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Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#141

Post by Johngibb »

g0T wrote: post #133
jasonkester wrote: post #92

I've got a lot of mileage out of this Employment Hack: Treat your job as an unimportant thing that's easily replaced, as opposed to your Career that's Important and Fragile and something that you should never ever mess with for worry of ruining your entire life. If you're not sweating your Career, you're more likely to do silly things like take too much vacation, even long sabbaticals. You're more likely to stand up…

This rings true with me. Although yet to hit the heights that you have, I treat my job as just that. Not a matter of life and death. Its especially true when you realize how quickly you will be replaced when you go.

I left my job after 3.5 years back in December. Leading up to giving my notice was the most stressful time in my career. Then, after 15 minutes of a professional conversation (and then 3 hours of friendly chit chat about starting my own company) the stress was gone. It's not a big deal. Two weeks later, I was free. I'm still on great terms with them, and even get jokes from my old boss about coming back some day and ending my 'poverty strike.' :)

It's really not a big deal to anyone but that fearful little voice in your head.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#142

Post by handzhiev »

work: - Do the hardest/ugliest/most boring things first. The rest of your day will get better and better

health: - Remove sugar. Not consuming sugar will make you feel less sleepy/lazy and healthier. If you can't live without it, try to replace it with fruits or dark chocolate

general: - Ride a bicycle. It will help you save money, be healthy, feel cool, and even save time

finance/money: - Put money aside for buying various stuff (I have "tech fund" and "travel fund" for example). When you want to buy something big, use money from the fund

- Never get into consumer debt

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#143

Post by nhebb »

J3L2404 wrote: post #119
nhebb wrote: post #63

- Persuasion: Mention an idea in passing then wait a week or two. Mention it again in terms of "you know that idea you had ...". This is a surprisingly effective hack on stubborn managers. If they think they'll get the credit for an idea, then they are much more likely to go along with it. - Drink a glass of water when you first wake up. It will curb the temptation for high carb breakfast foods and reduce coffee inta…

Great life hacks, but how do barter with a big retailer?

The funny thing is, I just asked. With the Nordstrom jacket, I had just graduated and didn't have much money. I told the salesman that I needed a nice blazer for a job interview (which I did), that I really liked one in particular, but it was over my budget. I asked if he would sell it to me for a discount. He pulled me off to the side - I don't think he wanted anyone to overhear - and told me OK. He didn't call a manager - he just did it. I've heard that Macy's gives their employees a lot of autonomy as well.

Flipping it around, I've had customers email asking for a discount. I've gotten to the point I don't even ask why. From my perspective, I'd rather just to give them one and secure the sale than try to haggle over price and possibly lose the sale.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#144

Post by X-Istence »

richtaur wrote: post #27
X-Istence wrote: post #4

If I am in a conversation with another developer because they asked for my help I will stop talking if it looks like they are 1. either ignoring my advice 2. or have understood enough and are busy doing what they need to do or 3. are busy doing something completely different. This way I don't waste my time, and I can quickly get back to what I was doing. I tend to spend a lot of time explaining concepts even to peopl…

I've been running iTerm and MacVim in fullscreen mode and that alone has done wonders for my productivity. I like the idea of closing Adium and the mail app, but I just don't know if I could do it! I feel paranoid when they're not open.

Don't close them, just remove any of the icons that show up. For Adium for example turn off the default jumping action, and sound action, and just leave up a small badge if you require it to feel safe, or turn that off as well. Now your chat client becomes more like email.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#145

Post by X-Istence »

pmcginn wrote: post #24

I used to be bad at names, but eventually I figured out if I repeat a name a few times within seconds of learning it, I generally remember it. "Hi Kevin, nice to meet you, I'm Pat. I was going over there to refresh my drink, you need anything Kevin?" It can sound a little weird, but it's made a huge difference for me, and people love it when you remember and use their name. Quit drinking so much soda, and switch to d…

Saying someones name doesn't actually help me. I have to write someones name down, either physically, type it into my phone, or write it in the air to remember it. And at that point I will most likely NEVER forget it again.

Friends I've had in high school I no longer have contact with that have strange names that are spelled a certain way I still remember how to spell them ...

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#146

Post by X-Istence »

alinajaf wrote: post #120

If you're working on projects outside of your full-time job, do it BEFORE work. Go to sleep relatively early, wake up at 5 and put an hour towards your projects every day. You can work in the evenings as well, but you've done your work, so there's nothing wrong with chillaxing with your other half/friends/beer/PS3/any combination of the above.

I can't do it before work, especially since I am not a morning person. I do all of my best work at night, which is when the company I am employed with doesn't get me ... so really doing projects late at night is a win-win situation for me.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#147

Post by ThomPete »

rms wrote: post #75
ThomPete wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open relationships sounds good on paper but only works as long as you are not actually in love.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/

So HN debate is now reduced to fallacy linking?

This is not just from one example this among other things a series of documentaries, friends and my now 37 years.

Of course there are some people who can deal with it but chances are that they are not in love. That is at least my experience feel free to counter with experiences or knowledge about successful open relationships where the people are

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#148

Post by reeses »

Evgeny wrote: post #116
reeses wrote: post #106

* Pick an editor and stick with it. If it's EMACS, learn enough keybindings to be useful and learn elisp. Go through the phase where you run gnus for email and erc and all those silly add-ons. Get your .emacs up to 50-100k. Use that for a few years then throw it all away. Look for force multipliers/secret weapons: * Use an IDE. Yes, this contradicts the first point, but an IDE with intelligent context-based autocompl…

Keep food stashed in your car, desk, etc. A Luna/Clif/Power Bar will get you through that low blood sugar phase, or more importantly, get your partner through it when they're cranky and they have no idea how close they are to being left in a ditch by the side of the road. Wait ... is it specifically for diabetics? Then I think you should specify it. I personally am trying to maximise time between meals and not to hav…

"Keep food"...relates mainly to my wife, who doesn't seem to get that there's a link between "not eating" and "being hungry." We'll leave on a four hour trip and she won't think that it might be a good idea to eat before leaving.

Let's just say that it took a while before I made the connection from "wow, we have most of our fights in the car" to two things: my getting annoyed with other drivers and misplacing my aggression, and her getting peckish.

As for shirts, it's the same sort of choice as hiring a housekeeper. The housekeeper time/value is a lot easier, though, as cleaning the house is certainly more onerous than ironing shirts. :-)

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#149

Post by Mz »

ThomPete wrote: post #71
Eliezer wrote: post #29

Sitting next to another person while writing increases my writing productivity by at least 400%. In retrospect it took me way too long to break down and try this. My shot at immortality costs me $120/year for membership in the Cryonics Institute and $170/year for $250K of 10-year term life insurance of which $50K goes to CI. I lost 20 pounds on Seth Roberts's fixed-point diet (aka the "Shangri-La diet") and gained 10…

Open relationships sounds good on paper but only works as long as you are not actually in love.

In support of your point, a logical analysis that is relevant to why open relationships really don't work if you are talking about serious intimacy and not just screwing around casually:

http://www.novemberwest.com/blog/?p=5

Disclaimer: I wrote it. Yes, it's my site. Whatever.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best life hacks?

#150

Post by reeses »

kunjaan wrote: post #125
reeses wrote: post #106

* Pick an editor and stick with it. If it's EMACS, learn enough keybindings to be useful and learn elisp. Go through the phase where you run gnus for email and erc and all those silly add-ons. Get your .emacs up to 50-100k. Use that for a few years then throw it all away. Look for force multipliers/secret weapons: * Use an IDE. Yes, this contradicts the first point, but an IDE with intelligent context-based autocompl…

* Compound interest. Friend AND enemy. What does this mean?

I meant that it's your friend when you are saving money. Go ahead and play with different numbers in one of those 401(k) calculators.[1] Basically, you deposit the interest from previous years' deposits with your current year. In just a few years, you're depositing quite a bit.

It's an enemy when you borrow money, say with a credit card. Just the opposite of saving, you borrow the previous interest every month. You're paying interest on interest. If you have trouble disciplining yourself, get and use a charge card (such as most traditional American Express cards) that forces you to pay off the balance each month.

[1] This is the first Google hit, no affiliation or endorsement: http://www.money-zine.com/Calculators/Retirement-Calculators...

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