My take is that it's about the "stimulating activity" rather than the actual screen time. When broken down it's intuitive, but the "reduce screen time" adage often gets repeated without that distinction.
Specifically about your problem: for me, I move from a state of "active engagement" to "passive consumption". 1 to 2 hours before bed, I stop doing anything engaging that requires my active participation - work, video games, learning. I shift to lounging on the couch and reading fiction or watching a movie/show. The key is in my intentions behind each: in the evening, my goal is to relax. I dont turn on a movie with the intention to learn or to be entertained; I'm just there to experience it.
Sorry if that's too abstract; the feeling is hard to communicate. Hopefully it's a useful starting point for further thinking.
Seconded. I'm interested in the topic, but there's not enough information for me to commit (and by HN standards, I'm relatively carefree when it comes to providing my email).
“Grey Thinking” as a term does a poor job at conveying what I _think_ the author wants to say. And that is, (1) don’t make generic statements and (2) consider your perspective. When you boil a problem down to its specifics, you get back to black and white thinking. Using the article’s example, “War is awful but history shows it to be occasionally necessary, and a very complex phenomenon” still contains the black and white statement of “War is good when situation X occurs and bad when situation Y occurs.”
On most days, nearly 100% of my time is spent doing actual work.
I'm able to reach that level because I work for myself, which permits me to aggressively decline meetings, focus on one project, control my work environment, and partition my time for maximum effectiveness.
When I was traditionally employed in tech, it was somewhere in the threshold most people here are describing (25-50%).
When I worked at a warehouse in high school, my time was mostly spent working with some bullshiting interspersed.
Target the end users with cheap/free/trials to gain significant traction then make your pitch to executives. By then, you already have all the evidence you need to make the sell.
I’ve found that my projects split in two ways: (a) fun hobby vs. problem to solve and (b) don’t monetize vs. monetize. Out of the 4 possible combinations there, I only take on (1) fun hobby projects that I don’t intend to monetize and (2) problem to solve that I intend to monetize.
I try to avoid the other two because fun hobby projects that I want to monetize are essentially solutions looking for a problem and problems to solve but not monetize aren’t as enjoyable as the (1) or (2).
So to answer your question: look at my hobbies to identify fun stuff that will enrich my experience or identify a problem then validate the need beyond myself.
I just moved to the Bay Area from Chicago, so I can provide some general logistics advice. These are the first things that come to mind, but if you have questions, my email is in my signature. Unfortunately, I can’t help with the contrast between Sydney & Bay Area culture.
// Living
Lifestyle – the Bay Area experience varies greatly based on where you are. Take the time to find an area that has things, people, lifestyles you’re interested in.
Housing – short term options are abundant in the Bay Area, but vary in price and availability by location. HotPads, Craigslist, AirBnb, Padmapper are all great options for finding housing.
Transportation – most of the Bay Area isn’t easily accessed by public transportation. CalTrain, BART, and Muni will get you to a general area, but you’ll likely need to Lyft or Uber from there.
// Jobs
There are many small startups (<20 employees) that pay well. Don’t hesitate to apply somewhere with a seemingly small presence.
If you’re finding it difficult to get interviews, recruiting agencies would be a solid alternative. If you’re talented and hook up with a good agency, you can find some very good opportunities.
Big fan of Pipedrive myself. Fairly lightweight, but with good features. Visual pipeline structure is nice. Easy to use interface (though text formatting is a weak spot).