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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?

#221

Post by andrepd »

redipiny wrote: post #192
llekn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... isn't everyone basically spending all their time (working) to just incrementing numbers in a server (bank account balance)?

The difference is that you can accomplish meaningful things in reality with those numbers.

I think it's very presumptuous to tell people what is meaningful and not. I have no interest in yachts or sports cars, something stereotypically bought by rich people. OTOH, I have great pride in my current DF save, and in being good at speedrunning some games, for instance. Neither of this things cost me a penny. What makes this less meaningful that something bought with money?

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

#222

Post by chris11 »

Sukotto wrote: post #70
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…

If you want better luck making the exercise (or any other) habit stick better. Try one or more of the following: * reduce the habit down to a ridiculously small subset of the habit. Eg. "I will floss every day" becomes "I will floss my upper, front two teeth". Or "I will exercise every day" becomes "I will change into my exercise clothes and step out my front door.". You don't have to floss all your teeth... just one…

That sounds very similar to BJ Fogg's tiny habit's program. He adds in the idea of tiny celebrations and doesn't talk much about consequences or including other people. But he runs a free email program nearly every week that you might be interested in. http://tinyhabits.com/

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

#223

Post by pmiller2 »

nojvek wrote: post #168
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…

I don't understand the hype behind vim. The biggest productivity boost I find is having an editor which has great code completion and error squigglys as soon as you cause an error.

The biggest advantage of Vim, IMHO, is that it's available on almost all UNIX like systems.

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

#224

Post by andrepd »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #122

How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…

It's a hobby, and like any other hobby, it's profoundly stupid. How stupid is it to build model railways? How pointless is it to collect stamps. How dumb is it to fix cars? All "stupid" things we do for pleasure and for accomplishment. I suggest not being so focused on what should be stupid or not, and instead remember that time enjoyed is not time wasted.

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

#225

Post by TheLarch »

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…

I wrote a client/server crypto system on Windows. The client was in C, the server code in Python. The Python code took maybe 5% of the time for a similar amount of functionality as in the client. No discernible performance impact from using Python. C was not in of itself a bottleneck in this case, rather the complexity of the Windows crypto API was.

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

#226

Post by TeMPOraL »

sdenton4 wrote: post #193
paloaltokid wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just give it a try on your own? Do it for 21 days and don't let yourself have an opinion on it until that stretch of time is done. Then see how you feel and make a decision.

At least in the western Zen tradition, there's a strong element of 'try this and see if it works for you' which I deeply appreciate. Empirical religion ftw.

Given how complicated the brain - and its interactions with the body - is, and even how many successful medical interventions depend on placebo effect, it seems reasonable that the approach of "try it and see if it works for you" is quite effective.

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

#227

Post by BatFastard »

Getting regular deep tissue massages. It does a reset on all the little aches and pains I build up during long work sessions. I stopped for a few years and I started again and it was a "Wow, I forgot how much I need these" moment.

Daily exercise, forgot about this for years. I think more clearly, feel better during the day, sleep better at night.

Home cooking, so easy to lose this joy when busy.

Swimming in the water when ever you go on vacation, whether is a pool, or stream, or ocean.

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

#228

Post by ovatsug25 »

OhHeyItsE wrote: post #143
chollida1 wrote: post #126

3 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2) Sleep, I'm getting close to 40 and the last 2 times I pulled all nighters I ended up deleting pretty much all the code I wrote from 11pm onward. 3) Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think th…

Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.

Don't do an app. Get the Tara Brach podcast. I think the lightweight nature of a podcast is MUCH better than a nagging app. :)
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