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Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#201
So I guess the term "brain hacks" is pretty vague, but here's some strategies that I've developed that really help me get through work and grad school. A lot of these come down to taking advantage of your subconscious mind and making sure it can work effectively.

1) Time manage. TIME MANGE! There's always time, you just have to make it. I'm having a hard time buying the "here's three options, pick two" thing that people frequently say, especially in grad school. You can get work done, sleep, and have a social life. Granted, I'm working a lot more than 40hrs a week, but there's still time for all three.

2) Know when to walk away, but also when to come back. When you're really stuck on a problem the best thing I've found is to just walk away from it. Do something else. Let your subconscious mind work on it. (great time to socialize, go on a walk, exercise, whatever) But the thing people frequently struggle with this is that you have to actually come back to the problem. I'm a big fan on spaced repetition and spaced learning. I believe this "spaced" aspect also applies to working. Your subconscious is pretty powerful, use it to your advantage. (pro tip: You can also effectively "multi-task" this way too. But that's harder and I suggest keeping it for crunch time)

3) Be healthy, mentally and physically. If you use any type of tools, you know that you have to take care of them. If the tool you're using the most if your brain, well you have to make sure it is in tip top shape too. Constantly work your brain by expanding your knowledge base. Learn things that aren't in your expertise (this is actually really important!). Make sure you are mentally healthy. Have good relationships with friends (even if you're introverted, this is very important. You need to be able to vent sometimes). And keep physically healthy. You don't need to be swol, just take walks, ride a bike, or whatever you enjoy. Something physical.

4) If you are multi-lingual, deconstruct a problem in a different language (If you're not, see #3). If you know different programming languages (if you don't, see #3), pseudo code the problem in that other PL. Try to solve problems from multiple different angles. You have various "personalities", see how they would solve the problem differently (personalities in how you process thought differently in different moods or with different people).

5) Use the Feynman Methods or the Rubber Ducky method. Being able to explain your problems is a great way to solve it. This can be embarrassing at first because if you use a person as a sounding board it can end up like: walks into room "Hey, I have this problem" explain. WITH DETAIL and exactly where it is going wrong "Oh!" rushes out of room. If you can find a good colleague to use as a soundboard, use them. Someone that asks a lot of questions. Additionally, when you are learning something, always try to pretend you have to teach it to someone. It'll naturally make you think of edge cases and you have to be more eloquent in how you describe things. You can also mentor junior staff, then both of you benefit.

6) Write things down. Use a calendar. Use task lists. I place lots of events and things into my calendar and just the act of writing it down forces me to remember. I enter items into task lists and I'll usually remember. But if I don't, I have a reference. This is a great way to ensure those fleeting thoughts don't get lost. And when studying (which you should always be doing, see #3), I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend using pen and paper. It slows you down, and that's the point, see #7.

7) Slow down. Do things the hard way. Be mindful when you do things. Be involved. Your mind needs time to process things and push it into your memory. You have a stack, some RAM, and a hard drive (with multiple layers of efficiency). (if you have a problem with this: it is called an analogy. It isn't supposed to be 100% accurate) If you never move things from the stack then they are lost really quickly, and the stack can't hold much. Your RAM can hold more information, but again this can be lost. Slowing down and being thoughtful about what you're doing and thinking about will allow your conscious and subconscious mind work on the same task (if you have a hard time staying focused, meditate and see #2. I struggle with this too.)

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#202
I try to avoid using my brain for anything I can automate using all the classic technics: GTD, checklists for so many things, 5S, labelling/attributing places, delegating, 5 seconds rules, etc. Just like the code with less bug is the code you don't write, the thoughts with the fewer errors are the ones you don't make. Plus it saves time and energy for the thinking that matters.

Honestly, this should be taugh at school.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#203
Assume you are wrong about whatever it is you are thinking. Assume everyone else is wrong too. Double check, triple check, and when you think you have reached fullest confidence, you should still only provisionally accept your belief, knowing that you are still most likely wrong.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#204
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set mine to a death clock. It is sobering to see on a daily basis for the last year that I've got just over 17000 days of life left.

Care to share? I have a lot of anxiety about my mortality and I've been looking for (non-religious) ways to counter act this fear.

I come from a primarily religious background, so I'm not sure my position will be helpful for a non-religious solution.

But I will go into how I think about these things anyway, because its an important question with important answers.

Basically, I consider death as a transition. This life's purpose isn't to perform to any human standard; so wealth, fame, notoriety, happiness, etc. are not direct goals of mine. Nor is it a goal of mine to have a lasting impact. I'm not here to impress anyone, or look or act in any particular way.

Some of those things may be a byproduct of how I live my life, but they are not necessary conditions to live 'successfully'.

I think that I should address my definition of success: 'success' in this life means to love God and love people. So what is 'love' (baby, don't hurt me)? Love is not an emotional state, rather it is the active process of listening, respecting, and acting on another's words and needs.

Coming back to mortality: being reminded that I am not long for this world reminds me of the greater purpose of life, relieves stress from performance related anxiety, and curbs worry about physical/mental illness and other maladies, money issues aren't issues anymore, and so on, because I know God will take care of me.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#205
We all have plenty of tasks that we kind of don't want to do, or feel they're a burden, or they somehow take us out of our comfort zone...

This is a trick I learned that works like a charm to get myself into the right mindset and wanting to actually do the task: think how finishing the task will make you feel.

Try really hard to envision a great outcome of a given meeting with customers. What it will mean for you, your project, your company...

With some exercise you will really fool your brain.

Apply it with everything. Even with personal stuff. Don't want to wash those dishes? Think about what a nice, tidy kitchen looks and smells like.

It's one of those weird hacks in my life that actually make me get stuff done.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0) Keeping one's mouth shut. Trying to not have an opinion until a) having enough information b) only voicing it if it is important. I am trying to spend more time perceiving instead of broadcasting.

Amen to that! I often end up in discussions and decision making at work were I haven't even scratched the surface with my knowledge of the problem. Trying to listen and absorb as much information from the people that know most about the problem is my way of trying to quickly be able to make a decision (if that's needed).

Agreed. And the harder aspect of this is to actively listen to all parties at the same time holding the questions in my mind and allowing time in the discussion for them to get answered. Notes really help here.

Watch women and men in a meeting, men will talk over people, interject wisdoms, either comments or questions. While women will sit back and let the questions get answered, and then when enough time will go by will ask the unaswered questions.

One of the hardest things for a group to do is leave enough dead air so that others can speak, esp over remote connections.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#207

“the only motivational advice anyone has ever needed: You don’t have to feel like getting something done in order to actually get it done.“ https://medium.com/swlh/theres-no-such-thing-as-motivation-e...

Seems close to the Dilbert geezer's Goals vs Systems. I work on systems more than goals myself and it seems to work for my humble tasks.

https://blog.dilbert.com/2013/11/18/goals-vs-systems/

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#208
Brain hack: Formulate your thinking in terms of positive statements.

Example:

* Negative statement: Don't use object inheritance, it leads to confusing code.

* Positive statement: Try to make your inheritance tree flatter, this helps make more straightforward code.

The negative statement is both discouraging and ambiguous. When you tell someone or yourself to not do a thing, it begs the question, "What should be done instead?" Meanwhile, the positive statement is incisive and gives the listener better direction.

If you can spot something to not do, you can probably come up with something to do as well. This shift in thinking seems small, but has had a profound impact on how I interact with the world, and improved my outlook on life, work and relationships.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the risk of substituting books with URL's It's substituting URLs for books — either that or replacing books with URLs . [0] This might seem pedantic, and I know that language evolves, but: 1. We risk confusing, and therefore we disserve, non-native speakers if we use the language in ways opposite the accepted standard meanings. (One could think of language as an API, and no matter what the API, precision and acc…

Not one to shy from grammatic pedantry, having almost won a spelling bee once: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/substitute “3) (transitive) In the phrase "substitute X with/by Y", to use Y in place of X; to replace X with Y as in ‘I had to substitute old parts with the new ones.’ (This usage was formerly proscribed.)“ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/substitute “Traditionally, the verb substitute is followe…

The "sport" example does exactly what it is intended to do: showcase a grammatical ambiguity.

  substitute a player with X
is ambiguous, as demonstrated by the examples:

  substitute a player with another player
  substitute a player with half an hour still to play

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some mornings it's just hard to get started. A trick I use is to start something "easy" towards the end of the day, but not finish it . That makes it easier to get the ball rolling the next morning.

How do you manage not to keep thinking about how you gonna finish it? Sometimes even the easiest tasks can make me daydream about the final outcome.

That sounds like the difference between the J and P traits in the MBTI system. J-types (judgers) like me (and probably you) tend to plan ahead a lot and like to have matters settled, whereas P-types (perceptors) prefer to keep decisions open and decide how to do stuff when the time comes to act. I would guess that pmarreck is a P-type, or would at least lean towards P.

Wikipedia has more details on MBTI, and there are online self-tests for your own MBTI classification.

Disclaimer: Note the "Criticism" part of the Wikipedia page. MBTI is AFAIK not a tool that professional psychologists would use. Nonetheless, I find it useful in order to find similar people on the internet. For example, if I want to learn a new skill, a search query like "[thing] tutorial for INTJ" gives me way better results than just "[thing] tutorial" because I get recommendations from people who think in similar ways.

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