Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nassim Taleb covers some basics in his Black Swan and provides some practical suggestions. Nice read, btw.
The irony is he is one of the most closed-minded people around, if you see him on Twitter etc.
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Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
341–350 of 370 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do this too and it works great in personal contexts cause people love sharing their opinions and hearing themselves talk generally speaking. This is in stark contrast to the workplace where I've experienced that keeping my mouth shut in a meeting to gather my thoughts before contributing a well informed opinion, the loudest person in the room has already spoken a handful of times and left their mark and then contin…
(SME = Subject Matter Expert, presumably)
Yeah that's it, I'll spell it out next time for those who don't know.
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you there is a community of nonbinary/gender nonconforming/genderqueer organizers near you, that can be a good place to start looking. I think this is completely the wrong advice for who you're talking to. From the sounds of it he's complely, unquestionably a man who wants to present as completely, unquestionably a man too, but doesn't for whatever reasons. It seems like you're saying "yeah you're a girly man, t…
> It seems like you're saying "yeah you're a girly man, that's what you are now, better learn to embrace it" rather than "learn to express yourself how you want". It's true, I am saying that. I think the root problem is how the parent comment author is being treated, rather than how he is acting, since his main motivation for changing how he acts is to be treated differently. He's free to reject my advice, but I know…
Same, to some extent. It helped that I have a lot of queer friends and did when I was a teenager too. Some things I don't like about my expression but can't (easily) change, I've learnt to accept. Qualities which I once thought of as feminine, such as emotional expressiveness, I now see as gender-neutral and they fit a lot more comfortably into my masculinity... but I have also cultivated a lot of traits that are seen as traditionally masculine as I've grown into my 20s.
I did "man up", just in a very positive way aided by having a lot of female and queer friends, rather than the regressive 4chan way I was told to when I was a teenager. Your comment read not as encouraging that, but as, "you might as well accept your fate now and start wearing a dress."
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#344I like to keep "writing walls" of whatever problem I need to solve, either in work or outside of it. These are basically Google Docs without rules about structuring of content, it's mostly me type-talking with myself about what the problem is, what some possible approaches are for solving it, or even "arghs" and the occasional profanity if things don't work out. Also I paste in URLs for whatever useful resources I fi…
I like to do this but I find it difficult to go completely "free form" on a work computer that might be monitored. It's silly but but I don't like the idea of someone being able to see my inner thought processes like that because a lot of times you are stating the obvious just to put that on paper, but to an observer it looks like "man this guy has trouble grasping even the most basic concepts!"
Haha I understand where you're coming from with that, but I don't have that problem anymore. Everyone makes dumb mistakes and asks stupid questions; it's completely irrelevant, the only thing that matters is the outcome. I think if a person ever where to read any of my writing walls they may be relieved that they're not the only ones going through a process like that ;).
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#3451/ Whenever you can’t motivate yourself to start working on something, think about the smallest thing you can perform and make it your only goal for the day. It can be something as simple as « open the ide and compile the project once ». The trick is that after that first step you will naturally begin to do some real work, because the movement started. 2/ when learning a new skill or trying to improve , focus on one…
The "smallest possible thing" hack is a great one. It also works great for exercise. If your goal for example is to work out every morning before work, instead of setting ambitious goals for what's going to happen tomorrow morning when the alarm rings at 6am, promise yourself the following: "I will physically get out of bed. I will put on my workout clothes. I will do five pushups. If I don't feel like doing anything…
Seriously just did this earlier in the week. Had been dogging myself for a while to do strength training in the morning before work. Can't pull myself out of bed. Eventually I said "I just need to get to the gym, nothing more". If I get there an only get 5 minutes in, it's OK. Made it and had a 30m work out.
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#3461/ Whenever you can’t motivate yourself to start working on something, think about the smallest thing you can perform and make it your only goal for the day. It can be something as simple as « open the ide and compile the project once ». The trick is that after that first step you will naturally begin to do some real work, because the movement started. 2/ when learning a new skill or trying to improve , focus on one…
The "smallest possible thing" hack is a great one. It also works great for exercise. If your goal for example is to work out every morning before work, instead of setting ambitious goals for what's going to happen tomorrow morning when the alarm rings at 6am, promise yourself the following: "I will physically get out of bed. I will put on my workout clothes. I will do five pushups. If I don't feel like doing anything…
Wow, the "If I don't feel like doing anything else after that, I will go back to bed." seems like the key part of it. Giving yourself a way out makes it even easier to commit to the small task. Good tip.
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#347Utilize laziness: It works like this: 1. Realize that most of the world is out to distract you. 2. Realize that part of the way to do this is to make distraction, and access to distraction, as easy as possible. 3. Actively set up "friction" to reduce that ease. In practice: I don't install FB on my phone; I have to use the crappier web version. I block reddit on my laptop, so I have to use my phone. Just by making st…
I use this around junk food too: place stuff in an upper cabinet. I'm usually too lazy to go get it.
Works great with beer. Leave it out of the fridge so you literally have to ice it.
Make it a rule to never put more than one in the fridge at a time.
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#348The attention deconcentration technique developed by Oleg Bakhtiyarov is very easy and efficient. I'm not sure if there are any good practical intros into it available in any language but Russian though (those of you who understand Russian an easily find some introductory videos on YouTube).
Tell us more, no good links on youtube (English).
Normally our attention is almost always concentrated. On something useful or something useless (or harmful), consciously or unconsciously, attached to one particular thing for longer or shorter but it usually is. Even while daydreaming, dreaming or procrastinating, wandering ≠ deconcentrated. The clue is to deconcentrate it so it would no more be a point but a line (generally useless yet an important first step), a surface (good to read, observe a dashboard or look for something) or the entire space around you (extremely useful for drivers, great for general safety) and inside you (very important for freedivers, also establishing a habit of sustaining this state of presence and conscious awareness is a huge step in spiritual development). This has a lot to do with Carlos Cataneda's Nagualism and with the Tibetan tradition of Dzogchen[1].
I can hardly express the whole intro into the practice here, the actual intros are about a hour long (e.g. this one[2] (in Russian)) and that's just intros, but let me suggest trying a couple of simple exercises:
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1. concentrate your attention on both sides of your vision field at the same time.
2. concentrate your attention on the whole perimeter of your vision field - the four sides simultaneously.
3. concentrate (= deconcentrate in this case) your attention on your whole field of vision.
4. try to maintain this state for some (whatever, avoid forcing yourself to exercise for longer than you want so you won't start hating it, even a couple of dozens of seconds is ok, it's not a kind of a meditation where you are meant to sit still and do) time, practice every day (people are normally meant to practice for about 1-3 months to master this but I've got it much faster and you probably can do rather quickly to).
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If you wear contact lenses or can imagine wearing them try to focus your vision and attention on their surface instead of a distant object. Once you manage try to learn to focus on any given point in the air in front of you like if there was very clean glass (I mean like in a window) and you were trying to observe the glass rather than to watch through it. This may sound easy and for many people it is, nevertheless many people never ever come up with an idea to do this consciously.
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1. Close your eyes.
2. Visualize a green triangle (only ~5% of the people can't visualize).
3. Visualize a red circle instead.
4. Visualize a blue square instead.
5. Choose another figure, e.g a circle, a triangle or a square of whatever a colour. But now your task is not to visualize it but catch the moment of the choice already done but no properties of the chosen object (including the shape, the colour, the name on any language, possible tactile properties or anything) imagined-perceived yet with your conscious perception-awareness-attention. This exercise may require some dedication and practice to manage with.
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Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#349Write down what I'm going to do. It happens that I can't really 'start' with work due to having too many things to choose from, or by not knowing how to really get started with it. What always helps is writing down on a piece of paper a step by step guide of what I will do. this can be very general. But just having the steps written down helps me get started. Kind of like a "todo list" except that I don't update it w…
Thanks for sharing this. I saw this post earlier in the week and have been applying it this week. I have been much more productive and able to refocus much quicker.
Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm glad to see someone else mention cannabis. It honestly has helped me so much with slowing down and making sure I put in the time to search for answers. It's helped me creatively and passionately. It's helped me calm down my anxiety in stressful situations and be clearheaded with my thoughts. It's not for everyone but for those that do use it, I sincerely believe it works.
what is the dosage? are you smoking joints mixed with tobacco? do you smoke daily or just once or twice a week. can you elaborate? i've been a daily user for past few years but I think i see only negatives but I am too into to it to quit the drug for good.
Sorry the late reply but I figured I owed an explanation.
I am a long-time user (~10 years.) When I wrote my original comment I had not smoked in a few days to try and cleanse my mind and body. Quitting for any period of time has never been a problem for me. I simply put it "out of sight and out of mind" and I've had no troubles. I cannot speak the same for everyone. Addiction affects everyone differently.
To directly answer your question, I have PAX3 I'm in love with and I tend to "microdose" with a hit here and there throughout the day. Sometimes I'll treat myself to a joint with a friend on the weekends but I tend to enjoy the small doses during the week a lot more as I can still be productive and have a more imaginative mind. I used to smoke everyday but I've since cut back. I don't feel any ill effects from doing so.
I don't smoke everyday anymore since taking a break and I've been filling the time with drinking more water, taking walks, and stepping away from the computer. As I mature in my career and in life, I find those are the things I enjoy more instead of "forcing" myself to be creative.