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Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#51

Post by Cthulhu_ »

dcminter wrote: post #2

If you're a shy person who would like to do better in social situations - learn to dance. Becoming a dancer opened up all sorts of doors for me. It made me comfortable in social situations from small-talk in intimate groups to public speaking in front of large ones. I even ended up married and living in a foreign country. Currently I'm learning the language and making some progress. All of which I can trace fairly di…

> (Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)

Which is another skill you could learn in a short amount of time - a basic sense of rhythm. Tapping along with music or a metronome works, doing something more complicated with two hands is also an option. There's both online and offline drum / percussion lessons you could take; doesn't have to be much, you get the basics pretty quickly.

Same can probably be said about basic music theory. I've tried a few times but I still don't really get it though.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#52

Post by lifeisstillgood »

What I would like is a "LifeSkills LongTerm University". A lot of the things recommended here I have learnt - only to forget again over time. CPR being one such (and each time I learn it the song to play as you pump the heart gets changed)

But the main point is, I could happily subscribe to a Sunday every 6 months, for car maintenance, or for woodcraft fire lighting, or for knots and Maker and ... and ...

I guess this post is the right question, but the next question is where do I learn these things - and a one stop shop would be ideal.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#53

Post by Cthulhu_ »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #49

Being handy and having the relevant tools turns a lot of multi thousand dollar problems into hundred dollar problems and hundred dollar problems into non-issues. Having fewer smaller problems makes life less stressful.

Does it need to be said that everyone should have a basic toolbox / toolset and fasteners around? A set of screwdrivers, spanners, hammer, nails / screws, glue, tape, pliers, etc shouldn't take up more space. A (cheap) multitool or multifunctional pocket knife would already do most of those.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#54

Post by halfcat »

The skill of energy. Energy is the one metric to optimize for by default. Energy to me has been health and excitement. Health is sleep, nutrition, movement, mindset, and relationships. Excitement is doing something that I enjoy, often seemingly providing more energy than it takes.

The skill of recognizing the need for difficult conversations, then having them. A 20 second awkward, difficult conversation saves 20 days or 20 months of unfortunate use of my time. There is a general form of this, that if it’s easy to arrive at the answer, but hard to act, that’s probably the right direction. Or, the obstacle is the way.

The skill of recognizing that everything makes sense when I know the full story. Especially in relation to other people. When someone else doesn’t make sense to me, it’s almost always a problem with me, not having the full story. I have not encountered an exception to this yet. This injects empathy and objectivity at a broad level into one’s life.

The skill of habits and routines executed on priorities. This is the difference between being busy doing stuff all day and never accomplishing anything, to making consistent progress toward what’s important.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#55

Post by Cthulhu_ »

yen223 wrote: post #14

For backend engineers out there, knowing how to build a simple GUI will help make your tools more accessible to a wider audience. This makes your work more visible, and therefore more valuable to stakeholders.

Applied a bit more broadly / generally: Dogfooding. Switch to being the client / consumer of what you're working on. Or just watch other people use your stuff, be they other developers or end-users.

Statistics and bug reports only tell part of the story. I've learned a lot just from watching someone else work with the app I worked on back when with a camera mounted to the phone.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#56

Post by zigzaggy »

StangeStars wrote: post #42

This is not a skill but something I do everyday, that I found to be rewarding. While I'm in bed and before sleeping, I take two minutes to be thankful for the day. I would go from the beginning of the day and be thankful for things I have. In this world where everyone seems to be so focused on achieving new things, creating and being more productive. I believe we all should take some time to be just thankful for what…

Gratitude list! I started one a few years ago when life was very very tough and it ended up being one of the things that kept me going.

I also made a timeline of my life with all the major events on it. Puts the whole thing in perspective.

Both good tools, especially in tough times.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#57

Post by Cthulhu_ »

halfcat wrote: post #54

The skill of energy. Energy is the one metric to optimize for by default. Energy to me has been health and excitement. Health is sleep, nutrition, movement, mindset, and relationships. Excitement is doing something that I enjoy, often seemingly providing more energy than it takes. The skill of recognizing the need for difficult conversations, then having them. A 20 second awkward, difficult conversation saves 20 days…

Re: energy, maybe add mood and a lot of things: Realize they are subtle, that there is often no direct cause or correlation. Some issues are because of experiences throughout the day accumulated, or something from hours ago (e.g. food); others accumulate over months or years, e.g. stress, lack of sleep, a nutritional deficiency.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#58

Post by oftenwrong »

ebsp wrote: post #41

Learn how to do things you would normally pay somebody else to do. For example learn to service your car, repair your home, etc. Your things may last longer, you can save a bunch of money, your better half will be impressed, you learn how basic stuff in the real world works and you’ll get some time off the screen.

When I was 16 I worked part time at an auto mechanic's shop just doing odd tasks, like sweeping, moving stuff, doing inspections. I didn't know much about cars. One of the mechanics there was a fairly young guy. You could tell just by looking at him that he was not happy to be there. He would smoke all day in the shop - not very safe, and strictly forbidden. He was studying for the CCNA exam, looking to get out and start a career. When he found out I programmed and used linux, he was really excited. We would talk about networking tech a lot. One time I told him I wanted to learn about cars so I could do all of my own maintanence. He said, "Keep learning computers, so you can make enough money to pay someone else to do it." At the time, that was a disappointing non-answer, but I know now that there was wisdom in it.

Re: Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning?

#59

Post by andai »

alexpetralia wrote: post #43

A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system has been invaluable to me personally and professionally. It takes a decent amount of work, but it doesn't feel like the knowledge I accrue slips through a sieve anymore, maybe 15% versus 50%.

Do you use any special software for that?
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