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Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#101

Post by mikeg8 »

ishwarn wrote: post #81
mikeg8 wrote: post #40

Reading. I never used to open a book for more than 20 minutes but once I started reading books I actually enjoyed (Gladwell, Freakenomics, other books related to business, personal growth, human behavior etc) I realized what an amazing habit it is. You learn a lot, work your brain, give the eyes a break from a screen and you can take a good book/kindle anywhere. No power needed. Start reading books.

Care to share some book recs? I'm always looking for new ones.

Outliers, definitely the freakenomics books, I enjoyed Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Lean Startup, Power of Habit, Defining Decade (if your in your 20's, fantastic book), The Happiness Advantage, Great by Choice from Jim collins...

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#102

Post by mikeg8 »

meerita wrote: post #63

I quit smoke, also, quit eating outside. The improvements were impressive: 1. Better sleep. 2. Better weight control. 3. Skin stopped being dry. 4. Better sex life too. 5. Good energy. I never measure my work productivity.

I'm really curious about eating outside. I feel that only could have improved dry skin but that could have also been improved by eating more carrots and other dietary changes. I love eating outside!

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#103

Post by g2guo »

I have been building micro-habits that make small increments in improving my life. I am currently working on three things: reading, exercising and coding; every day in my personal spare time. I use an iOS app to track progress (Way of Life). The key is to make them easy to accomplish so you do them everyday and it becomes a habit that can grow into something more difficult.

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#104

Post by elwell »

cprncus wrote: post #83

Flossing religiously. I used to be Bleeding Gums Murphy, but no more. A dental hygienist showed me the proper way to floss and now I will get up at 4am if I somehow forgot to floss before bedtime, go into the bathroom, and floss. I've only missed once in 7+ years. Bad gums are associated with heart disease, tooth loss, and other nasty effects. No thanks. Quitting, after 30+ years, saying, "God bless you" (or really,…

I've never adopted the "bless you" sneeze habit, but people think I'm being impolite. In fact, every time someone sneezes I feel the pressure to say it, but refuse to (it's just too meaningless / weird).

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#107

Post by mrmagoo312 »

bjourne wrote: post #21

I stopped using shampoo and conditioner. It's the best fashion advice I've ever had and it's funny that it came from a hn article. Better looking hair, better protection against cold, no more dandruff, much smaller dry scalp patches and so on. Thanks HN!

that's gross

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#108

Post by pearjuice »

I stopped eating regular meals and live of a cup of black unsugared coffee, a cup of water and a daily switched apple or can of tuna in natural olive oil. I haven't felt healthier in years. Regular meals are not necessary to survive and with this diet you will save a lot of money, feel healthier and become spiritually awakened.

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#109

Post by b3b0p »

bbissoon wrote: post #93
b3b0p wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What SEGA games have you been playing? Very cool! Funny how most of the comments mention giving up video games altogether and you mention getting back into them.

Me and my friends get together and play Streets of Rage, Shinobi, old school Madden and Charles Barkley Shut and Jam!

That sounds like fun! I'm jealous. I never played Barkley, but I have fond memories of playing Streets of Rage and Madden on the Genesis. The controls of the current iterations of Madden for me are much to complex, it's a chore to remember and master.

Re: Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

#110

Post by brianchu »

andappmeet wrote: post #84
lessnonymous wrote: post #70

Stopped reading and watching "The News". What a waste of time. If there's something important, someone will tell me about it.

I mean it's really up to you but I disagree with this. Reading the news enables you to have an understanding of current world issues and become a contributing member of society. I'm not sure where you live, but I feel like in the Silicon Valley there is pretty large bubble where people are so focused on building a startup they forget how thousands of children are being gassed in Syria. I believe that reading the news…

There's a big difference between reading the news every day, reading the news every week, and reading the news every month.

I used the read the news every day (and reading news magazines weekly); what ended up happening is that I also ended up reading through a lot of fluff and reading about a lot of inconsequential mere-fact-stating news. Even if you read the news every week, there's a ton of repeated analysis that you have to filter out. I ended up realizing that this was a legitimate waste of time.

Now I just read the news maybe every month. I'll usually only read long-form synthesis/analysis articles, rather than the kind of stuff that comes in through AP/Reuters. The exception being news articles coming in through HN, of course.

Going back to your analogy, while I'll keep myself updated on the major movements in the civil war in Syria, what I don't need to read about is how 12 people died in a bomb blast on Tuesday in or something extremely-low-level like that.

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