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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?

#371

Post by vborovikov »

rconti wrote: post #311
dotsamuelswan wrote: post #287

After a single week of using a physical daily planner, I realized I'd accomplished more in the previous week than I had in the past 6 months. No looking back. Every Sunday I write down a single thing to accomplish for each day of the next week: Read a chapter of a book, Write a post about a specific topic, etc. Procrastination is super dangerous when there isn't a deadline. Way too easy for "tomorrow" to turn into ne…

My biggest problem with planners and to-do lists is I don't consult them. I've tried evernote, I've tried google notes, I used a Palm Pilot 20 years ago. I think technology is better for me because it's always available, but simply having a todo list doesn't cause me to remember to check it. I never think "hey, I'm bored, I wonder what's on the list!" Any advice?

I use a calendar app instead of a to-do list. I just put notes to my future self.

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

#372

Post by jdc0589 »

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…

I traded in my MMORPG habit for real life crafting. I always loved building stuff, and its way more gratifying when you can actually see, , touch, and use something you made.

I sell small leather goods (wallets, belts, etc...) as a hobby now. Its been fun so far.

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

#374

Post by progre »

rconti wrote: post #311
dotsamuelswan wrote: post #287

After a single week of using a physical daily planner, I realized I'd accomplished more in the previous week than I had in the past 6 months. No looking back. Every Sunday I write down a single thing to accomplish for each day of the next week: Read a chapter of a book, Write a post about a specific topic, etc. Procrastination is super dangerous when there isn't a deadline. Way too easy for "tomorrow" to turn into ne…

My biggest problem with planners and to-do lists is I don't consult them. I've tried evernote, I've tried google notes, I used a Palm Pilot 20 years ago. I think technology is better for me because it's always available, but simply having a todo list doesn't cause me to remember to check it. I never think "hey, I'm bored, I wonder what's on the list!" Any advice?

I put stuff I really need to get done in an Email to myself. Then I dont mark it as "read" until its done.

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

#375

Post by hx87 »

bonsai80 wrote: post #169
umbs wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with all three, but #2 for me has now become the very important due an incident last week. I pulled an all nighter and next day rear ended a vehicle near a traffic signal because I dozed off for a second. The impact was minimal and no one was harmed. It was the first accident with my fault in 15 years of driving. I am approaching 40 and have 2 young kids. I cannot get my priorities wrong at this point. Many liv…

Good call. I'm curious, what is your solution to getting more sleep? Frequently those all-nighters come as a result of deadlines and pressure from work. The usual tradeoff is work vs family vs sleep, where often you only get to pick 1. Have you had any success in getting 2 or even 3 of those together?

> work vs family vs sleep

If I have to make a choice, I always choose sleep. Why? The other two priorities have a one-way dependency on it. I can sleep well while neglecting work or family, but I cannot make a decent contribution to work or family if I do not have enough sleep.

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

#376

Post by erikpukinskis »

beat wrote: post #335
bg4 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one fast for three days?

Simple. Don't eat. Drink water. Some people will allow juice on a fast.

I find it strange that people allow juice. If the purpose is to get your blood sugar down for a consistent stretch then juice would mess that up. I'd rather it a small high fiber, low sugar snack, like some brown rice with vegetables, than drink an equivalent amount of calories in juice form.

I guess maybe the idea is the juice sugar gets digested quickly and you're back to empty, whereas the rice would stick around. I guess it's a question of whether it's better to go up to a 10 and then back down to a zero, or go to a 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

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

#377

Post by g0v »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #362
g0v wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just so happen to be currently reading about this in The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb. He says: "From predator-prey models (the so-called Lotka-Volterra type of population dynamics), I knew that populations experience [potentially high] variability, hence predators will necessarily go through periods of feast and famine. That's us, humans--we had to have been designed to experience extreme hunger and extreme abundanc…

> we sprinted Are you sure? My understanding is that hunting requires a lot of tracking, where you are following perishable clues, which means a moderate sustained pace. And sometimes you are invisible to prey, but sometimes you just need to keep up. Notably when you have injured your prey but not yet killed it. On top of that there's persistence hunting, which is more like an ultramarathon than a sprint. Also, when…

Very interesting points! Thank you for that counter :) And yes, Taleb has shown to be a very confident writer...

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

#378

Post by LA_Banker »

rdegges wrote: post #358

For me, it was 100% weight lifting and dieting (aka: exercise). Pretty much everyone here has mentioned this, but I don't think anyone has really explained just how incredibly life-changing it can really be. I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and h…

Holy hell, that's quite a transformation. Congrats to you.

Yes, that's the biggest thing that's under-stressed about exercise: the benefits are not just physical/health related. Like you, exercise has made me far less averse to interacting with people, and resulted in me being more outgoing, more open meeting new people, and just living a better life as a result.

There's a book called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain that relates that if exercise came in pill form, it would be plastered across the front page, hailed as the blockbuster drug of the century – purely on cognitive/psychological benefits alone. That really drove it home for me.

Don't just workout for health reasons. Workout for life reasons.

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

#379

Post by gglitch »

adam12 wrote: post #166
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…

I'm trying to get myself to enjoy gaming again. I can't seem to just relax and play a game without thinking I'm wasting my time. It's also hard to get the same high in a game that I do when I solve a bug or add a feature to whatever project I'm working on.

There's a lot of research and commentary addressing the benefits of play for adults. I'm having a devil of a time recultivating it for myself too though. I mean, I have hobbies, I have pasttimes. But "play," like it means for a kid, I am not there yet. I hope to get there.

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

#380

Post by newacct23 »

gradys wrote: post #274
nether wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not the right game? Try Dwarf Fortress. It's the only game that has addicted me past the age of 18.

For me, it is almost the opposite. I can't get into games that are highly "stateful" anymore. I find that the only games I can consistently play for relaxation are games like match-based FPSs that I'd call "stateless". The anxiety about wasting time hits me when I'm looking down at an empire in Civ or a growing base in DF or my stats pane in an RPG. When I can see evidence of how much time I've spent building an imag…

Same, any hour long competitive game is too much for me. It feels like a complete waste of time. I only have fun playing games like battlefield now for 20 minutes while listening to music.
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