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Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#141

Post by pmarreck »

cozuya wrote: post #128
Insanity wrote: post #12

Write down what I'm going to do. It happens that I can't really 'start' with work due to having too many things to choose from, or by not knowing how to really get started with it. What always helps is writing down on a piece of paper a step by step guide of what I will do. this can be very general. But just having the steps written down helps me get started. Kind of like a "todo list" except that I don't update it w…

I would add to write done where you are when you are done for the day or switch to something else. I have an incredibly hard time picking up where I left off without something like this as apparently I'm able to compartmentalize more easily than some of my peers.

Some mornings it's just hard to get started.

A trick I use is to start something "easy" towards the end of the day, but not finish it. That makes it easier to get the ball rolling the next morning.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#142

Post by mkio »

insickness wrote: post #29
mkio wrote: post #17

I just started using a todo app, instead of the note app i used for years. Now i can give each thing i think of a priority and a deadline. I sort my todos by priority and make sure i get the important things done, before anything else. I start the day, by choosing which todos i want to get done today and then i work my way through the list in no particular order.

The problem with only using a todo list is that you mainly prioritize tasks instead of projects. I use a todo list app (ticktick) in combination with a word doc that contains all my major projects. I sort the major projects by importance and time sensitivity. That helps me stay focused on the big picture. From there, I sort my todo list based on importance and time sensitivity.

I use todoist (free plan) which lets you assign todos to different projects.

If i wanted to give each project a priority as well, i would probably just add a number to the project's name.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#143

Post by xbryanx »

There's a deceptively simple breathing exercise that helps me in almost any moment of stress or important thinking. Just observe my breathing. Don't try to change it, just focus inward and notice what is happening as I breathe. It's amazing how much this can calm my mind or focus my thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#144

Post by zimpenfish »

irchans wrote: post #91

I have used a particular method that I first learned from Tony Robbins for making decisions. I've been using it for 10 years, but I recently saw an article about it in the NYT. "How to Make a Big Decision" - The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/opinion/sunday/how-make-b... (Mostly, you figure out what values affect your decision, rank the values, create a matrix with each row corresponding to a possi…

I saw a "how do you make a good pick from an unknown selection?" article a couple of decades ago in the Observer which basically boiled down to "Always reject the first item; then pick the one which isn't glaringly worse."

Seems reasonably sound, statistically, based off some Monte Carlo simulations I did.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#146

Post by myself248 »

When dealing with clutter, I pick up an object and go "where should I put this?", and of course this doesn't work, because if I knew that, I would've put it there in the first place. It's clutter because I didn't have an answer.

So instead, I say "Where should this be a year from now?"

For some reason, this elicits entirely different answers. It cuts through the paralysis and imagines a future where the needful has been done.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#147

Post by whitepoplar »

n00bdude wrote: post #69

I use earplugs when doing work in any environment that's not quiet. What's nice about earplugs is (1) it cuts off only a 'layer' of sound that I find inhibits focus and (2) your hearing adjusts; you can still hear virtually everything happening around you. Being in the city, I find myself actually sporting earplugs virtually everywhere I go .. There's just soo much noise.

Which earplugs do you use? I find that my ears get very irritated using earplugs for extended periods.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#148

Post by keabel4 »

Simulacra wrote: post #2

Two things: I use brown/white noise a lot to quiet my ADHD and general mental chaos. Whenever possible I steal myself away and just bask in the low, dull roar of the noise in some earbuds. The other, cannabis.

+1 to brown/white noise. As much as I love listening to music, glorified static calms down my brain while I work. It's also great for quieting down the office... no cubicle wall is high or thick enough to drown out the guy with bronchitis who won't work from home OR the other guy who conducts remote trainings from his desk.

Whew, that got specific.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#149

Post by taormina »

asveikau wrote: post #138

> Artificial deadlines Artificial deadlines has always been my go-to phrase to describe a situation where people try to hold to a deadline that isn't reality-based. Everyone stresses about a fake deadline that won't be hit and won't matter and burns out. The deadline should if at all possible move with actual status and nature of the work. So your boss giving themselves a fake deadline and deciding things in the last…

Totally agreed on the fake deadline front.

Have you ever been torn between two options and left it up to a coin flip? Only to find that mid-air, you realize which one you really wanted it to be, without even necessarily checking the coin? In the "last five minutes thing", I think the broader point there is that, A) you will need to make an actual decision, and that B) you can wallow about being indecisive for as long as you willing to let yourself. That last point feels more about deciding to make a decision to avoid prolonging B indefinitely.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “brain hacks” that help you manage everyday situations?

#150

Post by wtracy »

orwin wrote: post #67
option_greek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having never tried it, I'm curious, isn't there a chance that it turns into an addiction ?

My sister used to be an almost daily user for 3 years, and augmented consomption again after a rape (2 joint a day when she started living at my place). Still, after a year, familly support, a diploma, a great job, a non-abusive boyfriend and now an appartment, she is "clean" since early november, after her first try at stopping. I'm pretty sure she'll smoke again on some weekends or for new year eve, but it will be…

That reinforces my suspicion that taking even mildly psychoactive substances (pot, alcohol) when you are depressed or "in a funk" is generally a bad idea. Those are the times when substance abuse is most likely to rear its ugly head.

If you possibly can, limit your use of those substances to the "good times": celebrating accomplishments, or winding down after a long successful day.

That's my two cents; I'm open to hearing other opinions.

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