Show HN: 2u.fm is a social music discovery site, my side project for over a year - <AUTHOR> http://2u.fm <comment><USER2> It seems that for every post I read about someone's awesome project there are 5-6 people saying "Your idea sucks, why'd you waste your time"

Guys, do yourself a favor and don't post these comments. You're not sharing any profound insights, you're just compensating for some insecurity you have.

In OP's case, I don't especially think he cares whether you thought his idea was the next Google. I base this on the fact that: A.) The site is already mature and B.) title says "my side project for over a year" -- so like, 1 year later, your negative comment is going to change his mind? Yeah, I doubt it.

If you put a year of effort into a nice webapp like OPs, you will have users, and people will enjoy your service. Also, this site is very impressive, and makes a good portfolio piece for sure.

I don't know if anyone is maybe getting the wrong idea. Personally, I don't click Show HN and then pretend to be PG interviewing the guy for a seed round. I click Show HN's to see cool stuff.

If you like it, then try it, use it, whatever. But if you don't have anything constructive to say, then you're wasting everyone's time, including your own.

<comment><USER3> I must sympathize with both sides:

I get what some users mean when they criticize projects in this manner. They're saying, "You're so smart and this is all you came up with?" It's not so much an insult as it is disappointment of a talented person. Their mentality is "If I had your talent, I wouldn't have wasted my time on this."

But it's important to understand that the whole purpose of side projects is to take a journey, learn, experience, and try out random things. It's impossible to tell accurately weather a project succeeds or not so you have to try.

I'm sure if Sergey Brin and Larry Page submitted their Google prototype on HN it would have been met with "Why? There's already Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, Lycos, Alta Vista... they do search and they're established, Page Rank is just a feature. What's stopping Lycos or Alta Vista from implimenting their own Page Rank algorithm?". Twitter would have been met with "Only 140 characters? That's not going to get anywhere". _(all things that a VC would say)_

I blame this on Hacker News (emphasis on HACKER) having more startup news than projects, inventions, designs, code samples, and hacking articles. The emphasis on success starts to drown out the emphasis on coding for fun even if you fail. Oddly enough in the Mixergy.com interview with Paul Graham. At exactly 49:40 Paul says, "[hacker news] was originally called startup news but after 6 months we changed it to hacker news cause we got sick of reading about nothing but startup stuff."

<comment><USER2> Hilarious point about what HN would have said about Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a cool site, and an amazing accomplishment for a side project, but I really, really have to ask: why did you spend your time building something to add to the hyper-saturated, money black hole that is the music listening/discovery app market? I mean, there are, and have been _so many_ sites like this that have either survived on the border of illegality or have been shut down. And we've got a whole host of above-board legal streaming sites now that are dirt cheap and have a wide variety of music to listen to. What's new here and why should I consider using it? Why will this be around in 6 months and not just die after you run out of money to keep it up or get sued? I'm not asking this to be a dick but I really don't understand why I see a new one of these sites get released every few months that seems to do the same thing as all the others except is free (and probably illegal) or thinks that slightly better music recommendations or "social listening" is a sustainable competitive advantage.

edit: Ok, read your blog post, but I guess my question still stands. The improvements you list are fairly marginal improvements over existing stuff IMHO and it seems mildly crazy to put in so much effort to replicate existing sites but add things like responsive design or slightly better Facebook integration. Good luck and I hope you end up turning this into an amazing success so if you can turn me into a believer I am listening :)

<comment><USER5> I get what you're saying but I don't feel like there are a lot of websites to discover music.

Besides hypem, pitchfork and sixtyone do you anymore? And I think they could greatly be improved. Music Discovery is a new thing, before we just had the radio, and it's still not as good as it could be.

<comment><USER4> I pay for and use MOG and their recommendations are pretty good. Certainly this could be the case that "everything sucks I am going to execute better than everyone" but it's a sexy problem (not a schlep) and everyone seems to be working on it.

<comment><USER6> Their recommendations use Echonest, and as far as I know so do Rdio and Spotify. You can access those recommendations via an API for free!

<comment><USER7> Spotify does not use Echonest for recommendations.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/16/echo-nest-is-the-man- behi...](http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/16/echo-nest-is-the-man-behind-the- spotify-radio-curtain/)

Not true anymore?

<comment><USER7> For recommendations, we use our own algorithms. For radio, we use Echonest in some cases, but mostly our own stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice work! It's impressive you were able to stick with a side project of this caliber for over a year without giving up or remaining in the feature abyss.

This app works really well for music discovery. I just found a Mumford and Sons track I've never heard before, and I thought I had listened to them all. Solid UX touch by never stopping my music when I move around to different pages too.

Where are you pulling the songs from? Youtube and Soundcloud?

Just FYI - I wanted to skip through a song to see if it was any good, and I couldn't find the progress bar at the bottom. It took my awhile to realize it was at the top. If I'm not mistaken, most music sites have the progress bar at the bottom of the screen (Rdio, Spotify, GrooveShark). Pandora has it at the top though so perhaps I'm wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pulling from blogs that post mp3's or soundcloud. It indexes youtube but I can't play youtube without showing the video. A video's section is on the plate for the next release. Thanks for the feedback, the responsive design has the progress bar at the bottom, though I prefer it all on top.

<comment><USER9> Where do you source your blogs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For anyone looking for a little more insight into the whys and hows of the site:

<http://natewienert.com/introducing-2u-dot-fm-1>

<comment><USER10> I'm a little confused on your use of both genres and tags. For the former, how are they determined? Just in a database, pre-decided by you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, and they need expansion certainly. I get artist genres through EchoNest and plan to expand my genres to match theirs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks like a much more slick version of HypeMachine (www.hypem.com), which I've been using for years. Competition is never a bad thing, so this is great, I'll be trying it out.

Very well done for a "side project".

<comment><USER12> it's more of a copy of ex.fm (<http://ex.fm>) than a slicker hype machine. ex.fm has been around a few years now too.

<comment><USER6> Yea but if they mainly aggregate music blogs, then it's more in line with hypem.com.

<comment><USER12> ex.fm is a music blog aggregator: <http://ex.fm/about>

<comment><USER13> Thanks to your spam I will never ever use ex.fm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is what stands out for me:

"Live listening. While I decided to hide most of the UX I had worked on for launch due to it not being fully baked, if you're friends with someone and you see them "online" in your friends list, you can tune into what they are listening to in real time, and listen to music fully synced together. If they change a song, you change too! This is certainly alpha at this point though, but it generally works."

For those who are into 'social' listening, it's worth having a play around with.

<comment><USER12> again, ex.fm has had this for some time: [http://blog.ex.fm/post/24082043603/featured-feature- listenin...](http://blog.ex.fm/post/24082043603/featured-feature-listening- right-now-we-quietly)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is live listening across an entire session, plus live instant sharing when you find one you like. You follow their every song, through playlists or different pages, and it's in sync to the second.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is fantastic. The UI is wonderful, site design is responsive, and from what I've found so far it has great content. Kudos for you for committing the time to building such a major project and finally shipping.

Initial feedback (major to minor):

\- Please add a button to let me add songs in my feed to a queue rather than cutting off the current song.

\- There's a bug where, for some reason, the modal popup that I used to sign up / add artists is still capturing mouse events even though it is now invisible. It's taking away my ability to click in the middle of the screen, which is very frustrating cause I can't use search. Not sure why this is happening. It's Z-index is 201 and opacity set to 0 via CSS, if that helps, and I logged in with Facebook.

\- My screen is small (11" Air), and some parts of the site are cut off height-wise. For example, the left nav bar's "find friends" button.

\- When I click on a new song, the artist in the top bar updates immediately, but the title takes a few seconds.

\- All of the letters in the colored boxes next to song names are too far to the right by one pixel.

Again, congratulations on shipping! I'd be happy to provide more feedback if you're interested.

<comment><USER16> \- When hovering over the left side menu items, I would highlight the text into a much lighter font color--I was already expecting it to happen (and anticipating the eye candy) from all the other apps I've used that do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love the recommendations straight at the top, already found some really cools stuff.

As regard to the genres: if you're to expand them, I would love to see genres like Disco (not 80s but happy techno, see 22tracks.com), Relax (lounge) and Techno (Kalkbrenner style)

I'm from Amsterdam so might have some different tastes when it comes to dance music :)

All in all, a super cool (side) project! Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER18> This is the most impressive side project I have ever seen. Everything feels polished, the UI is delicious and the site works and functions very quickly. Very nice work, I would love to know what programming language you built this in perhaps another blog post detailing the tech side of things?

</comment><comment><USER19> Really like how this looks and feels. Interested in the blogs section, how are you grabbing that info? Thats the part I would likely use the most, picking out the few hip hop blogs I go to regularly and just getting to the music quicker.

</comment><comment><USER20> That looks great, but I would default with the red on red color scheme (which can be changed by hovering over the logo). As a designer, I find it much more eye catching, which helps pique interest in first-time visitors.

Also, two minor interface issues: your hover tooltip arrows don't point directly at the "Playlist" and "Me" icons at the top right. Also, the genre list in the sidebar would benefit from a Google+/Facebook style minimalist scroll bar. It wouldn't clutter the feel much, especially if it appeared only on hover, and would make it easier on people without a mouse wheel.

Outside of those very minor issues, this looks great!

</comment><comment><USER21> Very impressed with this and love the concept. One suggestion: I think this just screams mobile app. I want this on my iPhone and think being able to cache playlists and listen to them while I'm on the go would be incredible.

</comment><comment><USER22> Hey, love the site, ui is smooth, responsive, and data seems to be loading really fast. Incredibly polished. Do you mind sharing what technologies/frameworks you're using in your stack?

</comment><comment><USER23> Nicely done, but I would seriously consider updating your daily limit. I did not have nearly enough time to play around to consider converting as a registered user (I was clicking around). I ended up just deleted the site cookies, went into inspect elements and deleted the modal but I am not your average user and most people wouldn't do that to continue testing out your site, let alone know it could be done.

After all that, I am pretty certain I will continue to use your app. Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm particularly impressed with the responsive design. Did you use one of the responsive frameworks out there, serve different stylesheets, or something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. It's hand rolled, no grid system or anything too fancy either just unfloats a few things and styling on the header/player.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> For a side project I will say I am definitely impressed. The layout is cool, and the design/gui is amazing! I hope this site does well, don't worry about people telling you the music space is too crowded. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Point is you had fun doing it and hopefully learned a few things along the way. Congratulations to you.

</comment><comment><USER25> Add a 'mix' category and I'll pay you if it's done well! New tracks are all well and good, but the continuity of mixes really helps me get in the groove.

I've listened to the Essential Mixes, and follow a bunch of podcasts/dj radio shows, but there's got to be stuff from non-DI.fm/Sirius-XM stuff. Sheepymixes on youtube would be a good example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love the idea. Shouldn't be too hard to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Looks nice, seems to be some good tracks.

Hypem's downfall (in my opinion) was the point where the frontpage started being bombarded with Kanye West songs. Songs like that don't need to be 'discovered', as they're already jammed into our ears at every opportunity mainstream media has. Hopefully 2U can keep a good balance.

Well done nwienert, great launch.

</comment><comment><USER27> Impressive-- it's incredibly polished and professional looking, especially for something you call a "side project" :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Very impressive. I don't use music discovery sites at all but your single- handed ability to conceive, design, and build a project of this quality is inspirational. I'll be keeping an eye on you for a while yet.

What sort of file quality are you looking for from music blog applicants? Can you scrape files out of ZIP archives?

</comment><comment><USER29> You should disable the app once the limit is reached. Simply inspecting the modal/overlay in chrome or firebug will let you delete the node and continue to use the app without ever logging in/signing up.

</comment><comment><USER30> I see some code in the 1st artist bio: <http://i.imgur.com/1DtB5.png>

Otherwise, very neat site. I don't think there can be too many music exploration sites.

</comment><comment><USER31> Great job on the site. Really loving the UI overall UX. One small thing is that I kept clicking on the waveform visualization to scrub the track-- probably since i've used to soundcloud and such.

</comment><comment><USER32> Nice work, nice layout and UI/UX ... Very impressive for a side project.

</comment><comment><USER33> This looks fantastic. Nothing will play for me, but that's not too surprising since I have neither Flash nor support for MP3s in <audio>. Just curious, which of the two does it use?

</comment><comment><USER3> Works great and I've even got a flash blocker. BTW, are you using sound manager 2?

\- I strongly advise you to round the corners of buttons with border- radius:3px; so they look more clickable.

</comment><comment><USER34> Looks really great. Just a thing I noticed, when you need to log in and click on the or log in without facebook link, the link persists and toggles back for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER35> This site is great.

My attempt (less cooler in comparison) at scraping hypemachine is here: <http://metahypem.com>

</comment><comment><USER36> Wow.. it looks really amazing! Love it :)

</comment><comment><USER37> This looks really nice.

What technology do you use? Where are the songs playing from? Looks like all soundcloud?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wrote a bit about it on my blog: <http://natewienert.com/introducing-2u-dot- fm-1>

"The stack consists of Ruby on Rails with Postgres, Thin, Nginx, Memcached (with Dalli), DelayedJob, and some other parts. The frontend is hand rolled using Bootstrap, SoundManager2 with a custom music player wrapper, and some minor plugins.

The live listening is running through an instance of Thin running Faye and PrivatePub."

Songs are also found through regular mp3's on sites, along with SoundCloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Nice work Nate! Don't listen to the haters and keep on building what you are stoked about.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm unable to change my password.

When attempting to do so I see

"Current password can't be blank" despite it not being blank.

</comment><comment><USER40> Looks nice. I wonder what will be your next step for 2u.fm. I will be trying it out.

</comment><comment><USER41> If this is free and ad free, how do you pay the royalties to the artists?

</comment><comment><USER42> It would be nice if we could import our iTunes artists as followers.

</comment><comment><USER43> Very good. Found some Led Zeppelin I hadn't listened to for a while.

</comment><comment><USER44> something seems off here:

<http://d.pr/i/WPer> (screenshot of app with javascript errors on page)

</comment><comment><USER45> Very nice, why no metal as a category?

</comment><comment><USER46> This is super impressive. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER47> looks great in the iphone. _teeniest_ bit of left/right scrolling is my only nitpick ;)

</comment><comment><USER48> Our only works in modern browsers

<comment><USER49> of course?

<comment><USER48> Well, aside from the fact that I'm on IE9, there is a typo in the text.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> hey congrats on the hard work, but this really seems like a clone of ex.fm (<http://ex.fm>) and a remarkably similar clone at that - what is different about 2u.fm?

<comment><AUTHOR> Four comments and links about me cloning them... do you have something personal going on here? One would have been enough. Seems pretty mean spirited to me. There are plenty of things different, biggest being real artist profiles not just a search, filtering by music type on artists, a filtered feed, instant sharing and an inbox, algorithms filter genres by a lot of factors and ways to organize those feeds, responsive design.... I wasn't going to comment until I saw all four or five of your links in here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER51> There is some bug in this song showing Javascript code instead of the description: <http://2u.fm/genres/classic-rock#song-38265>

Pretty nice site; would be nice to be able to login using Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER52> Nice concept, but find mostly crapy remixes. I couldn't find even the most popular artists (One Republic, Adele). All of "their" songs are remixes, even those marked as originals..

<comment><AUTHOR> Within 10 minutes you've managed to listen to enough songs to judge they are "mostly crappy remixes"? I'm working on expanding the selection, I'm sure that will be a big point of feedback, but no need to make such a negative snap judgement.

<comment><USER53> I think you're being a little protective here. How much time do you expect the average user is going to give you? I can promise you it's not 10 minutes. You're being somewhat childish, IMO, by not recognizing that this guy took 10 frigging minutes out of his time to check out your site. Thank him, take note of the feedback, and move on. You will get feedback all the time from people you don't agree with but that's not a reason to be so quick to act this way. I hardly think a 10 minute website look is a "snap judgement".

You might want to check out this post: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/10/judging- websites.ht...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/10/judging- websites.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> First, there is and was on launch both One Republic and Adele on the site. And _all_ of their songs are tagged correctly. Also he commented within 10 minutes of me posting it so including time see the post, listen to songs, and write the comment was certainly almost none especially considering this HN which is a place that has rules for quality of comments and good discussion.

I judged his feedback unnecessary and negative, not anything personal, which is more to say than what you did. I've read that post and thats talking about someone judging 300 sites not one.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your productivity hacks? - <AUTHOR> In an age of constantly updating Twitter feeds and email threads, how do you stay productive and on-task?<p>Recommend any literature on the topic? <comment><USER2> I am not interested in maximizing Productivity.

Productivity = Output / Input

(Efficiency == Productivity)

So all I have to do to be more productive is to reduce Input. This is easy. Just write a code generator. I can write 100,000 lines of code in one day. Incredibly productive. Not very effective.

But then again, I'm not interested in maximizing Effectiveness either.

Effectiveness = Output / Expectations

So all I have to do to be more Effective is to reduce Expectations. "This will never work." "It worked!" Infinite effectiveness. But not very valuable.

Value = Whatever the customer says it is.

I'm not really interested in maximizing Value either. It's too hard to measure. So here's the only thing I'm really interested in maximizing:

Value Delta = Tonight's Value - This Morning's Value

So here are my simple rules to maximize my Value Delta:

      1. Work on only one thing.
      2. That thing must be the most important thing.
      3. Keep working on that one thing.
      4. Take sensible breaks.
      5. I control my time, no one else.
      6. No text, cell phones, twitter, facebook, messaging (see #5).
      7. Assess my Value Delta several times per day.
      8. Bad Assessment --> change something.
      9. If I am in Coding mode, be at the computer.
      10. If I am not in Coding mode, be anywhere else.

<comment><USER3> If you're going to play a pointless game of semantics, you should at least take a second to check your definitions:

"pro·duc·tion: ( _Economics_ ) the creation of value; the producing of articles having exchange value."

100,000 lines of generated code would have no value and, therefore, your productivity would not be "incredible" at all, it would be zero. You knew what he was asking for, no need to try to rewrite his question.

<comment><USER2> What you call "semantics", I call "a critical distinction" that needed to be pointed out.

In my early years, I wasted a lot of energy trying to be more productive, efficient, effective, (call it whatever you want), until I learned one of the most valuable and counter-intuitive lessons of my career: it really doesn't matter how "good" you are, how "well" you work, or how good you "feel".

All that really matters is whether or not your cumulative contributions keep increasing. Take care of that and you won't have much else to worry about. Don't do that and you'll end up worrying about all the wrong things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Less Wrong community has some excellent stuff on what this, which it calls _akrasia_ ¹. In particular, <http://lesswrong.com/lw/1sm/akrasia_tactics_review/> gives ratings for different strategics.

Other HN threads on the same subject: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1429634> and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190389>

¹ <http://www.google.com/search?q=less+wrong+akrasia>

</comment><comment><USER5> Take time spent reading about "productivity hacks", apply towards projects. Diminishing returns, people.

Just one suggestion: Write things down. Whether on paper or on a computer. Don't get too caught up in "having a system", though - it's WAY too easy to procrastinate by tinkering with your system.

<comment><USER6> Yes! I think there's a danger of becoming addicted to ways to be more productive. Arguably, someone who daily reads a productivity blog should be producing a lot, but you might wonder if that is the case...

<comment><USER7> Too much knowledge doesn't imply too much work, You are right. In fact what matters like always is the execution. If you have a process to remain productive, what matters is to execute that process well and with discipline.

That process might not be very great or best in class, but well executed bad ideas always lead to better result than badly executed good areas. Here is my hack for remaining productive. Which I have tinkered after reading David Allen's 'Getting things done'.

I have a table which has the following common fields. Task, Deadline, Started, Finished, Log, Priority and Next Step. A little modified from David's actual GTD. This table helps me do many things, first plan my tasks, next set a deadline to achieve it. Started and finished fields help me measure how much time I have taken to get it done. Log gives me an idea of complexity. Priority decides what needs to come next after what. Next step keeps me on tip of heels always generating new work for me.

I review this every night before going to sleep. And at least once a day if I'm hitting the daily deadlines. Now comes the most important of all, its called 'DISCIPLINE'. If one is not disciplined none of this ceremony works. Infact I would say better get disciplined before you get into all these techniques. Discipline is a personality trait, It has to be developed with patience, perseverance and practice. You don't get disciplined by tinkering /etc/hosts you get disciplined by making it happen even without tinkering /etc/hosts.

Another important part is review. You must review your progress every now and then. My review happens every Sunday afternoon, the review happens by measuring what I have done. What will I do and is all that really sufficient to meet my daily, weekly, monthly, six monthly, yearly and then life goals.

I make it a point to apply this not just to work, but even to my hobbies. My music practice and other stuff. Most of the users here have suggested very fine ways of measuring productivity I guess I will employ some of those techniques during my review process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This might sound backwards, but sometimes I do my best work after I decide I'm not going to do anything that day.

I go outside and walk around and just think, day dream, brainstorm. Almost always, I'll start thinking about "work" in some form and will end up dying to get back to it. I'm usually incredibly productive when I get into this mindset.

I turned this into a "hack" by waking up early (7AM) and deciding that I'm not going to do any work until noon -- just spend some time outside. By 9AM I'm usually itching to crank on something.

(This doesn't work for me if you watch movies or TV during your "thinking time"... you have to be alone with just your thoughts...)

</comment><comment><USER9> Answer on Quora: <http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-increase-my-productivity>

From the answer summary:

-Develop a system of personal collection, organisation and action that suits your personality and role (GTD etc) - a guiding set of principles that translates your goals into actions in a way that is complementary to your professional and psychological makeup.

-Have a method of accountability to that system (A physical system - such as a diary, planner, task manager etc - that allows you to monitor and measure progression)

-Understand your personality / psychology and its impact on your productivity. Some people will respond well to "have to" / "ought to" commands. Others will find that a dynamic to rebel against, and will need unstructured time.

-Understand that "small strokes fell great oaks". In other words, make a start on your work, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Start and keep starting.

-Actively incorporate health / exercise / leisure to stimulate thought and promote longevity.

-Leverage as much as possible where appropriate. Networks, opportunities. Build momentum.

-Love what you do. Productivity is easy when your heart is in it.

Also liked this quote from Peter Drucker: "Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."

<comment><USER10> That's practical! thx

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Block HN - see <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2513708>

(shameless plug - you can subscribe to <http://www.hackernewsletter.com> if you feel like you are missing too much)

</comment><comment><USER12> When you realize you are wasting time call it a day off or go for a walk. Sitting in front of the computer trying to find the strength does not help.

Follow habits: e.g: if I a work from home I still get dressed as if I was going to work.

If you are a procrastinator, don't fight your inner instincts, you are going to lose the battle. Instead, try to use it in your favor. See <http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/> by Stanford professor John Perry. When you read that the first time you have an epiphany.

</comment><comment><USER13> #1 Private exec office with no frills costs $500/mo-$700/mo... so worth it

#2 Wear noise-blocking headphones (the kind you use for yardwork or from levenger.com)

#3 Use Pomodoros: 30 mins focused work, 5 min breaks

#4 Open HN and/or Google Reader only during Pomodoro breaks; use PostRank to filter most popular stuff in your feeds.

#5 Skim all news/articles and send good ones to Instapaper for iPad reading.

#6 Never take more than 2 "wildcard" coffees/lunches per week.

#7 Setup 2 calendars on Tungle or WhenBusy, one calendar that's very limited for wildcards (see #8) and one that's for urgent/high-priority meetings.

<comment><USER14> Re #2: I've tried many models, but I invariably find them too uncomfortable. Have you found a model that excels?

Re #1: I've had issues with noise at home (various homes -- what is it with people, these days?). To the point where renting a private office seems a reasonable additional expense. In fact, I might consider downgrading my living quarters and putting the saved expense towards an office.

I wonder whether others find that a practical solution, and if so, what tips they might have for finding and negotiating a quiet private office. Not a shared/business office -- a private office. (This should probably be a separate thread, if there's any interest.)

<comment><USER13> I think a thread about leasing private office space is a great idea. I found my place by driving around and looking for "for lease" signs. I tried coworking before that, but way too many distractions, and no ability to keep your monitor(s) and keyboard setup there. I think ideas for "private hacker space" -- something between coworking and overpriced offices like Regus would be valuable.

RE headpones: The pair I use I got at Levenger over 10 years ago. Served me well in grad school and while writing the code for the MVP of my first startup that I ended up selling.

<comment><USER14> I suppose I should do what homework I can, and summarize the results, before asking -- so that I'm hopefully contributing to the conversation and not merely taking.

I'll put it on my projects list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1\. Put HN on 'noprocrast' for 8 hours away, 20mins maxvisit (check the settings in your profile). This will let you check HN twice a day, which is enough.

2\. Don't drink caffeine within 8 hours of bed time. You'll get better night's sleep. Helps to have decaf tea & coffee at the ready

3\. Take a notebook, write down 'what can I achieve in the next hour', make it a realistic guess. Now, work for 45 mins, and when anything else occurs to you, like check the news, send an email, look something up on the web, just write it down on the opposite page. After 45 mins, spend 15 mins doing those extra things you wrote down. Rinse, repeat. This removes the discomfort of not satisfying your whims (you've noted them down, so you'll definitely get round to them), while letting you work in a focussed manner without task switching or timewasting.

I also do these things: don't care about Facebook, email, Twitter, but that's not hard for me admittedly. I barely care anyway. Also, before you start a messageboard/forum post, be aware it will probably cost you 4 hours or so before it's done with.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is what I do, working in a company with an open plan layout:

* Disable all notification software (growl, etc.).

* If possible, find a quiet place where you won't get disturbed. Otherwise, wear noise canceling headphones or something else that blocks out noise. If listening to music, pick something ambient that won't distract your attention (some ideas: <http://xerxes-music.com>, <http://ghosts.nin.com>).

* Have a place to dump thoughts that occur out of context so you can focus on the task at hand. This can simply be a notepad.

* Take regular breaks and don't forget to take care of yourself. If you're hungry, take a break and get a snack.

* Recognize when you're not being productive and give your mind a rest by doing something fun. This doesn't have to be unrelated to work. I have a list of "fun tasks" that are low priority otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER17> I write things down. I set micro-deadlines. I force myself to move on after the deadline, or if I really need to finish it, set another deadline. I need to keep the pressure on. A little distraction is a slippery slope for me, so it's usually all or nothing (guess which one this is? :-)) Okay, back to work.

</comment><comment><USER18> I came to grips with the fact that I'm a terrible multitasker, and that I'm easily distracted. Thus, I now only work on one thing at a time. That includes email, IM, surfing the web, and any other sources of distractions. I only check email 1-2 times per day, and try to respond to as much of it as possible when I do check it. Check out Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero for how to efficiently deal with your inbox.

I'm also a big fan of Tim Ferriss's idea of limiting the amount of information you consume. The more HN I read, the more talk shows I listen to the radio, the more twitter I read through, the stuff that's competing for attention in my head. The big realization for me was that the cost of doing these things wasn't just the time I spend doing them, but also the brainshare they take up, once I've moved back to doing something productive.

</comment><comment><USER19> Gather everything needed for project. Turn off internet.

<comment><USER20> This is true. I get my most productive work done on the train during my commute to/from Manhattan. I have spotty internet even with a MiFi so I get to focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I stay productive with meaningful deadlines. If it doesn't have a solid deadline, you're not likely to see it 'on time'. Ever had someone tell you, "Oh, just whenever you get a chance..." and then 3 months later you find the frantically scribbled Post-It with the request written in your own handwriting? Yeah, that's me all the time. Make it important, make it due, and tell me why its important. The social contract means a lot, and you can exploit it to get things done.

Anyways, that's all I have for you. Of course, working _smarter_ , _not harder_ , has always been my maxim thanks to one of my high school teachers.

</comment><comment><USER22> Stop reading and worrying about it and just choose a productivity hack and do it regularly, hourly if possible. Then reflect on, adjust it, and iterate. Guarantee within days of doing this you'll have discovered your own productivity hack that really works for you. I started using this Dotout app twice an hour, 2 minute periods. Found it really works, added my own visualization and reflection at the end and I'm 3 times as productive as I ever was.

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dotout-improve-focus- concentr...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dotout-improve-focus- concentration/id375728025?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER23> Form a hacker group. Invite other coders/designers/bloggers to join you at a location. Have everyone sit at tables or desks so that what they are working on is easily visible to at least a couple others (no one lounging in the corner drooling to farmville ...)

It's surprising the amount of work you can get done when surrounded by other people working, especially people who are passionate about their projects. As to distractions? The simple social pressure exerted by being in this group is almost always enough to keep everyone on task - no one wants to be the guy that is always there but never has anything to show off.

</comment><comment><USER24> 1- No television

2- Physical good shape

3- Eating well (and actually knowing what eating well means)

I'm not sure the forth one is for everyone, but...I used to wake up on weekends at 10:00am (at the earliest). I'm a morning person (as in, I'm not grumpy/tired when I do wake up earlier), but I just love sleeping in. When I moved, I didn't get good blinds..and I've been waking up naturally with the sun. On the weekends, it gives me an extra 2-3 hours in the morning. However, the biggest change is on the weekdays, where waking up more naturally than a shocking alarm, seems to make me even more receptive to waking up early.

<comment><USER25> I agree with latch. Eating well, getting exercise and sleeping well are the #1 contributors to my long-term productivity and effectiveness.

I'm not saying you have to be a gym rat but some kind of routine (even a 30-60 minute walk) and regular non-junk meals will make you feel better, and as a result sleep better.

The results are cumulative, and they will beat the pants off any task-driven coffee-fueled routine you develop for yourself while eating pizza at your desk at 3am. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here are some things I do:

1) One task at a time. Hint: Use a todo list to break things up into individual tasks.

2) Don't be a perfectionist. Hint: Just get it working - make it fast/scalable/sexy/whatever later.

3) Separate work and play. Hint: VMWare and GNU Screen are awesome for keeping your work in the state you last left it, and sandboxing it from play.

4) No distractions. Hint: If it doesn't write code, read code, or play music, it gets closed. My phone gets put on silent and hidden.

5) Get plenty of sleep.

6) No caffeine for the 8 hours before I go to bed.

7) No computer for the 2 hours before I go to bed.

8) Exercise every morning.

9) A post-it note in the middle of my desk that says "DO IT NOW."

</comment><comment><USER27> I've found that if I listen to podcasts, I tend to flit around between coding, HN, facebook, flickr, etc. If I listen to music, I can stay focused for hours. So my recent hack was to create an rdio station combining the Tron soundtrack, it's remix, and (oddly) upbeat Lady Gaga tracks. I happened to get that mix by accident a few weeks ago at a coffee shop and was startled at how much time passed, and how much I got done.

I think the more general point is to identify the mental triggers that put you into a zone, and work on refining ways to put you there on demand.

</comment><comment><USER28> My take on productivity is:

If I'm going to be productive and get things done, then I'm going to want to.

If I don't want to get things done, and I force myself to, I won't become magically productive, I'm just going to try to get the task done as quick and cheap as possible because I don't want to be doing it. So the quality of that work lacks.

So when I'm feeling unproductive, I go browse the internet for a little while or get up and walk around until I want to work again. So far this has worked for me throughout my jobs and my managers have yet to complain about it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I usually get in to the office a bit after 8. I try to fix one bug / get one thing Done before 9. After that, everyone else gets in the office and everything descends into chaos and meetings.

</comment><comment><USER30> Programmers are like trains, hard to get started and easy to get derailed.

Given that, how to you get into a coding mood? The quicker you can get into a coding mood, the faster you can knock features.

<comment><USER31> Leave yourself fun hooks. If it's the end of the day and there's a task coming up that you really want to do - you know how to do it, and you know it will be fun - don't do it. Leave it until tomorrow. That way when you start tomorrow, you'll have something fun that you know how to do, and that will get the ball rolling.

This doesn't just apply to coding. I've used the same technique when writing papers. Some things are just more fun to write than others, and I'll sometimes leave those as hooks to get me going next time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not literature, but the Bose QC15 noise cancelling headphones work wonders for my productivity. Also, completely clearing my desk is surprisingly helpful.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think this mindset illustrates the problem: You're looking for hacks, which means the normal route doesn't cut it. What ever happened to "just-effing-do- it"? When I want to get in a coding mood, I start coding. I know eventually I'll get in the mood.

People want a magic pill that gives you the willpower to get things done. I've always seen this as a new-age-psychology-meets-internet-human-hacking thing. JFDI \m/

</comment><comment><USER34> Unplug internet!!!! I thought I'd be less productive without internet at first since I can't google things.. but I was totally wrong. There's like a 5x productivity gain, and the thing I need to look up, I just do it in a "chunk" later in the day. (Anecdote: The first time I tried the "no internet" things.. I just had internet so I had no choice. But now, I do it voluntarily).

</comment><comment><USER35> 1\. Just start. That'll help you to get into flow - <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html>

2\. JFDI - [http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/design-process/ten- produ...](http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/design-process/ten-productivity- tips/)

</comment><comment><USER36> My biggest hack: accepting that this battle will never be won. If I rely on a "system", I stop fighting the demons of fear, procrastination, and perfectionism. I adapt my methods, stay in the moment, break tasks into small digestible chunks, and calmly move forward.

Also, I'm not above cutting myself off from time-wasting sites in /etc/hosts when I really need to. :P

</comment><comment><USER37> Just blocking coworker chatter does wonders for me:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000X6L82/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000X6L82/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo- top- stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001HNFUD6&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0W896F9F88V69ERN4EC4)

</comment><comment><USER38> After unsuccessful fight with distractions i decided to maximize pleasure, not productivity :)

Of course it works only if you are not a full time worker and there are for profit projects, that you love to work on.

BTW, i used to think, that i spend time here on HN in vain, but now half of my income comes thanks to one of comments here i read.

</comment><comment><USER39> Remove the clock from your desktop view. It surprising how much unneeded stress and distraction is tied to it.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is what I do: [http://www.dextronet.com/blog/2011/04/10-best-tricks-of- fool...](http://www.dextronet.com/blog/2011/04/10-best-tricks-of-fooling- myself-to-work/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Make grand promises that are almost achievable. Then dash to meet the expectations.

Of course, if you care about looking good to your boss, this is a lousy strategy. Try the reverse for that.

</comment><comment><USER42> To be highly productive, I unplug the network cable. A more sophisticated solution would be configuring privoxy to block twitter.com, mail.google.com and facebook.com.

</comment><comment> benji-york I've been experimenting with the pomodoro technique: <http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/>

<comment><USER43> When I have clear tasks to complete, I find the Pomodoro technique to work really well. Also, after the first couple sets, I can often continue working without distractions without actually setting the timer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Todo-list in Google tasks is working for me these days.

</comment><comment><USER45> Work for a company or industry that you enjoy. That you couldn't imagine doing anything else. You'll never have a problem being productive again.

</comment><comment><USER46> I monitor how I spend time at my computer by running rescuetime. Their productivity report makes me want to do better, so then I waste less time.

</comment><comment><USER47> stayfocusd for chrome [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji)

</comment><comment><USER48> Best advice I've heard yet is the following:

One thing at a time.

Most important thing first.

Start now.

<comment><USER36> The "most important thing first" can sometimes get in the way, I find. Maybe that thing is not yet clear in my head, or seems overwhelmingly difficult. Diving in with a less important task first can sometimes be a way to build up to tackle the more urgent tasks.</comment></comment>