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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

#61

Post by juiceandjuice »

I wear mostly the same clothes every day. I have a bunch of plain t-shirts in various colors (mostly shades of gray, but colors too), a few band t-shirts I wear occasionally. 4 slightly different colored pairs of levis, and either navy/red or black/blue shoes. Other than that, a black hoodie and a denim jacket over that if the weather is cool (usually at night). I've got a bunch of button up t-shirts I'll wear for a night out and occasionally at work.

It's simple, clean and standardized, but I can still look different everyday. I can pull an alternate when the time is appropriate and dress up nicer, like for a date. Most importantly it's unoffending to the eye.

A google/grouper/conference t-shirt is offending to the eye. I tend to have a whole lot of preconceived notions when I see someone wear those shirts, usually it's related to their lack of a social life.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#62

Post by leviathant »

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.

Mr. Artesians's Conscientiousness by Ogden Nash

Once there was a man named Mr. Artesian and his activity was tremendous, And he grudged every minute away from his desk because the importance of his work was so stupendous;

And he had one object all sublime, Which was to save simply oodles of time.

He figured that sleeping eight hours a night meant that if he lived to be seventy-five he would have spent twenty-five years not at his desk but in bed, So he cut his slumber to six hours which meant he only lost eighteen years and nine months instead,

And he figured that taking ten minutes for breakfast and twenty minutes for luncheon and half an hour for dinner meant that he spent three years, two months and fifteen days at the table, So that by subsisting solely on bouillon cubes which he swallowed at his desk to save this entire period he was able,

And he figured that at ten minutes a day he spent a little over six months and ten days shaving, So he grew a beard, which gave him a considerable saving,

And you might think that now he might have been satisfied, but no, he wore a thoughtful frown, Because he figured that at two minutes a day he would spend thirty-eight days and a few minutes in elevators just travelling up and down,

So as a final time saving device he stepped out the window of his office, which happened to be on the fiftieth floor, And one of his partners asked "Has he vertigo?" and the other glanced out and down and said "Oh no, only about ten feet more."

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#63

Post by B-Con »

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.

10 seconds here, 10 seconds there, before you know it you're talking about... I dunno... a minute or so. Can you seriously afford to waste that kind of time?

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#64

Post by harscoat »

freshhawk wrote: post #10

You aren't Steve Jobs. I would give the opposite advice. The easiest thing you can do to make people like you more, trust you more and respect your opinion more is to dress well and appropriately. Job's outfit and Zuckerberg's hoodies work the same way (whether that was the intention or not, I think not). The same part of human brains that stupidly subconsciously judges people by the way they are dressed is doing the…

This habit is on DidThis action wiki (with other ref. links): https://www.didthis.com/same%20clothes%20every%20day and yes I practice it for my own startup regularly. SoundCloud Alexander Ljung CEO CoFounder was wearing over and over his black leather jacket with SoundCloud logo on it. He did not try to be Steve Jobs, he was showing his total determination to make his company big.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#65

Post by greedo »

kayoone wrote: post #18
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…

oh lord..what about trying to be human for atleast some moments of the day instead of behaving like a production robot ? I bet we have to face hundreds if not thousands of those trivial decisions each day and most arent reoccurring all the time so you cant automate them...

My definition of being rich is being able to spend an inordinate amount of time making these trivial decisions.

I watch my daughters when they go to a local candy store, and they savor making their choices. They literally have hundreds of different items to choose from.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#66

Post by jhuckestein »

Strage reaction here. I'd assume that the thought of dressing the same every day has at least crossed most people's minds on HN. It's an engineer's (lazy man's?) solution to a common problem. For me that problem has more to do with clothes management and what to do when your favorite outfit isn't available than with the paradox of choice.

As for what to wear, if you're in a startup you should wear your logo as much as possible; asshole or not.

Pro tip for people who have trouble finding matching socks in the morning:

1. Donate all your socks to charity

2. Buy a single pair of socks you really like many times

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#67

Post by mcguire »

scrrr wrote: post #32
freshhawk wrote: post #10

You aren't Steve Jobs. I would give the opposite advice. The easiest thing you can do to make people like you more, trust you more and respect your opinion more is to dress well and appropriately. Job's outfit and Zuckerberg's hoodies work the same way (whether that was the intention or not, I think not). The same part of human brains that stupidly subconsciously judges people by the way they are dressed is doing the…

I have found a shirt that fits me perfectly so I bought a couple more of these. As long as it's a good fit, you enjoy wearing it, people don't scratch their heads looking at you, why not wear the same thing all the time? Of course not looking sloppy is important (hair, fingernails, showers, clean clothes, etc.), but other things are much much more important. Integrity, getting things done, an inspiring and/or knowled…

"why not wear the same thing all the time?"

Most of your fashion cohorts are cartoon characters?

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#68

Post by wookietrader »

scrrr wrote: post #32
freshhawk wrote: post #10

You aren't Steve Jobs. I would give the opposite advice. The easiest thing you can do to make people like you more, trust you more and respect your opinion more is to dress well and appropriately. Job's outfit and Zuckerberg's hoodies work the same way (whether that was the intention or not, I think not). The same part of human brains that stupidly subconsciously judges people by the way they are dressed is doing the…

I have found a shirt that fits me perfectly so I bought a couple more of these. As long as it's a good fit, you enjoy wearing it, people don't scratch their heads looking at you, why not wear the same thing all the time? Of course not looking sloppy is important (hair, fingernails, showers, clean clothes, etc.), but other things are much much more important. Integrity, getting things done, an inspiring and/or knowled…

> why not wear the same thing all the time?

Because it's not considered to be "normal". If you wear the same clothes every time, people will notice and think you are weird. You don't want people to think you are weird if you startup.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#69

Post by simon »

jhuckestein wrote: post #66

Strage reaction here. I'd assume that the thought of dressing the same every day has at least crossed most people's minds on HN. It's an engineer's (lazy man's?) solution to a common problem. For me that problem has more to do with clothes management and what to do when your favorite outfit isn't available than with the paradox of choice. As for what to wear, if you're in a startup you should wear your logo as much a…

Threw the old socks away, but I have about a dozen pair of tan socks (all the same), a dozen pair of the same style in dark brown and half a dozen of black dress socks. I have zero desire to be stylish in the sock department, so this greatly simplifies my life.

Re: Why I wear the same shirt every day

#70

Post by slantyyz »

latortuga wrote: post #43

"Startups are hard. Every little bit helps." Why talk about and wear a shirt for your startup and not even put a link to it? Nobody knows what your startup is, write for an audience that doesn't know you.

>> Nobody knows what your startup is,

That's the catch - for the shirt to be effective as advertising, people who see it need to know what it is.

In the absence of any previous knowledge of the startup, most people would simply assume that "Grouper" is a clothing company, or has something to do with fish products.

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