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Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#51

Post by ZhannaSchonfeld »

The best life hack advice I ever got was  from my first internship. It was at an engineering firm and as I was sneaking out the back stairwell for a cigarette (yes, I was a smoker for a brief period, shame on me) I ran into an engineer and he asked what I was doing, so I made something up and said I was running an errand. I returned his question, "what are you up to?"

Engineer: "I'm carrying a clipboard"  Me looking confused. Engineer: "if you ever want to look busy, just carry a clipboard...."

Worked every time!   

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#53

Post by math »

"do your time" working for the man in a developed country for 5-10 years, saving as much as you can as you go. Then move to a developing country to freely work on projects for pretty much as long as you like. In terms of lifestyle, there are pros and cons, but so far the pros are far outweighing the cons.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#54

Post by maigret »

mantalk wrote: post #22

Life is an experiment. Whatever you do, try, learn, iterate. Remember, though, that time is your precious resource. You'll never, ever get it back. All life hacks must either extend your time, shorten tasks, or make your time more meaningful. Here are a few things that came to mind: Productivity: * Make a check list. Once you start, you won't be able to believe that you lived life without one. Can't overstate this on…

This is really a great list. I think the best of all is the "flirt with everybody" thing. So right. Nothing comes without training, and chances is it will influence people almost no matter how good you look like (except of course if you really smell or really appear unnatural, which you address anyway in the next bullet).

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#56

Post by demoo »

jarin wrote: post #12

I don't really keep a traditional to-do list anymore. I tried GTD several times over the last 5 years and it's just too cumbersome (and having a huge to-do list is pretty daunting). I keep high-level project to-dos organized in Basecamp, project ideas are organized in soywiki, and any critical reminders are in Google Calendar (with alerts). The real hack that I do though is every morning I take a post-it note and wri…

I'm also using the post-it note. But thing I've noticed is that when I write my to-do list the day before, I'm more productive. Because: - I don't waste time figuring out what I need to do when I'm most productive (mornings) - I already know what my day will looks like the night before, which gives me some ease of mind

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#57

Post by rms »

danilocampos wrote: post #30
Eliezer wrote: post #29

Sitting next to another person while writing increases my writing productivity by at least 400%. In retrospect it took me way too long to break down and try this. My shot at immortality costs me $120/year for membership in the Cryonics Institute and $170/year for $250K of 10-year term life insurance of which $50K goes to CI. I lost 20 pounds on Seth Roberts's fixed-point diet (aka the "Shangri-La diet") and gained 10…

> An awful lot of the rationalists I know have moved to open relationships. Why?

As long as you can learn how to suppress or ignore or never have jealousy, multiple relationships seem strictly better (= more fun) to me than monogamy.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#58

Post by JCB_K »

geuis wrote: post #19

Use the other door. The next time you're in a crowded place, like a mall, and lots of people are trying to enter or exit, take notice. Almost 100% of the time, most of the people will all be filing through one door that is open because other people are going through it. This is despite the fact that there is probably one or more perfectly good doors to the left or right of it. Something similar for revolving doors. M…

1 small risk: the other door might be locked, which turns the situation slightly embarrassing.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#59

Post by dsl »

Beanblabber wrote: post #23
geuis wrote: post #19

Use the other door. The next time you're in a crowded place, like a mall, and lots of people are trying to enter or exit, take notice. Almost 100% of the time, most of the people will all be filing through one door that is open because other people are going through it. This is despite the fact that there is probably one or more perfectly good doors to the left or right of it. Something similar for revolving doors. M…

On the topic of doors. I have a hack that speeded up transit and benefited many many people daily. There was a main entrance gate at my old high school. There was four sets of double door that opened out, that allowed students into the campus. These doors are damn heavy and one night I was cruising with my friend and I told him, I got an idea. I refused to answer any of his inquiries. We arrived at the high school, I…

Here is a hack for you: Doors that are hung slightly off center or with self closing hinges close mostly for convenience. Hydraulic or electrical closers like you encountered are more expensive, and only installed when they are required for some reason (security, child safety, fire doors, etc).

You mentioned four sets of double doors, which also indicates the designer knew the requirement for positive closure would be a flow issue and added extra doors. Had there not been a really good reason for having the doors be closed they probably wouldn't have planned for the extra doors.

I know you believe your "hack" was innocent enough, but essentially you vandalized a system someone carefully thought out to save yourself 24 minutes over 4 years.

I don't know the architecture of your high school or the reasoning behind the positive closure doors, but I hope to god they were not part of a firewall (walls and closed doors designed to prevent fire from spreading through a building faster than it can be safely evacuated).

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#60

Post by michaelkeenan »

danilocampos wrote: post #30
Eliezer wrote: post #29

Sitting next to another person while writing increases my writing productivity by at least 400%. In retrospect it took me way too long to break down and try this. My shot at immortality costs me $120/year for membership in the Cryonics Institute and $170/year for $250K of 10-year term life insurance of which $50K goes to CI. I lost 20 pounds on Seth Roberts's fixed-point diet (aka the "Shangri-La diet") and gained 10…

> An awful lot of the rationalists I know have moved to open relationships. Why?

I don't know if anyone can give a definitive answer, but various hypotheses and experiences were brought up in a discussion of monogamy and polyamory at Less Wrong here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2ee/unknown_knowns_why_did_you_choos...
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