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What Is the Most Valuable Thing You Can Learn in One Hour?

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Re: What Is the Most Valuable Thing You Can Learn in One Hour?

#14
Taking this also as a bit of an Ask HN:

Easily the Tiny Habits habit formation regime created by Stanford researcher BJ Fogg. A lot of the addictive design patterns you see in apps like Snapchat, Instagram, etc. are built off his research. Quite nefarious use of psychology for advertising/“engagement”, but the plus side is you can use the same strategies to build habits you want to build.

Step 1: Consider the habit you want to build, e.g. “I want to meditate 10 minutes every day”

Step 2: Make it the absolute smallest possible version of itself; so small that it requires zero motivation/willpower, e.g. “I want to close my eyes and take 3 deep breaths every day”

Step 3: Place this habit immediately following an existing habit, e.g. “After I brush my teeth in the morning, I will close my eyes and take 3 deep breaths”

Step 4: Do this activity, and after each time you do it, reward yourself with a small celebration. It sounds ridiculous but I literally just say “Victory!” and force a smile on my face. The small rush of good-feeling-chemicals will keep you coming back.

I’ve used this method to pick up daily meditation, journaling, and flossing (acquired simultaneously!) after years of struggling to pick up any one of them. The first two habits have been monumental in my ability to learn, take on stress, and improve virtually every one of my relationships.

A shameless plug for BJ because he’s a great guy: his book, Tiny Habits, happened to be released today (what a coincidence!). I haven’t read it but if this is remotely interesting to you, I’m sure it’ll be extremely useful and engaging. It’s on Amazon, you can find it!

Sidenotes:

* Don’t worry about the habit scale down, it will naturally grow over time into its fuller form. I spent a month of the year just flossing 1 tooth each night (ridiculous, I know!), then 5 months just flossing 1 row (better!)

* Part of the trick is finding a good habit to put your new habit after. You probably already have a lot more habits than you know, since the whole point of a habit is to be automatic.

Re: What Is the Most Valuable Thing You Can Learn in One Hour?

#16
post #10

First aid is good. Also general investing in index funds like VTSAX and VTIAX. It is so simple, yet most people I run into on a regular basis just save their money in a checking account earning 0.01% APY. Follow the reddit personal finance flowchart. Learn about Roth and HSAs and ESPP and the benefits of diversification. We’re literally talking about multiples of your net-worth over your life if you invest compared t…

What crowd are you in where most people have all their money in a savings account? That is borderline financial suicide.

Re: What Is the Most Valuable Thing You Can Learn in One Hour?

#19
post #16
post #10

First aid is good. Also general investing in index funds like VTSAX and VTIAX. It is so simple, yet most people I run into on a regular basis just save their money in a checking account earning 0.01% APY. Follow the reddit personal finance flowchart. Learn about Roth and HSAs and ESPP and the benefits of diversification. We’re literally talking about multiples of your net-worth over your life if you invest compared t…

What crowd are you in where most people have all their money in a savings account? That is borderline financial suicide.

My family. Women I’ve dated. I’m back in my hometown for Christmas now and talking to people I knew from school. The average person doesn’t know about this stuff (though most likely has some proportion invested through the default option in their 401(k)). I mean damn, my aunt’s husband died recently and we had to bail her out of 10k credit card debt where she was paying interest.

The Hacker News crowd probably knows above average, though even then a lot of my colleagues could know more, e.g. haven’t heard of VTSAX, didn’t know our 401(k) does a mega backdoor Roth, etc.

Re: What Is the Most Valuable Thing You Can Learn in One Hour?

#20

Compound interest. Simply starting early in some boring find/investment and not obsessing over daily stock prices will do wonders for one’s health and finances

I always hear this but the theory of compound interest has little to do with stock investing.

Not all stocks pay dividends. Most actually do not. And betting on a general YoY rise in stock prices into retirement is not the same thing as compound interest.

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