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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?

#161

Post by todd3834 »

Those are great hacks. Thanks for sharing. I have a few hacks of my own that are more about food and health:

1. Don’t abuse caffeine. I stopped drinking coffee and soda but instead I’ll have some dark chocolate when I need a pick me up. 80%+ and only break off a couple pieces. I also mix in cacao nibs into breakfast often.

2. I try to incoroporate blueberries into a lot of my breakfast. Not sure how affective it is but the flavonoids are supposed to be beneficial for brain function.

3. Avoid added sugar and keep simple carbs down on days I’m working.

4. Get at least 30min-1hr of intense exercise in every day

When I stick to the plan I feel like I’m operating at my best. I’m not insanely strict about this and on the weekend I throw out most of the rules. Except for abusing caffeine and the exercise requirement because cheating on those seem to affect the weekdays even if broken on the weekend.

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

#163

Post by triplenineteen »

1auralynn wrote: post #136
bsaul wrote: post #9

1/ Whenever you can’t motivate yourself to start working on something, think about the smallest thing you can perform and make it your only goal for the day. It can be something as simple as « open the ide and compile the project once ». The trick is that after that first step you will naturally begin to do some real work, because the movement started. 2/ when learning a new skill or trying to improve , focus on one…

I recently started making to do lists that only include things I know I can ABSOLUTELY get done today, and I only make them in the morning. It includes a lot of things like "take a look at feature X"

At one point, I was making todo lists that included:

- things so easy they were guaranteed to be completed - things that I may or may not complete - things so impossible they were guaranteed NOT to be completed

This meant that every day I would defininitely finish some but not all of my list. This helped with getting started and also not beating myself up about the things I didn't accomplish.

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

#164

Post by tixocloud »

cdicelico wrote: post #78

My top 3, in order of how I try to apply them (i.e., if 1 doesn't help, move on to 2, etc.). I learned these all from reading various philosophy works, by the way, so perhaps cognitive hack #1 should be "read books". 1) Suspension of judgement (from Sextus Empiricus, Zhuang Zi, Ecclesiastes): avoid forming an opinion at all about things that are not evident. The way I do this is by thinking through an opposing argume…

Incredibly big fan and user of #2 so would be keen to explore #1.

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

#165

Post by dctoedt »

pmarreck wrote: post #126
cdicelico wrote: post #78

My top 3, in order of how I try to apply them (i.e., if 1 doesn't help, move on to 2, etc.). I learned these all from reading various philosophy works, by the way, so perhaps cognitive hack #1 should be "read books". 1) Suspension of judgement (from Sextus Empiricus, Zhuang Zi, Ecclesiastes): avoid forming an opinion at all about things that are not evident. The way I do this is by thinking through an opposing argume…

At the risk of substituting books with URL's... Do you have any to any of these concepts? For example I just tried googling "eikasia, pistis, dianoia, episteme, techne, phronesis, noesis" and I didn't, eh, come up with something precise enough to read. EDIT: Someone down in the thread did the kindness already!

> At the risk of substituting books with URL's

It's substituting URLs for books — either that or replacing books with URLs. [0] This might seem pedantic, and I know that language evolves, but:

1. We risk confusing, and therefore we disserve, non-native speakers if we use the language in ways opposite the accepted standard meanings. (One could think of language as an API, and no matter what the API, precision and accuracy often matter.)

2. Like it or not, the brute fact is that people who use language in non-standard ways are often judged harshly — and silently — for it. One can rail against that, or one can shrug one's shoulders and simply conform to standard usages, at least in public- and quasi-public forums. (In other words: Pick your battles.)

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/substitute

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

#166

Post by goo »

From my notes file about "decisions":

"You've got to keep making decisions, even if they're wrong decisions. If you don't make decisions you're stuffed" - Joe Simpson, (Touching the Void)

Making a good decision quickly is often better than any other option -- waiting too long may make all options worse.

Make decisions based on clear goals, and attempt to record the reason for making a decision at the time of decisionmaking

Always consider opportunity cost.

Always take individual incentives into account.

Be open-minded, give ample room to disprove your preconceptions.

Take into account your cognitive biases when you can, and reduce them as much as possible - loss aversion - sunk cost - inclination to maintain status quo - avoiding ambiguous options - tendency to do things based on many others doing the same

Consider others' feelings, and how their feelings will affect you and others.

Do not assume optimal future behavior of participants, especially yourself. - do not overcommit your future time.

Do not assume poor future behavior of participants, especially yourself - especially when depressed, it is easy to be pessimistic about your future behavior

Do not seek information when it will not affect action

Avoid over-relying on familiar tools and methods - consider and value alternate approaches - "If all you have is a hammer..."

Avoid overconfidence

Just because someone is in conflict with you doesn't mean their idea isn't good

Do not give disproportionate weight to trivial issues: - "bikeshedding"

Orient towards reality - establish a baseline understand of reality before moving toward solutions

Learn, THEN decide. - am I done learning? - have I learned enough to make a decision?

Consider postponing decisions until the last possible moment - at which point you will have the most information with which to make the decision

Consider doing the simplest thing that could possibly work

When encountering hard problems, dissolve them into smaller pieces and identify the success criteria, immediately, before trying to generate solutions.

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

#167

Post by tixocloud »

To overcome mental challenges, I spend time chanting and self-reflection formed by studying Buddhism and other various philosophical literature.

The chanting and self-reflection consists of spending time to explore the true purpose of my life and the reasons potentially why I am this particular juncture making this particular decision. It then comes back to spending time thinking about which decision will I regret the most/least if I had been looking back from 20 years forward. And then I think about whether it aligns with my values and ultimate goal in life perceived from the awareness that we will life and death are inescapable truths of my present existence.

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

#168

Post by mongol »

lcfcjs2 wrote: post #118
antirez wrote: post #117

My hacks: * Productivity: every day do at least one measurable thing that puts forward your project, even if very small. * Expectations: don't care about the outcome of your work, as long as you tried to put a lot of good efforts into it. Focus on trying to do the thing instead of focusing on the result it will have, or what people will think. * Stress: instead of being preoccupied about things, try to take care of t…

I like the idea of this: Productivity: every day do at least one measurable thing that puts forward your project, even if very small. But a bit confused on the "measurable" piece, if you write code, make a new feature or fix a bug, how can it be measurable?

It is measurable in that you can show it and somehow "count" it. Compare with a day if you just discussed back and forth what you should do or how to do it. If there is nothing concrete to show for it, it is not measurable. At least take notes in that case.

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

#169

Post by ganzuul »

Technical issues don't seem to require as much strategizing as people-issues, so from that category here are a few of my top ones:

- A person as you imagine them is likely completely different in truth. Since it is less work to imagine optimistic things about them, unrealistically high expectations can be a viable strategy since people seem to gravitate towards expectation and you are left with more energy to deal with real instead of perceived issues.

- If you find yourself having negative thoughts about someone, find a way to account for their perceived misdeeds as circumstance, so that you may direct your mind back towards creative solutions to your common problems as soon as possible.

- You don't need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Even a small, net positive influence can be enough. Cultivate a sense for where your responsibilities begin and where they end.

Regular meals and stable blood-sugar is important for dealing with people. The self is a thin veneer over a strange and fickle animal. Do not forget that we are a planet of apes.

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