Order groceries online! Maybe this is obvious but I have the impression not as many ppl do this as they should. Saves me at least 1 hr (usually closer to 2) for < $20
Pay for a bunch of disk space. I find it generates a lot of overhead to have files in different places. For me, the solution has been a high performance workstation plus remote desktop forwarding to my laptop when I travel so I can always have the same disk and workspace
Buy more paid apps/ premium upgrades/ digital subscriptions. I haven’t done the math on this so might not be as good as I think, but I have the impression that time spent watching adverts ads up and that in general apps are underpriced/ people have irrational behavior around eg not buying the $5 app they would have been excited for if free. A big one for me is Premium Youtube which lets you listen to videos with the screen off and gives me access to all youtube lectures as if they were podcasts (there are a surprising number of high quality informational videos that can be listened to!)
Related to above: make slack time more useful by listening to stuff. Mix of podcast, audiobooks, youtube and text to speech of articles. I use a mix of Pocket, Speechify and Voicedream for the latter. I invested in noise-cancelling earbuds and (separately) found some pretty cheap earbuds you can wear in the shower
extra battery packs and unlimited data plan to allow for work time in more places. For same reason, laptop with long battery life. I couldnt find anything better than the newest macbook pro M1.
pay for flights at times which work better and reduce time in transit. Your comfort/ restedness affects productivity. Also plane wifi.
give yourself a budget for productivity experiments that feel speculative. Many of the above were discovered by spending that budget, a lot of other things failed but its worth it for the wins
stop worrying about late fees (within reason). Most of the time the fees for things like late registration at a uni are small relative to not needing to occupy your brain with those sorts of deadlines
pay for excercise/ hobbies that increase your wellbeing + energy. For me this is climbing
buy extra of things you lose frequently. This is an embarrassing one but I cannot for the life of me keep track of sleep masks, for example. I have like >6 pairs now lol, but there is usually one when I need it. If you are scatterbrained like me, this is worth it for cheap things.
corollary of above: don’t waste time looking for cheap things you’ve lost, just buy another.
I think I have a few more I’m forgetting but I will stop there for now.
Thanks for the recommendations! I don’t think I’ll listen to these, though Wendover Productions looks cool. I might try listening to some EA Global videos or GPI lectures via audio on YouTube premium.
+1 for ordering groceries online—Tried this for the first time last week. For me, not having to expend the time & mental energy searching for the things I need was well worth the small financial cost. For those in the US and Canada who still like to get out of the house, Instacart offers grocery pickup.
Order groceries online! Maybe this is obvious but I have the impression not as many ppl do this as they should. Saves me at least 1 hr (usually closer to 2) for < $20
Pay for a bunch of disk space. I find it generates a lot of overhead to have files in different places. For me, the solution has been a high performance workstation plus remote desktop forwarding to my laptop when I travel so I can always have the same disk and workspace
Buy more paid apps/ premium upgrades/ digital subscriptions. I haven’t done the math on this so might not be as good as I think, but I have the impression that time spent watching adverts ads up and that in general apps are underpriced/ people have irrational behavior around eg not buying the $5 app they would have been excited for if free. A big one for me is Premium Youtube which lets you listen to videos with the screen off and gives me access to all youtube lectures as if they were podcasts (there are a surprising number of high quality informational videos that can be listened to!)
Related to above: make slack time more useful by listening to stuff. Mix of podcast, audiobooks, youtube and text to speech of articles. I use a mix of Pocket, Speechify and Voicedream for the latter. I invested in noise-cancelling earbuds and (separately) found some pretty cheap earbuds you can wear in the shower
extra battery packs and unlimited data plan to allow for work time in more places. For same reason, laptop with long battery life. I couldnt find anything better than the newest macbook pro M1.
pay for flights at times which work better and reduce time in transit. Your comfort/ restedness affects productivity. Also plane wifi.
give yourself a budget for productivity experiments that feel speculative. Many of the above were discovered by spending that budget, a lot of other things failed but its worth it for the wins
stop worrying about late fees (within reason). Most of the time the fees for things like late registration at a uni are small relative to not needing to occupy your brain with those sorts of deadlines
pay for excercise/ hobbies that increase your wellbeing + energy. For me this is climbing
buy extra of things you lose frequently. This is an embarrassing one but I cannot for the life of me keep track of sleep masks, for example. I have like >6 pairs now lol, but there is usually one when I need it. If you are scatterbrained like me, this is worth it for cheap things.
corollary of above: don’t waste time looking for cheap things you’ve lost, just buy another.
I think I have a few more I’m forgetting but I will stop there for now.
50% of why I got YouTube Premium just now is because of your recommendation. Thanks!
Well I hope it works out for ya! Thanks haha
In case you are looking for content and have interests similar to me I like the following for audio:
Institute for Advanced Study lectures (random fun science)
Yannic Kilcher (ML paper summaries)
Wendover Productions/ Kurzgesagt (random probably not as useful but interesting science and econ funfacts)
LiveOverflow (Security)
And i find that searching for random academics names is more likely to turn up lectures/ convos than podcasts
Thanks for the recommendations! I don’t think I’ll listen to these, though Wendover Productions looks cool. I might try listening to some EA Global videos or GPI lectures via audio on YouTube premium.
+1 for ordering groceries online—Tried this for the first time last week. For me, not having to expend the time & mental energy searching for the things I need was well worth the small financial cost. For those in the US and Canada who still like to get out of the house, Instacart offers grocery pickup.