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Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#81

Post by williamstein »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #63
patio11 wrote: post #9

Every time I start seriously exercising this hits in about week ~4. Sadly, I only generally keep it up for 6 months before falling back to old habits. Professionally: email lists. If you have any reason to have a blog, you should have an email list. It surfaces the identities of the people who are actually interested in what you have to say, and ties people to you much, much tighter than "Oh yeah, that thing you wrot…

I'm currently at that 6 month point in my exercise program for about the 5th time. Anybody have any hints for pushing through it?

What works for me is exercise that is also really fun (I skateboard).

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#82

Post by patio11 »

exceptione wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #9

Every time I start seriously exercising this hits in about week ~4. Sadly, I only generally keep it up for 6 months before falling back to old habits. Professionally: email lists. If you have any reason to have a blog, you should have an email list. It surfaces the identities of the people who are actually interested in what you have to say, and ties people to you much, much tighter than "Oh yeah, that thing you wrot…

« Relatedly: answer common objections once, offline. Cache the answers. Repeat back from the cache, not from "best halfway decent thing you can remember to say in real time."» Can you elaborate on that? I'm wondering to what situation you are referring to and what kind of objections you mean here?

Sales objections. "Your software sounds good but $199 a month is high." "recite answer we have prepared for this thing we hear 3 times a day"

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#83

Post by IgorPartola »

davelnewton wrote: post #64
IgorPartola wrote: post #55

Here's my list: - Using Vim. Just do it. You'll be more productive than in most other editors, and you can use it over ssh on pretty much any machine. - Using Python. Batteries included means less work for you to do. - Using Django. Ditto - Stopped chasing the latest and greatest JS framework and just use what I know (jQuery and Angular lately). Not worth my time when I already feel very productive. - Use puppet for…

All interesting, but don't really seem to be "the moment".

I didn't want to go into detail since that'd make this post huge, but each one of these had a definite moment of realization.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#84

Post by Grue3 »

Using Bitbucket's issue tracker to track bugs/features in my personal projects. Previously I just used a todo text file, but there are a lot of advantages to have it online.

Riding a bike.

Learning how to draw (I was trying to start several times, but always give up at some point).

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#85

Post by k__ »

yodsanklai wrote: post #51
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #29

Commuting by bicycle. Fresh air and exercise, all packed into the same amount of time it would have taken me to drive and park, even enjoyed the thrill and mental challenge of forcing myself out in the rain and snow. Took some shortcuts and explored areas I've never been to before.

Same here. I was cycling a lot until I got my driving license. Then it was only 10-15 later that I got into the habit of using my bike again. The less I use my car, the happier I am. Now I really wonder what prevented me from doing it sooner!!

Same here. Living in a city with many hills it was a chore at first. But now it's pretty great.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#86

Post by WA »

Stopped playing computer games. I played Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone a lot. Like almost every evening when I had nothing else to do. I noticed over time two things:

First, I can't play such games in a non-competitive way. While some seem to play Hearthstone for fun, I play to win and I want to figure out how to do so.

This leads me to second: Ultimately, for an hour's worth of gaming time, I had a few feel-good moments and the rest was emotionally stressful. I hated the luck of Hearthstone, I hated random assholes in Heroes of the Storm who'd destroy the game.

When I realized that my emotions were determined by a random number generator I had no control over (matches and card draws), I finally decided to quit playing games for 30 days. After this month, I didn't really miss anything, used the free time to do other things and removed the Windows Bootcamp partition of my Mac with all games and never looked back.

A few weeks back, I played Hotline Miami 2. A single player game. It was okay, didn't waste endless hours of my time and had a definite end – not like multiplayer games where there is no end. But single player games won't cut it for me anyways and haven't for a long time already. I think they're mostly boring.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#87

Post by nlawalker »

swalsh wrote: post #31

Learning Python! I've been a C#/Windows developer for years. I then switched to Ruby, which for some reason inevitably means you switch to a shiny mac, and then your work paradigm changes revolving around the command line. One day a quick task came up, and I decided to hack it out. The only library I could find was a python library, so that's what I used... and it was so quick to get something. 10 lines later my bori…

To the parent, and all the siblings of this comment:

If you're fast/productive in C# and you're looking for a good way to accomplish quick tasks or experiment, LINQPad (http://www.linqpad.net/) will become your best friend very quickly. It would probably be faster to list the things I don't use it for than the things I do. The premium license is worth every cent.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#88

Post by k__ »

Start working remote. But I think I couldn't have done it sooner. Times are changing if it comes to remote work, but not as fast as I want :\

Doing polyamory. I always was in love with multiple people, but most of the time I was bound to one. I never cheated, but I felt bad often. Should have done this earlier, but only with the rise of the Internet I was able to find enough people to share my thoughts with.

Started lifting weight. This I really could have done sooner, but I always was kinda nerdy and weights were for buff cool dudes. It got me rid of back-pain and I generally felt better.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#89

Post by WA »

zzalpha wrote: post #28

After 12 years of coding professionally, move from development into product management/ownership. It's like playing an instrument versus playing the orchestra. It ain't for everyone, and I won't claim I'm particularly good at it, but it's a fascinating new kind of creativity.

Who's doing the coding now? How does it feel to you if you have to "outsource" it and pay for every small bugfix?

I'm asking because on the one hand, I enjoy coding. On the other hand, it might make sense to work ON the business, not IN the business in the future.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#90

Post by HenryTheHorse »

Many responses here about exercise. (Not surprising, because I suspect many of us here were NOT the most physically active types in school or college :))

But yes, I too discovered running rather late and realized it took me only about 3-4 weeks to overcome the initial discomfort, inertia and struggle. That was one of my "why didn't I start running sooner" moments.

If any of you are waiting to start running, I'd say, start now. No reason to fear it.

Same is true for having a regular meditation practice. It makes a world of difference. Don't wait to start it in your thirties or forties. That's another practice I wish I had started in my twenties.

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