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Advice that worked for me

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Re: Advice that worked for me

#31

Post by thot_experiment »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #26
a_c wrote: post #24

I used to be a night person. One day I realized there are only 24 hrs in a day. There is no "getting more hours" at night. Then I became a morning person gradually where I get most of my coding done before anyone wake up.

This comment makes no sense unless you're trying to say you wasted hours in the morning and couldn't shift your schedule to wake up later in a fancy way.

Naw, many night people are night people because you can always stay up another hour but you can't have woken up an hour earlier in response to things happening during a day. I think that's what gp is getting at.

Re: Advice that worked for me

#32

Post by crosen99 »

Nifty article. My advice on reading advice articles: don’t think of the content as recommendations. Think of the content as considerations and decide for yourself if applicable to your life/circumstance.

Re: Advice that worked for me

#33

Post by swyx »

> 5. Get in the habit of Fermi estimation, looking up key quantities, and using upper and lower bounds.

i cannot agree with this enough. there are so many people in my life (work and nonwork) that make vague statements (whether about proportions, predictions, or population) that are more directional than precise. this leads you to commit to actions than you then later backrationalize.

forcing yourself to make fermi estimates and upper/lower bounds helps you understand when your assumptions are wrong and change on a dime, avoiding sunk cost/commitment fallacy. but people are very uncomfortable when you make them put confidence intervals around their predictions.

Re: Advice that worked for me

#34

Post by Havoc »

The first point on mental energy seems like its only true for an initial period. Or put differently if you've been doing tricky mental work all day it is definitely exhausting & takes on tank like properties. Still good advice overall though

Re: Advice that worked for me

#35

Post by aboutphase »

crosen99 wrote: post #32

Nifty article. My advice on reading advice articles: don’t think of the content as recommendations. Think of the content as considerations and decide for yourself if applicable to your life/circumstance.

And ideally write advice articles with this understanding, as well, which this author seemed to do.

Re: Advice that worked for me

#36

Post by VBprogrammer »

bruce511 wrote: post #7

I like that your title explicitly calls out "worked for me." Generally speaking, when it comes to advice, context is ever important. In one context advice may be spot on, but your context may not be my context and that can matter. For example I often hear good advice about useing SQL. A lot of it is contradictory, which can be confusing. But it turns out that the "right thing to do" is enormously affected by context…

> For example I don't use an alarm clock on a day to day basis. I let myself sleep till I wake up. That works because I have no morning commitments or responsibilities and flexible work hours. It only works because of my context. Clearly it's useless advice to most people.

As someone who's 3 year old wakes up and dives into bed next to us somewhere around 6-7am. About 3 hours after the 2 month old has woken for a feed I'm very jealous!

Re: Advice that worked for me

#37

Post by a_c »

thot_experiment wrote: post #31
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes no sense unless you're trying to say you wasted hours in the morning and couldn't shift your schedule to wake up later in a fancy way.

Naw, many night people are night people because you can always stay up another hour but you can't have woken up an hour earlier in response to things happening during a day. I think that's what gp is getting at.

Thanks for clarifying :)

Re: Advice that worked for me

#38

Post by sarsway »

gloryjulio wrote: post #4

'The don't sleep too much and reduce to 7h' is such a horrible take. It really depends on the ppl. It's possible to do all the positive things (having great wlb, workout regularly, eat the healthiest food) and some ppl just need to sleep 8-9 hours. This is self help's guru level of advice

In my experience: Sleep as much as you can. Most probably don't have the luxury, but best is to not use alarm clocks. Your body knows exactly how much sleep it wants and needs, and your thinking brain has no business coming up with arbitrary hours of how long that should be.

Re: Advice that worked for me

#39

Post by langsoul-com »

Advice that worked for me:

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

Extremes fuck up a lot of shit, to the point of causing irreversible damage. Drinking is fine, but 10 beers a day? Yeah nah and so the list goes on.

Re: Advice that worked for me

#40

Post by seb1204 »

gloryjulio wrote: post #12
jayeshhere wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbf OP did mentioned it varies from genetics to genetics. 7-7.5 hrs is actually good spot. Mostly 8 hrs is recommended. For me 6 hrs is enough, but it also depends upon the work you are doing in your day to day life.

The goal is just plain wrong. You don't optimize to shorten ur sleep, u optimize to improve ur sleep and rest pattern which might happen to shorten ur sleep. > 7-7.5 hrs is actually good spot. Mostly 8 hrs is recommended. That is correct. The goal is to find ur best. Not defining a number and going backwards to justify it. Glorifying sleeplessness is extremely bad. The author might be in sleep debt himself. Also we n…

My sleep sweet spot is also around 7-7:30 hours. I am typically a good sleeper as in don't wake up etc. On days where I sleep more or lay I I often feel less energetic. Then there are also the cases when I go to bed early and wake up early by myself 'ready to go'.

I also like the suggestion to do the important thing first in the morning. So far I have not found a way to get around the morning chores, lunch prep, kids, dog etc. I know the theory (pre prepare, do it fast, be organised) but doing it is something I need to work on.

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