Show HN: I spent weeks trying alternatives to 24hr time. This system won (opens in new tab)

Hey HN,

A few months ago I started an experiment called “hacker time,” living on alternatives to the 24-hour clock. The system that won divided the waking day into 10 blocks of 100 minutes each. It is like a metric system for time that starts when I wake up at 0.00 and ends at 9.99 when I should be sleeping.

Throughout quarantine I’ve been building newDay, a calendar/planner that uses this system. Here are a few things you can do with it:

- Set up hourly intentions for each of the 10 newHours (takes me <10 min each night).

- Monitor weather / sun level data throughout the day

- Navigate with vim-like hotkeys

- Import/Export from Google calendar

Many of today’s tech companies have an abusive relationship with their users’ attention and data. newDay strives to earn your usage by helping guide you on the path you choose while holding your time, attention, and data as sacred.

I am committed to transparency when it comes to the use of your data. You can use newDay in an anonymous cookie-only mode. More details here: https://newdaynew.me/privacy. I know there is still room for improvement and I welcome community feedback.

newDay has helped me build a fulfilling life while quarantined, and I hope that it works well for you, too. All thoughts, feedbacks, rants, and nitpicks are welcome.

- esc

Interestingly enough, the US Navy used 18-hour “days” on some of their subs to address issues of sleep deprivation and scheduling. There are some interesting articles out there on the topic, but eventually they went back to the standard 24-hour day. Using a different paradigm for time is a neat concept, but for practical reasons, it would just never sync with the rest of the world.

Interesting system and redesign of time. It's mapping more closely to my maker schedule/mental model with the chunking of time and intentions, should enable more deep flow work

refreshing to see a departure from something we take as entirely default - our system of time! A friend and I actually spent some time thinking about what life in metric time would look like a few years ago (https://yef.im/metric-time), so it's really cool to see it turned into a product that actualizes that way of thinking.

Looks like the core insight is 100 minute hours so that you have enough time to get in flow for deep work.

Love that it integrates w/ GCal!