Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks?

Prioritization. Spending 10 minutes every end-of-day planning the next day.

2.

Scheduling chaos time. Leave spare time every day and every week which is like extra time to get the tasks done. So there is no backlog.

3.

Using leechblock firefox plugin to make sure I don't read google reader, HN etc before lunch.

4.

Making plans public. I used to have an accountability partner where we both used to tell each other what we'll achieve for that day. And then check up on each other at the end of the day.

5.

Scheduling meetings at the end of the day. While there are exceptions because of time conflicts, most of my meetings happen at the end of the day. And sometimes during lunch.

2. Efficient shell usage

3. Alternating coffee and ganja

I think only the last one's a hack but it's a damn good one.

Note that the above suggestion is self-referential.

Every time I have an idea now, I force myself to put it on that list, and if I'm still thinking about it in 2-5 days, then I'll allow myself some time to explore it further.

It has saved me hours a week. I used to explore an idea immediately for up to an hour, sometimes more, and all that time is lost because several of the ideas shouldn't have been allowed even 2-seconds.

For the last 2 days, I've been writing a model configurator that explodes input parameters into individual objects. I probably have 8 or 9 things dependent on this (not really sure yet), so I plug away until done. Then I'll figure out the new only thing on my list.

I've tried every conceivable "productivity hack" and nothing has worked as well as this. I have scratch pads, paper on the wall, 20 colors of markers, and all kinds of automated tools for scheduling and planning. I've varied my diet, my exercise routine, my daily routine, and almost anything else I could vary, and none of it really mattered. All it ever really did was take focus away from the real task at hand.

Just identify your critical path, remove it, and repeat forever.

I started with this and fine tuned what worked for me:

http://paulgraham.com/procrastination.html

Other inspiriation:

"I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one." chess master Jose R. Capablanca

2. Make lots of tea in the morning and put it in a thermos. The tea stays hot all day, and I don't have to go through the entire brewing process every time I want another cup.

3. Use software that tracks time spent on tasks. (I use a bug tracker with that feature.) I find it very motivating when I know I'm on the clock.

Actually, it seems like there's a entrepreneurial opportunity here. Maybe a service where a representative checks in on the client from time to time to make sure that the client is staying on task. Kind of like a for-profit "accountabilibuddy."

A few things that have worked for us:

1) Hire someone to be on the "front lines" so you can queue your tasks while your business still has timely responses

2) Minimize switching hats throughout the day (marketer to programmer to customer service)

3) Avoid computer distractions - Remove programs from dock (use QuickSilver instead) - Remove notifications (menu bar items icons, widgets, growl notifications) - Remove bookmarks bar from Safari and FireFox - Remove email notifier and only check 1-2x a day and when you are ready to answer them

4) Plan ahead by creating tomorrow's ToDo list today

5) Separate Google Reader feeds by subject and only read specific subjects when wearing that hat

6) Stop bookmarking URLs and saving code snippets - it will probably be out of date by the time you need it (assuming you can remember where you saved it)

Depending also on the variance of your work- if there is work that requires lots of contexts (phone-work vs. appointments vs. programming vs. design...) there's always Getting Things Done (GTD). I would also recommend GTD if you deal with lots of incoming data-streams, paperwork, or if you are generally unorganized.

It works for me, I am using this system for more then one year and love it.

Everything else, work only in short term. Plus you don't need discipline to do what you love to do.

So, just make something a daily task and stick to it for at least 30 days.

The system that has worked best when I can bring myself to stick to it is:

1) Write a small paper list before going to bed of what I want to do tomorrow.

2) Tidy my room and get any work materials that I will need (which for me normally just means relevant books etc) ready on my desk.

3) Try to start work the moment I get up.

4) Record what work I do on a simple paper based schedule in 30m blocks during the day. I'm somehow less likely to procrastinate if I know that I am going to have to write down that I've done it.

Thats about it. Getting up at the same time every day and avoiding too much coffee helps too.

I seem to be able to stick to this system fairly well most of the time but when something happens that causes me to stop, then it often takes me weeks to get back on track.

Whatever system you use, just make sure it is as simple as possible. You don't want maintaining your time management/productivity system to become your full-time job!

Hope this helps ashishk

2. use a separate browser for Gmail

3. don't check emails automatically. Only if I think of it.

4. only read online news once during the day, at lunch, and use instapaper.com to defer articles that might take more than a few minutes to read.

5. the null default browser page is a great idea - but in the past I've taken it further, with a message asking if I'm browsing for work. I've also thought that a script displaying my current todo list or bug count, etc. would be a good default page.

EDIT: And if you can, cook only twice a week, making enough for a few days. Setup coffee machine before going to sleep.

They all discussed it and agreed on this rule:

If you have 10 things to do, and you do them all in parallel, you will be done slower with ALL of them, than if you do them one after the other.

That's the biggest productivity hack - do things one after the other, and not all at once.

A closed door.

If your compiles are too slow then get a faster computer.

Writing a hardware driver or developing embedded code? Make sure your test hardware is sitting on your desk. You can have it somewhere else if it's ssh-able and has a remote reboot button that's accessible from the command line. Because if those are true then your build is scriptable.

Always make sure that you have to run only 1 command to compile and load your new code to the test hardware (IE, up-arrow return does it all). If you have to do more than one thing to get your code running then you are wasting precious brain cycles on your build process which can be as big an interruption as a phone call or email, especially if the things you have to type aren't even the same every time.

At the moment I'm violating this principle by having to drive 15 minutes to get access to my test machine. I can program there too, but it's kind of a hassle. Needless to say this project has dragged on for weeks longer than it should have. Sigh.

turn off the music.