Hack the System is a self-improvement blog on productivity, habits, networking, fitness and building businesses through unusual experiments.
HN commenters link it mainly for the post about hiring someone on Craigslist to slap him for productivity, and for its travel hacking report.
FWIW, the justification is interesting. From https://thecuriousdeveloper.com/2013/09/15/get-a-good-start-with-mob-programming/
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Why we tried it
When asked to implement a rather big task, like an epic, you’re often in a state where you have a pretty good picture of what needs to be done on high level, but on a lower level it can be very fluffy and unclear. Fluffy enough to stand in the way of being able to ”slice the cake” in nice, independent, deliverable user stories. Fluffy enough to give us problems if our aim is to have a structured, ordinary sprint backlog prepared, and to burn that backlog down continuously by developing small software increments for a couple of weeks. You know you’re in that fluffy state when:
- Someone asks where a good place to start this epic is and all possible ways you can think of are either intertwined and far from independent steps or just one big mega user story
- You get a urge to just start coding, hack away for a while and see where you end up
- You may even wish that you, for a while at least, could forget everything related to user stories, epics, backlogs and burn downs and just do some Programming, Motherfucker http://programming-motherfucker.com/
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Now, if this technique can supposedly solve that critical problem -- and it is critical; I spend >N% of my time in that sate -- we should give it the benefit of the doubt and just try it.
It sounds like the point is to spend a couple hours in an environment where forward…
When I'm about to travel or no I'm about to go through some experience that is likely to break my habit loops, are usually set a monetary bed with a friend. I call this the bet switch mechanism: By setting up bet and being held accountable, I'm able to change the way my brain thinks about the habit and always stick through over the critical period of environment change.
I wrote about it a long time ago on my old blog when I first started using it, and dug up the link. Sorry for broken images, etc:
https://hackthesystem.com/blog/the-bet-switch-mechanism-the-one-simple-tactic-that-will-make-you-lose-weight-eat-right-and-get-in-the-best-shape-of-your-life/
I think I would like to try this. Seeing it done twice has really got me interested in this. I think the key is that you're held accountable for how you spend your time due to the screenshots.
Reminds me of how a guy hired someone to slap him when he got off topic while working:http://hackthesystem.com/blog/why-i-hired-a-girl-on-craigslist-to-slap-me-in-the-face-and-why-it-quadrupled-my-productivity/
I don't have a Mac, so I guess I'll have to build the screenshot/webcam stuff myself this weekend.
You may want to take a look at the Travel Hacking report at http://hackthesystem.com/blog/. You can get free desk space and wifi using the hacks for free for 6 months (I believe), and then $95/year after that, anywhere around the world.
I think this guy has a thing for slapping... http://hackthesystem.com/blog/how-to-get-slapped-by-50-colombian-women-and-do-pushups-on-a-mountain-side/
Along those lines: http://hackthesystem.com/blog/why-i-hired-a-girl-on-craigslist-to-slap-me-in-the-face-and-why-it-quadrupled-my-productivity/