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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?

#141

Post by esotericn »

shantly wrote: post #81
BeetleB wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI less than half of American workers have access to a 401K plan. Less than 60% have access to any retirement plan.

And for unfathomable (haha, well, is it really though?) reason retirement accounts are set up to mostly benefit people with very high wages whose employers (gotta have an employer, too, or arrange things so you're your own employer—man is this dumb, it's as if it's set up to disadvantage the poor and middle class) also provide a high match rate. Meanwhile most folks are lucky to get a 1 or 2% match, leaving them way…

There are caps for contributing to tax-advantaged savings and pension accounts in the UK too.

I wouldn't say that that 'disadvantages the poor and middle class'. It's the other way around - it disadvantages the upper-middle and wealthy because they hit the limit and have to find other ways to accumulate wealth.

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

#142

Post by abhijat »

sandfly wrote: post #114

If you have a laptop with a trackpoint, become proficient with it. You can switch between mouse and keyboard without moving your fingers away from the home row.

I just disable the trackpad in all my laptops, I find it much harder to use than a trackpoint.

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

#143

Post by refurb »

katzgrau wrote: post #82

Gratitude. Look around you and consider all of the things that are going well for your. Your nice remote gig, your fridge full of your favorite beer, the sunny day outside, your healthy family. Do that at the start of every day and really meditate on awesome it is that you have those things. Sincerely and quietly thank whoever you feel is responsible for them. You'd be amazed how that 3 minute exercise changes your p…

I expected to flip through a find a bunch of vacuous answers, but this one really resonated.

Gratitude does wonders for your mental health!

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

#144

Post by agentwiggles »

criddell wrote: post #88
02abhishekjain wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vim key bindings can help you write code faster and more efficiently. Try the vim plugin for vscode. It's pretty good.

I'm always skeptical of this claim (and yes I do know vim fairly well). Programming isn't that much typing. For every burst of typing there's probably an equally long or longer lull where you are leaning back and looking at the screen or sketching something out on paper. If your productivity is limited by how fast you can type then you are either a far, far better programmer than most people or your skills are being…

It's not so much typing that Vim helps with, it's _editing_. It's definitely not about raw text entry - it's about thinking things like "hey I want to move these 3 lines up to this spot" and being able to do that with 3 or 4 keystrokes.

The reason folks talk about feeling crippled when they use a regular editor is that you get used to things like `f(` to take you to the front of some function's arg list, or `ci{` to quickly change some block of code.

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

#146

Post by brutt »

bsanr2 wrote: post #90
tempsy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference if you’re sitting on $100K in cash earning nothing or a few thousand to use for living costs. If the latter then investing in stocks is actually not very prudent.

Confirming. In college, I received what I thought was a decent windfall for a young adult (and what was roughly what people say should be enough to "get started" investing). I invested it. This was just after the rally post-recession had hit its apex. Fast-forward 3 years later, when I've been laid off. Well, now I need that money, but the stock is worth less than when I bought it. I don't make enough to itemize taxe…

Start your own business and pay to your workers as much as you want. It's easy.

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

#147

Post by ghaff »

varjag wrote: post #12
jpxw wrote: post #8

Basic First Aid (CPR etc)

Among 'etc' I would recommend Heimlich maneuver in particular. Didn't really ever expect to use it, but ended up doing it on my own kid…

Yes. Probably one of the best quick hits in first aid. By comparison, while CPR is good to know, it's probably only going to help in a fairly limited set of circumstances.

One of my complaints about first aid courses that I've taken is that they seem to spend a lot of time on things like splinting and often skip lightly over stuff you're more likely to run into in everyday life.

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

#148

Post by ghaff »

inetsee wrote: post #111
jpxw wrote: post #8

Basic First Aid (CPR etc)

I would consider CPR to be an invaluable thing to learn. Unfortunately, at least where I live (North Carolina, USA), there do not seem to be any free classes. Available classes range in price from $84 to $126 in price, depending on what's included in the class (basic CPR, basic plus pediatric CPR, CPR with other first aid instruction, etc.).

If you haven't done so, you might check if your company offers or would be willing to offer a class.

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

#149

Post by nordsieck »

IMO, the single most important thing I've ever learned is: try to be effective when you're communicating.

I used to feel an obligation to correct other people if they had false beliefs. This was not an endearing trait, and even worse, I was never particularly successful at convincing the other people.

One day, I read a passage from "How to make friends and influence people". It said something along the lines of:

"The point of an argument is to convince the other person of something. If what you're doing is not working, then do something else."

BAM

I'm not perfect, but these days, I try to listen a lot and speak a little. And the little I do speak is designed to appeal, as much as possible, to my audience.

As a small bonus: I really try not to get drawn into arguments with people who just like to argue (instead of those arguing in good faith). "OK" is an amazing response to shut those kinds of interactions down in a hurry. You can't out box the heavy bag.

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

#150

Post by dqpb »

ethanbond wrote: post #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 y…

Re: flossing and Step 2: Make it the absolute smallest possible version of itself - you only have to floss the teeth you want to keep.
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