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

I can guess the responses. Exercising, learning something, saving money.

Applying project management tools to manage everything in my life.

For example: getting a mortgage or paying taxes are relatively complex processes with alot of moving parts: tasks, documents, deadlines, etc.

You make a Kanban and divide it up into tasks and a pipeline and notes for each tasks status.

Trello is what I use but there's other tools as well.

Holy crap it makes your life easier.

For me, it was using version control on my code.

I was up late finishing a large programming assignment for class, when inexplicably at 3 am, my code stopped compiling with a super generic error message.

Turns out I had somehow added a random character at the top line, but it took me the next 1-2 hours being dumbfounded, confused, over-tired and frustrated before I found the problem.

It would have been a 60 second fix with a simple diff against the repo version.

After that day, I learned how to use svn and always start every project (no matter how small) inside some type of version control system.

Accepting that I was an introvert. I remember the exact moment: I was traveling, had just settled down with a good book at a hostel, and then heard some folks heading to the bar. I remember thinking "gosh, I should be social," and then "nah, I'd rather be here."

Self acceptance of that was a big change for me.

Turning off email notifications on my phone. Finally pulled the trigger when I was relaxing on a Friday night and getting work emails. It’s usually more efficient to deal with email only once per day anyways.