I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and learned how to tile a floor. I imagine if you do it consistently you can learn a lot of things.
Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
21–30 of 277 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#22* identifying when people are lying to you
* identifying weakness: embarrassment, offense, narcissism, intimidation, hostility (I am deliberately excluding fear from this list)
* writing
* personal finances/accounting
* product design: accessibility, usability, performance, engagement, organization (I am deliberately excluding vanity from this list)
* emergency car repair
* house maintenance
* horticulture
* accuracy with a rifle
* philosophy
* history
* homeopathy (plant chemistry kind, not the pseudo science kind)
* leadership
* listening
* benevolence
* maintaining a healthy marriage
* honesty
* automation
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#23Cooking (proper food not junk), growing your own food, personal finances, how to manage emotions, carpentry, welding, how to enjoy time by your own, languages (the more the better), how to do basic fixing of appliances (see RepairCaffe), learn the joy of not to stop learning, sleeping habits, health habits, be conscious what you want at work to be happy (depressed Manager or happy technician)... To be continued... ni…
Habits for Eating, Sleeping, Exercise, Finances (as we live in a capitalist system), Learning, Self Awareness.
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#24How to learn: if you learn well, you can acquire new skills more quickly and easily.
Some keys: be calm and stay in the beginner's mindset. If you're frustrated and reactionary, you will learn much less effectively. Be like a happy child, curious about new things, and be interested in self improvement always.
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#25How to handle your finances. I can't believe this basic lesson wasn't taught to me at all during my formative years, either by my parents or in school.
Not only how to handle them, but the theory behind finance, and how it works. What inflation is, what net present value is, what an "asset" is, how interest rates and compounding work.
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#26Here are some more ideas from a thread a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23757396
And another (posted by yours truly): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23758188
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#27Cooking (proper food not junk), growing your own food, personal finances, how to manage emotions, carpentry, welding, how to enjoy time by your own, languages (the more the better), how to do basic fixing of appliances (see RepairCaffe), learn the joy of not to stop learning, sleeping habits, health habits, be conscious what you want at work to be happy (depressed Manager or happy technician)... To be continued... ni…
How do you manage emotions? Do you have any tips?
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#28How to learn: if you learn well, you can acquire new skills more quickly and easily. Some keys: be calm and stay in the beginner's mindset. If you're frustrated and reactionary, you will learn much less effectively. Be like a happy child, curious about new things, and be interested in self improvement always.
Yeah this something i have been trying to improve. Taken Barbara Oakley's "Learning to learn" course and read the book(it is essentially the transcript of the book). It def help me better understand theory behind learning. On top of it i have been using Anki - spaced repetition tool - to solidify what i learned.
Having a knowledge repo or a collection of notes that are written with your own words helps immensely as well.
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#29How to handle your finances. I can't believe this basic lesson wasn't taught to me at all during my formative years, either by my parents or in school.
I admit I could be mistaken, but often when I hear people complain that they wish they had been taught to handle their finances or learned about budgeting, it reduces down to "I wish I had been taught not to spend outside my means." Which reduces down further to "I wish I had been taught self-control." To me, the fundamentals have always seemed relatively straightforward: don't spend more than you have, and only take credit or a loan if you have a plan for paying it back on time.
I was raised by parents with limited education, one of whom was an immigrant, and so I was largely on my own when figuring out the minutia of opening a bank account, getting a credit card, saving up for emergencies, etc. But the general lesson of "don't spend more than you have" was imparted. It seems like a pretty obvious thing, but I guess if your parents or guardians are setting bad examples in that regard, it might not be as obvious as it appears to me.
Re: Ask HN: What are good life skills for people to learn?
#30Probably the most important skill people are skipping is etiquette. Which I think says a lot about HN.
Communication (texting, listening, etc), maintaining and creating relationships, avoiding injury, relaxation, exercise, cooking, healthy eating, self defense, first aid, swimming, types of reading (fun, searching, learning), searching, separating truth from fiction, knowing when to seek help, a hobby, cleaning, maintenance, organization, managing money, taxes, investing, personal grooming, shopping, transportation (public transit, biking, driving etc.), reading a map, looking for work, putting something together from instructions.
PS: Maintaining physical and mental heath is not really a specific skill, but much of the above falls under that category.