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Why I wear the same shirt every day

waxman.me

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Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#51

Post by majormajor »

suyash wrote: post #37
suyash wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't Steve Jobs. - So what, who says he can't emulate Steve Jobs?

I say it. People don't like emulations of other people, especially if the "emulators" consider some superficial thing like this part of their success. - I call that BS. That is your small thinking and so you should limit yourself to it. I say go emulate successful people and do what you want to do.

This is cargo cultism. Aping dress habits isn't going to imbue you with the attributes that led to success for Jobs.

The lesson a would-be successful person should learn from Jobs is to focus on what's essential. If you become so distracted with trying to copy minor habits, you've missed the point. And Steve Jobs was successful far before he started wearing the same thing all the time, anyway.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#52

Post by lotharbot »

batista wrote: post #36
lotharbot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so much "saving 10 seconds" as it is "avoiding cognitive context switching". If you happen to be thinking about something important, you don't want to interrupt that thought process to look through your clothes and decide what to wear, or what to have for breakfast, or which car to drive, or any number of other trivial decisions. If you can replace those with automatic non-decisions ("take the top shirt out…

> It's not so much "saving 10 seconds" as it is "avoiding cognitive context switching". Humanity FAIL. As if you have some very crucial things to decide on the 15 minutes you spend waking up, dressing, shaving and such... What "context switch"? You are not an OS, and you are not even fully awake, heck you're not even awake before coffee, much less just after you woke up.

> "As if you have some very crucial things to decide on the 15 minutes you spend waking up, dressing, shaving and such..."

I'm a stay-at-home dad. I very often wake up thinking about how to approach my son's disability, and I'm glad that I don't have to deal with interruptions to my thought process for something as pointless as "which shirt should I wear today". I just pull the top shirt off the pile and keep thinking about my son.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some very important playing-with-blocks to do. Humanity WIN.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#53

Post by orthecreedence »

I wear the same clothes every day because I don't really interface with the public that much and because I've been doing it since I was a little kid. I got made fun of it a lot in school but sooner or later people came to accept it. If you ask me now why I did it back then, I wouldn't know (or at least I didn't think about it enough to think about "why," I just did it).

If you asked me now though, I'd say that aside from appeasing societal norms, there's no point in changing your outer shell incessantly. Clothes don't really get that dirty after a day or two of normal wear, and changing them all the time seems pointless to me. While some people may brand this as unhygienic, I respectfully disagree. I also don't care if other people want to change their clothes every day, I just don't care to do it myself.

That said, there was a lot more to Steve Jobs than his clothing and habits. I don't suggest anybody change their behavior to emulate him, especially on what I consider a weak argument. If you want to wear the same shirt every day, do it for your own reasons, not because of some conjecture you have on what statement Jobs was trying to make.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#55

Post by zmmz »

cstavish wrote: post #7

Svbtle describes itself as an "invite-only network of people who strive to produce great content." This post is hardly the product of any such striving. Sure, it's a nice little tidbit, but Michael Waxman could have easily conveyed the same message shy of 140 characters.

An invite-only network that you can apply to[1]. Those two things don't make sense together.

[1]: https://svbtle.com/apply

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#57

Post by g123g »

I have got an idea from this discussion. What about an app which suggests what to wear on a given day? You somehow scan all your clothes into it and then it decides based on the weather, what you wore yesterday, your schedule etc. what is the best fit for the day.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#58

Post by noonespecial »

Always Jobs? Einstein often wore the same thing, even rumored to have several copies of the same outfit. Cornel West has been regularly doing this for 40 years. Jobs was hardly unique, and certainly not first. The only thing Jobs seemed to add is what he always did, elevate it to an obsessive compulsion.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#59

Post by slantyyz »

lotharbot wrote: post #11
kristofferR wrote: post #6

I'd like to see a life so absurdly optimized for productivity that the maximum 10 seconds you save every morning by not having to decide what to wear is worth even mentioning. The next post will probably be about opening doors more effectively, like Kramer, to save a couple of seconds off the time spent opening doors each day.

It's not so much "saving 10 seconds" as it is "avoiding cognitive context switching". If you happen to be thinking about something important, you don't want to interrupt that thought process to look through your clothes and decide what to wear, or what to have for breakfast, or which car to drive, or any number of other trivial decisions. If you can replace those with automatic non-decisions ("take the top shirt out…

>> It's not so much "saving 10 seconds" as it is "avoiding cognitive context switching".

Why don't we just say what it really is - "I can't be bothered to spend time picking out what to wear".

And there's really nothing wrong with that either. Fashion is a priority for some, and for others, not at all.

What I don't get is why this choice needs to be characterized as a life hack or optimization.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#60

Post by coliveira »

Despite being a great business person, many of Steve Job ideas were just plain stupid (like for most other human beings). What is funny as that people seem to think in hindsight that even his stupid ideas are great. Don't be a victim of this disease: there is no good reason for wearing the same cloths every day, whatever somebody else have told you.
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