Ask HN: What lifehacks actually changed your life?
Years ago before the concept of lifehacks waned and inflation, burnout and Corona hit, i remember learning quite a few tricks through the internet, that has followed me whenever i hit a slump.
What did you start to do, stopped doing, or became routine that really made a difference in your life in the past years?
Examples:
- Stop scrolling social media
- Have no-screen days
- Do X day challenges
- Try new social settings
- Have a morning routine with meditation, yoga or gratitude-list
- Journal either in the morning or evening
- Meditate
- Become a mentor, parent or do community work
- Force yourself to read a bit everyday, also challenging stuff
- Eat better, and find out if you have deficiencies
- Get more light and get out and move
- Try different sleep schedules
- Take more time off idling
- Move city
So HN what what changed your life?
72 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 135 ms ] threadFar from being a bad thing, this means I can just live without constantly worrying about how others might perceive me.
As long as your not hurting anyone else , just live. We're here for a very short time.
Don't waste it on people who never cared
Being there when other people have real challenges makes you realise how small status anxiety really is compared, and how much more meaning there is in just enjoying time with good people instead of skating around on the brittle surface.
I don’t think no one cares. In fact, I think there are many people who care too much.
However I agree, that is not something you should worry about. Even if I still struggle with it myself often, it’s been freeing to enjoy myself without putting too much weight in what strangers will think of me.
“We’re here for a very short time”
It's a great way of getting out of your shell, become used to criticism both positive and negative, connecting with like minded people and get a momentum or habit going. I even distinctly remember a book called micro-habits that was about this concept.
How long have you been writing a tweet a day for?
I saw an unbelievable increase in my focus and peace of mind after meditating for 5 minutes everyday - but it took between 2 - 3 months to get there.
And I rely on being aware of how I'm feeling (and what I might be projecting) roughly 5-10 times a day. In general, however much I think I'm projecting, I'm probably doing even more than I think I am (often in subtle ways).
In short, I base my understanding of others on my understanding of myself. Increasing the former has improved the latter.
- Do one hour of exercise a day, preferably in the morning. Even if it's a light morning walk. I find it sets a healthy tone for the rest of the day.
- Actively reach out to friends and family. Even if it's small updates about my day.
- Create something every day. For me it's my blog, and I haven't been at it for long, but it's been powerful for clarifying what I'm thinking about and why. Part of the appeal that each post is low-commitment, i.e. it's not a multi-day saga, so I can be playful with it, e.g. https://arunkprasad.com/log/how-does-ssh-work/
2. Breathing exercise (~5 minutes) before going to bed. Generally keeps me really light and energetic the next day.
3. Spending dedicated time with my son. Can't describe this but generally makes me appreciate things better.
Funny thing is our elders and forebears knew this but it is completely lost on the most people these days.
My grandmother forbade us eating cheese until 10-12 years old. Her reason was that we will become moody and have nightmares at night. She was right ofcourse. Hard to digest foods affect our ability to sleep properly.
Is there such a thing as foodhacking?
There should be! I've noticed that my energy levels / moods are really good the morning after I eat a salad only dinner (I'm a vegetarian anyway but it will surprise you the kind of veg things that can still screw up your health).
I wonder what other stuff have such impact..
1. The makeup of your gut bacteria, which massively influences how your body takes up nutrients and glucose 2. Your genetic makeup, which can influence how you handle nutrients and glucose that you have taken in
Essentially, what works for one person can be functionally opposite for another person.
Even the Herman Miller casters aren’t that good.
My doctor checked my vitamin D levels and they were very low. I started taking the recommended daily intake of 1000 IU. After reading that the analysis setting the RDI for vitamin D was faulty, I went on double the RDI, 2000 IU. That has made a marked improvement in my mood and helped with the stability of my sleep cycle. As a bonus, my vitamin D levels are now spot on, and it offers some protection against the worst effects of COVID-19.
Also, I take Vitamin B for focus.
The truly important news still reach me through friends and colleagues or random chance. The rest, all the useless or depressing stuff is filtered out.
I've cut out all dairy and drink almond milk with cereal or protein shakes, and it's made a clear improvement to my health. Give it a month and see what you get back.
Only difference is that I haven't resorted to any other types of milk like almond or cashew.
These days I feel energetic all day and no bloating.
The only hard part was to convince my spouse. She thinks milk is some sort of elixir.
(I regret being nerdy and avoiding soccer because its the easiest "physical play time" that grown ass man have around here)
3-4 months into the practice, I am still a n00b but have honestly told a couple friends already that this was one of the most life-transformative things I have intentionally done, except maybe for moving to Japan at age 19 (where I ended up mostly sticking, for decades now).
I really think YMMV on this one. I personally had one of those personality types (or more accurately, set of personality traits) where meditation probably has relatively major impact. Like, I was never not thinking about stuff. Usually, interesting problems in software engineering, for work or for hobby. But also home upgrades, DIY contraptions, am I doing well as a parent, should I get my kids a pet, how can I learn cooking/photography/piano/video-editing/martial arts/horticulture/etc on top of the stuff I am currently doing, etc.
And if I wasn't thinking about something, it felt terrible, like a true waste of time, the most precious resource any of us has!
Probably not coincidentally, I fucking HATED meditation whenever I had tried it previously (usually at the behest of some friend who advocated for it).
And I initially thought I was "failing" and "couldn't do it". I mean to say, I felt like I couldn't achieve meditation. I was just sitting there, doing nothing, having my usual nonstop thoughts about quasi-random shit. I couldn't "focus on my breath" (the usual beginner object of attention, before moving on to other sensations, thought and feelings, or aspects of the current environment) for more than like 2 seconds, literally.
After 3 weeks or so, though, I learned more and realized yeah that is part of it, just keep practicing and you'll get it. And you do still keep getting lost in thought, that's OK and normal, its the practice of noticing those thoughts arising, and returning attention to _____ that is a major part of the point.
After a few weeks it is obvious that paying attention (aka "being mindful") is a trainable skill, and practice yields improvement.
The TL;DR thing about it, the `n00b gainz` part that I think anybody can get, unless they already naturally have it, is: most of the thoughts you have that feel like "you" aren't, really. They are largely just thoughts. You feel like you are having them, thinking them, but generally that's not the case. Pay close attention and you can see the gap clearly between almost all thoughts that arise and "you".
It is then much easier to respond to thoughts and feelings in the way you actually want to, rather than in some reflexive way that is not actually they way you would like to respond.
The good thing about meditation is that you can just run your own n=1 experiment and try it. I chose the Waking Up app as my coaching tool (a real human teacher might be better, if you found the right one, but any of the apps will probably work fine I think) because it started with that premise: don't take our word for it, try this yourself and check the result for yourself.
I did so, and the results have been pretty subjectively fantastic. I'm more present with my children. I am less reactive to (and therefore significantly less irritated by) dumbasses at work and in general life. And it feels way, way easier to stick to every mundane goal (running every morning before kids wake up, going to bed on time, adhering to my physical trainer's diet, and any and all other shit like that).
After doing sitting meditation practice for a few months, I added walking meditation, which is fucking fantastic.
This experience has made me want to try fasting, which I have never tried but other people recommend a lot, including in this very thread. Like meditation, it isn't something you have to take anybody's word for. You can just try it yourself, and see what the results are.
I wished it had more, but it only had that one. So I bought this other app, called “Walking Meditations” (on iOS), and it basically just has 3 guided walking meditation sessions.
I also have “Ten Percent Happier” so I did that app’s walking meditation.
After trying all these guided walking meditations a couple times each, I started trying to do it on my own, without any guidance/coaching.
That works, but I personally still do better with a guided session. (That is to say, when I have an audio guide, I tend to notice more quickly when I get lost in thought, and observe the thought and let it pass, then return focus to the object of meditation, whether that is my breath, body sensations, environmental sounds, etc. If left to my won devices, after a while I still tend to get lost in thought for several minutes before realizing it.)
So then I realized, hey, I can do the regular guided meditations while walking. The guide does usually say something like “OK, take your seat. Close your eyes, and bring your attention to the sounds around you | your breath | the weight of your body in space.” I just ignore the non-applicable parts, or substitute something applicable.
If walking outside, I don’t close my eyes. Instead of bringing my awareness to the feeling of my body in the chair, I bring it to the feeling of my feet hitting the pavement, my legs supporting my body.
But the rest of the coached meditation generally works fine. The commentary in these sessions generally consists of long pauses with gentle reminders and hints, to softly note your in/out breaths, become aware of sounds or sensations, or note when you become lost in thought and return your focus to the object of meditation.
I believe with more practice I will likely just do it without coaching, but for now I like it with the coaching. I also made a habit of doing morning meditations standing on my roof, eyes shut usually, but facing the sun. That works great, too.
Especially great for walking are the guided meditations that have you pay close attention to all the sounds around you. In a city, or in nature, even in a stil and quiet place.
TL;DR - “just do the same meditation, but while walking”
- journaling
- practicing smalltalk with strangers
- spending time in nature, preferably alone
- quietly sitting in a room with eyes closed for 15-20 mins everyday and introspecting and reflecting on Life, Universe and everything (not sure if that can be called proper meditation)
- a balanced diet and exercise
- Traveling whenever possible
- keeping in touch with family/friends and also not ignoring the people who you think are 'not-so-important'. You never know when they will be.
-exposing yourself to challenges. (work/physical/psychological/intellectual)
Not having any way to kill time forces me to sit there and actually think about what I want to do. It might get me to leave the house and do exercise, or to work on more rewarding things.
On my phone, I use uBlock to block roughly the same sites (plus many distracting elements on other sites). It's trivial to turn off, but it gives me some time to reconsider.
Overall, you end up feeling calm and alert. No coffee needed =).
Having several in-progress books I’m reading at once. Didn’t read much before, now about two books a month.
Moving from an apartment where my desk had a view of a parking lot, to a house with a river view. Thought it’d be nice only temporarily, but a year later I still feel happier and more motivated.
Stopping ambien use. I realized it’s better to sleep when I’m actually sleepy and wake up late rather than wake up early but feel depressed and brain-foggy.
Tracking my work hours but not pomodoro-style, but by setting tiny tasks and seeing how fast I can complete them. Aiming low with total time, defining spending 3 hours per day spent in actual deep concentrated work on the most important task a successful day.
- Nuts, seeds, vegetables. Some fruit. - Vitamin B12 and D3 supplements. - Water
I save money by not needing chronic medication, feel very calm, have no trouble with my bowel movements, eat when I want to, and have lost body fat despite leading a mostly sedentary lifestyle.
I also save more time than most in eating this way.
I sometimes eat ice cream. When I do this, my heart rate picks up dramatically and makes me feel uncomfortable afterwards. But hey, I love ice cream.
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Going on walks, and hill climbs with a weighted backpack seems to fix my back pain instantly.
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I recently learned that I can take all the leftover vegetable ends and skins and boil them to make vegetable broth.
1. Intermittent Fasting. I had gained a lot of weight after an accident. It helped me get back into shape. I was always a very active person. So I never had to watch what I eat but late twenties and my injury forced me to watch I eat. I'd often feel bloated, heavy, and tired. Fasting regularly for at least 18 hours was something I had to work on but it's just second nature to me now. Feel a lot more energetic and light :)
2.Picking hobbies that I'm serious about. I've always been one of those people that would pick up something and drop it after a couple of months after getting that initial sense of achievement.
I didn't change this habit right away. Instead, I actively searched for something that would really, really click. Landed on drawing and downhill skating. I've been skating for 2 years straight now and drawing is catching up. I think around 6 months now.
Having something you're really passionate about outside of work, man, it's like a different kind of medidation. Especially something as dangerous as downhill skating. I started it as a fat and out of shape, tech guy in his late-twenties. The improvement I could see was what kept me motivated through the scary novice times where I'd get injured frequently. Honestly it was really scary. But now, it's a great outlet where I can get into a hyper-focus state and just exist. Because if you don't do that, you might actually die, haha.
3. Not a hack but something I've noticed in many part of my life is that the more relaxed and loose you are, the more precise you can work. I had learnt this while learning to play the drums back in highschool but never thought about applying this to my daily life. The realization hit when I was learning to draw. But it works in almost anything.
- Question authority, always ; when in doubt, don't work for client/boss
- Steal from the rich: take all you can from the supermarkets, and redistribute it
- Cook good stuff ; it's good for motivation
- Take time away from computers to be human with other humans (i swear i'm not AI), but not just 24h, more like a few weeks
- Acknowledge we're all fallible and deserve some slack: prepare for failure so you can build cool things without drama