Just eating less carbs has made me feel a lot better. I'm not too intense about it, but just being mindful of it makes me a lot less tired after meals.
how do you do more relaxed? I lost a massive amount of weight completely cutting carbs (inc recording each macro every day) but stress eating made me put it on again... hoping i can find a more sustainable way...
Ditto. I now try not to binge on pasta or whatnot, and I find that I don't get that same carb-full grim satisfaction afterwards, but I also don't then feel bloated and heavy either.
Same here... I'm doing my best to do Keto, not forever but just to change my relationship with carbs. Everything I was eating was potato's, pasta, rice and bread. I need to retrain myself to eat less of this shit. Two weeks in and I'm feeling pretty good (so good in fact that I took up running last week and I'm making good progress with that as well!)
I did 3 weeks of steak and eggs and it was amazing. It's easy. You eat only 2 things: steak and eggs. Your grocery list is short. Only 2 things. In the beginning is hard, but you see you loosing weight fast and your hunger will go away, but after sometime you need to go back and it other things. It's the perfect diet for me.
I don't have any hard data, but I feel better and seem to have a better grip on life since I started. I'm using a relaxed version of Bullet Journal and I kept at it for much longer than I expected.
I started using my planner to also write notes on what I did that day and any thoughts I had. I now feel more like I know myself and my organisational skills have improved.
Seconded. I put a recurring event called "Articulation" into my calendar, 30 mins each evening.
Sticking to jotting down my thoughts for the day, having to explicitly organize and summarize them (work, personal, whatever), has been an unexpected boost to clarity.
And this despite being in a managerial position, where you could say my days are filled with talking, organizing, resolution and strive for clarity anyway. The "self-articulation diary" still pays off.
I set a goal of using my feet to walk around and engage team members in 5 work conversations (unscheduled) each day. The change in culture and the identification of problems, road blocks, oppertunities has been eye opening. As a natural introvert who’d rather be heads down it has made me much more effective in the team.
As far as I can tell they like it. If it is a topic area we've previously discussed or tried to reason the best way forward they will now often proactively reach out when they need help or want someone to tell them how awesome they just were.
I find that as long as it isn't every day and I show up to ask about their public deadlines, compliment them on progress, and offer to help where they are stuck that people don't react like it is a disruption.
I more take some time to roam each day and if people aren’t deep in activity or meetings check in at that point. Afternoons are great as folks tend to be low blood sugar and more opt to be pushed back from their desks, etc.
Recently I read the book - Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy.
One of point was to keep a pocket diary where you list all the TODO tasks and keep striking them off as they complete. Helped me in many ways:
1. It is very easy to forget many tasks but by writing them and checking the diary even once in a while, it is possible to be reminded regularly.
2. Its better than mobile TODO apps as I don't need to check mobile phone regularly and don't get distracted.
3. When you strike some things off, you see the progress that you are achieving something. Just deleting everything shows you long list of tasks yet to be done and can be demotivating.
I second your choice. I actually read just one page from that book and often bring it to mind. Each of us needs to eat a frog every day, sometimes multiple frogs. You need to do it anyway, so better get down to it and have it done. The subsequent feeling is really worth it. And, because the biggest procrastination bloc are removed in this way, everything goes more smoothly.
I do something to similar, although using a mobile app (Google Keep), and write down EVERYTHING. For me, probably the biggest benefit of doing so was freeing my brain. I no longer have to worry about naturally remembering things, and it makes my life a lot less stressful. It also provides me more time and brain power to think about what actually matters to me.
Nowdays, if a thought pops in my head while I'm laying down in bed, I'll just get up for a second and write it down. Feels so good.
> When your system and your trust in your system is in place, your subconsciousness will stop keeping track of all the things you need to do and stop constantly reminding you. This reduces stress and frees up precious brain time to more productive thinking—maybe it even saves real time so that you have more time for ballet lessons, painting classes, and roller-blading.
I have a system in apple notes where I use a separate note for each weekday. It gives me a chance to dump todos in there, without creating an overwhelmingly large list. I also naturally review my progress on neglected items each week.
Also serves me as a basic calendar, eg “see john on Wednesday”.
Working out. Just body weight workouts. No gym. It improved my golf game.
Another is: not buying sodas with my meal. Self-explanatory.
Another: Spending brief interludes of time where a compile or unit test is happening to write down what I'm going to do next. It keeps me on task.
Another: Incrementally cleaning/organizing my condo.
Another: Walking around hardware, furniture, craft stores, Walmart, Target, etc, to see what consumer goods are available. There's often something useful that I didn't know I needed or wanted.
> Another: Incrementally cleaning/organizing my condo.
Please could you explain this a little more? I’m the sort of person who lets the mess build up to a critical mass, and I’d love to have a better system.
No the OP, but this works for me: say you're on your living room and going to the kitchen. If you see something that should be on the kitchen grab it and place it there. Just one small thing at a time moved to the right place will eventually sort most of your mess.
Three suggestions:
1) Get rid of anything that you haven't used for years or that you don't feel an emotional connection with
2) Have a designated place for each belonging you possess
3) Cultivate the habit of putting things away immediately after you're done before doing the next activity.
Put two things away for every one thing you bring out, basically. Prioritize moving the disorganization out of sight, then organize your shelves/closet later.
Aim to do it 3x in a row (~30 minutes). When I started I was barely able to do a single set, then once 1 set was too little I was ramping up intensity more and more (like to 60 pushups per 30 seconds), then added one more run etc. Now I do the first one as a warm up (knees etc.) and second/third run are getting progressively more crazy. It helped me going from nerdy to very athletic in 2 years. Also, combine with up to 100 decline wide pushups for chest improvement; in 2 months you'll see massive improvements. Then of course good diet, sleep, etc. I actually start my day with it; 6am wake up, some drink/hygiene, then 6:15 HIIT with 7-minute workout sets, 6:45 breakfast, 7:00 work (from home), 3pm end of work and fun begins.
I have a question regarding that. I'm not particularly fat (185cm / 6'0'' tall and weighing 85kg / 187lb), but I'm quite unfit (you wouldn't be able to see any muscles on my body).
When I try to do something like a 7-minute or 9-minute workout, I'm usually unable to continue after 3 minutes because of sheer exhaustion, and I'll have aching muscles for the next few days after that. Any recommendations how to overcome these initial problems? Maybe drastically shorten each exercise (from 1 minute to 15 seconds or something like that)?
Don't be a pussy and go through the initial stage ;).
No, seriously, try to go through the initial pain stage, it doesn't last that long. Tell yourself that this is an indication that it's working, because it actually is.
Take my advice with a grain of salt, but this is what I would do. Train 3 times a week on strength. This is enough and gives your muscles enough time to recover. At first you will train your muscles again when they are still sore, but it will go away.
I also had to go through this stage when I started working out. I remember when we went karting with all programmer colleagues. Next day everyone was sore in all kinds of places, except for me :).
There is 1 cool thing about being unfit: the gains you are going to make in strength and fitness are really huge. Keep track of your progress, it's a real motivator.
Cardiovascular exercises: use a heartbeat monitor and check that the frequency is within a certain range during the exercise (you can look up how to find the range on the internet). This way, you will not be pushing yourself over your limit.
Weight lifting exercises: choose a weight such that you can do the exercise 12 times (reps) correctly without getting exhausted/fatigued. Then correctly do 4-5 sets of that exercise, with 1-2 minutes between the sets. Optionally increase the weight a little between sets, and reduce the number of reps so that you can do at least 8 reps in the last set.
My personal cardio "training" routine was to "run three times", which means, I would run as long as I could (which may not be very long at all!), then walk until I was recovered, and then run again, until I'd run three times. If I'm running outside, I'll run "out" in one direction until my three times are up, and then make my way back at whatever pace I can. When I'm running on a treadmill, I'll usually stop after my third recovery period, but I'll increase my speed throughout the run.
I don't over do it with this routine. If I'm out of breath or something starts to hurt I just stop running and walk for a bit, but it helped me work up to a reasonable amount of cardiovascular stamina the couple of times I've fallen completely out of shape. I usually abandon it once I have enough stamina that I become time-constrained on how long I can run rather than physically.
Lack of fitness is evil, because it can creep up on you, particularly if you have a sedentary job and don't do a lot of physical activity otherwise, so you might not realise how much it's drifted away.
The good news is that of all the things in life where there are no shortcuts but almost guaranteed results if you put the effort in, improving your fitness may well be #1 on the list.
If you're not at all fit and haven't been doing regular physical activity for a while, you may need to start slow with the cardio and light with any weights. That's OK. There is no shame in training at your current level, whatever that is. The people I have the most respect for at the gym are the ones who obviously aren't fit yet but who show up and make an effort to improve.
The main thing at first is to find a level of intensity where you can complete a decent workout, even if initially it seems very low. It will improve as you continue to train.
Also, be very wary of these super-short workouts. When you're first starting out, no amount of bro science or trendy 10 second workouts will substitute for putting the time in regularly to build up your fitness and convert your body mass to the kind you want. Even if right now all you can do is go for a 10 minute walk before you're tiring, do that, but try to do it often. Better that than trying to do something you're not ready for, but then having to stop after just a minute or two. You're unlikely to gain much benefit from that, and if what you're trying to do is that demanding compared to your current ability, it could even be dangerous.
On that final point, since I haven't seen anyone else say it yet, remember that if you're significantly increasing the exercise you do and you're not very fit to start with, it's probably a good idea to speak with your doctor to make sure what you're planning to do is sensible for you, particularly if you're a bit older and/or have any significant medical issues that might affect what you can do or how you should train. They can also give you some basic advice on related issues like nutrition, hydration and rest if you don't already know the essentials.
Less intensity, longer duration. Start by going for a walk each day and build off that. Walking uses your largest muscle groups and internally massages your spine.
Consistency over time is what will get you there. Exercise need not be exhausting nor even cardio intensive to be highly beneficial.
Take it slow. It will take 1 year+ for your joints to adapt to a new regimen. If you injure yourself you’ll erase any gains.
My bona fides are as a 10 year Brazilian jiu jitsu coach, 39 years old, shredded, feeling great.
Its 3 minutes today. It will be 3m 10s in two weeks. Do the exercises you can and stop when you are done like you do today (this avoids injury which can be the biggest routine breaker). You were out a long time, so give yourself some time to come back (that is, be gentle with your body and mind).
For now, just keep doing it. Don't expect quick results... various parts of your body need to start coordinating to this new change. Muscles that worked independently need to work together. Mind body coordination has to kick in. Repetition will breed familiarity and muscle memory kicks in - things get a little more manageable.
There's no trick to this. You need just the most basic training. Go running a few nights a week, and actually track your run. Stick RunKeeper or something on your phone, and you will notice a pretty drastic difference in a few weeks.
I started doing this about four years ago, as I felt similar to how you describe. Trying to run 3km just about killed me. But you keep at it. A couple of months later, I managed my first 10km run, which I did in just under an hour, and somehow I felt great afterwards.
Then do strength training. Nothing weird; nothing complicated. Just do squats with a barbell. Start with just the bar — it's 20kg alone.
And don't fall into the same trap that everyone does of being self conscious at a gym. Nobody cares about you in a gym, unless you try something stupid and dangerous like trying to bench more than you can manage.
Aching muscles means you do something right. Don't shortcut yourself. I like ATHLEAN-X on YouTube. He has a lot of advice on how to do full reps and how to hold your body for maximum gains.
Note that the 7 minute apps have just 30 seconds per exercise and a few seconds between them to adjust your posture. I like it that most are just using your body. And yes, just push-ups can be challenging. For people, who don't think so, try a close grip or one hand push-ups.
I'm also 186cm. I went down from over 82kg to now a bit over 75kg. I'd like to stay there and just get further lean.
Oh yeah, I do it everyday. Use a streak future so you don't skip a day. Try to get a longer streak than your friend or brother if that motivates you!
Going to a psychologist for my anxiety. Learning to manage and control it before it becomes panic has been just awesome. It’s just been two months and I’m already hopeful.
Walking home every day. It's about an hour or so, vs my 20 mins on public transport, but it's become a good time of meditative reflection and has provided me with some fitness benefits. It's also time I'd otherwise spend just reading the internet or playing a videogame anyway.
Also, trying to meal prep a large number of the same dish to avoid buying lunches during the week and thus spending a large amount of money needlessly. I don't mind eating the same thing for several days, though to avoid that you'd just need to prep 2 or 3 meals of smaller size. It doubles as an effective way to portion control too, since I can use containers of a specific size. It also means that many nights of the week I get home from my walk and just toss one in the microwave or oven to reheat and don't end up eating any later than normal.
Edit: Both of the above have helped me maintain my post-glandular-fever weight loss of about 14kg, which has left me feeling significantly healthier than I was previously. Occasionally I blow out with a weekend of debauchery involving way too much alcohol and unhealthy food, but the walking then chips that back down and gives me motivation to limit said blowouts as I now have a quantifiable amount of effort that it equates to.
I listen to a heap of podcasts, in fact. At work, I generally can't listen to music with words so I stick to trance podcasts, but during my walk home I'll listen to all kinds of ones with speech. This ranges from actual spoken ones, to heavy metal ones with lyrics, and ones with both.
Off the top of my head: 99% Invisible, Freakanomics, Trade Talks, Requiem metal podcast, Still Untitled.
Audio books are probably worth looking into, too. I tend to put aside 30-60 mins in bed reading before I sleep, so I tend to consume enough literature that interests me, but it's definitely a good idea if I want to expand on that. Thank you!
Can confirm. I walked 30 mins to work back and forth 5+ years ago every day, and I never seemed to gain weight. I felt pretty great as well. Now I have a car (and work from home, so I don't need to walk to work)...
Yoga. It's the only time in the day where my brain is not in overdrive. Also, as a 36-year old with a sedentary lifestyle it's surprising/horrifying how stiff I've become. I'm just following the beginner movies on youtube and I go to the occasional class, so it's not stressful.
I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. Recently had a conversation about it with another HNer who had some really good tips for me[1]. I'm sure you will benefit too from it!
I find that understanding learning better helps with this. Effective learning requires knowing where you are at and what you need to do to get better given where you are at. In this sense trying to be the best is often the wrong goal.
It comes back to the mind. Our minds live in the past or future. It can't survive in the present.
Life is perfect as it is. The moment unfolding in front of you is moments that had happened in the past all the way back to 13.8 billion years ago. How can it not be perfect?
The work put in front of you is given to you by the Universe itself if you think about it. As long as you serve the best you can at that moment, then you're doing great!
It reminds of me The Four Agreement. The last agreement is "do the best you can". Your best changes moment to moment. As long as you put your energy out there and do you best, everything will be perfect as it is.
Turn off all notifications on smart-phone, every single notification which pops up, a led blinks, a "notification" appears, if its not emergency from my wife - this has to be blocked.
Side effect, no need to check my phone, there is nothing there anymore.
Feeds like reddit, HN, email, all settings and username is only on work-laptop with its own instance of browser - browsing these feeds on any other web-browser means my settings, username etc is gone and instead of seeing my subreddits, being able to comment, being able to login to email, that just cant be done. Now feeds are an activity only enjoyable at work.
I think this strategy can backfire on some people: if you think someone might have messaged you or tagged you in any of 5 different apps you might just cycle through actually opening them.
- to be clear: I’ve found it very easy (no experience with android) to very strictly limit who I’m notified by and the personalized notifications really helped.
Keep whatsapp notifications enabled, but then turn them off in the app's settings. Then, for the person(s) you care about, go to their chat and set up a custom notification.
I severely cut back on notifications -- down to just a few apps (SMS/messaging, home security, calendar), and it's had a remarkable impact on my phone use.
The other major change I made was to disable badge notifications on all apps. No more little red number telling me how many unread emails I have, etc. This has had a much greater positive impact than I had thought it would -- I don't find myself compulsively drawn into apps by the lure of "new stuff", and have cut down on my screen time considerably.
I write code for a living, but for the most part it's not that interesting, so I've developed a habit of writing the code I want to write every day as well. I get in to my office ~30 minutes early and work on things I find interesting, plus I do an hour or so on weekends. I've been doing it for more than a year now and it's got me back to really enjoying the process of making software. Plus I've learnt a ton of stuff I wouldn't have had any opportunity to use in work projects.
I'm learning GLSL and signed distance fields at the moment. It's fun.
Writing down what I want to accomplish for the day (errands, etc.) helped with my anxiety and stress. I usually do it before I go to bed, or in the morning.
I stopped smoking cannabis a little over a month ago and now I feel all this energy surging through me that I had been missing since 2017.
I had been really down since my SO passed away in september but I hadn't smoked what you might consider excessively. The problem was that I smoked too regularly. Like a little pinch in a pipe twice a week. That's enough to keep my body affected by it. And it takes at least a month for it to purge.
I've been through this before but the older I get the more I notice the changes, the contrast in energy and behavior.
So this last time has me thinking of never smoking again. Or at least never getting into a smoking period longer than one week again. An occasional spliff with friends would be ok but no repeats.
Anyways, none of that is on the map for now, right now I'm feeling so great. I'm finishing off projects, I'm coding until the sun comes up, I'm exercising. God I love being clean!
I think it's perfectly valid to lean on the cannabis to get through a hard time and I'm glad it's becoming legal in more places. Every ounce of alcohol it displaces seems to me to be better for people as well. It has far fewer side effects than almost any prescription drug and as anyone who has done it for a time and quit can attest it's absolutely non-addictive.
I'm the same. I feel the need to get "high" pretty much once or twice a week. I much prefer to smoke weed, and only drink if I can't smoke. Luckily for me I like to use a vaporizer so I never have more than can fit into one bowl -- which is not a great amount -- and I don't get a massive _high_ from it. Also, the weed stops me from getting fat as I don't really get the munchies, and avoid all the calories from alcohol.
Would be nice to stop this behaviour but I can't really seem to, and it doesn't seem to have huge negative effects on my life, but it definitely does have some.
I was a compulsive spender. Never bought on credit mind but I’d blow my entire paycheque after bills on stuff like cameras, hifi, the latest Apple doodad, etc.
I literally stopped buying anything not required for my day to day sustenance. No Netflix, started renting what I wanted to watch which forced me to be more picky with my expenditure and time.
No more eating out except for special occasions. Packed lunches and home made meals only.
No more buying books until I read the ones on my shelf.
No more buying a new Mac every time my old one got mildly slow.
No more video games or Blu-rays until I had finished the ones sitting in shrink wrap on the shelf.
Once you pare things down you start to become almost painfully aware of how the seemingly little expenditures add up fast.
With the surplus income I ended up with about 6-8 months living expenses saved which suddenly made me realize that I had the freedom to look around from my present job. Which so far is working out I think... (started my own company and launching our product this month :)
Would like to add "habit of drinking water" to this list. ANY beverage whether its coffee, soda, tea - is easily 4 to 6 dollars and is an entirely made up requirement.
For those who don't want to relinquish drinks altogether, getting a thermos/French press etc. and buying tea/coffee yourself reduces those expenses almost twenty fold over time.
Yeah, coffee is crazy expensive when you look at how much shops charge you for a drink. It costs about $1.33 per day for the 20oz of coffee I make for my wife and I. Really not bad considering if we were to both go out and buy a coffee everyday it would be around $10.
And it is a good practice indeed. I think deep down my comment history here one can find that I found it strange that someone would pay a lot of money on an annual basis for coffee out of the home.
That said I also think that it is not bad to be able to spend money like that. Not about the money itself, but the mindset required to spend. It must require a very pleasant way of life to not want to save all money, like in case of emergencies or saving up so you or your kids can go to college.
Coffee and tea can be inexpensive if you brew it yourself. Coffee even less so if you roast it. I've been roasting my own coffee for years now, started with a $100 machine which lasted about 4 years/100 lbs, and then I upgraded to a $350 machine. A pound of coffee costs between $4 and $7, and tastes comparable to something that a boutique roaster sells for $15/12oz. The upfront cost is relatively high, but if your enjoyment of coffee is encroaching into the realm of "hobby" then it's absolutely worthwhile.
I second this. Fresh coffee tastes awesome. I've been using a $100 roaster for a while now, only recently having got into the habit of roasting all the time (previously I'd get lazy and buy a bag at the store pretty often, which would break the habit). I need to roast every 3 or 4 days, but it only takes about 10 minutes. I don't think my roast quality is quite on par with the $17/12oz (aka $1.42/oz) bags from the store, but it's still damn good, and only like $5/16oz (aka $0.31/oz, 77% cheaper).
if you don't mind, can you share the brand of the machine, and your source for preroasted beans? i'd like to get into this too but am not sure the best approach
In India earlier, people in the South used to brew their own coffee at home, from coffee grounds / powder. There is a special steel utensil for it, with two vertical parts, one of which sits above the other. The top one has fine holes in the bottom of it. You put the coffee powder into the top, then pour some hot water over it, then wait for some time until it extracts the coffee into the bottom part. None of your fancy coffee machine stuff. They call it "decoction" :) Oldsters (and youngsters too) used to swear by it, and could not manage without their morning fix of a cup or two. Some probably still do. We had one of those utensils at home. Usually made with milk, BTW.
If you can find it in the library, the book "Brain Maker" [0] has a good starting point in its recipes section. Here's [1] a video showing how it's done. You've got to buy the Kefir grains (or get them from someone you know who makes Kefir). Once you have the grains, you most likely won't need to buy them again, as you'll keep them alive and growing on your own. (Note for the grain-free folks, Kefir grains aren't actually grains. They're a bacterial culture conceptually similar to what you'd use to make yogurt.)
Basically, you combine water, Kefir, and sugar, then you wait a few days. Then, you drink. Or if you want to add flavoring (which I highly recommend), you do a second fermentation process: add in the flavoring (e.g. dried strawberries or something), bottle it for a 1-3 more more days, then drink or refrigerate.
Don't pay for somebody else to make your tea! A cup of ordinary tea should cost, like, 15p. That includes teabag, electricity, water, milk, and amortized cost of kettle and mug.
Even if you buy something unnecessarily expensive, like fancy matcha tea powder, you're looking at less than 50p.
I moved across the US a year ago, and moving with a single suitcase (until the moving truck arrived, months later) re-taught me how little I need in order to live comfortably.
Since then, I've been aggressively paring back my "material footprint", and every thing I shed makes me feel a little lighter.
I recently moved countries and managed to pack my whole life into an old army duffel bag.
It was so liberating. I was trying to make sure that if I want to move again that I could still do that. Unfortunately I now own a house worth of furniture (including 3 queen size beds).
Our local library, connected to seemingly every other library in the country, provides me with every book and movie I've wanted for years. Such an amazing resource. Request it online, pick it up locally, usually within two days.
Great recommendation! I haven't really used our local library because I keep forgetting that it's an option. But, I just checked and it looks like ours has the same Inter-Library Loan process for requesting books.
Thanks, I'm going to try to remember this and start using it more. Hopefully it'll help me both save money and reduce the number of unread books collecting dust on my already full shelves.
To clients for uninteresting work.
To scope creep and stopping unbilled features.
To friends and family for social commitments when I know I’m spreading myself thin and may not be able to go through or not be fully present.
This helps me cut out FOMO and makes me a bit more sane
It is still scary to do it everytime but it also makes my Yeses a more conscious choice instead of being the de-facto option.
Switching from measuring productivity to measuring sleep, including nap-taking and night sleeping, has really helped me. I wrote about the sleep part a bit here[0].
I originally started (I think 3 years ago) measuring my satisfaction with how each day went and soon found that "getting all the things done" and all the productivity focus simply wasn't _that_ important to my happiness, contrary to what I had believed in the past. I clearly enjoy life much more when I'm well-rested and can _also_ get more done under those circumstances.
Yes, compared to productivity, rest appears to be a much better predictor / indicator of well-being for me. Rest also appears to help me see how much productivity is really necessary, when I would otherwise overshoot.
The expectation is for sleep to affect productivity, but I don't find that to be the case. Instead, I find that it has a lot of impact on my social and emotional well being rather than my productivity.
Productivity doesn't lead to many positive states - just exhaustion. Being well rested on the other hand has led to lots of positive mental conditions - surplus energy after work, dramatic decrease of negative thoughts, positive attitude towards new things, willingness for social activities, more boldness and confidence, and all these things snowball off of each other.
For me, my productivity depends om my emotional well being. When I have a positive attitude, I'm way more productive.
When I don't get enough sleep (kids... ;)), I'm a bit grumpy/negative during the day and I get nothing done. When I'm well rested, I'm super positive, happy, and can get work done effortlessly.
Hint: work from home, start at 7am, finish at 3pm, switch work phone off, do whatever you want afterwards, perhaps going outside to catch some sun, some sport and meet similarly minded people; that would do wonders both for your productivity and happiness. Sometimes I think the usual 9-5 was designed to damage everyone to be easier to control and with no energy to do anything threatening to whoever has the illusion of being powerful.
Unless you live in SF, which just banned flavored vape juice. SF -- a place where you can buy pure THC crystal, but banana flavored nicotine is banned.
Similar boat: started working out with a trainer in Feb 2x a week, and 2x on my own. Although having a trainer is a luxury the return has been great and I've never felt better.
That's probably one of the 2 improvements in my lifestyle caused by moving from Paris to SF. The other would be that I can walk to work in 25 minutes, although my commute was just as short in Paris, except in the subway.
At the same time, it is a great investment for that overinflated tech salary so I don't regret paying 70$/hour for this service.
Not sure how much its paying off but spending about half an hour every day doing Swedish lessons on Duolingo. No real aim, I don't expect to be able to speak it at all but its more about not being locked into just English. I have some Spanish so that will be next up. I've noticed it makes me feel more accomplished every day at least.
Oh yes I tried that too but it didn't really pay off for me.
That daily streak really helped me stay at it for almost 340 days straight (French). Unfortunately even after daily practice for almost 1 year I can't say I learned anything much (French is a very difficult language and I'm old so that may have something to do with it and YMMV). But anyway seeing I was making no progress I had to quit.
I heard that Duolingo is not good at teaching you how to actually use a language, instead focusing on the parts that are easily measured. Because of that, I never tried it and don't know how accurate that evaluation is, but here's what helped be when learning Chinese:
- Regularly meet with a native speaker (1 hour per week for me): they can correct your mistakes and try to explain confusing aspects of the language
- Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Target_Language and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Language#Phonology and the descriptions of individual sounds linked there. It will help you to consciously position your tongue to produce the sounds and practice until you can do it subconsciously. Doing it purely by ear is much harder. You probably won't sound like a native speaker anyway, but get much closer than someone who approximates everything using sounds from their native language.
- Watch movies in your target language (every day before going to sleep, in my case), with subtitles until you can do without. You'll almost certainly notice a few words every time which are repeated frequently. Pause the video and look them up. They might not be useful in everyday conversations (I know way too many titles of members of the Chinese imperial court), but if you stay within a genre, they'll still help improve your understanding as you keep watching.
- Use spaced repetition to review vocabulary. Turn it into a habit to add some fixed number of new words every day and then review. If you keep it up for a few years, even small increments add up to a sizable number. Fortunately, spaced repetition increases the intervals between reviews, so the time cost each day stays manageable. If you use Anki, I also recommend looking for addons to add pronunciations automatically (even robotic speech-to-text can be helpful).
- To practice reading, start with headlines from a newspaper website (even if it's just a single headline initially and you have to look up every word). Then work your way up to paragraphs, articles and eventually books.
- I never practiced writing much (except when memorizing individual Chinese characters), but if you can speak and read, you can probably write. If your target language has a different keyboard layout, figure out how to switch to it in your OS and practice typing. For Linux, I can't plug Fcitx enough, especially for its awesome Unicode input feature.
- Finally, nothing motivates more than putting yourself into a situation where you have no choice but use your language. After 2 years of studying Chinese, I somehow managed to rent an apartment in China using only my still pretty limited speaking ability and the pressure of that and similar situations has helped me improve tremendously.
Duolingo is horrible on mobile because you miss the lesson details with explanations. It’s really only good for basic vocabulary and heavily depends on the people putting the language tree together. In any case repetition is key.
I don't know any native french speakers in my area but I often thought about skyping those number on fiverr where people offer to chat with you and do exactly the same. I can also attest that watching TV serials in french was pretty entertaining (i saw whole 2 seasons of maison close) with and without subs when i was on that 300 day streak.. it really was super fun. But i think at the end of the day it all boils down to practice and repetition and most importantly if you're doing it out of need or just fun (in later case you never take it seriously like you said in your last point which was sadly my case as i really don't have any need for it).
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 346 ms ] threadI don't have any hard data, but I feel better and seem to have a better grip on life since I started. I'm using a relaxed version of Bullet Journal and I kept at it for much longer than I expected.
Sticking to jotting down my thoughts for the day, having to explicitly organize and summarize them (work, personal, whatever), has been an unexpected boost to clarity.
And this despite being in a managerial position, where you could say my days are filled with talking, organizing, resolution and strive for clarity anyway. The "self-articulation diary" still pays off.
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitiv...
One of point was to keep a pocket diary where you list all the TODO tasks and keep striking them off as they complete. Helped me in many ways:
1. It is very easy to forget many tasks but by writing them and checking the diary even once in a while, it is possible to be reminded regularly.
2. Its better than mobile TODO apps as I don't need to check mobile phone regularly and don't get distracted.
3. When you strike some things off, you see the progress that you are achieving something. Just deleting everything shows you long list of tasks yet to be done and can be demotivating.
https://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/d...
Eat that frog, folks!
Nowdays, if a thought pops in my head while I'm laying down in bed, I'll just get up for a second and write it down. Feels so good.
This article https://hamberg.no/gtd/ articulates the idea pretty well:
> When your system and your trust in your system is in place, your subconsciousness will stop keeping track of all the things you need to do and stop constantly reminding you. This reduces stress and frees up precious brain time to more productive thinking—maybe it even saves real time so that you have more time for ballet lessons, painting classes, and roller-blading.
Another is: not buying sodas with my meal. Self-explanatory.
Another: Spending brief interludes of time where a compile or unit test is happening to write down what I'm going to do next. It keeps me on task.
Another: Incrementally cleaning/organizing my condo.
Another: Walking around hardware, furniture, craft stores, Walmart, Target, etc, to see what consumer goods are available. There's often something useful that I didn't know I needed or wanted.
Please could you explain this a little more? I’m the sort of person who lets the mess build up to a critical mass, and I’d love to have a better system.
+ People notice the difference.
+ It's a good way to cope with bad times.
+ You feel accomplished afterwards.
+ It's a perfect start of the day.
+ If you're dating and she is watching, it's a turn on.
+ You can go on for longer.
+ It's good for your confidence.
+ Other people who are working on themselves can be interesting people to meet.
+ It's good for your health.
+ It's nice for other people to look at the results. Similar to a nice painting some people like to see muscles.
"You are fired!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE
When I try to do something like a 7-minute or 9-minute workout, I'm usually unable to continue after 3 minutes because of sheer exhaustion, and I'll have aching muscles for the next few days after that. Any recommendations how to overcome these initial problems? Maybe drastically shorten each exercise (from 1 minute to 15 seconds or something like that)?
No, seriously, try to go through the initial pain stage, it doesn't last that long. Tell yourself that this is an indication that it's working, because it actually is.
Take my advice with a grain of salt, but this is what I would do. Train 3 times a week on strength. This is enough and gives your muscles enough time to recover. At first you will train your muscles again when they are still sore, but it will go away.
I also had to go through this stage when I started working out. I remember when we went karting with all programmer colleagues. Next day everyone was sore in all kinds of places, except for me :).
There is 1 cool thing about being unfit: the gains you are going to make in strength and fitness are really huge. Keep track of your progress, it's a real motivator.
take some creatin and bcaa if you want to go the supplements route, or just eat enough proteins on workout days if you want to stay 'natural'.
Weight lifting exercises: choose a weight such that you can do the exercise 12 times (reps) correctly without getting exhausted/fatigued. Then correctly do 4-5 sets of that exercise, with 1-2 minutes between the sets. Optionally increase the weight a little between sets, and reduce the number of reps so that you can do at least 8 reps in the last set.
I don't over do it with this routine. If I'm out of breath or something starts to hurt I just stop running and walk for a bit, but it helped me work up to a reasonable amount of cardiovascular stamina the couple of times I've fallen completely out of shape. I usually abandon it once I have enough stamina that I become time-constrained on how long I can run rather than physically.
The good news is that of all the things in life where there are no shortcuts but almost guaranteed results if you put the effort in, improving your fitness may well be #1 on the list.
If you're not at all fit and haven't been doing regular physical activity for a while, you may need to start slow with the cardio and light with any weights. That's OK. There is no shame in training at your current level, whatever that is. The people I have the most respect for at the gym are the ones who obviously aren't fit yet but who show up and make an effort to improve.
The main thing at first is to find a level of intensity where you can complete a decent workout, even if initially it seems very low. It will improve as you continue to train.
Also, be very wary of these super-short workouts. When you're first starting out, no amount of bro science or trendy 10 second workouts will substitute for putting the time in regularly to build up your fitness and convert your body mass to the kind you want. Even if right now all you can do is go for a 10 minute walk before you're tiring, do that, but try to do it often. Better that than trying to do something you're not ready for, but then having to stop after just a minute or two. You're unlikely to gain much benefit from that, and if what you're trying to do is that demanding compared to your current ability, it could even be dangerous.
On that final point, since I haven't seen anyone else say it yet, remember that if you're significantly increasing the exercise you do and you're not very fit to start with, it's probably a good idea to speak with your doctor to make sure what you're planning to do is sensible for you, particularly if you're a bit older and/or have any significant medical issues that might affect what you can do or how you should train. They can also give you some basic advice on related issues like nutrition, hydration and rest if you don't already know the essentials.
The only exercises that don't make you better are the one that you don't do.
I always have this in my mind, it's been more than 5 years since I heard this.
Consistency over time is what will get you there. Exercise need not be exhausting nor even cardio intensive to be highly beneficial.
Take it slow. It will take 1 year+ for your joints to adapt to a new regimen. If you injure yourself you’ll erase any gains.
My bona fides are as a 10 year Brazilian jiu jitsu coach, 39 years old, shredded, feeling great.
For now, just keep doing it. Don't expect quick results... various parts of your body need to start coordinating to this new change. Muscles that worked independently need to work together. Mind body coordination has to kick in. Repetition will breed familiarity and muscle memory kicks in - things get a little more manageable.
I started doing this about four years ago, as I felt similar to how you describe. Trying to run 3km just about killed me. But you keep at it. A couple of months later, I managed my first 10km run, which I did in just under an hour, and somehow I felt great afterwards.
Then do strength training. Nothing weird; nothing complicated. Just do squats with a barbell. Start with just the bar — it's 20kg alone.
And don't fall into the same trap that everyone does of being self conscious at a gym. Nobody cares about you in a gym, unless you try something stupid and dangerous like trying to bench more than you can manage.
Note that the 7 minute apps have just 30 seconds per exercise and a few seconds between them to adjust your posture. I like it that most are just using your body. And yes, just push-ups can be challenging. For people, who don't think so, try a close grip or one hand push-ups.
I'm also 186cm. I went down from over 82kg to now a bit over 75kg. I'd like to stay there and just get further lean.
Oh yeah, I do it everyday. Use a streak future so you don't skip a day. Try to get a longer streak than your friend or brother if that motivates you!
My warmup is like 7 minutes long. Its usually a mix of 3 light sets of whatever I'm working out + short jog / sprints inbetween to prevent injuries
Also, trying to meal prep a large number of the same dish to avoid buying lunches during the week and thus spending a large amount of money needlessly. I don't mind eating the same thing for several days, though to avoid that you'd just need to prep 2 or 3 meals of smaller size. It doubles as an effective way to portion control too, since I can use containers of a specific size. It also means that many nights of the week I get home from my walk and just toss one in the microwave or oven to reheat and don't end up eating any later than normal.
Edit: Both of the above have helped me maintain my post-glandular-fever weight loss of about 14kg, which has left me feeling significantly healthier than I was previously. Occasionally I blow out with a weekend of debauchery involving way too much alcohol and unhealthy food, but the walking then chips that back down and gives me motivation to limit said blowouts as I now have a quantifiable amount of effort that it equates to.
Off the top of my head: 99% Invisible, Freakanomics, Trade Talks, Requiem metal podcast, Still Untitled.
Audio books are probably worth looking into, too. I tend to put aside 30-60 mins in bed reading before I sleep, so I tend to consume enough literature that interests me, but it's definitely a good idea if I want to expand on that. Thank you!
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17238480
I do a laughable 30-45min but I do it every day.
It's funny how formerly painful things like squatting, leaning etc. have become so much easier now.
Sounds simple but it was quite an issue for me. I was putting a tremendous pressure on myself and others, causing me anxiety and sadness.
Just doing the best I can and being happy. There's more life beyond work and perfection is just a falacy.
It comes back to the mind. Our minds live in the past or future. It can't survive in the present.
Life is perfect as it is. The moment unfolding in front of you is moments that had happened in the past all the way back to 13.8 billion years ago. How can it not be perfect?
The work put in front of you is given to you by the Universe itself if you think about it. As long as you serve the best you can at that moment, then you're doing great!
It reminds of me The Four Agreement. The last agreement is "do the best you can". Your best changes moment to moment. As long as you put your energy out there and do you best, everything will be perfect as it is.
Side effect, no need to check my phone, there is nothing there anymore.
Feeds like reddit, HN, email, all settings and username is only on work-laptop with its own instance of browser - browsing these feeds on any other web-browser means my settings, username etc is gone and instead of seeing my subreddits, being able to comment, being able to login to email, that just cant be done. Now feeds are an activity only enjoyable at work.
Incidentally, very few do (siblings, girlfriend, the occasional friend making an appointment).
The other major change I made was to disable badge notifications on all apps. No more little red number telling me how many unread emails I have, etc. This has had a much greater positive impact than I had thought it would -- I don't find myself compulsively drawn into apps by the lure of "new stuff", and have cut down on my screen time considerably.
I'm learning GLSL and signed distance fields at the moment. It's fun.
This is only anecdotal, but I feel it helped me getting a grip on my weak ankles and knees, my key pain points when running.
I had been really down since my SO passed away in september but I hadn't smoked what you might consider excessively. The problem was that I smoked too regularly. Like a little pinch in a pipe twice a week. That's enough to keep my body affected by it. And it takes at least a month for it to purge.
I've been through this before but the older I get the more I notice the changes, the contrast in energy and behavior.
So this last time has me thinking of never smoking again. Or at least never getting into a smoking period longer than one week again. An occasional spliff with friends would be ok but no repeats.
Anyways, none of that is on the map for now, right now I'm feeling so great. I'm finishing off projects, I'm coding until the sun comes up, I'm exercising. God I love being clean!
Would be nice to stop this behaviour but I can't really seem to, and it doesn't seem to have huge negative effects on my life, but it definitely does have some.
I was a compulsive spender. Never bought on credit mind but I’d blow my entire paycheque after bills on stuff like cameras, hifi, the latest Apple doodad, etc.
I literally stopped buying anything not required for my day to day sustenance. No Netflix, started renting what I wanted to watch which forced me to be more picky with my expenditure and time.
No more eating out except for special occasions. Packed lunches and home made meals only.
No more buying books until I read the ones on my shelf.
No more buying a new Mac every time my old one got mildly slow.
No more video games or Blu-rays until I had finished the ones sitting in shrink wrap on the shelf.
Once you pare things down you start to become almost painfully aware of how the seemingly little expenditures add up fast.
With the surplus income I ended up with about 6-8 months living expenses saved which suddenly made me realize that I had the freedom to look around from my present job. Which so far is working out I think... (started my own company and launching our product this month :)
Soda is best abandoned, however.
And it is a good practice indeed. I think deep down my comment history here one can find that I found it strange that someone would pay a lot of money on an annual basis for coffee out of the home.
That said I also think that it is not bad to be able to spend money like that. Not about the money itself, but the mindset required to spend. It must require a very pleasant way of life to not want to save all money, like in case of emergencies or saving up so you or your kids can go to college.
Balance, basically.
If you want to start with a less expensive roaster you can find recommendations on reddit at /r/roasting.
Basically, you combine water, Kefir, and sugar, then you wait a few days. Then, you drink. Or if you want to add flavoring (which I highly recommend), you do a second fermentation process: add in the flavoring (e.g. dried strawberries or something), bottle it for a 1-3 more more days, then drink or refrigerate.
[0] https://www.drperlmutter.com/about/brain-maker-by-david-perl... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_d7wQ-lkvI
[1] There seem to be many such kinds, across various countries.
Quark, skyr, doogh, kumis, buttermilk, dahi, chaas, filmjölk, blaand, ayran are some of the varieties.
Here's a list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermented_milk_products
Even if you buy something unnecessarily expensive, like fancy matcha tea powder, you're looking at less than 50p.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/oct/...
Since then, I've been aggressively paring back my "material footprint", and every thing I shed makes me feel a little lighter.
It was so liberating. I was trying to make sure that if I want to move again that I could still do that. Unfortunately I now own a house worth of furniture (including 3 queen size beds).
Thanks, I'm going to try to remember this and start using it more. Hopefully it'll help me both save money and reduce the number of unread books collecting dust on my already full shelves.
The public library + kindle + a book club of a group of friends who have their own internal library for members.
Haven't bought a new book in years.
I recently rediscovered the public library. Took a bit of relearning when I realized, yeah, I get all these books for free!
That's probably my biggest philosophical hurdle.
To clients for uninteresting work. To scope creep and stopping unbilled features. To friends and family for social commitments when I know I’m spreading myself thin and may not be able to go through or not be fully present.
This helps me cut out FOMO and makes me a bit more sane
It is still scary to do it everytime but it also makes my Yeses a more conscious choice instead of being the de-facto option.
I originally started (I think 3 years ago) measuring my satisfaction with how each day went and soon found that "getting all the things done" and all the productivity focus simply wasn't _that_ important to my happiness, contrary to what I had believed in the past. I clearly enjoy life much more when I'm well-rested and can _also_ get more done under those circumstances.
[0] https://www.friendlyskies.net/intj/managing-effective-sleep-...
Then what was important to your happiness? Being well-rested?
The expectation is for sleep to affect productivity, but I don't find that to be the case. Instead, I find that it has a lot of impact on my social and emotional well being rather than my productivity.
Productivity doesn't lead to many positive states - just exhaustion. Being well rested on the other hand has led to lots of positive mental conditions - surplus energy after work, dramatic decrease of negative thoughts, positive attitude towards new things, willingness for social activities, more boldness and confidence, and all these things snowball off of each other.
When I don't get enough sleep (kids... ;)), I'm a bit grumpy/negative during the day and I get nothing done. When I'm well rested, I'm super positive, happy, and can get work done effortlessly.
YMMV, a trainer has allowed me to fix goals and get tailored exercises so I progress quickly.
I repeat the exercises I did with the trainers the other days of the week.
Since I am not a morning person, I go to the gym in the evening, so I often go there , have a shower and go to sleep.
It has tremendously improved both my sleep and my energy levels.
That's probably one of the 2 improvements in my lifestyle caused by moving from Paris to SF. The other would be that I can walk to work in 25 minutes, although my commute was just as short in Paris, except in the subway.
At the same time, it is a great investment for that overinflated tech salary so I don't regret paying 70$/hour for this service.
That daily streak really helped me stay at it for almost 340 days straight (French). Unfortunately even after daily practice for almost 1 year I can't say I learned anything much (French is a very difficult language and I'm old so that may have something to do with it and YMMV). But anyway seeing I was making no progress I had to quit.
- Regularly meet with a native speaker (1 hour per week for me): they can correct your mistakes and try to explain confusing aspects of the language
- Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Target_Language and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Language#Phonology and the descriptions of individual sounds linked there. It will help you to consciously position your tongue to produce the sounds and practice until you can do it subconsciously. Doing it purely by ear is much harder. You probably won't sound like a native speaker anyway, but get much closer than someone who approximates everything using sounds from their native language.
- Watch movies in your target language (every day before going to sleep, in my case), with subtitles until you can do without. You'll almost certainly notice a few words every time which are repeated frequently. Pause the video and look them up. They might not be useful in everyday conversations (I know way too many titles of members of the Chinese imperial court), but if you stay within a genre, they'll still help improve your understanding as you keep watching.
- Use spaced repetition to review vocabulary. Turn it into a habit to add some fixed number of new words every day and then review. If you keep it up for a few years, even small increments add up to a sizable number. Fortunately, spaced repetition increases the intervals between reviews, so the time cost each day stays manageable. If you use Anki, I also recommend looking for addons to add pronunciations automatically (even robotic speech-to-text can be helpful).
- To practice reading, start with headlines from a newspaper website (even if it's just a single headline initially and you have to look up every word). Then work your way up to paragraphs, articles and eventually books.
- I never practiced writing much (except when memorizing individual Chinese characters), but if you can speak and read, you can probably write. If your target language has a different keyboard layout, figure out how to switch to it in your OS and practice typing. For Linux, I can't plug Fcitx enough, especially for its awesome Unicode input feature.
- Finally, nothing motivates more than putting yourself into a situation where you have no choice but use your language. After 2 years of studying Chinese, I somehow managed to rent an apartment in China using only my still pretty limited speaking ability and the pressure of that and similar situations has helped me improve tremendously.
I don't know any native french speakers in my area but I often thought about skyping those number on fiverr where people offer to chat with you and do exactly the same. I can also attest that watching TV serials in french was pretty entertaining (i saw whole 2 seasons of maison close) with and without subs when i was on that 300 day streak.. it really was super fun. But i think at the end of the day it all boils down to practice and repetition and most importantly if you're doing it out of need or just fun (in later case you never take it seriously like you said in your last point which was sadly my case as i really don't have any need for it).