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1. Good diet, exercise, and generally taking care of my health. Seriously, this should be the top priority, if you know that you're being stupid about how you t

by rayalez 10y ago

1. Good diet, exercise, and generally taking care of my health. Seriously, this should be the top priority, if you know that you're being stupid about how you treat your body - fix it as soon as possible. 2. Writing regularly(fiction or nonfiction). I think it's one of the most awesome skills you can develop, and the younger you are when you start practicing - the easier it will be. Just create a blog, and try to regularly post something valuable there. It's truly awesome, in so many ways, and the longer you keep doing it - the more awesome it gets. 3. Reading and information diet. Trying to minimize inane internet browsing, news, social media, and maximize the healthy information that I consume. Audiobooks are the best thing ever. Enjoyable and satisfying to listen to, and incredibly valuable. Just get in a habit of reading/listening, and you will soon learn a massive amount of great information.

econner 10y ago
Regarding #3 do you have designated times that you read, etc? I find that I end up spending a lot of little chunks on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and HN when something is compiling or deploying or starting to run. I keep saying I'm going to stop checking all of these inane things, but I always fall back into it with these 5 min chunks where it would be hard to do something else.
- rayalez 10y ago
  HN has a fantastic no-procrastination mode(enabled in settings), it locks you out after 20 minutes of browsing, for the next 3 hours, it really helps. Since I don't feel like fb/twitter are adding anything to my life, I just blocked them in my router. I still end up there occassionally, but it's not an addiction. I still do spend too much time on reddit, but I'm trying avoid it as well. I'm getting better at it, but slowly. It's mostly a matter of my brain gradually comprehending that it's a pretty joyless activity that adds very little to my life. I don't have a designated time for reading, I'm just trying to avoid the "bad" kinds of information, and since my brain keeps craving it, audiobooks end up being the best way to satisfy it.
  - econner 10y ago
    Thanks these are great ideas.
- rashkov 10y ago
  I've found that logging off of Twitter and Facebook make a difference for me. My password is in a password manager so that adds yet another step. Anything to break the "muscle memory" and habit of reaching for a procrastination fix.
  - econner 10y ago
    Yea, good ideas definitely. I try this but I end up reading the twitter home page, lol. Maybe I will try blocking them using /etc/hosts
sputknick 10y ago
I like them all, I just recently figured out #2. I will add: writing about what you are doing/learning is a great test of weather or not you ACTUALLY understand it. Can you communicate it in an intelligent manner? No? Go back and figure out what you don't know.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I sometimes feel like I spent half of my working time writing down notes. I find having a buffer opened to write my thoughts down to be helpful in maintaining focus. At this point I'm often unable to get through some harder tasks at work without doing that. That said, I still haven't figured out whether I've found a way to focus better, or whether I handicapped myself by unlearning the ability to think without writing things down.
33W 10y ago
To point 3, I've built a playlist of podcasts that I enjoy. A good way to stay up to date on current events and get different points of view.
- iyn 10y ago
  Maybe you could share the playlist you created? If anybody has suggestions about good podcast, please share them :)
  - 33W 10y ago
    I used to have more, but have dropped a bunch to keep it sustainiable. Broken into financial and non-financial ones from another thread: Listing my financial ones: Marketplace Marketplace weekend Radical Personal Finance Slate Money Freakonomics Planet Money Non-financial ones: Parent Savers Intelligence Squared Intelligence Squared US HBR Ideacast Happier Serial Common Sense with Dan Carlin Dan Carlin's Hardcore History NPR Politics The Economist Radio Stuff You should Know 99% Invisible
  - rayalez 10y ago
    My favorite podcast is Harmontown. It is an incredibly brilliant improv comedy by Dan Harmon(creator of the tv shows Community and Rick and Morty). This guy is a genius, I highly recommend to listen to this show.
  - bckmn 10y ago
    I maintain a list of my past, present, and future podcast subscriptions on my personal site: http://www.andjosh.com/lists/podcast/ http://www.andjosh.com/lists/podcast/ Hope it helps.
- bckmn 10y ago
  If you like listening to your news instead of reading it, you would probably like something I've been working on: https://narro.co https://narro.co
  - 33W 10y ago
neurocroc 10y ago
I wrote a little piece (http://www.nikitavoloboev.xyz/post/news/ http://www.nikitavoloboev.xyz/post/news/) on my approach to reading and information diet. The way I do it is just by blocking all the websites that I tend to lose my focus on and have only two times in the day when I can visit these sites to get all the information I need. p.s. it's really strange that hacker news doesn't support sharing of markdown links :(
- LA_Banker 10y ago
  This is really great. I use the Pomodoro Method and only check distracting sites in between, but maybe I need to be even stricter and limit it to 2x/day (considering I'm wasting time right now).
  - tertius 10y ago
    I think I'm in the same boat. Maybe you need to pick better rewards for your breaks. I've really been trying to focus on rewards that are better for long term than short. Getting a dopamine rush is definitely short and without much benefit, it's an addiction... I personally prefer cold turkey, but it's hard. It's probably better to pick something in between. I.e. something that you can see fairly quick results to. I.e. browsing reddit gives you extremely quick results. Maybe learning a skill like cooking or writing and tracking progress.

by rayalez 10y ago

econner 10y ago

Regarding #3 do you have designated times that you read, etc? I find that I end up spending a lot of little chunks on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and HN when something is compiling or deploying or starting to run. I keep saying I'm going to stop checking all of these inane things, but I always fall back into it with these 5 min chunks where it would be hard to do something else.

rayalez 10y ago
HN has a fantastic no-procrastination mode(enabled in settings), it locks you out after 20 minutes of browsing, for the next 3 hours, it really helps. Since I don't feel like fb/twitter are adding anything to my life, I just blocked them in my router. I still end up there occassionally, but it's not an addiction. I still do spend too much time on reddit, but I'm trying avoid it as well. I'm getting better at it, but slowly. It's mostly a matter of my brain gradually comprehending that it's a pretty joyless activity that adds very little to my life. I don't have a designated time for reading, I'm just trying to avoid the "bad" kinds of information, and since my brain keeps craving it, audiobooks end up being the best way to satisfy it.
- econner 10y ago
  Thanks these are great ideas.
rashkov 10y ago
I've found that logging off of Twitter and Facebook make a difference for me. My password is in a password manager so that adds yet another step. Anything to break the "muscle memory" and habit of reaching for a procrastination fix.
- econner 10y ago
  Yea, good ideas definitely. I try this but I end up reading the twitter home page, lol. Maybe I will try blocking them using /etc/hosts

sputknick 10y ago

I like them all, I just recently figured out #2. I will add: writing about what you are doing/learning is a great test of weather or not you ACTUALLY understand it. Can you communicate it in an intelligent manner? No? Go back and figure out what you don't know.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
I sometimes feel like I spent half of my working time writing down notes. I find having a buffer opened to write my thoughts down to be helpful in maintaining focus. At this point I'm often unable to get through some harder tasks at work without doing that. That said, I still haven't figured out whether I've found a way to focus better, or whether I handicapped myself by unlearning the ability to think without writing things down.

33W 10y ago

To point 3, I've built a playlist of podcasts that I enjoy. A good way to stay up to date on current events and get different points of view.

iyn 10y ago
Maybe you could share the playlist you created? If anybody has suggestions about good podcast, please share them :)
- 33W 10y ago
  I used to have more, but have dropped a bunch to keep it sustainiable. Broken into financial and non-financial ones from another thread: Listing my financial ones: Marketplace Marketplace weekend Radical Personal Finance Slate Money Freakonomics Planet Money Non-financial ones: Parent Savers Intelligence Squared Intelligence Squared US HBR Ideacast Happier Serial Common Sense with Dan Carlin Dan Carlin's Hardcore History NPR Politics The Economist Radio Stuff You should Know 99% Invisible
- rayalez 10y ago
  My favorite podcast is Harmontown. It is an incredibly brilliant improv comedy by Dan Harmon(creator of the tv shows Community and Rick and Morty). This guy is a genius, I highly recommend to listen to this show.
- bckmn 10y ago
  I maintain a list of my past, present, and future podcast subscriptions on my personal site: http://www.andjosh.com/lists/podcast/ http://www.andjosh.com/lists/podcast/ Hope it helps.
bckmn 10y ago
If you like listening to your news instead of reading it, you would probably like something I've been working on: https://narro.co https://narro.co
- 33W 10y ago

neurocroc 10y ago

I wrote a little piece (http://www.nikitavoloboev.xyz/post/news/ http://www.nikitavoloboev.xyz/post/news/) on my approach to reading and information diet. The way I do it is just by blocking all the websites that I tend to lose my focus on and have only two times in the day when I can visit these sites to get all the information I need. p.s. it's really strange that hacker news doesn't support sharing of markdown links :(

LA_Banker 10y ago
This is really great. I use the Pomodoro Method and only check distracting sites in between, but maybe I need to be even stricter and limit it to 2x/day (considering I'm wasting time right now).
- tertius 10y ago
  I think I'm in the same boat. Maybe you need to pick better rewards for your breaks. I've really been trying to focus on rewards that are better for long term than short. Getting a dopamine rush is definitely short and without much benefit, it's an addiction... I personally prefer cold turkey, but it's hard. It's probably better to pick something in between. I.e. something that you can see fairly quick results to. I.e. browsing reddit gives you extremely quick results. Maybe learning a skill like cooking or writing and tracking progress.