Ask HN: How do you make yourself productive after a tiring day at work?

[althaffe]

I've found it very difficult to resist the temptation to surf endlessly through Youtube videos or watch Netflix, after long hours of coding at work which kinda drains all your willpower.

This prevents me from working on my side-projects or spending time learning something worthwhile after work. How do you find the motivation to work on stuff that matters, even if you are craving for some mindless entertainment?

[davismwfl]

1. Get good quality sleep over quantity.

2. Set a schedule and stick to it as good as you can, but don't torture yourself if you blow it sometimes.

3. Wake up earlier, do some work on your side hustle in the morning hours. This helps motivate you later too, and gets some of your creative time in on the side hustle before you start the day job.

4. When you get home, chill, eat, shower, watch an hour or two of TV or whatever helps you veg, and then get to work.

5. Set some short term goals, 1 month, 3 months etc.

6. Set a work area in your house so that you don't have distractions immediately accessible.

7. If you have decent vacation time built up or "unlimited".. Schedule taking off every Friday for a month to kick start things, that'll give you a three day weekend to work. If they don't like that do every Wednesday for a month, or Monday etc. Take one day for a month each week and dedicate it to your side hustle.

Don't beat yourself up over wanting to enjoy life some too, if you are all work and no play/relax you'll fail at it all.

[althaffe]

Great pointers. Thanks.

[saluki]

After a tiring day take a break, visit with friends and family, exercise go for a bike ride or a walk, then shower and see if you're recharged and ready to learn/work on a side project.

If not, relax and watch some TV enjoy some mindless entertainment or get to bed early.

Try getting an early start instead, some of my most productive time is early morning before the world is up and moving.

[perfunctory]

You don't. Make sure you don not get tired at work. Work less. Switch to part time or take a sabbatical.

edit: I quite liked this talk about sabbatical https://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_tim...

[althaffe]

I've been pondering about this option quite a lot recently

[pizza]

There’s nothing wrong with listening to your body! Someone once commented something to the effect of “if you work with your mind, relax physically, and if you work with your body, relax mentally”, and I’ve been trying to implement that change. Maybe something similar for you (sports/cardio/weights/taking a walk around the neighborhood) might work.

The problem with extracting the maximum amount of mental energy from each day is that you might drain more energy than you can feasibly regenerate from a limited amount of rest per day.

Otherwise, my advice probably is to kill distractions, and block out time in your schedule for projects, and plan the details before you start to actually implement stuff, it might save you a good amount of time while implementing the project.

Also, sleep better if you’re not getting enough, people who sleep long enough can maintain a train of thought with much greater ease than who are sleep deprived. Sleep deprived people don’t even realize that they’re losing focus.

[althaffe]

I should look more into physical relaxation I guess. I'm getting maybe just around 6 hours of sleep a day.

[muzani]

My trick is to not use any willpower. Your side project should excite you, not tire you.

My goal is to push one update a day live, whether it's small or big. That means when I have more time, I work on fixing up the infrastructure so that I can push updates without code, such as setting up a dashboard. If the updates are too big to fit in one update, I still push it to server as a matter of principle, but it might be commented out.

Instead of finding the right way to build something, you figure out how to see the results as soon as possible.

We spend most of our day building safe things; side projects are there to go crazy and have fun.

Same goes for learning. Learn new things that interest you, and not some targeted path to further your career. Pick up small, fun things, and very often they lead to bigger things.

[jlengrand]

Another idea to try is to reverse the problem : Wake up earlier, work for yourself first and go to work after.

Do nothing productive after work, reserve it for sport / family.

It does a bit of getting used to but it avoids the emotional exhaustion of the day

[oftenwrong]

Work less, and use the time you save for your own purposes. Nobody will care if you are leaving a bit early. Your productivity probably will not even decrease. Most programmers work more hours than they can actually sustain productively.

Most people work until they are tired, and then go home, arriving even more tired. To arrive home with some energy, leave work well before you are tired.

Don't forget to use some of that extra time for fun.

[quickthrower2]

Just leave early? Simple as that?

[oftenwrong]

Yes

[navd]

Forming a habit

https://www.dannav.com/rituals/

[algodaily]

You don't-- rest up and move slower, all good things take years regardless.

Check out https://algodaily.com/lessons/how-to-have-a-slow-and-boring-... for more on this.

[sharadov]

You need a physical activity to reset you brain. Can be as short as 30 mins ( even better if its outdoors).

[jamieweb]

How long is your commute? If your commute is short and/or fast-paced (e.g. speed walk, bus/train that is on time), then you can often carry forward the productivity from work for a bit at home.

This often works for me, but as soon as I eat, I'll have to take a few hours break in the evening, then become productive again in the late evening.

[andrei_says_]

I’m most successful when I’m able to force myself into a non-brain intensive activity before attempting any additional work.

It could be a short workout or yoga session, a walk, a dance class.

Then, timeboxed (with a timer!) work session.

[arathore]

I have found that doing some physical exercise (gym or sports) in the evening helps me offset some of the mental fatigue and create bandwidth for other stuff in the evening.

[althaffe]

That's interesting. I've never thought of this before.

[billconan]

I set small and concrete goals. I also disabled my netflix account.

[mgummelt]

Work in the morning.