I have seen numerous Software Engineers, Web Developers and, tech people working on various domains in different renowned companies, who are literally active in everywhere! For example, they are extremely good at their fields of work. They are equally active on Social Media such as Twitter or, Facebook etc. Also, maintain blogs with quality contents. Most of them posts valuable answers to Stack overflow, Quora etc. They also Attend conferences/ meetup with slides full of gems and, not to mention about their high quality presentations(indicates their dedication in preparation). And, actively posts update about recent series/movies/musics they watched or, books they have finished reading! I might have missed some other things they do but, I just wonder how do they manage their time to such extend!
How do they do it?
>they are extremely good at their fields of work.<p>Be careful to make the distinction between the people that talk a lot and the people that do good work. A lot of people talk a lot on the conference circuit, know all the cool new technologies but never really own a project for a length of time. Its easier to be PR master when you don't have to deliver and support a critical system.<p>Edit: Of course some people are a few great devs and do have some great: blogs/videos/presentations/twitter accts. But I dont think you can do everything and have a partner and/or family and stay sane/healthy. It isn't an achievable goal.
It’s not really time management, but rather energy management thing.<p>Every thing that you do is going to leave you with either energy gain or loss. The idea is to either sustain energy level or spend what you have then gain it - just like charging a battery.<p>Tricky part is doing things that give you energy gain. One thing might be very exhausting in the evening, but give you a lot of energy in the morning. It achanges with setting and context as well (for example after 10 days of constant socializing you might want to be left in solitude for a few days, or after spending week in solitude you might crave for social interaction).<p>So, a lot of things you’re seeing online are people for which professional socializing is an energy gain. After full day of work (or even during work break) they get an energy boost from sharing, answering and attending conferences.<p>This isn’t for everyone - though. It might be that for you doing stuff like this is actually energy loss. If you’re expending your energy throughout the day and at the end you need to spend bit more to write a blog post or prepare for the conference you are going to subconsciously push it away from you making an illusion of “not getting enough time of doing it”.<p>In concrete scenario imagine situation where a person has exactly 10 minutes (of non-allocated) time (let’s say wait for doctor appoinment). One person is going to open a game on their phone, other is going to browse the news, someone else is going to open a laptop and write 5-6 lines of code for the stuff they are building and other is going to browse stackoverflow. Such timeslot isn’t usually planned, but it builds the result from small blocks and (usually) is following "energy gain" or at least not a energy gain.<p>(Note: even if for someone doing social stuff is constant energy loss there is no reason to fret. It’s not really a requierement: while you aren’t going to be internet famous you can still earn a very decent living without having to take part in professional/non-professional social networks).
To combine multiple comments into one...<p>It's helpful if you have a sense of purpose or Mission (the Elon Musk comment).<p>Using GTD, or something like it to manage your own task pipeline is really useful. Trying to figure out the exact next step wastes a lot of cycles. I've found that when I'm in that state, it's because I haven't broken down the task into small enough chunks.<p>Manage your energy (this has something to do with the tasks themselves, and a lot to do with what you eat, how you sleep, how you exercise, and your general mental state).<p>Offload, automate, or drop tasks that you don't actually need to do (yourself).<p>Remove distractions to make it easier to focus and control your attention. (I've been thinking a lot about this quote lately: What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. -- Herbert Simon)
The only thing I don't see covered in other comments is that writing and public speaking are skills. At first, they're really hard - you'll spend a month or more making a good 30m speech, or writing a high quality but short blog post. However, after years of writing high quality blog posts, it only takes 4 hours. That hour-long speech in front of your peers takes only 10, spread across a few weeks.<p>More, high quality talks given at conferences tend to be talks that have been given at a few different conferences, allowing those speakers to take advantage of the long tail of even 80+ hours of effort over a few years.<p>Think of your programming work. When you first started, how long did it take to create a correct CRUD app. How long does it take you now? The same will apply to your speaking and writing skills, once you build them.
First off, don't measure your productivity against what others are doing, measure it against yourself. Perhaps some of these people you're seeing have "developer evangelist" or "architecture" roles, allowing them to spend more time posting on social, writing articles, giving presentations and less time producing software artifacts.<p>Second I think meditition is extremely important. Yes it'll take time from your day but you'll start training your mind on how to focus, so the hours you do spend trying to produce work artifacts are more focused (and free of depression, anxiety and mindless thoughts). You can try apps such as Calm or Headspace to learn more about how meditition can be practical for your daily life.<p>Second plan out your work and goals for each day and hour or whatever your relevant work unit is. Set a timer so you take frequent but planned short breaks. Go for a walk or make some coffee. Don't get on social media or Hacker News on your short break. When your break is over stay focused on your work, using mindfulness techniques that you hone during meditition.<p>Lastly figure out ways to block out distraction. If you like to daydream, set aside time to do so and keep your notes in a journal. If there are really noisy Slack channels, mute or leave them. Turn off email notifications, and only check it when you start the day, around lunch time and before you leave for the day. And put your phone on airplane mode during the day if you can.
Time management: #1 tool is GTD. Not so much GTD itself, which is for task management. But it's a great start, and leads to other thinkings and evaluations that make you more effective at the things that matter to you.<p>But a lot of what stop us is not time, but emotions. Especially if you're trying to do creative ventures. And for that, a great read is "the war of art". my favorite quote: "Hitler found it easier to start WW2 than stare at a blank canvas".
One secret is a lot of these people have help.<p>I know people who are active on social media, who have other people post for them.<p>They also flesh out articles, and have other people edit and polish them up and so on.<p>What are you trying to do compete with multiple people being paid to build a brand.<p>They are also employed in jobs where they are allowed to do these things in work time. They are not heads down workers.
A lot of what you list is output. Output is actually not that hard once you actually know your domain very well. It's just putting what you already know/understand well onto paper.<p>Input or synthesis based activities are much harder and take more voluntary investment imo. For many of us, becoming very good at our craft (ex: day job) will be the input activity, and the retained knowledge can be channeled as output over multiple mediums.
1. Automate. If I find myself doing something more than three or four times, I look for ways to automate it. The obvious way is some sort of script. At other times, the solution is to write a script for a human being -- a detailed guide -- and offload/delegate to someone else.<p>2. Think ahead. A lot of my time-wasting interruptions used to be due to things not going according to plan (mostly in the form of bug reports). I've since learned to do extensive error handling and unit testing. Fewer interruptions mean more time in flow.<p>3. Break your tasks down into small (preferably 2-minute) slices, as I've commented elsewhere in this thread. This neutralizes your inertia against picking up tasks from your todo list. You can build up a nice personal velocity.
Internet shrinks the world and make those that are absolutely amazing and ahead of most others more visible.<p>I think it's good to not fall into the trap and compare oneself too much with the best. Just consider if it is a net benefit for you, and realize that on the web you risk not just trying to be the best in your room, your school or city but in the wide world.
Maker/manager scheduling: <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html</a><p>I find that most people who are active bloggers and on social media are at the top of the chain. They are more managers than makers. Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Paul Graham, Marc Andreessen, Joel Spolsky... these guys were once great makers, but now they're great managers.<p>When on the manager schedule, your job is to basically be available to your team. You are an information router, you have to make sure information passes from one part of the organization to another quickly.<p>But there's a limited number of things to do in the manager schedule. So they plenty of time to do nothing but writing.<p>When on the maker schedule, they get into flow and stay in flow, avoiding all distractions. This is where all the programming happens.<p>It's also not uncommon to see people working two workdays - making late at night but managing in the day.
Here's some tips:<p>* They use tools like Buffer to be active on several social media accounts at once.<p>* They're active on Stack Overflow during working hours.<p>* They use work as fodder for blogs and presentations.<p>* They seek out challenges at work.<p>It just comes down to using your time wisely to achieve several goals at once.<p>If this is what you want, then I'd recommend every morning to plan out your day and keep track.<p>Also note, many of these people do not have children.
Here's a short list of some ideas I like to share when we start doing any "agile transformation" work with organizations and teams:<p>1) Recognize the difference of being "busy" vs "effective"<p>2) Work-in-Progress = Waste (until it's done - so 1 thing done is better than 1000 "in-progress")<p>3) Multitasking doesn't work<p>4) Parkinson's Law: perceived work will expand to the time you allot it. Break it up and set short deadlines.<p>5) Pareto's Law: 80% of the value is from 20% of the "features". Many things over that base 20% can be skipped or not undertaken yet still provide value.<p>6) Empowerment Failure: outsource some tasks but don't micromanage. Let smart people make decisions and help them learn how to do so.<p>7) Email: check it 1-2 times per day at a set time.<p>“Get off the cocaine pellet dispenser and focus on the execution of your top to-do’s instead of responding to manufactured emergencies.”
– Tim Ferriss (The 4-hour Workweek)<p>8) Meetings: stop them whenever possible. Insist on agendas beforehand from the organizer when it's not possible to escape.<p>“Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.”<p>“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.'”<p>– Dave Barry (Pulitzer prize-winning columnist/humorist)<p>(Also listed here: <a href="https://www.scrum.city/article-categories/general-productivity/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scrum.city/article-categories/general-productivi...</a> )
I wrote <a href="https://crushentropy.com/" rel="nofollow">https://crushentropy.com/</a> for myself and I've been consistently using it for the past three months. It makes it easy for me to follow the scheduling technique recommended by Cal Newport in "Deep Work" and the unscheduling technique that Neil Fiore recommends in "The Now Habit".<p>I can say without exaggeration that this has massively increased my productivity, mainly by making me be more mindful of how I spend my day.
<i>How do they do it?</i><p>Some people only need four to six hours sleep a night. Such people do a great deal more than folks who routinely sleep eight plus hours a night.<p>Some people have streamlined their life to cut out a lot of time sinks that many people believe are simply not optional. They, too, get more done than average.<p>Some people would die of boredom if they didn't have tons going on. Their many activities often feed on each other. Their blog posts grow out of other activities.
Well, you see all these activities separated, but many times preparing a presentation, attending a conference and being active on Social media can be done during work.<p>Also people with normal jobs (8h per day) need to sleep about 8h per day, then they still have 8h per day to do other things, not even counting the weekends !
It's just a matter of sitting down and doing the work. There are no tricks, but there are a couple of things you can do to help you build better habits initially.<p>I wrote a couple of posts about this at <a href="https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/learn-how-to-schedule-your-time" rel="nofollow">https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/learn-how-to-schedule-your-ti...</a> and
<a href="https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastination-with-a-3-pronged-attack" rel="nofollow">https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati...</a>.
Gathering data on how you spend your time can help identifying windows of available time, or comparing one day to another.<p>Regular sleep, hydration, nutrition and exercise helps.<p>Also, reducing stress/anxiety is important. Take a moment and relax, stretch, breathe. Maybe have a quick nap.<p>Then, set small and attainable goals. And as you get more consistent and better, make those goals more ambitious.<p>Also, writing down what you are doing can help you resuming that train of thought later.
I could write down few tips about how to best plan your schedule, but being able to understand and manage one's own depression and anxiety is key for some people. It can really affect one's will to just get our there and do stuff versus putting something off until it becomes inconvenient.<p>It's been hard for me to tell when I've been in a "funk", but anytime I've come out of one, it's immediately obvious that something was wrong and I become much more productive in every area of my life.<p>For some people, it a constant battle, but it's easier to deal with if you have a core support group of friends and family who can help you realize when you're not quite being yourself, though, this is somewhat of a catch 22.
As a foundation, I highly recommend the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. There are plenty of time management hacks. YBaW helps you understand why they work, or more importantly why for you they might not be working.
A few things I haven't seen mentioned already, a little bit of fuel for the fire:<p>Fear of failure. Actual, knee knocking, watery leg, deep child-like fear-of-the-dark, kind of fear. Not all the time, but certainly there. Tongue in cheek: do your best or an eternity of suffering awaits you.<p>Lack of pride. If you think you're shit you'll do anything to prove yourself. Well, you are, now do your mighty mighty best to prove me wrong. Your only real competition is your truest potential and your highest ideal.<p>Good luck, and don't fuck it up.
One day I would like to get good at this as well, but so far, with job and wife an daughter and attempts at still having a social life, thing that helped most was making it part of my job.<p>My manager knows that from time to time I will be working on a talk or a workshop during work-hours. I even have it as part of my career plan :)<p>So far, I have presented to ~100 people total and half of those were my colleagues on internal conference. I still like it, and one day I might have something worthwhile to say to a bigger crowd :)
One time sink I found was my morning news reading. I'd pull up WaPo and The Guardian and next thing I know, 45 minutes have gone by.<p>Since then, I've started listening to news podcasts (NPR and NYT both do a daily news summary, total runtime ~40 min).<p>I purchased a cheap shower radio[1] from Amazon, and by the time I'm dressed I feel like I've been relaxing rather than doing chores and more able to jump into work.
FWIW I wrote mine up here:<p><a href="https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/03/how-i-manage-my-time/" rel="nofollow">https://zwischenzugs.com/2017/12/03/how-i-manage-my-time/</a>
1. Prioritize, then make sure you get at least your top priority thing done.<p>1. Use <a href="https://wakatime.com" rel="nofollow">https://wakatime.com</a> to feel good about the things you worked on.
use a calendar.<p>i don't mean for appointments. i mean get rid of your todo lists and all similar abstractions and explicitly allocate your time using a calendar.<p>i wrote this up with some more details here: <a href="http://rz.github.io/articles/2016/oct/time-on-your-side.html" rel="nofollow">http://rz.github.io/articles/2016/oct/time-on-your-side.html</a>
<i>are literally active in everywhere! For example, they are extremely good at their fields of work. They are equally active on Social Media such as Twitter or, Facebook etc. Also, maintain blogs with quality contents. Most of them posts valuable answers to Stack overflow, Quora etc. They also Attend conferences/ meetup with slides full of gems</i><p>Answer: they don't. What you are seeing is the "technology evangelist", a sort of guerrilla marketing thing where people pretend to be an ordinary developer just like you who just loves the products of company X - and is supported in producing all this content by the marketing team back at the company. Don't be fooled, they are selling snake oil.