Deep Work on the Rise | Hacker News Reader

Deep Work on the Rise

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29 pointsbuttscicles25 comments

Unfortunately, with a 9-month old roaming the apartment, I haven't been able to enter a 'Deep Work' state in months.

Child-care isn't an option due to COVID, and since I work freelance while my wife has a full-time job, I've been the de facto Mr. Mom, squeezing in work whenever I have a free 10-30-minute block—which isn't often.

By the time he goes to bed, I'm fried from taking care of him all day, and entering into a productive 'deep work'-state is nigh impossible.

Advice to anyone considering having kids: try to live near a parent, and/or plan for childcare if you wish to get 'deep work' done. For caring for a child is, itself, 'deep work'.

The only way I could get anything like deep work (and it was a much shallower version still) was to get up before the kids.

I used to be a big time night owl, with hours of productive coding possible after 11PM. After kids, that was impossible as you described. Now, I get up at 5:30-6:00 without an alarm after many years of dragging myself through the day after setting an alarm.

I found it much easier to drag myself through dinner, bath, and bedtime reading and then go to bed myself than to do all that and then try to do my computer work.

Cal Newport thanks about this situation in his podcast. The short version is: when you're responsible for taking care of a child, that is your main work.

In most scenarios I've heard on his podcast, there's some scheduling between the parents around who's working and who's taking care of the child when. If you're full-time on kid duty, you don't do deep work.

Yep. I'm resigned to this fate for now, and apart from the occasional ventings about the day-to-day stressors (such as this very post ;), can't really complain.

It's a good thing he's cute!

WARN: You'll teach your kid by example. If you are stressed and unhappy because of those unsatisfactory squeezed 30 minutes they will notice. And you'll realize a year later that they were noticing.

I didn't understand what a kid was until she (4yo) corrected the flawed logic of something I just said. Then I realized that all those sacrifices (career included) were worth it.

It gets better once you can use kindergartens... BTW, old parents are not an easy solution in covid times. They are population at risk.

I hope some of this is useful to you. Now I have to prepare some milk to the kid that is dancing around my desk.

I feel for you. My wife and I had a hard time in the first months and our kids are much older. I do not think it can be done with infants.

I did contract work for Rise Science several years ago, and they never paid me for my work. Hopefully, they've managed to iron out all the issues they were having with Celery in the intervening years.

I found this but didn't really associate it with my sleep patterns. I found it was the general routine which affected my energy levels. I used to time little 20 minute coffee breaks / walks to coincide with the lows and allow me to reinvigorate with new surroundings and sometimes you run into people you know.

If I missed my walks I was always scattered and it didn't matter if I tried to go again later because everything was out of rhythm because I didn't get the new boost at the right time. I think that lunch time is most people's separator (hell the article says afternoon peak and morning peak suggesting they cradle the noon) but they take it for granted because they try to slave to the clock. rather than slaving to the clock they should strive to be most productive and useful which includes their mental state as well

I might be weird, but every time I hear about productivity, it annoys me.

People cannot be labeled as productive. A company, a process, a group, but not individuals.

This paranoia about procrastination and laziness has an awful impact on how we live.

Motivation is complicated. Please watch the rsa animate video on motivation.

I don't understand how you can say this. Is it not your experience that in almost any work context there will be a few individuals who will produce far more valuable work in far less time than others? It certainly is mine.

So what?

So an appropriate and useful label for those individuals is "productive".

You're not really trying to see my point.

So they're productive, then what? A lot of people can't find meaning in their work. How can society create productive people?

That's why I have a problem with the "productive" word.

There is an inequality in productivity, isn't that a bit problematic?

I am trying to see your point, though obviously I failed, and to be honest, I still do not fully understand where you are coming from. I do not see a problem with inequality. Its unavoidable. In fact, I am very happy that there are people out there more productive than me in some field, perhaps I will have something to offer to them by being more productive than them in some other field, and we can trade for mutual benefit.

I'm coming from the view of /r/antiwork and the "bullshit jobs" book by David Graeber.

> I do not see a problem with inequality.

Income inequality and social inequality are problems, maybe not to you, but is it for many people around the world. It causes political tensions and many other problem: sanitary, social, environmental, etc.

I'm essentially talking about measured productivity, the meaning of productivity for people and if it can really fit into their lives. Productivity can have this sort of robotized meaning, soul-less meaning of how humans are being valued as individuals. Productivity is not the same for a musician, a fast food employee a writer, a programmer, a mechanic, a teacher, etc.

I'm not denying that a lot of people are thriving in their work, happy about it, and always eager to share how happy they are, but in times of inequality, it's not always so rosy for everyone.

Maybe your view of the world is one of a dominant, and you refuse to acknowledge it because you have all the good reasons. And it's understandable to be self-centered when all is good. But no man is an island.

If you put COVID and climate in perspective, you can see that the productivity model is outdated and requires some change. There is food for everyone, everything is built, so why should work be mandatory to get food and shelter? The individualism and libertarian ideals cannot work for everyone. It's unfair to tell people "you must create value if you want to eat". Philosophically it doesn't make sense, because food is everywhere.

Maybe I'm projecting a lot of my opinions through my own issues, but in a way, I'm expressing my concerns because I can, and I do.

If I understand you then, and I am not sure I do, you are saying you do not like discussing productivity because there are people who are less productive, for whatever reason, and they should not be penalized, in terms of access to resources, in relation to their more productive peers? If that is the case, then how do you propose resources should be divided?

Once you set up a basic income, that is given without conditions, productivity is a bonus, not a requirement. Basic resources like food and shelter are quite abundant in our times.

I have no problem with people being productive, but I'm not okay with productive people imposing their productivity on other less productive people, in the form of social filtering, unemployment, elitism, etc.

The last 100 years have seen amazing increase of productivity thanks to technology, not thanks to methods of resource management.

Climate will exacerbate inequalities, and I think productivity doesn't really matter anymore, since a lot of jobs seem wasteful of resources, yet they are still valued for no good reason. Many people who are high earners often have trouble understanding the meaning of what they do, while other in poverty would appreciate being given a fair access to basic resources, without feeling guilty of not being a productive member of society.

It's funny because Milton Friedman advocated for a basic income, or a negative income tax, so it's quite compatible with capitalist values. The problem is not really capitalism per se, it's more how we value the necessity of effort and mutual help. Rejecting the weak doesn't lead to healthy values.

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is a quote from Marx, but also used by Kennedy.

First let me say I too support basic income, so to some degree we are in agreement. What I am really disturbed by is by the resentment I read into your argument. Productive people aren't imposing anything, in fact they are the reason why we can even contemplate something as insane as basic income. All the marvels of the last 100 years are because of productive people and all of us should be immensely grateful to the titans who made it happen. You write about fairness, but there is nothing fair about taking things from people who produce them and giving them, for free, to people who do not. There is compassion, sure, and perhaps in the long run, as most people's economic value trends to 0, we will have no choice, but describing communism as basic fairness is deeply intellectually dishonest.

> All the marvels of the last 100 years are because of productive people

How so? Those people were paid, why should they be also be thanked on top of what they gained?

The world is unfair by definition.

Why should things not be given for free? That's the premise of the basic income you agreed on.

I never really encouraged for communism either, and never said it would be fair.

> Those people were paid, why should they be also be thanked on top of what they gained?

Because there isn't enough money in the history of the world to compensate say the inventors of vaccines. Or electricity. Or the computer. Or the combustion engine.

There is no problem with giving things for free, as long as the giving is voluntary. There is an enormous problem with taking things by force from a group so you can give them to another.

Those inventors are a fraction of people we would call productive.

Here is a presentation I find insightful on motivation and creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

> There is an enormous problem with taking things by force from a group so you can give them to another.

Are you talking about taxes? Budgets are voted and depend on an elected government. Laws are a form of social contract, I guess. Money is just a medium of exchange, a way to "count sheeps" and reduce waste. In my view it's its only true function. No man is an island. People are free to go elsewhere and create their own country.

Now it's possible to advocate for a form of anarchism (there are many, I guess). Bertrand Russel has criticized anarchism.

The title of this is a pun, and so winds up not being a great title. But the phenomenon described is definitely real. This is expected practise in fields like music. Every serious musician has figured out the right daily rhythms for their practise to be most effective, and has the times of day at which they do technique, repertoire, improvisation, etc. It really does make a difference.

On a slightly unrelated note: does anyone have experience with Readng itself? It seems to position itself as an alternative to Goodreads, but I'm curious as to what the major selling point is, so to speak, besides owning your data, and what other benefits it may have?

I use it as a lightweight alternative to Goodreads, to be honest there is nothing special.

The only way I can focus is eliminating as many ,,shallow’’ tasks as possible (but still do the important ones). One of them would be setting up time trackers and reading self-help books.

If I would be forced to do lots of unimportant things, I’d rather changed job.

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