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Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret
- joejohnson 15y agoHmmm, can't be that great of a system. The guy never made it as a comedian and works in computers or something.
- bravura 15y agoMaybe he realized that he didn't want to be a comic. It would be a sad world indeed if we were all measured against goals we created when we were twenty.
- nhebb 15y agoSeinfeld was a successful comic. The end goal for a lot of comedians is to parlay it into an acting career, which Seinfeld did. Forbes estimates his net worth at $800 million. If that isn't a successful comedic career, than I'm not sure what is.
- georgemcbay 15y ago"woosh" As much as I like most aspects of Hacker News, this place is easily in the running for most humorless site on the entire Internet.
- cwp 15y agoActually that's one of the things I like about HN. So easy for a community site to degenerate into a handful of long-running in-jokes, applied to the topic of the day.
- CamperBob 15y agoWelcome to the Asperger's ward...
- mason55 15y agoThis concept has actually been turned into a pretty decent website. http://dontbreakthechain.com/ http://dontbreakthechain.com/
- bennesvig 15y agoNice. I knew about the technique, but didn't know there was a website dedicated to it. Has anyone made an app dedicated to this?
- mason55 15y agoNot sure, I used the website maybe 3 years ago to quit smoking though.
- genieyclo 15y agoIf you mean a mobile app, there's a Don't Break The Chain[1] iPhone app that I use on/off. It's free with a premium version with no ads at $5. There's apparently an Android app out there[2] as well. [1] http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dont-break-the-chain!/id313567772?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dont-break-the-chain!/id31356... [2] https://market.android.com/details?id=com.geolinx.android.dontbreakthechain.pro&hl=en https://market.android.com/details?id=com.geolinx.android.do...
- consultutah 15y agoYep, Unbroken Chain ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unbroken-chain/id415158247?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unbroken-chain/id415158247?mt... ) I released it in January just thought it would be interesting to see the usage stats, I haven't checked in forever! Goals Added: 17,642 Chains Added: 247,104 Kind of cool to see actual usage from someone other than me! # of goals added is pretty obvious, but # of chains added probably bears a little explanation: Every day you do something is a chain - I probably should have called it a link in the stats system.
- chuinard 15y agoThis might be the 10th post I've seen on Hacker News about Seinfeld's calendar. http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=seinfeld+calendar&start=0 http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=seinfeld+ca...
- parallel 15y agoFair comment. I'll search first in future.
- evanw 15y agoI'm glad you posted, I had never seen it before and found it to be very valuable. Thank you.
- nikcub 15y agoI have also seen this a number of times before, but it is worth re-posting since a lot of people miss stories and the audience here has grown. If in doubt, submit, the upvotes will judge
- robinwarren 15y agoFair point, but I and assume others had missed htme (hence the upvotes). http://touchwoodsoftware.com/yctrends.html#seinfeld%20calendar http://touchwoodsoftware.com/yctrends.html#seinfeld%20calend... Two other interesting ones from there if anyone fancies a trip back in time?
- consultutah 15y agoThere is one really important thing that needs to be brought-up: Being consistent is important. But it is more important to choose the right things to be consistent at. Some of us are really consistent at watching our favorite sitcom. But how, exactly, does that help our businesses? Couldn't those precious minutes be spent doing something to help advance our businesses?
- dreeves 15y agoHere's us committing to an average of one User-Visible Improvement to our startup per day: http://beeminder.com/meta/uvi http://beeminder.com/meta/uvi It's not quite the same as the Seinfeld calendar strategy in that we can in fact break the chain, we're just forced to maintain 1/day as an average. (Anyone reading this thread who wants to try something like that, use the invite code SEINFELD and I'll get you hooked up.)
- consultutah 15y agoThat's an awesome idea. My main goals are: 1. One Thing - do one thing to advance my startup 2. Exercise
- jamesbritt 15y agoSuggestion: Swap the two. Exercise first.
- dmlorenzetti 15y ago[I]t is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes... Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next. A recent New Yorker article quotes singer Tony Bennett on his practice regimen as saying "The first day you don't do the scales, you know. The second day, the musicians know. The third day, the audience knows."
- wushupork 15y agoI've heard this saying but in the context of martial arts. "The first day you don't practice, you know. The second day, your coach knows. Third day, your competitors know" I wonder what about origin of this saying.
- mhartl 15y agoThis technique works best if, for your particular goals, there exists an x such that "Doing x every day will help me meet my goals" is true. If you're a stand-up comedian, x is fairly clear. For many people (including me), it's not obvious that such an x exists. (It's still probably worth looking for it, though.)
- smalter 15y agoAwhile back, HN users rguzman, peng, and I (met on HN and) built http://idonethis.com http://idonethis.com based on the Seinfeld productivity secret and launched it on HN. We got some great feedback and kept moving forward with it. We recently crossed 200,000 things done (http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/22/idonethis-announces-its-first-milestone-200000-completed-tasks/ http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/22/idonethis-announces-it...) and a bunch of people have told us that it's helped them tremendously.
- ofca 15y agoGreat stuff! but, why have you not used big oversized X's? These blue check marks dont give enough satisfation as big red X's. Test it :)
- nrbafna 15y agoWell. There is yet another minimalist implementation of this - http://sein-cal.co.cc/ http://sein-cal.co.cc/ that works very well for "I (don't) want to do X" and check for each successful day. In principle, it would be exactly like a full-year calendar on the wall. Edit - This was our weekend hack some time ago. Feedback on the application is welcome.
- lujz 15y agoA diary app implements this: https://github.com/dev1/kotivox/raw/master/kotivox-screen-1.png https://github.com/dev1/kotivox/raw/master/kotivox-screen-1....
- rickdale 15y agoThis is why HN needs improvements. Jerry Seinfelds productivity secret has been leaked on HN plenty of times. How come no one flags this?
- programminggeek 15y agoI wrote a free weight tracking web app based on this idea. You track your weight daily. It gives you some simple analytics on your weight over time. It's a small thing, but tracking your weight every day helps it drop over time and keep you accountable to your diet. I'm 285 days in a row and I've lost right at 40 lbs. It works. http://thediet.org/ http://thediet.org/
- declancostello 15y agoIs there a way to abstract this into a service that has an api ? You could setup your daily goals and the Tenacity API ( a name just invented http://declancostello.com/tenacity-api/ http://declancostello.com/tenacity-api/ ) could be updated by different clients. Tenacity could check an RSS feed to see if you've blogged every day ( like yahoo pipes ) It could parse an email sent to a custom address ( like idonethis ) Flashcard Software like anki could have a plugin that would access the API twitter hastags, github checkins etc. It would provide you with a dashboard of all the things you care enough about to be doing every day. I'm not sure I'd like it to email me like facebook when I've missed some goals, but it might be a productive option. I don't have the mojo to develop anything like this but would it interest other developers?
- buckwild 15y agoI've always found this productivity idea weak. I might set out 1 hour a day to accomplish a task, but if my heart isn't in it, it's just an hour of low-quality work--I may as well have not done it at all or waited for an optimal time. However, I do see how this could be useful for tasks which aren't creative or need much thinking. Say for example, brushing teeth after lunch.
- blahedo 15y agoBut at least you've done something. When you see it's not going well, you might stop early but it's still better than skipping it, because the next day, when you are ready, the stuff you were doing is one-day-fresh, not two-days-fresh. If you put it off until "an optimal time" you'll both make it easier to keep putting off and spend more time catching up to where you had previously been. The grad student version of this advice, which I heard from several people and more or less followed, was "once you start your thesis, write every day, at least a sentence." It's good advice.
- ludicast 15y agoThis can't be reposted too much. This secret changed my life.