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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?

#771

Post by bckmn »

33W wrote: post #277
rayalez wrote: post #141

1. Good diet, exercise, and generally taking care of my health. Seriously, this should be the top priority, if you know that you're being stupid about how you treat your body - fix it as soon as possible. 2. Writing regularly(fiction or nonfiction). I think it's one of the most awesome skills you can develop, and the younger you are when you start practicing - the easier it will be. Just create a blog, and try to reg…

To point 3, I've built a playlist of podcasts that I enjoy. A good way to stay up to date on current events and get different points of view.

If you like listening to your news instead of reading it, you would probably like something I've been working on: https://narro.co

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

#772

Post by 33W »

Another223 wrote: post #422
33W wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got started with podcasts about a year ago. Great while I'm working on things I don't need to really focus on, walking the dog, driving, etc. Listing my financial ones: Marketplace Marketplace weekend Radical Personal Finance Slate Money Freakonomics Planet Money Non-financial ones: Parent Savers Intelligence Squared Intelligence Squared US HBR Ideacast Happier Serial Common Sense with Dan Carlin Dan Carlin's Hardc…

In addition to these, Value Investing Podcast (John Mihaljevic) would be my top pick. The host can be slow so I tend to listen on 1.5x speed but the interviews are often fascinating. InvestTalk I find more mixed but generally pretty solid round-up, usually gives me ideas for follow-up reading Similar with The Investors Podcast, good introduction to some interesting people LSE has some public lectures, also fairly bro…

Cruised through a couple episodes of Value Investing - good stuff. Might be a little in depth for some listeners, but I enjoy it.

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

#773

Post by brtw »

akcreek wrote: post #12

About a year ago I started moving towards not selling my time. It has taken a while to wind down all of those relationships, etc. but it has been the best and most lucrative decision I've made in my professional life. I now have just a single commitment where I sell my time and I've got it down to 2-3 hours per week. It will soon be zero as well. I definitely wish I would have started this sooner or actually never st…

hey akcreek, I also recently started an LSP. I would love to ask you a few questions and talk more about your day-to-day working and how you are growing your business. We are moving slowly and could use some help. We would love to see what we can do to improve our work. If you wouldn't mind and you have the time, shoot me an email wcbirtwell@gmail.com . I would really appreciate your insight! Thanks

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

#775

Post by switch007 »

johnloeber wrote: post #716
louprado wrote: post #69

Reducing my carbohydrate intake, limiting workouts to 20 high intensity minutes, practicing better sleep hygiene, asking more questions and arguing less, taking vitamin D supplements, setting limits on gifts and travel, avoiding alcohol and limiting to 3 drinks maximum on any given night, cutting my own hair, buying rental property, realizing that absent mindedness is a symptom of poor planning, focusing on problems…

The odd one out here is cutting your own hair, which seems like a very minor choice (you can usually find a decent haircut for $15-30), especially since you do it so rarely. Do you have an explanation for why this is significant, or why you bundle it with a set of life decisions that arguably look much larger?

Bit late to the party, but for me (not OP), deciding to cut my own hair was about rejecting perfectionism and learning something new. The money saving is a relatively minor. I get to sit in my bathroom for an hour or two and think.

I'm actually happier overall with my hair for two reasons: 1) barbers never completely did what I wanted, 2) I cut my hair more often (2-3 weeks)

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

#776

Post by dredmorbius »

raverbashing wrote: post #134
carlesfe wrote: post #44

Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they…

I think I prefer unclogging people's toilets than providing technical support to your average Windows user. Pay is probably better as well

There's the benefit with toilets that they realise it's obviously shit that's the problem....

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

#777

Post by dredmorbius »

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?

Applies pretty much to anything. Basically, it's a self-maintained FAQ, and you realise that the first law of the FAQ is that people won't read the FAQ (well, some do), but you can point them there when they ask a FAQd question.

I've approached this variously and at different times on stuff I blog, mailing lists, or just maintaining my own offline factoid / response collections. A filebase you can quickly query and recall is good, my current subreddit is useful as I can keyword search it and pull up articles for reference in other discussions.

A real key is that not only do you not waste time on repeated answers, but you get the opportunity to improve your responses. If information changes, or you find a better reference, or you see (or come up with) a better argument or example, you can include it.

I've applied this in programming, hobbies, economics, politics, and other fields.

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

#778

Post by 33W »

bckmn wrote: post #771
33W wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To point 3, I've built a playlist of podcasts that I enjoy. A good way to stay up to date on current events and get different points of view.

If you like listening to your news instead of reading it, you would probably like something I've been working on: https://narro.co

That's neat, I've bookmarked it for now, and will have to find some print to run through it.

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

#779

Post by dimal »

projektir wrote: post #601
dimal wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that hobbies are ones where you're actually stretching your mind, even if they are "pointless". Building model railways and fixing cars can be fun and mentally stimulating for certain people. There's the challenge of learning new things, the satisfaction of making something new. Playing sports takes skill and physical fitness. There's the challenge of competition. Stamp collecting, yeah, I don't understand th…

> Stamp collecting, yeah, I don't understand that, but I'm sure there's something to it. > I've never played a video game that felt as good as actually doing something in the real world. I'm a bit confused as to why you're not applying the same reasoning to video games as you are to stamps - that you don't understand it, but there may be something to it. Note that video games are often one of the cheapest hobbies ima…

Sorry for not replying earlier. I never notice when I've got replies on HN. I guess I forgot to mention a big part of it: the original commenter said he felt like he wasted his time playing WoW. If that's how you feel looking back on the game, then that's a problem. But you're right, if someone doesn't feel like they've wasted time on games, then that's great. Most people I've known have felt like it was a waste, but I can see how some people would think differently.

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

#780

Post by egypturnash »

caconym_ wrote: post #283
egypturnash wrote: post #259

Starting to do burlesque dance. I had to go downtown for a doctor's appointment, and on a whim, I scheduled it so that I could go check out a school whose calendar I'd subscribed to a month or so earlier. I had fun, I kept going back. Got myself in great shape, got incredible amounts of confidence and charisma. These days I don't do it any more; the school moved to a less convenient location, and I ended up doing pol…

> Getting in shape is great but it's boring; doing it with the context of learning something on top of it works amazingly well for me. Bouldering worked the same way for me. I don't do it anymore for stupid reasons and I should get back into it, but for a while I was in amazing shape from doing something not only physically but also mentally stimulating (and fun!).

Bouldering looks both awesome and scary to me. If I didn't mind the thought of probably breaking all my nails I'd be tempted to try it. Get back on those rocks!
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