Ask HN: Have you experienced decline in problem-solving skills? How to improve?

Nope. But if I make the right decision, people manage to misunderstand long enough that's no longer an option. It's a vicious circle.

All I can do is make people own that absent the ability to break the law with impunity, I may not make good decisions if folks exhaust me when I tried to make great ones.

In my own experience there was a precipitous decline in my job performance related critical thinking around 32-34 ( I'm 36 now ) that I chalk up to a variety of factors:

    - Stress 
    - Family obligations
    - Not enjoying the work I do anymore
    - Solving the same problems over and over because I can't fix the org that produces them.
    - Solving the above problems in a new technology.
    - Crappy co-workers that I don't want to interact with
    - Giving my best to people and projects that never give back.
    - Making creative solutions that the client doesn't use because the clients are broken beyond my paygrade to solve them.

I burned out really badly around 5-6 years ago and it took a long time to recover. I feel better now mainly because I've stopped working on software projects in my spare time and now do manual labor on large project on some land I bought in my spare time. It's insanely satisfying to see the fruits of my labor add up over time without deprecation or having to do work every time an upstream project changes things or feeling "less than" about my work. My work speaks for itself on the land and it pleases me, no one else's approval required. ( Something I never felt about the software projects I worked on. ) It's also fun to talk to non-tech folks about the work because they usually have good suggestions about how to do something better that, for the most part, they give constructively.

My only advice/thoughts would be maybe take a step back. Do you TRULY enjoy what you are doing? In my own experience, it's hard to motivate yourself to work on things that you don't truly care about as you get older. Solving other people's problems was fun until I realized the entire world ( including the billionaires that have "made it" ) are mostly just people getting along and aren't necessarily more capable or knowledgeable than me. Some people get lucky with timing, tenaciousness, and talent... it's probably too late for me, but that's okay.

I am in my mid 40's and recently really noticed this. It felt like some of the teeth in the gears of my mind were worn down and things were slipping.

After complaining about it to some peers I was informed this could be due to low testosterone so I went and had that tested. Apparently my testosterone level was that of a 70 year old man so I started testosterone replacement therapy. I can say that it is a complete game changer! Yes I feel like a shill saying/typing it but it is true. My energy has gone way up and my mind is feels much sharper than it previously was.

To be honest at 30 this may not be an issue for you but I put this out there for others who maybe older I definitely recommend getting tested at a clinic that specializes in testosterone replacement therapy.

Also in my 30s, one thing I found that improved my focus/cognition more than I ever expected was strength training and exercise in general. I had never exercised regularly until a couple of years ago, and after two months of 2-3 times a week strength training with some cardio mixed in my brain felt like it was 20 again.

YMMV, but that and adequate sleep was what really did it for me. Also go easy on the alcohol, see if you can restrict it to once a week. Chronically imbibing even low amounts of depressants tends to, well, depress cognitive function. The enlightenment was driven by coffee and tea, not beer.

Probably correlated

https://www.science.org/content/article/fatherhood-decreases...