Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?
Here's how I did it. YMMV.<p>[NOTE: I do have a fairly taxing full-time job and also go to a boxing gym 5 times a week or more after work, and still made the time to be a creator after all that, by forcing myself to adhere the following rules I set for myself. Not bragging, it took me over 10 years to finally get the discipline, just trying to tell you it can be done.]<p>1) Stop watching the news * , on TV and online. It's hard at first, but can be done.<p>2) Sign out of all social media apps, and pick just 1 or 2 that you really cherish, so that you are not out cold with nothing to consume. For me, I was able to whittle it down to just hackernews. HN does a great job of filtering out or flagging Political News articles and other click baity / fake stuff. And the quality of articles and stories are very high. I also use the Show HN tab to inspire myself, when I see that everyday, and almost every hour, someone has CREATED and SHIPPED something useful or awesome.<p>3) Set a small goal of 30 mins per day, or 1 hour per day to work on whatever it is you want to produce. I started with 30 mins a day and worked my way up (6 months later) to now 3 to 4 hours a day and 6 hours on weekends.<p>I shipped my 1st side-project last week  -- soft launched   it -- and am about to do a Show HN within the next week to 10 days.<p>Hope this helps!<p>[ You'll notice that when you do #2, your real-life interactions with your online friends and fam will dramatically improve in quality. "Catch-up" convos will happen in person in real life, at the gym or elsewhere, instead of mindlessly clicking Like and blowing hearts online on their "Stories" and "Feeds"]<p>* Related Reading (by Buffer Founder & CEO): "The power of ignoring mainstream news" => <a href="http://joel.is/the-power-of-ignoring-mainstream-news/" rel="nofollow">http://joel.is/the-power-of-ignoring-mainstream-news/</a>