Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?
699 points| humaninstrument | 8 years ago | reply
Another thing that is holding me back I think is the fear of commitement. I have a partially ready youtube channel, with two videos, not listed. I tell myself that I'll open the videos to the public and then start realising videos on a weekly schedule but the commitement seems like a such a burden on me that I don't think I'll be able to keep up.
I also would like to contribute to open source software projects, or write more for my blog, but I just can't force myself to do it. This is kinda a mix of fear (of what?!) and procrastination habits.
Am I pressuring myself too much to make the switch? How did you do it?
[+] [-] marvin|8 years ago|reply
For most people, the premise of this question is wrong. Procrastination, when you don't obviously have a lot of available time and effort, is a symptom that most of your creative energies are already spent elsewhere and are unavailable for other high-energy pursuits. I commend the effort to organizing your remaining free time to produce something of societal value, but for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.
I know some people who have energy levels that allow them to sustainably burn the candle at both ends, but they are a small minority. I am quite envious of this group; they appear to have a big leg up in accomplishing great things, but there appears to be a component of either genetics or upbringing that leaves only a small portion of people with this capability.
If you are not in this minority and you strongly desire to produce more creative output outside of your full-time job, there are two options: You can set small goals, e.g. spending 3-5 hours a week of dedicated time towards your pursuit, or putting everything else in your life on pause for a year or two while you go at it with all your effort. The latter course of action will likely not be sustainable, and you have to listen to your mind and body when it's had enough of it.
My preferred choice would be to get a job that pays enough to sustain your lifestyle but has much smaller hours (e.g. 60% or 40% of a full-time position), if this is at all possible. Most places, sadly, it isn't an option. If you can organize this, you free up a significant portion of your creative energy, which can then be used for other ambitious goals.
[+] [-] cocktailpeanuts|8 years ago|reply
> for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.
I want to point out that this is one of the reasons why people never start things. Let me share my experience as someone who has started, AND burned out, multiple times. Hopefully this helps people change their beliefs.
1. Yes you are right that you will burn out if you push yourself too hard, but this only happens if the result is not satisfying enough compared to the effort you pour in. From my multiple experiences where some I succeeded and some failed, I only burned out enough to give up when things weren't going well despite the effort I put in. I guarantee you you WILL NOT burn out if your thing goes well.
2. Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover. This is why people want to "save it for the best" and don't commit 100%, because they "want to be able to commit 100% only when they truly really come across the perfect opportunity". But the thing is, these people NEVER end up doing anything because of the law of inertia. "The perfect opportunity" is an elusive thing, and the more you wait, the higher the bar goes up, which means you will never meet that perfect moment.
3. Burning out is a phase, not the end. I've burned out multiple times, and stopped working for a couple of months to several months (and did nothing but entertain myself). But eventually you recover and can't wait to start a new thing. This never happens to people who wait for the perfect moment because they don't even know what it feels like. They think there's only one chance.
4. Don't try to bend the spoon. It's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is yourself.
[+] [-] jorblumesea|8 years ago|reply
I think the solution to this is the 20% time rule, but Google only really does this.
[+] [-] jakewins|8 years ago|reply
At my last career change, I applied for a full time position, but asked if the employer would consider hiring me at 75%, with a matching reduction in salary. I work full time days, but am not paid to work Fridays plus a full week each quarter.
Pros: the time off itself has been brilliant; I spend that extra time learning computer vision programming in Go, and took a part time class to become a certified master gardener (massively recommended, best $150 I ever spent(1)); it also leaves time for recreational fishing, hiking and hunting.
Cons: It's a strain on my career, it's not just that I work less, but the fact that I'm gone as much as I am has somewhat limited which tasks I'm able to take on properly; it's also, at least for myself, psychologically problematic since I lead a team and the rest of the team is full time.
All-in-all, I think the career drawback is by far outweighed by both the quality of life and skills I've gained; I'm not sure if it's sustainable as the company grows from a small startup to a more regular company. For now, I'm very much enjoying working part time.
(1) http://mg.missouri.edu/
[+] [-] monk_e_boy|8 years ago|reply
But I do think there are people who just feel the need to make things, they just get on and do it.
People who question how makers find the time.... hm, it's like I question how people have the time to watch endless Netflix shows. Where do you fit that time in? Oh, you aren't making a hydrofoil in your back room? OK, that's currently what's taking up a lot of my spare time.
I think humans were designed to enjoy making things. As soon as you start using your hands and brain and try to make something that no one else has -- enjoyment happens.
The other day I had the option of buying some rope on eBay and getting free splicing. Wow. Challenge accepted! I purchased the more expensive non-spliced rope and spent a week learning all about splicing. It's amazing how many new places around my house a bit of spliced rope came in handy.
Don't get me started on how many hours of YouTube videos I watched on rope making. I spent many a happy hour at a friends garden making string and rope out of nettles. He thought I was a bit nutty, but he used the string to tie up his beans. His kid used some of it to make a den.
I'm getting distracted. Everyone enjoys making (kids love lego) you just have to accept that you are re-inventing the wheel and not to worry about it. You won't get famous. You'll just enjoy life more.
[+] [-] watwut|8 years ago|reply
There are positions where it is ok (slow company) and there are situations where you have to do it (when you need to learn something new).
So basically, my advice would be to find company that is not much demanding and then produce whatever you envoy producing.
[+] [-] Arete3141|8 years ago|reply
I even found that the pay cut wasn't a 25% pay cut, but more like a 10% pay cut, because with the extra time I had, I did more shopping and meal planning, and spent less money overall on conveniences. I could afford to do things the "inconvenient" way.
I wish more companies in tech considered offering part time jobs. I know there would be a lot of people interested in those jobs, and they would be super loyal employees because they would be psyched to have the chance to have a real life.
[+] [-] Xcelerate|8 years ago|reply
Why isn't there more research on this? A huge number of people would like to be this way—consistently delivering Musk-ian type efforts week after week. But how do you do it? The "feel good" self-help articles about waking up early and other nonsense are clearly wrong, otherwise everyone would be super productive by now (I think these articles mistake correlation for causation). But I'm not convinced it is entirely genetic—I know people who have gone from extremely lazy to extremely hard working. What caused the change? Can it be replicated? I'd love to be able to push myself for 16 hours a day, every day, and while I keep finding little techniques that help me achieve more productivity over time, I wonder if there exists some technique that provides a huge boost in productivity. I just don't know what it is.
If I had to guess, I would think that increasing hours of productivity is a skill like any other, and it requires ramping up slowly over time. If you've never run before and go out and run 20 miles one day, you'll burn out and injury yourself. But if you add a few miles every week, eventually 100 mile weeks become normal and you don't really become tired from them (speaking as a former runner). I wouldn't be surprised if productivity works the same way.
[+] [-] ahmedk92|8 years ago|reply
I notice a hive-mind of looking-down on "ordinary work" even if it's not really challenging, and is actually isn't less purposeful than open source projects that get to the HN front-page.
'Coolness' is an unmeasured and a dangerous motivation.
[+] [-] doublelife|8 years ago|reply
A day for me does not stop from the moment I wake up (7am) to the moment I get into bed (11pm) and weekends are no different. Sometimes I feel like the entire world is crushing in around me, sometimes I wonder if it's all too much, but then I get back to it and I keep moving forward.
I've been doing this for about two years now. There are definite ups and downs, where my energy and ability to produce (code, or business related output) is greater, and lesser. Sometimes I feel really shitty for not doing more than a few hours side work in a week. Sometimes, when I have taken a weekend off, I have felt guilt.
It's tough. You find you are doing essentially 2 full time jobs, 7 days a week, almost 52 weeks a year, but I was raised to work and to work hard, while I am young, while I can.
I think if you want to do something like this, you have to have a solid reason. If you have a family, even more so, you have to make sure it's fair to them too.
I wish I knew why I feel the urge to work 24/7, why I feel guilt if I don't work, and whether this is actually a problem?
Alas, it's time for me to get back to it.
[+] [-] k__|8 years ago|reply
I'm blogging one a week about dev stuff and it takes 2-4 hours depending on the topic.
I met a few devs with family and children, and they were blown away by my commitment.
[+] [-] EdgarVerona|8 years ago|reply
I agree with the points others made about how to avoid burnout, find things you're passionate about etc... but I hope the question asker understands that what they're doing does have value. The value may be labor - which, indeed, is undervalued in society compared to actually being the controller/owner of the product on which work is being performed - but it is creating value just the same.
Now, if you reach a point where you want all of that value to be creating to be yours and not mostly someone else's, or if you find you have energy to spare to start working on side projects, then you may be ready to move from putting labor into other people's products to putting labor into your own. But there's no shame in working hard and earning a paycheck, and devoting the other time in your life to doing whatever it is that makes you happy. (and if what makes you happy ends up being creating a side project that turns into something where you control your own product, that's great!)
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
Of course I then feel bad that I'm not getting things done that I want to do, but have lately been more inclined to think that I'm already at capacity and it just isn't going to happen unless I trade off something else. So now I'm evaluating whether I would really get more reward out of pursuing these extra activities at the expense of something else, or if I should stop even thinking about it and just enjoy what is already happening in my life.
[+] [-] bitL|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|8 years ago|reply
Since you want to do more, I know this sounds crazy. But when I set up a personal kanban system, it really changed my life. You establish a backlog of what you want to do. Then you limit the amount of work in process (WIP). That gives you a very small number of open tasks to switch between, which means you end up increasing your focus and being forced to finish things. (Or at least clearly admit that you're quitting a thing.)
This process is, honestly, pretty unpleasant at first. Being a passive consumer pays off right now. There's always a new article, a new tweet. When you're bored, you just skip ahead. Real work is frustrating and pays off very slowly. So you're going to spend months just breaking yourself of your quick-entertainment habits and learning to put up with the frustration of longer scale.
If you really struggle, consider trying out the pomodoro system, which involves fixed periods of focus with breaks. E.g., 25 minutes of work with 5 minutes of break. When I'm feeling really resistant to production and just want to fuck around on the Internet, I'll tell myself, "Ok, one pomodoro of work on the project." I'll set my countdown timer and just fucking do the work for 25 minutes, no matter how much I don't want to. Often after that, I get into it and it's fine. But that first wall of resistance can be brutal.
The other thing that really helped me is taking up running. Pick a race, like a 5K. Train for it and do it. Then pick another race. The main trick to running successfully is not giving up. You learn to put one goddamn foot in front of another. Some days it's a joy and some days you hate it, but that ends up not mattering so much. You slowly learn that your feelings are just these things your brain does. You can notice them without having to obey them.
[+] [-] mi100hael|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stil|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tmbsundar|8 years ago|reply
Any software you use? Modus operandi?
[+] [-] factsaresacred|8 years ago|reply
I ask because you need to:
A. build an environment conducive to producing.
B. practice discipline.
Like you, I had some half-baked blogs and projects that were doomed for failure. After way too much wasted time it was obvious that I wasn't living a lifestyle congruent with my goals. No successful person ever prioritized Facebook over their project. I was lying to myself and had to snap out of it.
So I began applying a version of the Broken windows theory* - which argues that if you prevent small crimes it discourages large crimes - to my life. (In this case the smaller crimes were procrastination and the larger crime was not getting my shit together like I know I ought to).
The rules were simple:
1. Everything I did had to align with my goal to produce. I got a faster laptop, dual screens (this makes a difference, trust me), began sleeping well and eating well, rationed consuming to 2 hours a day, stopped drinking (hangovers are dumb...for now at least).
2. Apply discipline everywhere. I made my bed first thing each morning, the apartment was always spotless, I worked out every day. Even began doing stuff like not using auto-correct on Chrome - fight your lazy brain and spell the word correctly dammit. The idea was to practice discipline as much as possible so as to train it like a muscle.
End result: I learned how to code, built a product, quit my job and am now at 500 customers.
So you can do it. It's just going to cost you - dates, meetups with friends, a slight drop in Facebook-notification-induced-dopamine. But, I assure you, the joy from creating something that people enjoy eclipses all of that.
This approach is geared more for an all in lifestyle change. If you just want to be a better blogger, even a fraction of the above will do.
Worse than the fear of commitment is the tinge of regret. Took almost a decade to figure that one out.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
[+] [-] leblancfg|8 years ago|reply
For long-term goals, the most important section -- base conditioning -- aims at slowly building up your body's training capacity. If your body can withstand one more hour of workout without injury or sickness, then over time these gains will accumulate. As opposed to strength training though, it can take many months before there is a tangible difference.
I feel as though for the brain, and creative work in general, the situation is very similar. With months and years of "training", it too can withstand to work for longer hours. The parent's comment on creating the proper environment is certainly key.
[+] [-] abrichr|8 years ago|reply
Fantastic! Congratulations :)
What can you share about the product?
[+] [-] Demcox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swyx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paublyrne|8 years ago|reply
We have a glut of online content. For every tweet that illuminates, there are 9 that constitute meaningless chatter, background noise that serves only to obfuscate the good stuff.
The freedom that the internet has given people to communicate is a wonderful and empowering thing, but the idea that we must 'produce' something to be contributing to our world is just wrong, in my opinion.
If you have free time, why not do some volunteer work in your community? Most countries have, for example, charities that help connect lonely elderly people with others to meet, say, for coffee once a week. I would say that represents a contribution of significant value.
[+] [-] Applejinx|8 years ago|reply
Anyone who's really locked into the nasty treadmill of staying creatively relevant, truly loves a good fan or good consumer. Somebody's gotta do the experiencing, sift through the chaff, find the gold. If you're working in the creative sphere, odds are you can't even do that because keeping up a genuine creative output is too heavy of a commitment.
I think this is the future knocking at our doors. One day energy and goods will be all produced by robots and machines, and we will all be consumers by vocation, whose job it is to sift through the noise and find the signal. As we can see in this post, as soon as we're comfortable with that we're already unsatisfied, and want the celebrity of being informationally significant.
And that becomes the equivalent of a struggle for survival. Once survival is taken care of, it's beneath notice, and importance becomes everything. (or if you like, expressing informational generosity)
[+] [-] sillysaurus3|8 years ago|reply
Isn't that the definition of contributing?
[+] [-] erikb|8 years ago|reply
Reason being that I think we are already far far beyond a point where decreasing output would do any meaningful impact. Therefore I think we need more, better filtering, to get rid of all the spam. The same way as with email.
[+] [-] petra|8 years ago|reply
And even if he wants to contribute in a field he's good at, like programming - creating your own project is often just an exercise in vanity, when you could do a lot more good, behind the scenes, as part of a larger group working on something more of value.
[+] [-] jng|8 years ago|reply
With creative stuff: writing, music, etc... I had to find another way. Technical projects tend to be big. Don't be wrong, something like "publishing a youtube video every week" is a huge amount of work and very scary, involving time, energy, creativity, and the very logical fear of nobody giving a shoot about it.
What worked for me creatively was to bring projects down to the smallest expression. I wanted to write short fiction stories, I decided to write "tweetstories" in 140 characters. I wanted to do storytelling, did a lot of stand-up comedy, 5min sets. For music, short piano pieces. Make it such that the amount of work is not the problem. And then you will find what the real issue is.
For me, I had to accept producing bad stuff. We sometimes don't produce stuff because we're scared to produce bad stuff. And there's no way around it. You can't choose to be a good artist, but you can choose to be a bad artist. And that's the only way. Watch Ira Glass's video on creativity, he describes it perfectly.
Good luck. This is very reasonable stuff to struggle with.
[+] [-] andai|8 years ago|reply
Imagine starting work on these things right now and notice how you feel. Investigate from there.
Or, ignore the feeling, and go work on your dreams anyway :)
Best wishes
Also, an important thing to realize is that everyone is bad at stuff in the beginning. In the words of Jake the Dog, "Suckin at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something!"
Or (can't remember where i got this) "Every artist has 10,000 shitty drawings in them, it's best to get them out as quickly as possible."
Deliberately making something bad (because it will probably end up sorta bad at first, whether you want it or not) can help you overcome the delusion of "it has to be perfect or people will judge me!"
Aim to fail because failure is an essential part to success. You keep sucking until one day you wake up and realize things are going really well. You have to make it to that day though. The only real failure is giving up.
[+] [-] andai|8 years ago|reply
Eg. instead of "how can I make a million dollars" ask "how can I provide a million dollars in value?"
Thinking in terms of people's needs is also beneficial to relationships and mental health, ie. noticing the needs of those around you, how you are / aren't meeting those needs, as well as your own.
This way of thinking helps me make decisions in my life.
[+] [-] CharlieA|8 years ago|reply
> "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."
(ofc: Replace PAINT with anything you like!)
[+] [-] superasn|8 years ago|reply
My most unproductive period was when I was trying to do too much, all sorts of things, with insane deadlines. It really had an opposite effect on me wherein I started procrastinating a lot and then felt guilty for wasting another day. Weird part was that I wasn't even having fun with my time. It was just a weird state where I was working without actually accomplishing anything.
Anyway, I got my mojo back when I just said fuck it and said goodbye to those imaginary deadlines and started doing the so called time wasters like watching Netflix, reddit, hn, etc 100% guilt free. Instantly without the pressure and guilt, the quality of work and more importantly stuff started getting done again. It may be a unique case but try it for a few days. Maybe it'll work for you too!
[+] [-] dahart|8 years ago|reply
You're giving yourself not just too much, but the wrong kind of pressure.
Find something that's more fun and interesting to you than browsing Facebook, something you'd rather be doing, and something that scratches an itch or helps you learn something you want to know.
Don't do it for social value, don't expect to give more than you take, and don't commit to it. Do something for yourself, and those things will happen naturally as a byproduct when you find the right thing that you care about so much more than Instagram that you can't bring yourself to browse Instgram.
Finding the thing is your job at this point, so don't stick to one of the things you listed until you try them all and try many other things too. Try boating, or woodworking, or exercise, or eating, or volunteering at the homeless shelter. (If you want a blog or vlog, you need stories to write/video about, after all.) Find something you enjoy before you even think about commitment.
There's almost nobody writing blogs or open source software or posting videos to YouTube that are worrying about their contribution to society -- they are doing it because they love it, they like participating in the activity for reasons that primarily benefit them -- and only occasionally and secondarily do they benefit others -- and that's okay!
[+] [-] WA|8 years ago|reply
I think it also helps to think less in a constant stream of content, but more how TV shows are organized: Seasons and episodes. So you basically start this "show" of 10 videos about X and then you're done with it. No eternal commitment necessary.
[+] [-] andreasgonewild|8 years ago|reply
~~Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love
Do it :)
[+] [-] inadequathrowy|8 years ago|reply
Is this actually true? I am fairly certain I fear inadequacy more than power. I've talked to and read people, including artists, writers, and programmers, who expressed fear of not measuring up to standards -- others' or their own. It seems very common. I have rarely heard someone express fear of becoming too powerful, too influential, etc. Moreover, when I did, it was by people who were already successful and, crucially, their primary worry was that they wouldn't be able to use the power or influence well (i.e., inadequacy again).
[+] [-] Fricken|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delegate|8 years ago|reply
There's a (rapidly growing) Ocean of content out there and any one's contribution looks more and more like an insignificant drop in that Ocean.
Consumers care less and less about what the content is, as long as it excites their input sensors in satisfactory ways.
Content is functionally "attention grabbing" and there are many industries involved and competing in this space, so when you say "I want to produce content", you're actually saying, "I want people to pay attention to me, so that what I say becomes a canvas on which others place an ad and pay me for this" (that's if you want to make money, otherwise it's just 'pay attention to me'.
Because of technology, content does not die by being forgotten, but is stored in this ocean and continues grabbing attention long after it has been produced, so the ocean of content grows, while while human's capacity to consume it is constant.
[+] [-] marenkay|8 years ago|reply
- instead of consuming, try producing small things. Personally I started out writing a daily diary. First thing in the morning next to coffee is writing. That gives a good impression of what you actually did. - figure out what you actually like, what picks your interest in an amount that it can pull you off of procrastinating. I would recommend learning something completely new. I went off learning a new language, looked into two new programming languages, and started doing something that is the opposite of my day job.
If you want to try out Open Source:
- find projects you actively use. Improve them. Even making a README nicer is a start. - find something that you can Open Source. Personally I went with pushing out a new OS project every week and do that for two months now.
In the end it is very simple: you have to reach the point where you are fed up with just sitting in front of social media, etc. That mostly means realizing that doing has more value for improving ones self.
Stick with it. And that is the hard part.
Parting words: if you lack discipline and fall back to procrastinating, reserve fixed times in your calendar for activities.
Best advice for the end: enjoy yourself. Be you. Do what fulfills your inner self.
[+] [-] aidenn0|8 years ago|reply
1) They are unsatisfied with what already exists
2) They aren't afraid to fail
#1 gives them a reason to get started and #2 makes sure that they finish.
People without #1 lack direction (If there isn't an open-source project that is both the best in the field, but missing something you deem important, how the heck do you pick what to write?)
People without #2 either spend so much time trying to make their creation the best that they never publish it, or end up giving up once they realize that they aren't going to write the "perfect" book/blog/code.
[+] [-] Mz|8 years ago|reply
That said, it isn't hopeless. You can do some of the following things to squeeze more out of life:
1. Improve your diet and overall fitness level so you have more energy.
2. Improve your sleep habits so you have more energy.
3. Streamline your life (such as reducing how much material stuff you own) so that you can free up time and energy that is currently accounted for.
Additionally, you can do creative/productive stuff in your free time if you will stop applying job-like metrics to it. If you want to blog more, start some ridiculous blog that is easy to post to and then just post crap. Keep it short and don't give yourself a schedule. This idea that you need to updated a youtube channel weekly is crazy talk. You can update it once in a blue moon and if people like what you do, it will get some traffic (maybe not tons) and it will add value to the world.
I am medically handicapped. I have multiple blogs. NONE of them has a schedule.
My most successful one gets a few hundred page views a day and is sometimes updated as little as once a month. In fact, it was officially abandoned at one time for about six months with a "BYE!" post informing visitors it was abandoned and I resumed it when I realized it was getting traffic via organic search because people had need of the info. It is a niche thing and will never be big, but I do it whenever the fuck I do it and people benefit from it and say nice things about it and it even occasionally makes a smidgeon of money.
[+] [-] rkunal|8 years ago|reply
1. You can better focus on producing, when your needs to consume gets satisfied. Techs such as Facebook, Instagram are designed to keep you hooked, give a hit on every use, but never lead to satisfaction. Trick is to go back to basics. Spend more quality time with people around you. The human bonding fulfils the needs that these tech claim to replace. With this alternative, your passive consumptions will automatically decrease.
2. Contribution to the society does not have to be via creating content on web platforms. Technology is an enabler, it should not be confused as something to do with the goal. One does not contribute to 'open source', one simply contributes to a 'mission'. May be, you are afraid of commitment because you do not have a goal, something that you would personally want to achieve for yourself in your contribution. But your focus is on the means to achieve it. Eg. Writing blog post, creating videos. Simplify it down. Write down your short term goal. Focus on working towards achieving it. You may realise that you do not need these platforms.
[+] [-] kstenerud|8 years ago|reply
At certain points in your life, you'll be inspired to build something for its own sake. THAT will be something worthwhile to contribute. Until then, chill out.
Want to increase your odds of that happening? Train your creativity. How do you do that? Play!
Play with things. Fuck around. Use it in ways it's not meant to be used. Break it! Have you ever seen kids keep themselves occupied by using things in weird, wrong, and probably useless ways? Do that!
Do things that nobody else is doing, not for what riches it might hold (because it probably won't), but for the pure joy of play and exploration, not caring about the judgments of everyone who will inevitably shake their head.
Randomness breeds novelty.
[+] [-] scriptstar|8 years ago|reply
1. Just build something very very tiny thing and sell it for less than 5 quid something like $1.99.
2. Repeat until you see some success and get motivation.
3. While doing this just be in the same tribe who's making things like you. Talk to them and share your experiences with them. Grow with them, together.
4. The momentum automatically move you to the next level.
5. Finally find a mentor who's been in this journey before and embrace his/her advise.
Let me know where can I buy your first tiny product and I will buy no matter what it is.
Good luck!
[+] [-] big_spammer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickjj|8 years ago|reply
For instance, Wednesday and Friday are dedicated to nothing but writing blog posts. I tend to spend half the time researching and the other half writing.
By the time Wednesday rolls along, I'm pretty eager to start writing. I usually keep a buffer of a month's worth of posts.
Then the rest of my time is spent producing content of other types (courses, etc.) and consulting.
Luckily I don't use FB, IG and barely use Twitter. HN and Youtube still soak up a pretty decent amount of time, but I use various browser extensions and other tactics to keep myself in check. In fact, I blogged about that[0] a few months ago and this combo works better than anything I've ever tried.
[0]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati...
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|8 years ago|reply
For open source projects, choose something that you are really interested in and start a public git repo. Whenever you are motivated to work on your project for an hour or two, then add a feature. My friend, it is all about one thought at a time, one keystroke at a time. If you are not enjoying the creative process then stop and start up again on another day.
[+] [-] duopixel|8 years ago|reply
I block these websites because habit takes you there when you're bored. The dns failure is simply a reminder that you were about to waste time, and you can put it to better use.
There is nothing wrong with consuming information, what you put into your mind eventually comes out in creative expression. In my case I can't force myself to be creative when I don't feel like it, but when the creative impulse is felt, my raw materials (the contents of my mind) are better ingredients.
[+] [-] dizzystar|8 years ago|reply
Maybe easier for me to say since I don't like social media much, but really the mindset is wrong.
There is a HUGE difference between using FB, YouTube, Twitter, etc, for product promotion -vs- consuming content. You are sort of consuming, but the mindset and results are very different.
>> Another thing that is holding me back I think is the fear of commitement. I have a partially ready youtube channel, with two videos, not listed. I tell myself that I'll open the videos to the public and then start realising videos on a weekly schedule but the commitement seems like a such a burden on me that I don't think I'll be able to keep up.
This is wrong as well. You are confusing "commitment" with "consistency" or rather, attempting to reach some undefined metric of consistency. The only "consistent" thing you have is either "do it" or "don't do it." It doesn't matter if you post once a week, once a month, or every day. Just get started.
The first step is always the hardest step, and this goes for your project, blog, YT channel, whatever. Just doing it once is enough to get those first steps past your fear.
And don't confuse myth with reality. Every overnight success story took 10+ years to write, and the back-story is a graveyard of failed ideas and plans.