Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#131

Post by Aspos » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:43 PM UTC

sdoering wrote: post #120

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this advice a lot, but the references and the formalized taxonomic names are a severe hindrance. Do you know any description of these ideas that uses more colloquial, modern terms for the taxonomy?

Initial reading * eikasia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eikasia * pistis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis * dianoia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianoia * episteme -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episteme * techne -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne * phronesis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudence (latin: prudence) * noesis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous Further reading: https://en.wiki…

Nassim Taleb covers some basics in his Black Swan and provides some practical suggestions. Nice read, btw.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#132

Post by afarrell » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

all2 wrote: post #46

sanj wrote: post #11

Utilize laziness: It works like this: 1. Realize that most of the world is out to distract you. 2. Realize that part of the way to do this is to make distraction, and access to distraction, as easy as possible. 3. Actively set up "friction" to reduce that ease. In practice: I don't install FB on my phone; I have to use the crappier web version. I block reddit on my laptop, so I have to use my phone. Just by making st…

I don't display the bookmarks bar in my browser. Suddenly I'm not visiting 6 different websites for 30 minutes every day. Adding friction is an awesome hack. One can also 'grease the rails' (the opposite of friction) for difficult to get-to tasks. Set out gym clothes and bag the night before, or meal prep on the weekends (so that during the week, the easiest thing to eat is what you want it to be). This is front-load…

> don't display the bookmarks bar in my browser

For an even more powerful version of this, I recommend:

1) The chrome plugin Momentum

2) Internet-blocking apps like SelfControl, Freedom, or ColdTurkey.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#133

Post by stunt » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:45 PM UTC

The most effective trick is to write down whatever you are going to do. You won’t believe how effective is it before you start doing it. Just write them down. I prefer pen and paper. This is one of the things you hear a lot and you ignore it by default. Start making it a habit my friend.

The second trick is to learn to write a simple decision tree. Stop comparing pros on cons on your head for all critical decisions. Also do it as much as you can for anything that requires mental energy to save your capacity as much as possible.

And third is, to learn simple meditation breathing exercise. (probably 1hr video tutorial on YouTube is enough to learn simple breathing exercise. You don't need more than that. IMO) Then use this exercise anytime you need to switch to diffuse mode. Do it anywhere you have to. Even during the commute to work. I know proper exercises has some sitting and environment conditions. But F.. that. You still get a lot of benefits. I’m sure there are more benefits in doing the whole thing in the right conditions. But even with minimum impact is enough.

And forth just because I saw taking a shower as a recommendation. Make sure your shower time is just a refresher. Don't think about anything during shower. Sign your favorite song if you can't stop thinking.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#134

Post by gknoy » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

chamblin wrote: post #115

Coin Flip Rule: If I think about a tough decision for too long, it's a sign that the decision may be tough because the choices are really close and additional thinking is likely not worth it (the added value of making the "correct" choice will be very small). In this case, choosing at random is OK. Just start: If I feel unmotivated, I'll wind up a Pomodoro timer and just try to knock out one. Usually, I will feel a l…

I do something similar with my kids. If they don't want to pick something, or feel like they can't, we flip a coin.

The coin result isn't binding, so immediately as the coin falls, they realize that they either do or do not want that result, and then can make their choice more easily.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#135

Post by locrelite » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

Regulating task memory to spatial memory.

If I have to pick up six things at the grocery store, three at the drug store, and tell two things to the vet, I visualize picking each thing up, or having each conversation with as much visual context as I can muster. Maybe mapping a route through a familiar store, or picturing the phone on the vet desk while ticking off whatever damn things my idiot cat threw up that morning.

Then I just have to remember to go to three places. It's moderately recursive too: map another route from an unusual subway stop, all I have to remember is to get out at that stop on the way home from work, and the rest just comes to me as I arrive at each location.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#136

Post by 1auralynn » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

bsaul wrote: post #9

1/ Whenever you can’t motivate yourself to start working on something, think about the smallest thing you can perform and make it your only goal for the day. It can be something as simple as « open the ide and compile the project once ». The trick is that after that first step you will naturally begin to do some real work, because the movement started. 2/ when learning a new skill or trying to improve , focus on one…

I recently started making to do lists that only include things I know I can ABSOLUTELY get done today, and I only make them in the morning. It includes a lot of things like "take a look at feature X"

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#137

Post by oldboyFX » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

I'm not sure if this falls under "brain hacks" but here's something for the folks who work remotely.

What helps me a lot is to start working within 15 minutes of waking up (9AM). No reddit, no hackernews, no any other kind of news before noon. This usually results in the majority of the work getting done before early afternoon. After that, I work at a more relaxed pace until 5PM.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#138

Post by asveikau » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

> Artificial deadlines

Artificial deadlines has always been my go-to phrase to describe a situation where people try to hold to a deadline that isn't reality-based. Everyone stresses about a fake deadline that won't be hit and won't matter and burns out. The deadline should if at all possible move with actual status and nature of the work.

So your boss giving themselves a fake deadline and deciding things in the last 5 minutes... I will be honest, that story doesn't make them look smart.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#139

Post by Hoasi » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #12

Write down what I'm going to do. It happens that I can't really 'start' with work due to having too many things to choose from, or by not knowing how to really get started with it. What always helps is writing down on a piece of paper a step by step guide of what I will do. this can be very general. But just having the steps written down helps me get started. Kind of like a "todo list" except that I don't update it w…

I found a simple 3 columns list to be useful to visualize tasks.

| To Do | Doing | Done |

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#140

Post by smichel17 » Mon, Dec 03, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

all2 wrote: post #46

sanj wrote: post #11

Utilize laziness: It works like this: 1. Realize that most of the world is out to distract you. 2. Realize that part of the way to do this is to make distraction, and access to distraction, as easy as possible. 3. Actively set up "friction" to reduce that ease. In practice: I don't install FB on my phone; I have to use the crappier web version. I block reddit on my laptop, so I have to use my phone. Just by making st…

I don't display the bookmarks bar in my browser. Suddenly I'm not visiting 6 different websites for 30 minutes every day. Adding friction is an awesome hack. One can also 'grease the rails' (the opposite of friction) for difficult to get-to tasks. Set out gym clothes and bag the night before, or meal prep on the weekends (so that during the week, the easiest thing to eat is what you want it to be). This is front-load…

I took this one step further and disabled history based autocompletion in the url bar of Firefox. If I want autocompletion, I bookmark the site. This lets me avoid accidentally getting sidetracked on entertainment sites (reddit, etc) just because I typed the first character. And it still allows me to search my history if I need (though I do this surprisingly little).