a carer that probably does
| not apply.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| The top comment is about a CEO who left to work in an Amazon
| warehouse due to the daily structure.
|
| This is the second most top comment.
|
| Also really illustrates the whole "grass is always greener ..."
| thing.
| apetresc wrote:
| The story you're referring to was about a CEO who was looking
| for some relief from burnout and depression. He wanted the
| structure as an antidote to a specific feeling, not as a
| general desire.
|
| All else being equal, I think the vast majority of people
| would prefer self-direction and autonomy to rigorous top-down
| order. People's choice and actions throughout the ages seem
| to reinforce this. I wouldn't mistake someone's personal
| choice to temporarily self-impose some structure as an
| example of "grass is always greener".
| crooked-v wrote:
| Of course, the grass really is greener for the CEO, what with
| the whole "has the financial luxury to quit the Amazon
| warehouse job at any time" thing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Remember all the rich guy driving an Uber for fun stories?
| 3qz wrote:
| > I have to do chores when I get home for about an hour or two
|
| How is this possible? Are you counting exercise as a chore? I
| probably do 2 hours of chores in a week and that includes a lot
| of things related to cooking which you don't do
| doubled112 wrote:
| For me it is the kids.
|
| The things I used to be able to do once a week are a daily
| "quick go" now.
|
| Somebody is always hungry. There's a trail of food and mess
| they leave behind. There's frequent spills. There's constant
| laundry and accidents.
| somekyle wrote:
| I have kids, and if I count their bedtime process as chores
| an hour or two isn't a particularly heavy evening.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| I live by an edict. If you don't get what you want: it's due to
| your decisions. I prioritized flexibility and that's what I
| have. You can do the same!
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Hmm. I am taking this comment at face value and not as a
| sarcastic response.
|
| Even if you prioritize flexibility, if your position is at
| the bottom of the totem pole, you will find it exceedingly
| difficult to get even minute changes in it. Those employees
| are increasingly monitored to the point I would not have
| accepted as a kid, but it seems a more and more common
| practice today.
|
| I guess what I am saying is that what you do matters, but not
| nearly as much as you give it credit for. Some of it is just
| dumb luck.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| I feel sorry for you if you think I am being sarcastic. The
| internet is an unhealthy place to live.
|
| Travel more. Follow your passion. Forget labels and work
| hard to get what you want. Work isn't 9-5. It's 24/7, who
| you work for changes.
|
| Treat yourself like a friend who you are looking out for.
| doix wrote:
| I mean you can say the luck argument about literally
| everything. It's not a reason to dismiss making choices.
|
| Not having kids/pets is a huge choice to make to have
| flexibility. If you don't have dependents you don't need to
| spend time looking after them. You also don't need to make
| as much money so you can take a lower paying job. By being
| in the position to take a lower paying job, you can
| negotiate more flexibility etc.
|
| Obviously that doesn't apply if you were forced to drop out
| of highschool to get a minimum wage job to take care of
| your sick parents/siblings.
|
| Some people are less lucky than others, but I'd be willing
| to bet that a large percentage of HN readers that finds
| themselves with no flexibility have made many choices to
| end up where they are.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| On average, as related to HN, you are probably not wrong.
| I still hate averages, because they tend to hide the
| reality ( and individual plight ) based on its extremes.
| I have no real data to back it up other than anecdata.
|
| I count myself as ridiculously lucky that I am where I am
| doing what I do. Here I am mid-day, discussing non-work
| related items in my down time. I have the flexibility (
| and a pet and a kid although that is basically like
| having two kids ), but I am unable to dismiss the idea
| that it is not just me factor that got me to that point.
| Looking back, there were tons of things that could have
| gone wrong that would put me on the wrong track ( and as
| is often with life, some things did ).
|
| Otoh, I am not that much smarter than my sister and yet
| we are in very different places despite having the same
| upbringing, access and so on. You could argue that she is
| not on HN, but I would say that is a self-selecting
| process..
| doix wrote:
| Like the sibling comment, I feel like we are talking
| about different things. You're talking about right and
| wrong paths and careers.
|
| I'm talking about choices like kids, prioritizing salary
| over flexibility etc. I am not arguing that people in
| tech are there purely based on merit and no luck.
|
| I am saying people that are already in tech make choices
| that give them more or less flexibility. Chasing a job at
| FAANG to get a massive salary and then using the salary
| to get an expensive car and massive mortgage is the wrong
| choice if you want flexibility. But it probably is the
| right choice if you want an expensive car and expensive
| house.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Ahh, yes. Sorry. It seems I misread the original post.
| Thank you for the clarification. I am in agreement with
| what you wrote immediately above.
| doix wrote:
| No need to apologize! All good, I got the feeling we were
| in agreement and I was just explaining my point poorly.
| Bakary wrote:
| This sort of approach sounds useful on paper. People
| should indeed make better choices. In reality, however,
| this solves nothing because we are looking at societal
| problems as varied and complex as climate change,
| obesity, rising house prices, degree inflation, regular
| inflation, global uncertainty, constant digital
| surveillance, and so on. Even a person who has made
| "good" choices such as becoming a SWE is still at the
| mercy of macroeconomic changes. Maybe next year's AI will
| nuke front end work just like it's nuking other white
| collar job markets. Maybe the market will by nuked by
| actual nukes. The modern day careers depend on so many
| conditions that are outside of our control and can't be
| fixed on an individual level, even if it's still a good
| idea to make good choices.
| doix wrote:
| I feel like we are talking about different things.
|
| I'm talking about not having kids/pets (which is
| applicable to everyone) as a choice to make for more
| flexibility where as you are talking about careers.
|
| Also you're talking about good VS bad choices. I don't
| think having kids is necessarily bad or good, it just
| depends on what you want or priorities are.
| Bakary wrote:
| Kids/pets are good example as it would make my argument a
| bit clearer. Today we have a sizeable portion of the
| population that has no dependents, made good choices (had
| an education, worked hard etc.) AND is still stuck
| financially and professionally to the point where they
| can't really have that much flexibility or make many more
| tradeoffs. It's a lot worse in countries like China or
| Korea but it's still pretty bad in the West. There is a
| reason why fertility rates are plummeting, and it goes
| beyond the classic demographic model of higher
| development for lower fertility.
|
| In other words, though it's true that outcomes are linked
| to choices, just the ability to make real choices
| (flexibility vs. salary or family, to name one) is
| predicated on a large dose of prior luck.
| [deleted]
| dijonman2 wrote:
| Being successful isn't about knowing CS. It's about
| navigating relationships. Tech skills are now table stakes.
| Do yourself a favor and diversify your skills. I was dealt
| a shitty hand and rose above it. Emotional and sexual
| abuse. I blame no one. I spent a decade reading and
| studying psychology to rise above it. I've shared too much.
| Do what you will with my advice. The common denominator is
| my perseverance to survive. I made a choice to follow
| something better instead of losing hope. It will get better
| through constant incremental improvements. If you have no
| hope find other people with the same problem. Talk to them.
| Hire a life coach. Literally do anything other than give up
| or feel outrage and cast hate.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| > If you don't get what you want: it's due to your decisions.
|
| Asking genuinely, because I struggle with determining how
| much of what I don't get can be attributed to me:
|
| What if I wanted to be healthy, but have $<any number of
| chronic, debilitating conditions with no clear identified
| cause, mechanism, and or cure>? I recently listened to a
| podcast where two people try to follow life-advice books and
| determine if it actually helped them, and one of the hosts
| had an extremely distressing time trying to attribute why her
| abnormal mammogram result wasn't being followed up on by her
| doctor, despite daily calls for two weeks, was something that
| was due to her decisions.
|
| [How does this apply to being abused as a child? Being a
| domestic abuse survivor? Being the victim of a hate crime,
| displaced due to war or other disaster?]
| dijonman2 wrote:
| Get out of your head and think about yourself. Forget all
| labels. Listen to your gut and inner voice. Do what makes
| you happy.
|
| If you don't know what makes you happy that's step one.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I'm afraid I don't understand how any of what you said
| has anything to do with attributing events in my life to
| my decisions. It just sounds like strategies to make
| decisions for future things, which isn't relevant. Could
| you explain?
| ponow wrote:
| The choice is in how to think about and respond to external
| conditions, not in denying the existence of external
| conditions.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Yes, I'm asking precisely how to think about external
| circumstances. If your thinking is that outcomes are
| because of your decisions, it means if a doctor blows you
| off after a cancer screening returns abnormal results you
| must've decided something to result in this. The
| podcaster decided the only logic there is that if you
| didn't want the doctor to blow you off you shouldn't have
| decided to proactively screen yourself for cancer.
|
| Personally, I struggled with thinking about events in my
| life and my decisions leading to those events precisely
| because of seeing other people try to take that logic and
| apply it in good faith, resulting in horrible
| conclusions. That someone could've prevented their
| fibromyalgia and therefore they are at fault for getting
| sick. That someone's child abuse was something they need
| to take responsibility about.
| cxr wrote:
| Don't worry too much about trying to make sense of that
| advice. It's a bad take that only comes from people
| who've had the privilege of all of the problems they've
| known in life being self-inflicted. (That's for the
| original commenter. The person you're responding to now
| is engaging in a major moving of the goalposts.)
|
| Here's what I've been prone to tell people instead: you
| know how to always get want-- _always_? It 's by wanting
| what you're going to get.
|
| Some people misunderstand this. It's not about settling
| or doing nothing. It's rather the opposite. It's to get
| people to go through the process of interrogating
| themselves about their wants in a way that engages the
| logical part of their brain--which is ultimately most
| likely to be the thing that leads to working out a path
| to whatever that want is. In the extreme case you
| present: "Is it unreasonable for me to want to the abuse
| to stop?" The answer, of course, is an emphatic no.
| There's no need to stop wanting that. Given that it's not
| unreasonable, what's required, then, in order to produce
| that effect?
| cmehdy wrote:
| This is one of the ways income inequality and systemic
| discriminations can drastically alter the life of people or
| groups of people. No time to think, to time to breathe.. no
| time to dream. The mind can die (or at least enter a sort of
| coma) long before the body in these circumstances. And it's
| incredibly hard to help yourself while in there, which is why
| the empathy and kindness of others matters so much too.
| [deleted]
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > then I have about 2.5 hours of "free time" before I have to
| go to bed and repeat the process.
|
| When I was younger, I switched to a 4x10s schedule for this
| exact reason. The limited time left after commute (long at the
| time) and other obligations at the end of the day felt wasted.
|
| Somewhat surprisingly, I felt better when I decided that my 4
| work days per week would be solid work/chores/obligations from
| morning to night. It no longer felt like I was missing out on
| anything because I wasn't trying to squeeze some hobby or
| social activity into a tired 2-3 hour slot at the end of the
| day. My free time and my work time were as separate as they
| could possibly get.
|
| Even intra-day flexibility doesn't really solve the problem of
| having too much to do. My solution was to squish all of the to-
| dos together and leave my off days 100% flexible.
|
| Even now, I try to finish errands and chores on weekdays for
| this same reason: Keeping weekends open is extremely valuable.
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| You can quit your job, move somewhere else, and live a
| different life. Your daily routine is your choice. Technically,
| you don't have to do anything at all.
| [deleted]
| dexwiz wrote:
| Are you a bachelor? Unless you have no one depending on you,
| and little social ties, this really isn't any option for most
| people.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You can quit those too!
|
| I've found it incredibly important to remember the reasons
| that I choose to do what I do, and own that choice.
|
| It helped me overcome serious depression and a victim
| mindset.
|
| Eg, I'm not forced to work and support my family. I want to
| and choose to do so for a wide variety of reasons.
| dahfizz wrote:
| The majority of HN users are rich, single, city dwellers.
| It's a pretty severe bubble IMO.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| It seems like you're guessing at best, stereotyping at
| worst. Is there reliable demographic data for HN users?
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [deleted]
| waprin wrote:
| I recently left a 400k+ job to work full time on an app
| addressing this exact problem, despite having a wife, daughter,
| and Bay Area mortgage . Of course productivity apps are a crowded
| space but I have a burning need to build the right tool for
| myself , and I believe might help others.
|
| Remote work has pressed the need for me to improve here since I
| think I benefited by being in the same room as coworkers and
| being alone in my home the whole workday has pressed my ability
| to stay focused.
|
| I struggled with ADHD , but because of past health issues,
| medication is off the table. Even though Vyvanse was a miracle
| for focus it caused some serious other problems. And the more I
| read about psychiatry and psychology the more I've gotten excited
| by lifestyle changes.
|
| One thing I feel strongly about is that productivity tools need
| to be descriptive, not prescriptive . I'm not a robot, I need to
| work on what my gut is telling me to work on rather than what
| some reminder is telling me to work on. But I also need to do
| work and not scroll Reddit for hours so a tool helps with
| accountability for that.
|
| I can't over emphasize how enamored I am with Andrew Huberman
| Youtube video on the topic. He's a Stanford neuroscientist with
| all sorts of suggestions on managing our dopamine levels with
| techniques like cold water therapy and intermittent fasting.
|
| Social media, including hacker news and excessive email checking,
| can destroy your motivation if you don't keep it in check. If
| you're struggling with focus you simply have to monitor and
| moderate these things.
|
| Please email me, username at gmail if this topic is of interest
| to you.
| Bakary wrote:
| What I don't understand is that with a $400K salary you should
| easily be able to retire altogether within a few short years,
| which should completely solve the productivity issue. You
| wouldn't even have to dial back your lifestyle too much unless
| you are currently burning it on Veblen goods.
|
| I'm grateful you are working on the app, however, as that
| sounds very helpful.
| aleksiy123 wrote:
| Not everyone wants to retire early. Especially people who
| thrive in structure.
| Bakary wrote:
| Instead of retire, let's say never having to do something
| you don't want to do (professionally) at which point you
| don't need productivity boosts. You just do things you'd do
| anyway. And if you don't do them, were you that interested
| in it to begin with?
| pugets wrote:
| You only need semi-structure. Walk the dog every morning. Take
| out the trash at night. Read for a little while before bed. Call
| mom every Saturday. The exact times and durations don't matter
| and won't be known beforehand.
|
| I made the mistake of trying to organize a master plan for how I
| would live my days. In my experience, it just doesn't work out
| the way you plan it. Daily life is too chaotic.
|
| I now use a much simpler approach instead. 8am, 12pm, 4pm, 8pm.
| These are the times by which I need to get something done.
|
| For example, 8am: Walk the dog. By 8, it should be done. If it
| gets done before 7, even better. If it gets done at 8:10, start
| earlier tomorrow. 12pm: Fold the laundry. 4pm: Go to the store,
| call mom, read. 8pm: Make dinner, take out the trash.
|
| When you are comfortable with how many tasks you assign yourself,
| add more tasks. But don't go crazy when you're just starting off.
| Keeping one habit is better than flirting with five.
| germandiago wrote:
| This works pretty well. A semi-routine. With certain
| flexibility.
| akira2501 wrote:
| I found that planning my _weeks_ was far more valuable than
| planning my _days_. As you point out, daily life is too
| chaotic, but a week is something you can actually work with.
|
| I found the same to be true with dieting. You shouldn't plan
| your diet around single days of eating, you should plan it
| around an entire week of eating.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| This is in line with what I've had success with. I've recently
| written about it here as well - just a morning walk ritual,
| more or less. It has been transformative. It's an incredibly
| easy, no-tech, free activity which lets my mind and body
| properly wake up and get primed for the day.
|
| Some days I just wander for 15 minutes and look at the sun or
| feel the air and enjoy the moment. Other days maybe I'll start
| around 5:30 and carry on for an hour or two, then come home and
| get my kids ready for their day. It doesn't matter, and that's
| kind of the point. As long as I've made the time for it, as
| long as I get up and do it, I can feel it out and do what feels
| good.
|
| It means I'm always awake and ready when I start my day.
| There's no dragging myself to my computer or trying to keep up
| with getting the kids ready. By letting myself ease into the
| day, energizing myself with fresh air and movement, I get way
| ahead of where I used to be despite spending far more time
| "doing nothing".
|
| My other ritual, I suppose, is bed time. I get to sleep around
| 9:30, no matter what. Didn't work enough? Didn't make lunches?
| It doesn't matter. Just rest. I'll catch up in the morning
| after I wander aimlessly and find myself again.
|
| My wife doesn't like my early bed time (she's a night owl), but
| I've begun guarding it closely. The structure isn't much, but
| it's enough. Like the author suspects for themselves, I really
| do need it.
|
| Everything that happens in between is usually chunked into
| loose "get work done" and "hang out with family" - specific
| tasks are pretty easy to schedule into there, and I'm just
| careful to ensure there's little overlap. The boundaries of the
| day being clear makes it way easier to remain focused and
| ensure I don't end up trying to do everything at once.
|
| I suspect if everyone made sure they got good sleep and had
| consistent wake and sleep structure, so many other parts of
| their days would fall into place as well.
| notjustanymike wrote:
| Exactly! Flexible rituals, not rigid structures. In particular,
| the morning rituals should be designed to encourage some form
| of productivity and the evening rituals should create closure.
| personalidea wrote:
| What I found with my kids was that the sequence is more
| important than the time. Their bedtime routine has been
| pretty much the same for the last ten years, only the timing
| has changed.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| I gotta do this. My life is spiraling. And I have a job...
| jskulski wrote:
| Rituals can be important. I recently worked on a mostly daily
| exercise routine and it's life changing. I'm now focusing on a
| monthly/weekly/daily planning. If I try to even do two habits, I
| have much lower results.
|
| Counterintuitively, there's requirements to have more slack time.
| It's has to be dedicated and active. I need time to waste. I just
| need that time to be intentional, timed and shamefree. One trick,
| I use is to set a timer, get myself a glass of water, and then
| turn down the bed like a hotel before a Movie.
| alpark3 wrote:
| I feel like it's a losing game to try to force yourself into a
| "productivity" mindset, as if you're some type of black box that
| needs to be optimized for certain behavior.
|
| Structure is good and habit is key, but don't imprison yourself
| in it, in my opinion.
| L0in wrote:
| I think it would be more beneficial if you examine your
| activities and behaviors at work hours. The wouldn't be much
| difference in your work output if you eat launch in the morning
| or spend a little time with your family. If there's a <<problem>>
| somewhere it's probably during work hours.
| rcarr wrote:
| One of the absolute easiest ways to add structure when unemployed
| is to pick a substantial exercise goal and work towards it.
| Endurance events are ideal but could also be something like a new
| Deadlift PR. For the former, if you pick a long enough distance
| such as Ironman or Half Ironman you'll be training in the region
| of between 10 and 20 hours a week which is a part time job in
| itself.
|
| For the latter, you'll be doing less but the time spent commuting
| to the gym, doing your workout and showering is probably still
| going to add up to somewhere in the 5 - 10 hour range if you're
| doing it 5/6 days a week.
|
| You can pretty much find an app for every mainstream sport
| imaginable where you can get a full year of personalised
| programming for under PS200. If you then combine this with a
| training course of some kind to learn a new skill and a creative
| project/side hustle, you end up with a self-structured life by
| default that is pretty satisfying.
|
| If anyone wants app recommendations for specific sports leave a
| comment and I'll write a list of the best ones I've found.
| MrDrDr wrote:
| I have moved between phases of high productivity and high
| procrastination. IMO a system and routine are great if you have a
| goal you genuinely want to achieve. The more time it takes to
| achieve the goal (I'm thinking 5+ years) the more helpful a
| system/routine is. The problem occurs when you find yourself
| working hard to achieve a goal you have no genuine interest in -
| and then no system is going to help you.
| kzrdude wrote:
| How much do you sleep? Cutting down as much as possible on
| evening internet really helps my whole life.
| didgetmaster wrote:
| I recently retired from working for other companies after a 35
| year career; but I have a personal side-project that I have
| worked on for about a decade. During that time I would usually
| spend spare time on it in the evenings or on weekends. Now I can
| work on it anytime I like.
|
| Without some kind of structure, it is easy to let a whole week or
| two go by without accomplishing much of anything. So I make sure
| that I get up at 7am every morning and do something productive on
| it each day. Some days I will only spend a couple hours on it,
| others I will work 10+ hours on it.
|
| Since startup founders often have to wear many hats, it can be a
| challenge to decide what to work on each day. To prevent boredom
| and to spread tasks around so that progress is made in several
| different areas; I roll a single die every day to decide which of
| six areas to work on that day. 1 = Work on a new feature. 2 =
| Test an existing feature or run benchmarks. 3 = Fix bugs or
| optimize some code. 4 = Write documentation, blogs, or
| newsletters. 5 = Work on marketing and sales. 6 = Reach out to
| existing customers for feedback or help them figure out how to
| use it better.
| atemerev wrote:
| I have heavy ADHD. For me, structured life is sadly impossible.
| Every attempt routine degrades in a week or two.
| jcpst wrote:
| Keep trying. I know it's a struggle. Lots of stuff will not
| work or last. But once in a while you may get that one tiny
| little habit to stick, and every little bit helps.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| I heard great things about this book called _Atomic Habits_ ,
| so I bought it. Unfortunately I could never remember to read
| it, and I'm not sure where it is now.
| dutchbrit wrote:
| Ha, I finally ordered that book a few days ago, last minute
| before I'd set off on holiday (I procrastinated ordering it
| for about 2 months). It should of arrived the day before I
| left, but unfortunately it didn't and now I'm on holiday
| without it. Was looking forward to reading it, but I guess
| I'll have to wait a bit longer.
| Ilasky wrote:
| I know this feeling extremely well. Routines are routinely broken
| by me, but I found that I just needed someone else there with me
| to do the thing. Even if it is just their presence.
|
| In the ADHD community, it's called body doubling (
| https://doubleapp.xyz/blog/how-to-body-double ), but it can
| absolutely extend to those outside of the ADHD sphere as well.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| i'm curious but the link doesn't work
| Ilasky wrote:
| Does this one work for you?
|
| https://doubleapp.xyz/blog/how-to-body-double
| vjk800 wrote:
| When I was a graduate student, I often participated in summer
| schools and conferences where there was a strict schedule that
| included two or three meals a day. I absolutely loved it. I
| would like to live all of my life so that someone else would
| schedule my life for me, cook meals at right times, etc. And of
| course part of it was that most of the other people
| participating the event also did the same schedule as you so
| you always had friends to have lunch, dinner and coffee breaks
| with.
|
| If someone has any suggestions on how to organize my life like
| a one big summer school, I'm listening. I guess joining a
| monastery would do it, but I don't really care for the other
| aspects of monastic life.
| mateo411 wrote:
| You could live on a cruise ship. They have a daily schedule
| for fun activities and meal times. For many people, it is
| more fun than joining a monastery.
| vjk800 wrote:
| This is an excellent idea. I need to be a bit wealthier to
| do it though.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| > I would like to live all of my life so that someone else
| would schedule my life for me, cook meals at right times,
| etc.
|
| > how to organize my life like a one big summer school
|
| It sounds like you don't want to take on being an adult.
|
| Responsibility gives you independence and power, you might
| want a therapist to help persuade and shortly guide you that.
| vjk800 wrote:
| Spot on. I don't want independence and I have no use for
| power. I just want to focus on having fun and spending time
| with good people without managing every single minor aspect
| of my life and having responsibility over stuff I don't
| care about. I could also to something useful, i.e. work, if
| absolutely needed. Is this too much to ask? I think that in
| the past loads of people lived like this; powerful people
| had lots servants to take care of the mundane stuff while
| they themselves concentrated on the big picture, while the
| servants lived almost like children in their master's
| households, focusing on the responsibilities they were paid
| for.
|
| I already have a therapist, but so far he hasn't been able
| to turn me into a proper adult. Oh, and by the way, I'm
| close to 40 now so I don't think anymore that this is just
| a passing phase.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| > I don't want independence and I have no use for power.
|
| I used to think like this, it's easy to dismiss, "I want
| power" sounds like something a maniac would say. I don't
| believe you truly don't want independence, maybe less,
| but that still sounds like a real issue.
|
| > I think that in the past loads of people lived like
| this;
|
| > servants lived almost like children
|
| That's absolutely not true, I'm no history buff, but
| servants had all sorts of pressure and responsibility put
| on them. Their tasks may have been menial in skill, but
| they were damn well complicated. Imagine bringing the
| wrong drink or spilling a glass of wine in front of the
| king, off with your head. They seem like children to us
| because life is so much more complex, we didn't die at
| 30.
|
| > already have a therapist, but so far he hasn't been
| able to turn me into a man
|
| Maybe I've mistaken your casual wording, but it's not
| their job to turn you into anything, they're supposed to
| at the very least analyze. Depending on their practice,
| they might give concrete guidance.
|
| If you want to be some wealthy old mans pet, that's fine
| by me, but I don't believe you don't want independence,
| no one doesn't. I think you're just overwhelmed by the
| mundane obstacles we all need to pass to earn it.
|
| For example:
|
| >I just want to focus on having fun and spending time
| with good people without managing every single minor
| aspect of my life and having responsibility over stuff I
| don't care about
|
| That's the bare minimum of reality, we've all got those
| things, even Kim Kardashian.
|
| Maybe your job is too complicated and demanding? There's
| a place you can _reduce_ your responsibility, but it
| doesn 't have to be so black and white.
| [deleted]
| azmodeus wrote:
| We used to do this with flatmates with dinner duty. One of us
| would cook dinner every night for the whole flat based on a
| rota. We were 5 people and all pretty close so that
| definitely helped!
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| Well at least you have one routine. You routinely break
| routines!
| Ilasky wrote:
| Haha! I can count on it like the sun rising in the east.
| [deleted]
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| Repeat the following sentence 10 times in a row, 3 times a day
| and once before bed with the diligence of a Muslim:
|
| "He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature
| of living things."
| mattkrause wrote:
| (It's from Nietzsche in _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ , if anyone
| else is trying to figure out why it sounds familiar).
| skapadia wrote:
| This sounds like a line from a self-help book from the 1930s -
| 1950s.
| mattkrause wrote:
| A bit older (1880s)!
| weinzierl wrote:
| I have a pretty well structured life because I enjoy it that way.
| Does it make me more productive than people with a less
| structured life? Maybe a little bit, but I doubt it makes a big
| difference. A rigid structure always means fragmentation, waste
| and unnecessary overhead.
| tenpoundhammer wrote:
| Throughout my career I've spent a lot of time stressing out about
| how productive I'm being. Trying many different methods. Finally
| I decided that if I feel stressed out about my productivity I
| would write down everything I've done during the day. Usually
| turns out I've done a lot of stuff that I it's actual work that I
| just discount as not work. Some days get taken over by mandatory
| work that doesn't feel productive but is.
| ar_lan wrote:
| In general, I find myself to be someone who operates best within
| certain confines - for example, the time blocking from Cal
| Newport has been highly effective for myself.
|
| That said, I caution against too much routine. I used to get
| really into it but remember many days where I felt like the day
| was ruined because I couldn't get a workout in, or someone
| scheduled an 8am meeting, or any other myriad of things I grew
| dependent on. Too much structure is basically a fragile crutch,
| in my experience.
|
| My personal morning "routine" is a quick cup of coffee and a half
| mile walk, and then straight to work. I time block the day first
| thing based on whatever my weekly goals for the week were, and
| try to keep about two hours of buffer time to allow some shifting
| throughout the day.
|
| I've done this about a year now and it's helped me keep the
| benefits of structure, without the guilt of when something
| "optimal" doesn't happen.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Is there a "lite" version of Cal Newport's time-blocking
| techniques? I'm super interested every time I hear him explain
| it but I get overwhelmed and never end up implementing
| anything.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| I schedule almost everything (eg taking out the trash,
| commutes, workouts)
|
| Maybe start scheduling more of your commitments and
| obligations in your calendar?
|
| Or alternatively,
|
| Start by keeping a time diary of how you spend your days and
| how long tasks take you, then use that to inform your time
| blocks
| ar_lan wrote:
| I wouldn't really say it's a big implementation. I just use a
| piece of paper and denote a line to each 30 mins of the work
| day.
|
| So it might look like:
|
| 10: meeting
|
| 1030: bug fixing
|
| 11: bug fixing
|
| 1130: bug fixing
|
| 12: run
|
| 1230: run
|
| 1: lunch
|
| 130: feature work
|
| 2: feature work
|
| 230: meeting
|
| 3: feature work
|
| 330: feature work
|
| 4: plan next week
|
| The above was my entry from last Friday, where I had a late
| start to the day.
|
| At the start of my day I had kept the 12-2:30 block fairly
| empty (I knew some form of working out + lunch would show up,
| and I had wanted to do some feature work that day, but I
| didn't know if any other meetings would pop up. They didn't,
| so it worked great!)
|
| I basically fill in meetings first, then work around them to
| put in the work I want to focus on for the day. The main
| caveat is I don't focus on anything else for this blocks, and
| unless I'm in incredible flow and the task is definitely
| important, I always make sure I stop at the end of the block
| time (the whole "we will fill up whatever time we allot
| ourselves" theory).
| mikkergp wrote:
| I've noticed in my life I really limit my "must-dos". In fact I
| may only have one. I have to run the four or so days a week I
| plan to. Too much structure I think doesn't leave enough slack
| time and then too often does the inverse of what it disposed to
| do which is help you feel grounded. Everything else is sort of
| "agile structure". Planning athe beginning of the day or maybe
| the week, but having a strict routine is almost like trying to
| plan years ahead of time, you just don't know enough about what
| life will bring.
|
| With a simple structure it really does feel like it brings
| order to chaos, if I have a really bad week and maybe don't
| even get my runs in, it's relatively easy to get my runs in the
| next week. Six different morning activities all at once? That's
| just asking for failure.
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| My circadian rhythm is structure enough. As for morning and night
| routines, I have them, and it usually involves a phone. So first
| thing I check in the morning is my local news, and then world
| news (so I can have some context for the whole day and to be
| alerted of the fact we're not in a nuclear war). Then
| caffeination happens to bring me back to baseline reality.
|
| As for night, I catch up on social media, then place the phone in
| another room so I'm not tempted to doom-scroll. I have a
| dedicated non-internet iPod for listening to podcasts with the
| VLC app which typically sends me to sleep. If I have problems
| sleeping, I take notes, since my brain is buzzing with valuable
| ideas which I execute on the next day.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| Something I remind myself now and again, "Tomorrow starts today."
|
| To me, this means, look at the next day's calendar (commitments,
| obligations, logistics) the night before. If you don't have
| any... make some arbitrary ones up.
|
| All structure is self-imposed anyway (as evidence by those that
| are late for everything).
| ok_dad wrote:
| A local rooster waking me up everyday at 530am has done wonders
| for my productivity. I'm not even joking, I wake up and close the
| windows so my wife doesn't get bothered, make coffee, code for a
| few hours before work, then do my work day, play with my son, and
| finally I end up going to bed quite early (10am) due to being
| dead-ass tired. I was about to try and get rid of the rooster,
| but I actually love the little dude now.
| artur_makly wrote:
| have a kid ;-)
| vehemenz wrote:
| Maybe try defining your structure in terms of the effort you put
| in and what you accomplish (with respect to that effort), rather
| than a schedule or a sequence of items on a checklist. Your
| coffee or teeth-brushing rituals are minor, accidental details.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| Xcelerate wrote:
| > I've come across a lot of productivity and self-help resources
| and all of them suggest setting up a routine.
|
| I've noticed that having a routine is also about the best way to
| accelerate the perception of the passage of time.
|
| The more routine my life is, the quicker the years go by, and I
| look back and say "what did I do during all that time?"
|
| My most memorable years are the ones with a lot of variety,
| change, and novelty.
| Bakary wrote:
| It makes more sense to think of routines as ways to optimize
| your boring time to make more room for the important things.
| amjnsx wrote:
| This is the main reason I hate the holiday season. It's obviousy
| nice to take a break and spend time with loved ones, but as I
| don't spend it at home, my structure/routine just completley
| falls apart and I can't wait for the week to be over by the end
| and I'm craving normality.
| danbrooks wrote:
| Having kids has created a very specific structure.
| oldsklgdfth wrote:
| Not having kids, I feel like a family clears up the
| optimization problem of:
|
| * what should I be doing with my time?
|
| * what is important to think about?
|
| As a software dev with a flexible schedule, my life feels
| arbitrary. I pick up hobbies because I need stuff to do, I try
| to eat better to take care of myself, I save money and live
| frugally for a rainy day. But there's no common thread to all
| these. It's just stuff I picked.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Yes. Also forces one to prioritize because both time and energy
| are precious resources.
| euroderf wrote:
| Yes. You will find a lot of half-hearted "interests" melting
| away.
| dainiusse wrote:
| If you can't do it alone, just you wait until you have kids...
| ravenstine wrote:
| Structure can help.
|
| However, some of us simply have too many things we want to get
| done in the span of a human lifetime, in which case the answer is
| to do _less_ , not more.
| shakezula wrote:
| I resonate with this a lot and the part about not knowing if that
| lack of structure is what makes you unproductive is a question
| I've asked myself a lot lately. It's hard to know the answer and
| I always get different feedback from different people when asked
| which almost always just boils down to what they do.
| Ruq wrote:
| I relate to this so much. I probably should build a morning
| routine. There's so much I want to get done.
| colordrops wrote:
| Instead of desiring and expecting structure and going limp once
| the structure fails, try instead to drop the crutches and
| strengthen the "muscle" that keeps you always dynamically
| evaluating what is best for you to be doing at this very moment.
| There's a desire to have a simple world where you just color in
| between the lines and everything works out while you go on
| autopilot, but the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry
| - the world does not owe you your schedule. Just stay awake and
| always be re-evaluating, don't get caught in sunk-cost fallacy,
| and don't hold onto anything too tightly.
| mannymanman wrote:
| How do you even start doing this? I have poor self control and
| usually start projects/tasks right as the deadline approaches.
| I wish I was that productive all the time...
| colordrops wrote:
| Mindfulness meditation is a big help here. It works for me
| but there are other methods, e.g. memento mori, psychedelics,
| journaling, minimalism, travel, nootropics, exercise until
| exhaustion, new social groups, always pushing a bit out of
| your comfort zone. It's a bit chicken and egg, but letting
| that seed be planted in your head and keep at it for a while
| and don't get caught up in dogma or any particular method.
| nodelessness wrote:
| It is important to listen to the body. I tried to have a spartan
| level of self discipline and that put me in a express route to
| burn out. And I burned out.
|
| Burn out is not easy to climb out of, so I would rather be less
| than ideally productive than be disciplined to an extent that
| ignores my humanity and that damages me severely.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| > I tried to have a spartan level of self discipline and that
| put me in a express route to burn out.
|
| That's because you didn't have a subjugated population of
| helots taking care of everything that isn't your core
| competency ;)
| jasonshen wrote:
| I spoke to a long-time Microsoft and Facebook eng leader who left
| his post as a nonprofit software CEO due to burnout and then
| spent many months languishing and spiralling into depression.
|
| He actually decided to get a job as an Amazon warehouse worker
| for 6 weeks for exactly the reason OP is struggling with: to get
| structure.
|
| > In November, I suddenly thought, "I should at least get some
| sort of job somewhere just to have some regularity to my
| schedule, to enforce some daily practices". My number one
| priority was just to have structured work that would force me to
| get up every day--work that was very different from white collar
| jobs, in that I did not want to be asked to make a lot of
| decisions everyday.
|
| > I didn't want the stress of managing people and teams. I didn't
| want the politics of subjective decisions being debated amongst
| team members. I wanted literally to be told what to do every day
| and I wanted that structure to be rigorous. I strongly felt that
| would help me get out of my depression.
|
| https://www.jasonshen.com/120/
|
| Update: posted this on HN since it seems to resonate
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33072083
| PakG1 wrote:
| The best work experience I ever had was working in a warehouse
| where I just unpacked and repacked lumber all day. It was a lot
| of nonstop lifting. I felt happy when I went home because I
| felt like I worked hard and got stuff done and it was really
| good exercise too. I did that work because I didn't know what I
| REALLY wanted to do after quitting my job (disillusionment and
| naive startup dreams without knowing what it took to succeed)
| and I wanted to experience hard work that wasn't in an office
| (i.e. work in the trenches).
|
| Someone I knew told me I could work in his warehouse. It's too
| bad that it was so low pay. If the pay wasn't the issue, I
| wonder if staying at that kind of job would actually be really
| good for me. I would be physically healthy, my mind would be
| clear and refreshed all the time, and I would feel good about
| having worked hard every day. Would the positive effect still
| last if I did that work for years, or was the positive effect
| only temporary because it was a novel experience to me at the
| time (and I didn't care about the low pay at the time)?
| Interesting to consider.
| pak9rabid wrote:
| I had a similar experience in my teenage years working in
| Dell factories (back when they still ran them out of
| Austin/Round Rock). One of the jobs they had me do for a week
| was to simply unload trucks that came in and put the
| computers/monitors/whatever onto a conveyor than sent them on
| their way. It was surprisingly satisfying, not to mention
| some of the guys I worked with were absolute riots. Kinda
| miss those days...
| mattmanser wrote:
| I did a bunch of warehouse jobs when I was at uni. Some of
| the most depressing and soul crushing jobs I've ever had. The
| worst ever one I had was pulling a massive roll of sandpaper
| to a line and then another guy pressed a button to cut it.
| Then we lifted the cut sandpaper on to a pile. Repeat for 8
| hours.
|
| I didn't stay in that one past one day, far too boring.
|
| Let's not romanticise these jobs. I think you're confusing
| the endorphins from exercise, which most warehouse jobs don't
| need, with the job.
|
| Most warehouse jobs completely suck.
| reanimus wrote:
| I think you can both have true experiences when it comes to
| this. Some people enjoy the monotony of repetitive tasks,
| whereas others want to gargle glass after 10 minutes of it.
| I certainly know I don't want to work a job that physically
| exhausts me every day, but some people do enjoy that. I
| don't think it's romanticizing to say that good-paying
| warehouse work with proper benefits would be a boon to a
| LOT of people.
| pid-1 wrote:
| When I was an intern I did a lot of boring work in data centers
| now and then. Unloading servers from boxes, labeling
| everything, making connections, installing stuff on racks,
| etc...
|
| It was almost therapeutic.
| Bakary wrote:
| This is disturbing on a deep level. A person taking on such a
| job for self-discovery as if it were tourism. Most workers in
| that warehouse need those jobs, including those 60 year olds
| the ex-CEO felt sorry for. It reads like a parody of tech
| culture.
| ericmcer wrote:
| It isn't disturbing on a deep level, there is just inequality
| on many levels. Most people who get an unequal share of the
| wealth are probably also taking on way more stress than the
| average person undergoes.
|
| An ideal world would be one where someone was able to do
| focused creative work for a few months and then mindless
| manual labor for a few months and trade back and forth as
| desired. That will never happen but I would love it.
| cxr wrote:
| I agree with this a lot. It's the shakeup, I think. I've
| wondered in the past about companies pulling their skilled
| knowledge workers out of their usual roles and saying,
| "you're working in HR now" or "you're working in the
| warehouse now (if you want)". Let them do that from 3 weeks
| up to 3 months, and then go back to regular work. Or maybe
| inverted 20% time: Monday-Thursday in the warehouse, and
| Friday at your desk inside your IDE. I'd be really
| surprised if all the "obvious" reasons why this experiment
| wouldn't work actually showed up in the data at the end. My
| expectation is positive gains in productivity.
| Bakary wrote:
| The lack of self-awareness is the disturbing part, or that
| the person interviewed failed to understand the actual
| lesson about the nature of working a shit job for your
| whole life like those presumed 60 year olds.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| You know there's probably an opportunity to offer this as an
| "experience" to SV types, a la dude ranches.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Should I feel bad for Amazon?
| Bakary wrote:
| I don't understand what you are referring to.
| the_doctah wrote:
| >It reads like a parody of tech culture.
|
| I don't know, I feel like this is just a retread of "Office
| Space" and office employees yearning to do construction work.
| Bakary wrote:
| The important distinction is the much larger financial and
| professional freedom of the person in question than the
| Office Space characters
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| I can't speak for Amazon but I had an order picking job at a
| Volvo warehouse in college, and despite having to hit a certain
| number of picked items every day it was oddly relaxing.
|
| Once you got good at it you could zoom through your day on auto
| pilot. Drive to aisle X, pick up N boxes at rack Y, rinse and
| repeat.
| [deleted]
| localhost wrote:
| I remember Philip! Wow. That's some story. Thanks for sharing
| it.
| shakezula wrote:
| I have found myself day-dreaming about a manual labor job for
| many of the same reasons. I am supremely jealous of my friends
| who work these types of jobs and can "leave it at the door"
| when they come home. I can't do that as well, even when I try
| to enforce boundaries. Slack, emails, my home office, etc...
| make it impossible to shut it all out. I'm considering tearing
| down my home office and working solely from a coffee shop
| because of it.
| nimbleplum40 wrote:
| This is one of the biggest benefits to working from the
| office, at least for me. The mental shift between home and
| work is so much easier when they are very distinct physical
| places.
| shakezula wrote:
| I genuinely miss working in an office because of this, and
| am looking to return to one soon, but right now it seems
| that just about every company has a hiring freeze in place
| for the foreseeable future.
|
| A hybrid 3-4 in office / 1-2 out of office per week seems
| to be prime for my personal and social values at work.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| Why are you on your work PC/phone after work? Or is it all
| the same? I notice a lot of people do not have personal
| computers anymore... like back in the 90s.
|
| For home office I shut off the work PC and turn on the gaming
| PC where I am not logged in on work accounts. Work phone on
| disturb mode.
|
| Or go take a walk.
|
| Its not "impossible to shut it all out"
| Bakary wrote:
| This reminds me of a fairly insightful meme: Tired of
| looking at Bad screen, can't wait to get home to look at
| Good screen
| the_only_law wrote:
| Back when I worked my last job. I'd find that when work
| was scarce (pretty common mostly thanks to an
| impenetrable bureaucracy) My brain would wake up and I
| would suddenly feel motivated to think about and work on
| new projects, then I'd get home and for some reason not
| have the energy and just pass out instead.
| Bakary wrote:
| Perhaps a contributing factor is that when stuck at work
| you have a limited range of options that don't include
| passing out whereas at home you have fewer restraints and
| more competition from the easy solutions
| the_only_law wrote:
| That's probably exactly it.
| haswell wrote:
| > _Its not "impossible to shut it all out"_
|
| I think this highly depends on the person. For me, it
| wasn't just about enforcing separation of equipment.
|
| For a time, I was using the same desk for work during the
| day and then switching inputs on my screen to use my
| personal gaming PC in the evenings. I still shut off
| notifications, never had notifications on my phone, etc.
|
| This wasn't enough.
|
| So I set up a small desk in another part of the apartment
| and made that the work desk. It was better than using the
| same desk.
|
| This wasn't enough.
|
| I've realized that a lot of my emotional states and memory
| recall are very anchored to where I am physically. Just
| being in the same physical space after a stressful workday
| was the problem. Glancing at the plant in the corner that I
| was staring at while contemplating a challenging problem
| earlier in the day immediately made me start thinking about
| work again.
|
| > _Or go take a walk._
|
| Walking is one of the best ways I've coped. But I also live
| in a four seasons climate, and this isn't always possible.
|
| As much as I dislike the idea of going back to a physical
| office space, I think this is one of the hidden costs of
| WFH.
|
| It's not insurmountable, but neither is it easy.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| For me, work from home didn't really change the hardest
| things about shutting down. It has never been (again, for
| me) the equipment or the emails or the messages, but that
| the mind doesn't stop chewing on things. I can put away
| the computers and go for a walk and still have my mind
| working over whatever problems I was trying to solve. I
| think it's an example of the mind working against itself,
| because I enjoy solving problems but I also enjoy putting
| work aside after hours.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >For a time, I was using the same desk for work during
| the day and then switching inputs on my screen to use my
| personal gaming PC in the evenings. I still shut off
| notifications, never had notifications on my phone, etc.
|
| I mean yea I have this too but I don't actively look at
| notifications. I'm constantly "on" and nervous but Ive
| just been that most of my life.
|
| And now I'm in office. I do not know if its gonna get
| better.
| fudged71 wrote:
| As a burned out founder with ADHD, I took a break from tech and
| did a year as a personal trainer at a big box gym. It was such
| a great difference from tech work: physical movement, human
| interaction, paper-based, etc. The high levels of
| accountability (in addition to physical movement) were
| extremely satisfying.
|
| I dream of a future of tech work that is more similar to the
| gym, rather than sitting at a desk. Some kind of augmented
| reality work space where you intentionally add physical
| friction (reaching, pulling, pushing), physical objects, human
| interactions, etc and lots of standing. I imagine the mental
| rewards of this approach would be really interesting, and you
| might finish the work day feeling physically energized.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I'm in tech and work from home. I own the home. I get heaps
| of physical exercise gardening and maintaining the house.
| Cutting back plants that are too big, putting new planets in.
| Mowing the lawn. Painting here and there. I have a leak in
| one of the bedroom ceilings. I built a deck out the back -
| that was a big job. You know there is also just normal chores
| around the house that keep me moving. Doing the laundry.
| Cleaning.
|
| Anyhow, I say embrace your chores. Don't pay somebody to do
| them for you.
| [deleted]
| pj_mukh wrote:
| This. So much this. Over quarantine I found myself spending
| increasing amount of time cooking after coding time. Just
| because the difference of doing something _productive_ with
| your hands is so sorely missed.
|
| If something bridged those two, like Minority report but with
| even more movement, it would be gold.
|
| Someone ITT mentioned warehouse jobs and workout endorphins
| coloring our view, but I think its more missing just moving
| things around with your hands.
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| This is a great comment, I've found myself wishing for a work
| environment that provides us with these human elements. We
| are animals that are designed to move!
|
| Walking meetings, some type of AR technology so we can
| perform email responses/research while moving, and physical
| interaction with digital systems is the future I want.
| dboreham wrote:
| Years ago I had the idea to create an automated "task assigner"
| to solve this problem. Once loaded with suitable data (perhaps a
| hard problem), it would just feed you tasks, "Do this now", and
| you'd do the tasks and feel happy that you had completed its
| assigned tasks. Based on the theory that the trouble isn't with
| doing stuff but more deciding what do do and in which order. Too
| busy to actually write it though.
| jesterswilde wrote:
| On the other side of it, I recently decided to let go of the idea
| of structure. I spent a large portion of my life trying to be one
| of those structured productive people with habits and such. I
| have a wide array of skills and none of them were gained from
| habits and structure, they were gained from following a passion.
|
| I'm happier now, my spirals are smaller, I forgive myself easier.
| I also think I am more productive.
|
| Not saying one shouldn't seek structure and try to make it for
| themselves. If that's your path, go for it. But for me, I think
| that ideal was harmful and hindered a lot.
| Kinnard wrote:
| Maybe it's a symptom and not the actual underlying cause. You
| went through all the trouble to put into writing your need for
| structure so it's off the table that your problem is that "you
| aren't trying to implement structure in your life."
|
| What else could it be?
| k__ wrote:
| A few years ago, I got the rid of (most) alarms.
|
| Now, I get out of bed when I'm rested and only set alarms
| occasionally when I have an appointment.
|
| It might not be a time-based structure, but it's one that I can
| follow indefinitely.
| dexwiz wrote:
| Structure is good, but it's really hard to self impose. Before
| you had to do one thing: work within a structure. Having to self
| impose means you have to do two things: create structure and then
| do the work within it.
|
| It doesn't help that advancing as a technical worker often
| removes that structure, or forces you to create it. I am given
| freedom as a perk of seniority, but for me it's been a burden.
| foooobaba wrote:
| Two things helped me:
|
| 1. Simple organization
|
| 2. Laid back mindset
|
| Organization to get clarity, not to be prescriptive. To easily
| see things like what's going on, when deadlines are, and what's
| involved, and what you want in the first place. Organization not
| to set a schedule, routine, time management, or anything like
| that. It's about making things simpler.
|
| Laid back mindset so I can take it easy and get things done at
| the same time. Like working smart, not hard. Instead of trying to
| be fast, productive, efficient, take your time, be more
| thoughtful. It helps to naturally avoid procrastination, because
| the thought of doing something you don't feel like isn't so
| repulsive. You can just take your time, relax, and get it done.
| If you avoid feeling pressured, it makes it easier to
| concentrate, and do a better job.
|
| My goal is to wake up, and not care about what day it is. I
| really don't want to be stressed at night. I don't want to dread
| Monday or look forward to the weekend. I don't want to be so
| worked up that my brain looks for distractions. I don't want to
| have to hype myself up to something.
|
| Being organized helps me see what I might wanna do when I wake
| up, and be at peace when I want to get some rest. Being laid back
| helps me to actually start doing something and even have a chance
| to enjoy it. It helps me to take a break when I need it, and to
| pick it up again later. It makes it easier to be patient when
| something is challenging.
| musha68k wrote:
| Good for them to envision a structure of their own. If they end
| up not being able to build the habits I can only say that in case
| of having kids you _will_ find structure alright.
|
| That or you'll simply disintegrate into the void.
|
| Pick life though and just do it (Atomic habits is probably a good
| start, check durmonski.com for an efficient write up).
| brador wrote:
| 5.30am? You're not doing any brain work for the next 12 hours
| after waking that early.
| davbryn wrote:
| Structure is important. Personally, it has been something I've
| found more difficult to adhere to as I've gotten older and more
| successful. When you start out in your career you find structure
| essential: I HAD to be up early or I wouldn't make the 30 mins
| walk to my train. I HAD to get home on time to collect my child
| from nursery, and I couldn't risk the train being late.
|
| As I've progressed in my career I've been able to afford cars. I
| don't have to get up so early because I can work remotely. My son
| is almost an adult and mostly looks after himself.
|
| I think it is a momentum thing and you don't realise when you are
| on that train. Younger me could wake at 4am to travel and start
| work at 8am so he could leave early, collect his son and then go
| to the gym.
|
| Older me is lazy. My body aches, I don't have the drive I used to
| have. I'm comfortable. But I'm not really comfortable; I'm
| drained; I'm aching and I'm struggling to enjoy things.
|
| Noone talks about the affect of the grind you have to do early on
| in life.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah I'm about where you are, maybe a little past that. My kids
| are at university or out on their own. I don't really have
| rigid work hours. I can easily go to bed and sleep for 10 or 12
| hours. I think I am slowly recovering from about three decades
| of sleep deprivation.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Once had a field job where I did nothing about it after I left.
| And then I had a new job where I was working at a desk and still
| continued to work after I went home. The latter job I aged
| considerably. While in the former, I was in the best health. But
| man, there were some days that I had to fight to get up in the
| morning after tiring myself the previous day. Little did I know
| it was keeping me young.
|
| Routines are important. Even if artificial.
| cm_silva wrote:
| It's ok to not have structure, but if you feel that the way you
| are leading your life is not working, then perhaps it is time to
| change.
|
| I found that, when I was feeling overwhelmed, it was because I
| was not making choices.
|
| Or, in other words, I was not saying "No" to enough things, so
| that I had too much on my plate.
|
| I found that choices were hard to make but, once I started
| simplifying my life by removing elements from it, I started to
| get a lot more focus.
|
| That focus allowed me to find the motivation and direction that I
| had needed all my life, but which I never thought I was missing.
|
| Feeling unsatisfied with one's life can really be a great
| blessing ;-)
| mcculley wrote:
| "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent
| and original in your work." --Gustave Flaubert
| reciprocate wrote:
| I've been reading through "I Didn't Do the Thing Today", which is
| in a lot of ways a rejection of the prevailing productivity
| sentiment. It's about self-care and treating yourself with grace,
| even when things don't come out as the most profitable or
| productive, at least so far.
|
| And in that spirit I'll say to the author of this post: It's okay
| to nap in the middle of the day, or not eat breakfast, or work
| first thing in the morning and not do a Morning Page or
| Meditation or whatever aspirational-you has decided is
| worthwhile. We are all doing our best in the circumstances we
| have.
|
| In my life I've found that better is really a game of averages.
| Some days are going to be great. Some weeks have a severe
| downward trend with no real reason that I can tell. Well. Maybe
| it's due to bad sleep quality or lack of exercise. All I can do
| is try to be the person that makes the good decisions and accept
| the person that I am, and that keeps me pretty happy.
| nightpool wrote:
| This is a weird article. It has almost no content, and is just a
| small personal journal entry. It has the exact same sign-off as a
| different personal journal entry (with slightly more context)
| that got front-page exposure earlier today, and submitted by the
| exact same person:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=memorable, who is a
| developer for the blogging software these articles were authored
| with. Feels like a weird / non-genuine stealth marketing
| campaign.
| odd_noises wrote:
| This is literally me! Why are we like this??
| odd_noises wrote:
| This is literally me! Why are like this??
| Animats wrote:
| Join the Army.
| insightcheck wrote:
| It doesn't seem that there are many software development
| positions (which is relevant for many users here) in the
| (assuming US) army or military in general.
| Animats wrote:
| The Space Force is hiring devs and data scientists.[1] What
| they mostly do, after all, is collect huge amounts of data
| from various sensors and try to make sense of it. With
| college and engineering training, go for an officer
| position.[2]
|
| [1] https://fcw.com/defense/2022/05/space-force-bring-data-
| scien...
|
| [2] https://www.spaceforce.com/military-careers/cyberspace-
| opera...
| rcarr wrote:
| I imagine the signals or intelligence corps will take you in
| a heart beat providing you don't have a history of mental
| illness or some other condition that disallows entry such as
| autism. They were even contemplating lowering the fitness
| test requirements for devs because they were that desperate
| to recruit. At least that's what I heard over here in the UK
| about our military. I thought about joining long and hard but
| ultimately decided it wasn't for me.
| blueyes wrote:
| Sunsama did a really great job of helping me adopt new habits
| that brought more structure to my work day.
|
| https://www.sunsama.com/
|
| But you need to enforce your own bedtime and waking time to make
| it effective.
| omgmajk wrote:
| I struggle a lot with structure, I find that I am the most
| productive when things get really chaotic and random and I get
| flung in to a project or work item that I have no idea what's
| going on with. I think I'm quite weird that way but I know some
| other people who like that approach too. This goes for my life
| outside of work as well, forced structure feels strange to me.
| posharma wrote:
| What is so special about this blog? Why is it getting so much
| attention?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| People identify with the predicament.
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