Pushing the boundaries of productivity.

Optimization takes creativity.

We've been asked by dozens of people over the last year why we post what we post and what are some productivity hacks that we've learned. So I figure I'd informally answer the last question by sharing a few that have emerged since our new goal and I'll also share some others that have been true and tried for years.

In the last couple months we've been trying to go from 50 hours of self study and skill building a week to around 65 (outside of work) and although 15 more hours may not seem like much, we started to hit up against some walls and the only way we could optimize it was to get creative. Here are a few things we are doing differently (some we've always done but have become more important).

Here is our focus in order of time spent

• deep learning + machine learning (possibly trying to specialise in affect)
• neuroscience > neurobiology
• Chinese
• design thinking (I'm learning this on the job at IDEO :) )

Weekdays:

• Learn (read and watch lectures)
• Prototype (create python prototypes of what you learned)
• Lecture (teach a lecture on what you learned)

Weekends:

• Cold hard code... (Typically a machine learning or computer science challenge (cs only as of late)
• Recording lectures for our course called Distributed Deep Learning via @Packt Publishing

HACKS

• Listen to Audiobook while in the shower, while also brushing teeth in the shower
• Don't have internet in your house (get online at the library or if really needed, use the phone's free internet which is so slow it took 4 minutes to upload this photo) , which means no Netflix/Hulu/ etc..).
• Use any food breaks (i.e. breakfast, lunch, and dinner) to learn something via a downloaded Youtube video on Convolution Neural Networks or Neurobiology ( we currently use the kitchen and food breaks to speak only Chinese to increase my situational fluency but we were using it to watch educational videos like this one )
• Make it in to a semi-competitive adventure and mobile (starbucks -> library -> whole foods)
• Be ok with being tedious (trying to explain something simple in Chinese for 30 minutes is ok)
• Sleep in your gym clothing (we read a paper then go for a run, best to have your gym clothing ready)
• No external screens at home (no tv's/monitors, just laptops and one phone)
• Set different type of alarms (early transition alarms, actual alarm, focus/reminder alarms)
• Track yourself in Excel and make time for tracking daily
• Buy a giant whiteboard and use it every day ( we currently use it to lecture each other on our study topic)
• Build in reset and nap times (take walk and then get back to it)
• Schedule transition times (need to go from study point a to study point b? Put it on the calendar)
• Use timers for everything
• Adjust the calendar as your day changes for flexibility but don't plan on changing it ahead of time
• Be absolute, even if naively so (we say the calendar is our supreme leader)
• Wake up "way" before everyone else does and go to bed way before everyone else does; gives you time to focus with way less distractions. (we are up at 4:30AM and down at 9PM)
• Make it social so you have some pressure from expectations

ENERGY

To keep the energy levels up we eat food we stick to these standards *currently:

• No added sugars/sweeteners, no oils, no salt, no condiments
• Stay away from overflavoured foods especially if they have addictive qualities (keep it simple)
• Shoot for mostly raw foods (seaweed, radishes) but also morning muesli (we found two types that fit the above constraints in all of Whole Foods) if you can find good ones.
• Mostly raw vegan diet ( currently vegan but not sure that's the right label (more research needed))
• Restaurant twice a year at most (even when we do it's so hard to find a restaurant that doesn't add extra sugar or oil to everything)
• Use Amazon for everything else
• Order 90% of our food online (Amazon + Instacart) and create template shopping lists so that we don't have to make any extra decisions ourselves (conserve your willpower)
• Recalibrate your tastebuds for food that you probably think is bland but extremely healthy by cutting out all of the over processed foods that focus on addiction more than nutrition, this will give you your tastebuds back.
• We eat the same food every single day and have done so for years at this point. There have been small modifications (i.e. switching furikake for mixed seaweed) but mostly the same

**we are pretty close to absolute about the above; there are no cheat days, but there are rewards but they still need to fit the constraints (i.e. Go Raw spirulina or pistachios) .

Our goal has always been 'be simple and hyper-focused". But in a world that wants you to make a billion decisions every single day it's not so simple... so this is what has emerged over the years. We've used it to program for 1000's of hours and read 100's of books (non-fiction).

That being said, there are still lots of issues and things we want to improve and still some lessons we haven't learned but desperately need to. So feel free to give us a head start.

We'll schedule some time in December to write up something more formal and possibly a few frameworks that are working for us that we hope might work for you.

When I say we, I mean, myself and my partner @Haohan Wang, we post our schedule and most of our tasks on our blogs below.

Haohan Wang's tumblr - a running log of almost everything we do daily

Christian's (Fanli) tumblr - a running log of almost everything we do daily