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Ask HN: Daily schedule

52 points by anemecek ↗ HN
There is a lot of interesting people on this website who are nothing short of my idols (and I can imagine that I am not the only one who feels that way). Without a doubt, one way to mimic the successes of these people is to do what they do. So I was just wondering if some of you guys cared to share what does your normal day schedule look like.

Sorry if this is a repost, I tried to find if a similar topic had been done before but I did not find anything.

58 comments

[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] thread
gdl
> Without a doubt, one way to mimic the successes of these people is to do what they do.

Careful with that thought. If someone creates their own path, following in their footsteps after the fact will be an entirely different journey than the one they took.

That said, I'm curious as well. With the crowd that HN attracts, personal anecdotes can get pretty interesting.

anemecek
Sure but that is dependent on how low-level your definition of "mimic" is. I did not mean that I would do the very same thing. This might not be the most instructive example, but for example if someone said "I work hard all day long", you can certainly get successful as well by doing that. I guess I should have said "get inspiration" instead of "mimic".
gdl
Totally agree. Just figured I'd put that out there since some people waste too much effort trying to take on the superficial mannerisms and habits of successful people as a distraction from the more difficult task of actually getting things done.
stretchwithme
A few specific habits that could be more important than the right routine:

- Learning how to get yourself into a creative state - Automating non-creative, repetitive tasks - Discerning when one should delegate or seek help from others and picking the right way to do that for the situation. - Taking the time to learn principles/foundational material for a new tool. In other words, RTFM.

chaosmachine 

  6:00 am: Rise from bed.
  6:15 - 6:30: Dumbbell exercise and wall-scaling.
  7:15 - 8:15: Study electricity, etc.
  8:30 - 4:30: Work.
  4:30 - 5:00: Baseball and sports.
  5:00 - 6:00: Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it.
  7:00 - 9:00: Study needed inventions.
speek
How does one "Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it?"
kngspook
Where have I seen this before..? :P
ambulatorybird
I'm pretty sure this is from The Great Gatsby -- I remember the dumbbell part. Am I right?
nandemo
Yes. I remember the "practice elocution" part.
tsally
Similar discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=634986. My schedule is still similar, but I would be less social if I was trying to bootstrap. ;)

6:30AM Wake up, shower, eat breakfast, make coffee

7:30AM Catch the bus to work

5:00PM Finish work

5:07PM Catch bus home

6:00PM Get home, make more coffee, change clothes, eat dinner

6:15PM-10:00 Program or socialize. So far this has been a 50/50 split.

10:30PM Sleep

On weeekends I try to get up early and hit a coffee shop from 9:00-3:00. I get somewhere between 15-20 hours of programming in per week (outside of my job).

patio11
It goes all over the place, but here's what my best days are like:

8:30~9:00 wake up, stumble into shower

9:15 turn on computer, check email, do non-work

10:00 work begins

13:00 lunchtime!

15:30 shouldn't have brought a book! work resumes

17:30 ~ 18:30 creative impulse dies, work ceases for day

+ 1 hour go to gym

+ 2 hours eat dinner

+ 2.5 hours evening plans

22:00 ~ 2:00 AM read/game/movie/etc, check email, maybe write some goals down for later, go to sleep

gprisament
My typical day:

9:30: wake up

10:30: get to work (now my home office), check email

10:30-noon: procrastinate

noon-1:15: lunch then 45 minute walk

1:15-5:00: procrastinate

5-7pm: 2 hours of amazing productivity

7-8:30: Cook & eat dinner

8:30-midnight: Take rest of night off or perhaps have another couple hours of productivity.

It's not as bad as it sounds cause usually the "procrastination" is me experimenting with new code or programming languages (or reading HN), just not what I'm "supposed" to be doing.

pclark
yeah, whats up with the 17.00 - 19.00 crazy productivity?
gprisament
Usually at some point I start yelling at myself "ok, you REALLY need to work now" and once I get into it I'm extremely focused and productive, especially if a deadline is looming.
tdfx
When I worked in an office I was the same way. If I hit a good stride by like 4-5pm, I would usually end up staying until 7-9pm. It's good to have bosses that recognize that 40 hours a week don't have to be at the same time every day to maximize productivity.
pclark
wake up at 7.30AM, check email/twitter.

shower, exfoliate, moisturise, floss, brush teeth, mouth wash, hair product, get dressed by 7.45

drive to work (its important to listen to music at this time), arrive at 8.00

breakfast (fruit + croissants + green tea) ~ 9.00

work, lunch for ~45 mins at 12

finish work at 19.00

home by 19.15, snack at 21.30, work/read/music/video games till 1.30, exercise & stretch, sleep by 01.30.

repeat.

I've recently given up caffine and most sugars, and try to sleep only 6 hours a night and have been a factor of ten more productive. Also, only checking twitter on iPhone, heh.

pyb
Interesting. Are you saying that sleeping 8 hours would make you less productive ? How did you find out ?
pclark
I find I'm more alert with 6 hours sleep. Also generally two hours more each and every day.
snikeris
green tea has caffine in it
runjake
I noticed you forgot "Return some videos" in that list.

Note: You are awesome if you catch the reference.

zavulon
This is my perfect schedule that I do when everything goes right. Sometimes I deviate from it. Also, I'm a single man living in NYC, so YMMV.

9 AM: Wake up, go to the gym

10 AM: Shower/shave/etc, get dressed

11 AM: Arrive at the office

- As soon as get to the office: check my goals for today, do the most important thing (before checking emails)

- Lunch at some point

9 PM: Finish work, get home, dinner, relax

11 PM: Go out/socialize

1 AM: Get home, answer some emails, write down goals for tomorrow

2 AM: sleep

callmeed
As a married guy in a small, sleepy town I must say I envy your schedule a bit.
jeb
Wake up between 7 and 8 (naturally, no alarm clock), answer emails, go get breakfast, eat while watching the daily show. Check what's new online. Start actually working at 10. Go out for a walk around 13, and get some lunch, 14:30 back, and work till 10pm. Sometimes will go out around 8pm to meet people.
swah
Is answering or seeing this thread right now in your planned schedule?
nnash
My schedule is different every semester and summer but here is my current summer schedule.

7:30 wake up 7:30 - 8:00 shower/shave etc 8:00 - 8:30 eat breakfast 8:30 - 9:00 watch morning news 9:00 - 9:45 ride the train to work 9:45 - 10:00 pick up some fruit and a health drink from a bodega to save for lunch later 10:00 - 1:00 work then eat lunch 2:00-6:00 work 6:00 - 7:00 go home 7:00 - 12:00 w/e

LeBlanc
One thing you should consider is that the successful people you want to imitate are probably partially successful because they did not imitate others, but did what worked for them.

Everybody is different and will work best under different conditions. Try to find out what schedule works best for you.

I get the most work done later in the day, but I still find myself most productive if I get up reasonably early. So I allocate easy / non-thinking work in the morning, and do stuff that really requires creativity and brainpower in the afternoon / evening.

tdfx
All these schedules make me feel quite lazy, but it is what it is (these times are very approximate and subject to change):

11am: Wakeup, check e-mail/stats/missed IMs, water/hydration

12pm: ~30min of running, shower/cleanup, protein shake or small meal

1pm: Review ToDo list, usually 40/60 mix between reading/research and coding/implementation

~4-6pm: Get food, eat, watch some TV (but mostly read RSS/HN/Reddit/etc on my iPad), possibly gym/workout

7:30-8pm: Continue working through ToDo list

2-5am: When I'm ready to fall over at the keyboard I head to sleep. If I hit a really good stride I might keep going through to the morning, which wrecks my schedule for the next day.

On weekends or other nights that I go out (~3 nights a week), I usually stop working around 8-10pm.

P.S. if you couldn't tell, I work from home.

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swombat
Slightly all over the place too, but recently it's something like:

(optional)

5:40 wake up and drive my girlfriend to some networking breakfast event

7:00 crash back into bed

(/optional)

8:00 Wake up, breakfast, browse HN, catch up on email, etc

9:00 or so, real work begins

13:00 start to get uncomfortably hungry, locate some nutrients, and absorb them orally. Usually about half an hour or an hour.

Between 17:00 and 20:00, varying depending on the day brain begins to emit SIGHUP signals and I end up doing something else, whether that's going for a run, watching some brain-dead TV, reading a book, or even spending the evening with my girlfriend.

Rarely, I go out to networking events or other social functions. Most of the time, though, I stay in, and go to bed by about midnight.

I think the most important thing I learned about working from home was that you have to act as if you had work hours, and protect that time so you don't spend it doing stupid chores like laundry or shopping or whatever. I do my shopping in the evening, like everyone else. I do my bills in the evening, like everyone else. Daytime is reserved for real, productive work.

DougWebb
I suspect that many who have posted so far are younger than I am, more single than I am, and either in school or self-employed. Here's my typical schedule:

6am-7am: wake up, feed the dog, get ready for work

7am-8am: commute into NYC

8am-4:30pm: work in office; fit lunch in somewhere often at desk

4:30pm-5:30pm: commute back home

5:30pm-12am: mixed bag; dinner, dog, time with wife, time with tv, email (work and personal), sometimes more work, etc

12am-6am: sleep

My commute is mostly by train, so I spend that time reading or on computer+WiFi, depending on my needs. I often work from home too, which shifts things around a bit but I basically keep the same work hours so I'm in sync with colleagues.

jeffbarr
Here's mine. I like to get an early start. My eyes are generally open before the 5:00 AM alarm rings.

4:55 AM - Eyes open

5:00 AM - Out of bed

5:10 AM - 6:30 AM - Deal with email and eat breakfast, create TODO list for the day

6:30 AM - Get showered and dressed

7:00 AM - Drive or walk to bus (if not working from home that day)

8:00 AM - 5:30 PM - Work

6:30 PM - Home

6:30 PM - 10:00 PM - Random (dinner, gym, walk with wife, help kids with homework, personal projects, etc)

10:00 PM - 11:30 PM - Watch a few random episodes of Seinfeld or Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on DVR

11:30 PM - Fall asleep in front of TV

12:30 AM - Wake up and go upstairs for actual sleep

My time on the bus is spent reading or resting.

anemecek
You sleep 4 hours 25 minutes a night‽‽‽
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mitko
one way to mimic the successes of these people is to do what they do

Disagree. Thinking like that is a common logical fallacy. Suppose you find a relation "isHacker?" <~> "schedule type". Then you have NO evidence at all that that these are related since your whole sample are hackers. Also you don't know anything about the causality.

Even if there is some relation (which I doubt) probably there are some other reasons and "reasons" ~> "isHacker?" and "reasons" ~> "schedule type"

~ is for probability.

anemecek
You are not the first person to point it out. See explanation below.
enduser 

  5:30 wake up, meditate, breakfast, spend time with my wife
  7:00 bike to office
  7:15 works begins. no distractions.
  9:00 check email, open IRC, continue work
  11:30 lunch
  14:45 bike home
  15:00 spend time outside (walk, hike, swim, garden, study in hammock)
  18:00 work out ~1 hour (alternate days olympic weightlifting/powerlifting
                                         with rowing)
  19:00 dinner, time with friends, study
  21:00 meditate
  21:30 sleep
no caffeine or drugs, drink very little alcohol (a couple of drinks once every 1-2 weeks)

i am very pleased with this schedule and very productive. i'll probably wake up later in the fall/winter.

waleedka
I've been using an app called Infinity on the iPhone to track and optimize my time, and I learned a few things that surprised me. For example:

- I was spending almost 2 hours a day on chit-chat with friends at work. This time is usually counted as work, but it really isn't. So now I stay in the office less, and go out with friends more. Same productivity, more fun.

- I was spending way more time than I thought on email, facebook, and reading news. Now I use a tool called StayFocused to limit my email/facebook time to 1.5 hours a day.

- I spent way too much time on technical support, so I went ahead and hired an intern to handle that.

Overall, I now work less and get more done, which is great.

dhyasama
Most days look something like this:

7 Wake up

7-8:30 Breakfast and relax with daughter and girlfriend

8:30 Bike to work

9-12 Work

12 Bike home

12:30-1 Lunch and put daughter down for a nap

1-4 Work

4-8 Play with daughter, run errands, cook dinner, put her to bed

8-9 or 10 Work

10-11 Watch TV

11 Girlfriend gets home

12 Go to bed

patrickmclaren
6:15am Wake Up

6:30am Treadmill

7:00am Breakfast

7:30am Bus to Work

8:30am Start Work

9:00am Stand-up Meeting/Task allocation

9:30am-4:30pm Continue Work

5:30am-6:30pm Weights Training

6:30pm-7:45pm Check body stats and change diet accordingly, cook foods

7:45pm-9:45pm Study Maths/Physics

9:45pm Study Log/Random reading/Shower

10:15pm Bed!

speek
7:01 wake up, check email/HN

7:30 head to gym with protein -- work out

9:00 breakfast, then head to office

10:00 check email, plan day

11:00 snack

1:00 lunch (not necessarily a break. I work at a bootstrapped startup)

3:00 snack

6:00 dinner

7:00 head back to apartment

8:00-11:00 debrief a bit (watch some tv, movies), work on projects

11:00 sleep

Yeah, I eat a lot.