
Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier? - arikr
Where things = products, services, tools, strategies, books, systems, etc.<p>For me:<p>* Internal Family Systems made me more peaceful<p>* &quot;The Sleep Book&quot; by Meadows made me sleep better<p>* Apps: Otter for taking notes, Superhuman for email<p>* Websites: Wirecutter<p>* Books: How to Get Lucky, Self-Therapy
======
csallen
I've spent a ton of time as a developer trying to make money from various side
projects and businesses. So most of my top "wish I'd discovered this earlier"
list revolves around tech+business stuff:

* Strategy #1: Charge more. patio11 has been shouting this from the rooftops for years, but it didn't sink in until after I started Indie Hackers[0]. If you charge something like $300/customer instead of $5/customer, you can get to profitability with something like 50 phone calls rather than years of slogging. It's still hard, but it's way faster.

* Strategy #2: Brian Balfour's four fits model[1]. It's not enough to think about the product. You also need to think about the market, distribution channels, and pricing, and how each of these four things fit together. I imagine them as four wheels on a car. It's better to have 4 mediocre wheels than 3 great ones and a flat.

* Book: _The Mom Test._ [2] Amazing book about how to talk to customers to research your ideas without being misled, which is a step I've stumbled on before.

* Tool: Notion. I just discovered it recently. I use it for all my docs and planning.

[0] [https://www.indiehackers.com](https://www.indiehackers.com) \- my latest
business, and the one that actually worked

[1] [https://brianbalfour.com/four-fits-growth-
framework](https://brianbalfour.com/four-fits-growth-framework)

[2] [https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-
everyone/...](https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-
everyone/dp/1492180742)

~~~
bananamansion
how does one find business ideas that you can charge 300/customer? is it 300
per month or per year?

~~~
csallen
I'd err closer to $300/month.

How do you find ideas in this category? Simple: Just look at what people are
already paying lots of money for.

Off the top of my head, consumers spend lots of money on education (courses,
seminars, books, classes, workshops), events and experiences, travel and
vehicles, rent and housing, clothing and accessories, food, hobbies, etc.
Businesses spend lots of money on recruiting and hiring, hosting, advertising,
marketing tools, analytics tools, productivity, real estate, etc.

I know tons of indie hackers building businesses that help others learn to
code, for example.

~~~
thundergolfer
Off the top of your head what are some of the more successful ‘learn to code’
indiehacks?

~~~
csallen
Wes Bos, Adam Wathan, Joel Hooks of Egghead, Quincy Larson of freeCodeCamp,
Jeff Meyerson of Software Engineering Daily, Ben Halpern of DEV, Jessica Chan
of Coder Coder, arguably Ben Tossell of Makerpad.

------
otras
_Learning How To Learn_ ([https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)) and Barbara
Oakley's book _A Mind For Numbers_. Completely changed my approach to studying
and learning, and my academic efforts after taking it were tremendously better
than before.

Also related: highly recommend Anki. It feels like magic when the spaced
repetition works!

~~~
valgor
Is it necessary to go through the entire Learning How to Learn course or is
there a TL;DR somewhere?

~~~
huehehue
I don't remember who posted it or if it's the same course, but
[https://workflowy.com/s/E9HW.jGUYboLrGj](https://workflowy.com/s/E9HW.jGUYboLrGj)

~~~
ambivalents
Whoa cool these are the notes I put together. I'm glad someone remembered :)

------
leblancfg
_You are the sum of your habits_. I've always had "sort-of passable" ones, but
they were never chosen by design, only by what had accreted with time. I had
played with some systems and apps, but nothing had really worked until I took
the time to write out in excrutiating detail what I would be doing for every
minute of my morning and evening. At first I had to follow my schedule, but
that didn't last long.

With the birth of my son, daycare, and a new job, I was finally forced to
actually plan out a morning and evening routine. I wish I had done this in
university.

Every day for the last 6 months, I have now a routine I don't have to think
twice about:

* Woke up at 5 AM,

* Exercise hard, take a shower and have breakfast,

* Get to work before 7:30 AM with my day's tasks already in mind.

Similar for the evening preparing my breakfast, lunch and clothes. It's
liberating to do these now without thinking. It took about a month, and my
brain is now free to plan out the day or listen to an audiobook.

~~~
ido
How do you get to work before 7:30am with a child? Does daycare start that
early?

I struggle to get my kids up, fed, clothed and in kidnergarten before 8:30
myself (which means I can be at work around 9).

~~~
leblancfg
My wife and I’s schedules are staggered. She takes mornings, I take the
afternoons.

I don’t think the actual hours at which you start your day matter much,
though. I find the value is in being constant at it.

------
tony
Nice job on Internal family systems OP! I'm not there quite yet but getting
close

\- TypeScript : Absolute game changer for JS. I can't imagine programming
regular ES. Sort of hoping TypeScript becomes the next ES.

\- Desktops : Desktop processors and video cards are insanely powerful
compared to laptops. If you're doing any sort of compilation (even if it's
webpack / frontend) this stuff helps a ton. A project that takes 90s to build
on a mbp is 30s on a desktop.

\- Windows 10 + WSL

\- Attachment Theory:
[https://www.behaviorology.org/oldsite/pdf/AttachmentTheoryBe...](https://www.behaviorology.org/oldsite/pdf/AttachmentTheoryBeh.pdf),
[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d36/ac75d7081fcd86d467f6d2...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d36/ac75d7081fcd86d467f6d2ef408d60c8ffca.pdf)
(The stuff by Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver are very relevant for adults)

\- Schema Therapy:
[https://www.guilford.com/excerpts/young.pdf](https://www.guilford.com/excerpts/young.pdf)

Look up Psychology in Seattle on Patreon and download the deep dives for
Attachment Theory and Schema Therapy. After that it's easier to grok the
research papers/books.

~~~
copperx
Do you mind sharing briefly what you got out of attachment theory and schema
therapy? Or why are they worth a look?

~~~
tony
To some, they're therapy frameworks, to other's they're analytical tools. I
bring it up here is because they cut to the chase and get to what people want.
We're not good at saying it, it makes us too vulnerable to. Some of us could
save a lot of time and misery if we broke this taboo.

Are you to open to viewing things in a different perspective? First you'd get
a gist of the theory/framework/model/whatever. Then you'd need to understand
what thing/person/system it's being used on. Without that, it'd be making too
many assumptions to explain to others without context. The perspective is
subjective to the one applying it, a blend of art and science.

I grew up in a family / circle where as an adolescent, nobody gave me advice
or cared about my emotions. Worse, my parents dumped their emotions on me.
Despite being a child and having my own stuff on my plate, I was recipient to
persistent, intense emotional outpourings of neediness, anxiety and anger. Day
in and out, for years. I looked up papers as a survival tool. Various other
stuff that messed up me having needs met.

What do people need anyway? Does everybody have them? Do people need to be
loved, how is it defined? Does society ignore, shame, or belittle our basic
needs?

Sometimes, I think so. This means people are suffering and they can't even
articulate why.

What if more people could simply be cognizant of these needs? Could/would we
be happier? I don't know. I'm still digging into it.

------
sharadov
Thinking strategically from a career and life perspective.

Managing your investments

Eating right and exercise

Risk Taking - take big risks early in your life, ones which have the biggest
upside. The terror of the unknown and leaping into it and coming out at the
other end multiple times makes you fearless. The journey is all that matters,
the destination is not in your hand. But the journey teaches a lot.

Some of the above, I was fortunate to learn early on from good mentors, and
I've reaped big rewards, the rest I only wish someone had told me earlier.

~~~
ljf
I wish I'd learnt about investing before I was in my late 30s - and same about
value of a good pension. Still - it is never too late.

~~~
algaeontoast
What exactly do you mean by “investing”. The notion of “investing” in a few
index funds or shoveling money to a financial advisor?

~~~
ljf
Just the concept of sticking £100/£1000 here and there into a an index tracker
and leaving it well alone - ideally until a rainy day/emergency.

There have been plenty of times in my life I was 'cash rich' but I left my
money in the bank, as I didn't know what to do with it. I used to then over
pay my mortgage, which was crazy as I had a 1% interest rate and the stock
market would have been a better place to put my cash.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a 'rich' man - but I've always put money aside
(out of a fear/memory of being broke) I just could have worked that cash
harder - and that was money that I could have taken some risk with.

------
hprotagonist
I wish i had learned that going to the gym is the thing to do when your brain
is full.

My undergrad GPA would’ve been higher and i’d have gotten fit earlier in life.

~~~
penetrarthur
I especially like the exact moment during the workout when you feel that
"blood starts flowing in the head again" and you gain some sort of clarity.
Especially if I've been working really hard that day.

------
rsync
I wish I had discovered Hacker News earlier.

I kept having customers sign up for rsync.net citing "Hacker News" in the
"where you found out about us" but I assumed it was the _old hacker news_ that
was run by a certain defcon/cdc personality and was sort of a clone of
attrition.org ... it had been around since 99/00/01 or so ...

It took me several years to figure out there was a _new_ hacker news out there
...

~~~
rando444
I believe that one was the hacker news network (hnn) IIRC

------
WnZ39p0Dgydaz1
Realizing how much incentives matter. Everything around you is driven by
incentives: Coworkers, your boss, customers, personal relationships. More
importantly, everything is driven by "personal incentives" more so than
"business incentives", and those two aren't usually aligned. For example, if
you are talking to a potential customer (who may represent a company), it's
invaluable to understand what incentives drive this person (not company!).
What is he or she trying to get out of working with you? A promotion?
Recognition from his boss? A story to tell his family at dinner? What are his
current life and career goals and how does that align with choosing you? What
is his decision making progress and why? And so on. The same can be applied to
your coworkers, or anyone else you're working with. Even to you friends and
family, whose incentives may to be simply have a good time, feel loved and
accepted, or have someone to listen.

There are rarely true "irrational" decisions. If a decision looks irrational
to you, it's most likely because you don't truly understand the incentives
driving that person.

------
deanmoriarty
If you're interested in seeing financial returns for your time/work, don't
work as a startup employee, ever.

~~~
ambivalents
Could you elaborate? Seems like this is heavily dependent on the success of
the startup and at which stage you joined.

~~~
mav3rick
The probability for this is extremely low.

------
channel_t
I wish I had discovered the wonders of attending college earlier on. I spent a
good chunk of my teens and twenties in a constant state of alienation because
I wasn't around people who put much value towards analytical thought. It
wasn't until when I finally discovered it on my own in my mid-20s that life
started making sense. It seems like that for many, the high school ->
university pipeline is the path of least resistance, but if you don't have any
pressure from family or direct peers involved in that kind of thing, it can
fall far under the radar.

------
notacoward
#1 How to run. I hated and avoided running for 30 years, then I got to the
point where I hated going to a club and I hated having a machine in my home
(and not getting any aerobic exercise at all was of course intolerable) so I
decided to give running a try. At first it sucked, but then I figured out I'd
been doing it wrong so I fixed my stride etc. It sucked less. I still don't
enjoy the activity itself, but I'm sure glad for the results.

#2 The power of compound interest. I was lucky to learn this one early, but I
think a lot of others weren't so lucky. More than any other single thing, any
skill, any stroke of luck, this is why I now feel comfortable about my
financial future into retirement.

~~~
thirdsun
> I still don't enjoy the activity itself, but I'm sure glad for the results.

I don't think that's a sustainable or worthwhile approach. Exercise and
training can be found in many forms and countless different activities - pick
those you actually enjoy.

~~~
notacoward
> I don't think that's a sustainable or worthwhile approach.

I have several thousand miles of evidence to the contrary. There's a lot of
"exercise" not worthy of the name. For many people, especially at my age, the
very heart/lung exertion that characterizes true exercise is at least mildly
unpleasant regardless of how it's attained. Fortunately, one can harness
competitive or goal-oriented impulses to make up for it. I count miles, I
track my pace, I compare myself to other runners my age, I look at the scale,
etc. Thinking about these results helps me keep going when I exercise just
like it does when I'm hacking on some grotty piece of code at work, and I've
been doing that continuously for longer than most here have been alive.

If I only ever did things that were fun in the moment, I'd be a bit of a
failure, so I suppose learning the value of deferred gratification is another
potential answer to the original question.

~~~
thirdsun
That's fine. I didn't mean to say that you only should do fun things, but I
think there's a middleground. Personally, I think running is a very boring
activity - road biking however, while similar in nature, is something I look
forward to and it comes with the same benefits (goals, tracking, comparable
stats) you seem to actually enjoy.

I can also recommend team sports - for me it's football (as in soccer), but
specific sports are beside the point as those are very subjective. I'm just
trying to say that I see no point in engaging in a sport I don't enjoy when
there are so many options available that offer rewarding goals _and_ provide
enjoyment while you get there.

~~~
notacoward
Anything that requires a specific time and place to do it with others is a
non-starter for me as a primary form of exercise.

If I lived near a body of water, kayaking would be a good alternative in
summer (or more if I move to a different part of the country). That could
still happen some day, but not now. Cross-country skiing is an alternative,
and one I intend to pursue more this winter since I now live near some good
places for it, but of course that's only in winter.

Cycling is the kind of obvious alternative, but I'm not really sure I'd enjoy
it any more at the same intensity. As I said, it's the intensity itself that
creates discomfort, and I've seen too much mayhem involving intense cyclists
too. Seems like that focus on results can have pretty serious consequences at
bike speeds.

It's great that you feel like you have tons of options that both meet your
goals and provide enjoyment at the time. Consider that it might not be the
case for everyone, and some might still put the goals first.

------
wurp
Meditation. Download a free 20-minute guided meditation and do it every day.
Maybe at some point read "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

I can provide a good guided breathing meditation on request.

Meditation will help you be calm and focused. It will help you recognize and
work through emotions with a minimum of harm to yourself or others.

I'm definitely not advocating self-immolation, but the same training that let
monks sit calmly as they burned to death in the 60s (in an attempt to call
attention to the horrifying war in Vietnam) will definitely help you deal with
your breakup, illness, work troubles, or loss of a loved one.

~~~
peachepe
I’d appreciate a link to a good guided breathing meditation

~~~
qzx_pierri
I’m not sure which type of phone you use, but I’ve been meditating off and on
for years, and I’ve tried EVERYTHING. The absolute best guided meditations are
from an app called “Stop Breathe & Think” - It gives you a 2 question survey
and gives you a guided meditation based on what you need for the day. A lot of
meditation apps feel very corporate and contrived, but not this one.

Android:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stopbreath...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stopbreathethink.app&hl=en_US)

iOS: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stop-breathe-
think/id778848692](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stop-breathe-
think/id778848692)

------
algaeontoast
How to effectively learn and balance my use of mental energy.

My diagnosis of depression and ADD inattentive-type (my parents were great,
but denied that mental health was a factor until I decided to at age 22). I
don't fault them, but I know for a fact my years in highschool and college
struggling to learn / focus but knowing I had cognitive ability will irk me
until the day that I die.

~~~
brailsafe
Was going to respond with this as well. At 27 I decided to reflect on my
abilities vs test scores and ability to focus and spoke to a doctor. Parents
never considered mental health as a factor, and looking back—but without
blame—opportunies and growth were missed. Care to expand on your case?

Edit: Saw your response below.

~~~
algaeontoast
Glad to hear I'm not alone with my later-ish diagnosis.

Like you, I don't blame my parents. But I do wonder what I would've been able
to accomplish academically when I was in high school and a majority of college
if I'd had my diagnosis. Many of my friends in college (both ADD and non-ADD)
assumed I had a diagnosis and was just distracted by personal projects to
perform academically.

How'd you make up for lost time / improve your work habits after your
diagnosis?

~~~
brailsafe
Well, I don't technically have a diagnosis—I don't think. I have been
prescribed some medication that I think helps most of the time, as long as I
can get started. 27mg Concerta up from 18mg. It's a subtle effect and I don't
take it every day. To re-up this prescription, I'm counting on a walk-in
clinic being able to do so by using my existing bottle. Aside from that, I'm
also only maybe 3 or 4 months in to using it. What I found to be helpful in
terms of study habits—I've been meandering through a degree for about 5 or 6
years—is taking physical notes frequently, for anything I do. Over the last
few years it seems as though my working memory has deteriorated severely. This
could be a result of a concussion or almost anything, but I've been taking B12
and it's improved a bit. Otherwise, I've reflected a lot over the last 3 years
on the things I do and how I do them. In short, one thing I need to enforce in
myself is only investing myself personally in stuff I can feel is worthwhile
and creates value or is otherwise interesting. I can't work a corporate job
for long, I'll get fired and become depressed. I do best with disparate, hard,
and novel tasks that don't require me to be anywhere for any particular time.
That isn't always sustainable though, so I've started grading my days to hold
myself accountable towards tasks I don't want to do, so I can get better at
that. That's in short. I've been fired or laid off from 6 or 7 jobs, but can
think through complex reasoning tasks pretty well and easily fixate on tough
theoretical problems that are approachable for my background. I'm extremely
ambitious and aim for hard stuff, so I'd like to find a way to leverage that
more.

------
SamReidHughes
How much playing Bach would improve my piano ability as a function of time
spent. Some HN comment recently mentioned this, so I gave it a try.

The importance of keeping a clean sleeping environment.

------
bakuninsbart
* Bouldering: Could be generalized as "a sport that fits you". Bouldering changed my life, as it is the perfect balance to a desk job. I met a lot of great people, improved my self confidence and am much healthier now.

* The power of routine: I never liked routine and thought it stifles creativity. In some ways it actually might, but creaitivity without productivity isn't worth that much.

* To not take myself so seriously: Life is so much easier and more fun if you can laugh about yourself, if you don't try to uphold a self-imposed picture towards others, and if you can accept that sometimes things go wrong, and sometimes it's your fault. - Not only am I happier now, I think it also made me a better person.

------
ian0
Hard Sci-fi.

Holy crap it just overdelivers. In addition to entertainment, a way to take my
mind off things, it also delivers context to daily life and keeps me focussed
on trying to deliver something truly worthwhile.

~~~
donatj
Any recommendations? I’ve read a ton of Arthur C. Clarke in my teens, I’d love
to branch out.

~~~
mkl
Andy Weir - _The Martian_. Possibly the most well researched science fiction
book I've ever read. Well worth reading even if you've seen the movie, since
that leaves out about half the things that go wrong and the large majority of
the technical details.

Andy Weir - _Artemis_. Weir managed to figure out a way for a city on the moon
to make economic sense, while physics makes it almost impossible.

Neal Stephenson - _Seveneves_. First sentence: "The moon blew up without
warning and for no apparent reason." What follows is the brutally,
unforgivingly hard consequences.

~~~
jfe1234
Seveneves is great as are Snow Crash and Anathem by the same author. Anathem
has a lovely epic feel. Tough read though!

~~~
mkl
I haven't read Anathem yet. Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age are
also excellent, but getting away from hard sci fi.

------
martindbp
I dearly wish I had used something like Anki throughout college instead of
many years later. And actually focusing on understanding and long term recall
rather than passing tests. It would have been difficult though, since having
multiple difficult classes simultaneously often requires cramming at the end
followed by focusing on the next course. But if I went back to school now
that's what I would have done.

~~~
porknubbins
I’ve used Anki to learn foreign languages and it has been amazing so I tried
to use it in grad school but it backfired because all my courses expected
understanding a few big deep ideas and not memorization of hundreds of small
facts. I think it really depends on the domain, like medschool its commonly
used but I’m not sure about other areas.

~~~
martindbp
Do you have any examples? I'm genuinely curious. I'm using it for languages
but also math etc. I've found that medium/big picture ideas come with some
kind of "insight" that has to fit into short term memory, or consciousness, so
it must be possible to construct some cue that reminds me of this insight.
I've also learned over time that even though it feels like I could never
forget an insight I just had, over time they fade as well unless I revisit
them.

~~~
porknubbins
Examples of where I dont find srs productive- law and programming. Both are
focused on deep ideas that do not convert easily to a short sentence and by
the time you’ve gotten the idea the verbal reminder is not necessary. I know
what you mean about an insight but for me when I really get something, for
example an algorithm its more like a mental picture of moving parts in my
head.

------
molteanu
That cheap mice and keyboards will ruin ones hands beyond repair after years
of heavy use.

Don't be that person. Learn to type and invest in your hardware early on.

~~~
jszymborski
Do you have specific suggestions re: peripherals. I've been using the Logitech
MX Vertical Wireless lately and it's been a huge improvement from my previous
bulky Logitech G600.

I'm wondering if there are keyboard set-ups people really like? I'm enjoying
my Gigabyte mechanical keyboard, but would be willing to give it up for
something that'll let me get more mileage out of my hands/arms.

~~~
vosper
I really like the MS Sculpt keyboard. I use it with a Mac, my wife uses hers
with her Windows machine.

I also recently learned about proper desk posture - I now sit with my stomach
just touching the desk, and my keyboard is way further forward. My forearms
rest on the desk almost all the way to my elbows, and my wrists rest on the
keyboards wrist pads. I find that this greatly reduces the strain on my arms
and wrists.

~~~
omnimus
Although it looks terrible tables with that little arch cutout are pretty
smart for this reason. Especially on standing desk.

------
bobbean
No amount of telling yourself you're happy will make you happy. You can't just
"make yourself happy", it's a side effect of other things you do in your life.

~~~
justaguyhere
Yup. There was a recent guest on Tim Ferriss podcast - he was talking about
depressed people, no amount of "you should be happy" or "there are people who
have it much worse than you" is gonna help depressed people. It is only going
to annoy them and drive them away.

That said, there _are_ people who use affirmations successfully to get out
their misery. I dunno what to believe anymore

~~~
ian0
I run a checklist in my head whenever im feeling really down. I think about
things I know make me really happy, basic things. Friends, family, travel,
motorbikes etc. And if when thinking about those I _still_ feel down and
pessimistic - I understand that it's my brain chemicals at play and Im in a
funk.

Doesn't help me feel better in that particular moment, but does let me know
that later it will get better and there some context and comfort in that.

------
tzs
• Bread freezes and thaws really well, with little or no loss of texture and
flavor. If I had found this out 35 years earlier, I probably would have
replaced thousands of visits to fast food restaurants with sandwiches made at
home.

~~~
copperx
What kind of bread? Homemade? Store-bought? Sandwich bread? Whole wheat?
White? Does it matter?

Also, how do you thaw it?

~~~
jjp
Not op, but we've frozen pretty much all bread for years. You don't get the
freshly baked feeling, but unless you live on top of a bakery you aren't going
to get that anyway. Defrost either leave it out or microwave. Alternatively if
making sandwiches for work, make them frozen and let it defrost during the
morning.

~~~
yen223
Alternatively, slice it before freezing, and chuck it in the toaster to
defrost.

~~~
blaser-waffle
This works really well, but with one caveat: you're not gonna store it for a
really long time. Otherwise you get a lot of freezer burn between each slice,
way more than on an uncut loaf.

But like a month or two in the chiller? All good. Had great results with
homemade pain de mie that was sliced and frozen and eaten over 30 days.

------
mike_kamau
Sleep

Get good sleep. At least 8 hours everyday. Get a good mattress.

A good sleep makes a happy life.

~~~
elkos
Also seek consult from a Sleep Laboratory at ypur local major hospital, if you
snore people and people sleeping in the same room report you stop breathing
during your sleep (even for a few seconds).

This might be signs of treatable pathological conditions that if not treated
can (and most likely will be) detrimental to your health, quality of life and
productivity.

------
nikivi
Probably Karabiner. This tool is just crazy powerful.

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/karab...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/blob/master/karabiner/karabiner.edn)

------
donatj
Parsers / Lexers. I’ve been programming for twenty-ish years and only recently
started playing with parsers and even a simple hand written one is quite
empowering. I really wish I could have spent more time on this when I was
younger and single. I for instance wrote a small not-fully-featured SQL parser
[0] recently which helped me overcome a huge obstacle in my job.

[0]: [https://github.com/donatj/sqlread](https://github.com/donatj/sqlread)

------
tyri_kai_psomi
Therapy and having a spiritual Father. Then I would have discovered all the
dumb things I did as a teenager and early 20s were as a result of a
destructive feedback cycle consisting of depression/anxiety, low self esteem,
and existential crisis.

------
AlchemistCamp
I wish I'd really discovered programming before I did. Though, I'd been
reading about it, messing with Excel, WP blogs and nibbling at the edges for
my entire adult life, it wasn't until my mid 30s that I really got into
programming.

It wasn't an easy mid-career move, but it's _greatly_ improved my life options
and can only imagine where I'd be now if I'd spent my 20s learning computer
languages instead of human ones.

------
ksandvik
Be kind to yourself, if you can't you can't be kind to others.

------
tommaho
Awareness that periods of high performance are not 'free'. How to leverage
that balance.

Curiosity and aptitude for math. I've found this about 25 years too late for
it to make much of a difference.

~~~
patrickxie
Can you elaborate more on the first sentence?

~~~
tommaho
Sure, an understanding that I have a closed, fixed pool of resources to
balance between efforts.

My personal model is mind / body / spirit (or mental / physical / artistic).
I've learned through failure that high and exceptional performance in one
direction draws fuel from the other(s).

If my performance is out of balance for a long enough period, I seem to accrue
a kind of debt repaid over periods of burnout and depression.

------
findyoucef
This might sound simple, but in my mid 20s I discovered how effective I was at
teaching myself new things..in the past I had relied on learning within the
confines school. I just found it odd that I discovered I didn't need teachers
to learn conventional subjects after I was already done with university.

------
sethammons
I wish I had discovered interval training and olympic lifting earlier.

~~~
mdgrech23
Crossfit?

~~~
sethammons
That works, as long as you have a decent coach good with body mechanics. Kinda
few and far between in my experience. But in general, lifting heavy things is
healthy and I wish I had been doing it sooner. For cardio, intervals ftw.

------
ty2019
The absurdity of taking student loans for education

~~~
lutorm
This is highly location dependent though. I just happened to notice that the
interest on my Swedish student loan is _0.16%_. That in combination with the
income-indexed payback scheme and the fact that the loan balance is forgiven
at age 65 makes it an absurdly good deal.

~~~
2rsf
Swedish higher education is generally free, or at least very cheap.

If you insist you can find places that are not free, but generally loans are
taken to finance housing and living

------
boca
1\. That sleeping over uncomfortable pending decisions and discussions helps a
lot.

2\. That a fixed sleeping schedule with at least 8 hours of sleep does wonders
to my thought process and has a calming effect.

3\. That my thoughts, especially under tough circumstances, are not really a
true picture of reality. This one is tough and is still under discovery mode.

4\. That I should never compare myself with others. The only thing I should
rely on others should be for inspiration. The comparison part I knew my whole
life but, like all simple things, it took a while for me to actually immerse
in the depth of it.

------
0_gravitas
Functional Programming, so much of my frustration with mathematics early in my
education could have been allayed if just a small number of certain core ideas
were planted in my head when going through it.

------
el_dev_hell
Explosive outbursts of anger over tiny tiny issues is a mental illness and not
a normal part of life.

Probably not what OP was specifically looking for, but this single discovery
has been the most profound in my life.

------
juddlyon
Here's a couple for web dev:

* how DNS works and how to configure common record types

* regular expressions - specifically for URL rewriting

* setting up good logging and monitoring

* asking for help earlier

~~~
tracer4201
When you think about scaling your service or application, don’t forget about
how your logs will grow. Think about this impact on CPU and disk usage. If you
wrote your own agent to ingest your logs, don’t forget to scale up your
logging service.

Source: peak traffic event... person who did back of the envelope math based
on p99 request size forgot about logs and specifically the increased log event
volume.

Machines were about to tip over. I recall having to ssh to hosts to manually
kill the log agent process because the logging ingestion service was shitting
itself (not properly throttling either) and we had no other levers in place.
Lolz did I mention deleting logs on live hosts because logs were just
accumulating and not getting cleared off? Now imagine this across 20,000
hosts. Teehee.

------
nestorherre
-Having a morning routine

-Meditation

-Reading consistently

-Importance of sleep (fixed my sleeping issues with CBT-I [cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia])

-Value of joining a leadership/self development group like Toastmasters

-Accepting you for who you are, and work with your strengths

-Stop listening to what people say/advice about your life, most of the time they're wrong and you know better.

~~~
2rsf
> -Stop listening to what people say/advice about your life, most of the time
> they're wrong and you know better.

Yes, it will also reduce your stress levels. But it's easier said then done.

------
lapaz17
Discovering Hn, about 4 years ago. Although I did not choose which cs subfield
to master yet, I think Hn will affect my decision heavily. But I wish I had
taken a year break after graduating high school to know better about myself,
so I could have chosen cs instead of eee.

~~~
ssivark
Unsolicited cents of advice, but IMHO, a year off after undergrad makes far
more sense than a year off before undergrad. The enlarged skill set should
hopefully allow you to try interesting projects in that time, which would
typically be a far more useful experience than sitting around and
introspecting. Also, there's no fixed you to find out about... You'll keep
evolving and changing... So it doesn't make much sense to stop learning/doing
for an extended period to analyze :-)

------
AnimalMuppet
That interacting well with people really matters. That it's worth attention
and effort.

------
shakezzz
Perfect is the enemy of done

------
jurasource
I wish I'd discovered writing "Morning Pages" a lot earlier.

I've been doing it for the last year, and it's helped me figure out much
better solutions to so many issues in my life, than I would have without the
calm, reflective thinking that writing for 30 minutes each morning brings.

Can't recommend it enough.

[https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-
pages/](https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/)

------
mud_dauber
Learning how to overcome imposter syndrome.

I didn't come from a top-tier school, didn't work for name companies, and had
a zig-zag middle manager career. instead of a meteoric rise through the ranks.
Multiple layoffs too. I'll never see my name lauded in a press release.

I've discovered that self-worth is just that - it comes from within.

------
breck
How to Read A Book by Mortimer Adler.

Also, ycombinator/pg essays. Before that I got my business advice from “the
apprentice”.

The Pattern on the Stone.

------
jseliger
All of these: [https://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/22/influential-books-on-
me-t...](https://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/22/influential-books-on-me-that-is).
Although if I'd read some earlier, maybe they wouldn't have been so
influential.

------
mooreds
I wish I'd discovered writing ebooks earlier. I enjoy doing it and have
completed one, but haven't carved out the time to do another. Earlier in life
it would have been far easier to write a number of them, which would likely
have led to more career opportunities, if not more "passive" income.

~~~
MattLeBlanc001
Do you have any advice on where to start? any course?

~~~
mooreds
Whenever I think about writing an ebook, I write out twenty blog post titles.
If I can't get to twenty titles, I don't have enough knowledge or passion to
write a whole book.

Then, the one time I wrote an ebook, I blogged each of those twenty titles. I
set up a mailing list. I participated in forums on the topic, with my
signature linking to the blog posts/email signup form.

Then, after I'd written the blog posts, I used leanpub to pull in the RSS for
them. Then I edited them and expanded where needed.

That worked for me once, that's the path I'd take in the future.

Things to realize:

* writing a book is hard. I remember spending an hour on one sentence of my book (just testing to make sure I was correct about a statement).

* technical books have short lives. Tech moves on. That said, people are willing to spend money to save time.

* marketing is at least as hard as writing the book. Prepare to spend time doing this.

* If you aren't using the tech in your work (or won't be in the future) you better love the tech or your book will need changes and you won't want to put in the time.

Here's more about my book launch:
[http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1339](http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1339)

------
jayeshgopalan
For me Awarness book by De Mello, Anthony has been life-changing and I wish i
discovered it earlier in life.

------
wly_cdgr
* Facebook has been the best dating site for the last 15 years

* Sites like HackerRank, Codility, etc. So fun.

* [https://teachyourselfcs.com/](https://teachyourselfcs.com/)

* Loop Habit Tracker (Android app)

* raylib

* Anki (thanks, HN)

* Queal

* Virtual desktops, took me way too long to start using them, lolsob

* The secret clouds area in 6-2

------
andersthue
The anatomy of peace, helped stop being stuck and make a turnaround on my
mindset and my life.

------
urazen
I wish I had discovered that uploading cat videos on YouTube might change
one's life ;)

------
stunt
\- Setting 3 daily goals every morning.

\- Budget/money planning.

\- The power of writing things done to make them happen.

~~~
justaguyhere
_The power of writing things done to make them happen._

Can you explain your process?

~~~
stunt
Sorry I meant "down"! I write everything down. Purchase decision, budget
planning, daily goals, or even meeting agenda.

It is so simple that it's hard to believe how much impact it has.

I believe it takes away all the mental energy you have to put to process
things in your mind. And somehow it gives some sort of value and priority to
your plan when you write it down. It quickly becomes a discipline and works
against procrastination.

One of those things that you always hear it, yet you can't believe it until
you try it.

------
tawaaaaaaaaay
Alice Miller's Drama of the gifted child. Discovered the concept of
developmental trauma, and unleashed a whole series of discoveries about human
personalities and my lifetime struggles with many things in life.

------
Nguyenhung
There are rarely true "irrational" decisions. If a decision looks irrational
to you, it's most likely because you don't truly understand the incentives
driving that person.oke

------
omar12
Having a Work Journal. There are times that I wished I started one earlier.
When I go back at my work journal, I'm amazed how much I have accomplished,
even when its something insignificant.

------
dcchambers
My love for "preppy" sports like Golf and Tennis. Growing up I ignored those
things because I felt like they were exclusively for boring rich people. I got
my first taste of golf after college at a fundraiser that I reluctantly agreed
to attend only because a friend was hosting - and I loved it instantly. I
started playing Tennis because there is a public park with courts just a few
blocks from my house - and I love that too.

Yoga. Another thing that I always assumed was for rich suburban moms and I
didn't need to bother with. In my youth that might have been true, but the
body ages poorly if you don't take care of it. Yoga is a fantastic way to be
mindful/meditate and stretch/exercise.

TL;DR - Don't be so quick to judge that which you have not tried.

I wonder how many other things I have ignored throughout my life because I
associated them with some preconvieved belief or stereotype.

~~~
mosiuerbarso
+1 for your advice and your opinions on Yoga. I always thought it was for
hippy/new age types. It wasn't till I tried it myself that my opions
completely changed. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread it's the best
exercise I've found for my back pain and I've tried allsorts. If anyone
reading this has achy joints, bones, muscles, etc, give it a go. There are
thousands of videos on Youtube . Some of the instructors are a little cringe
worthy with what they say - but the exercise is solid. I have a friend who's
the same age as me (nearly 40) who teaches and trains in BJJ. He frequently
fights people half his age (and wins) and he tells me the Yoga really helps
him in that sport. If anyone reading this is wondering where to start I can
recommend this channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/lesleyfightmaster/playlists](https://www.youtube.com/user/lesleyfightmaster/playlists)

------
adipandas
I should have known before was engineering in Computer Science rather than in
Mechanical will help me a lot. Nothing too harsh, but I realized coding is fun
very late.

------
misiti3780
Anki or space repetition, exercise every day, natural low-sulfer wines

books: thinking fast and slow, black swan/antifragile, why we sleep, the
organize mind

~~~
valgor
>natural low-sulfer wines

How is this helpful?

~~~
misiti3780
wine in small amounts is very good for you, low-sulfer wines reduce hangovers.

------
countryqt30
AlleAktien — [https://www.alleaktien.de](https://www.alleaktien.de) for German
stock ideas

------
gadders
The book How to Win Friends and Influence People and weight training for
strength - Starting Strength, 5/3/1 etc.

~~~
gadders
Also, if you have a regular work task you need to do, block out time in your
diary for it.

And the absolute joy than can come from having children.

------
Nguyenhung
If there's one thing in life you want to know before anything else, it's how
to get better at things

------
cdeutsch
\- Living in the city instead of the suburbs.

\- Living in an apartment/condo; instead of owning a big, stupid house.

------
meiraleal
Intermittent fasting and carnivore diet

------
TheCryptoTengu
Peace and understanding after being a 0311 and 0313 in the Marines during
2006-10

------
qwerty1234599
To never go autopilot mode.

~~~
juststeve
need more details

~~~
qnsi
this is unachievable

------
longnguyen
Stoicism. I was unhappy and angry most of my 20s

------
zerr
Being underpaid.

------
rturing
Hi Op, Can you invite me to Superhuman?

------
mosiuerbarso
For me two things really come to mind: 1\. YNAB (you need a budget) 2\. Yoga

During my 20's & early 30's i had always had a well paid job but nothing to
show for it. I also had big overdraft which I'd never done anything about.
About 6 years ago I picked up a copy of YNAB 4 for about £8 of Steam. Within 3
months I'd completely changed my spending habits. Roll on a year or two and
I'd paid off all my debts. And this program has allowed me to save for some
big life events and trips - things I'd have probably borrowed money for in the
past. Last year I bought my first car in full without the aid of a loan. The
program also helped me when I went self empoyed a few years ago. Both mine and
my long term partners finances go thought the program and we know exactly how
little money we can live on - this is valuable info if times get hard. The
program is basically a spreadsheet with a nice GUI but the methodology behind
it work for me. If I'd have found something like this in my early 20's I'd be
a lot better of than I am now. But hey, better late than never.

I do Yoga every day. Prior to me getting into Yoga I thought the only real way
to exercise was to join a gym. I live in a rural part of the UK, so for me
travelling to the gym is timeconsuming. A few years back I'd been suffering
back pain due to long stints sitting at a desk all day. I'd also started to
put on weight due to inactivity. Anyway, during one painful day I decided to
Google "Yoga for back pain". I tried it and I was hooked. Not only did it fix
my back pain, it eased it for around 3 days. Since then I've really got into
Yoga and try to do at least 20-60 mins a day. Sometimes I might do it twice a
day if I know I'm going to be sat down a lot. Like everyone else I have days
when I'm worn out - for these days I have a couple of 10 min routines which I
try to do. I'm a firm believer of trying to exercise every day, even if it's
just for 10 minutes. It's a good habit to have and doing it daily reinforces
the habit. Since doing regular practice I don't really get any achy joints. I
also do HIT style Yoga 3 times a week which helps with body tone, strengh, and
cardio. When you really get into Yoga you realise they're many different
styles which can help different aspects of your health. For me, my main
driving force was back pain - I've never done any exercise which fixed my back
as well as certain Yoga exercises. For me Yoga is great because it's easy and
free. You only need a Yoga mat (a beach towel can suffice at the beginning)
and Youtube to get started. I keep myself in reasonable shape without having
to travel or pay any gym fees. I never knew exercise could be so easy and
cheap. I wish I'd known this in my late 20's, when I put on a lot of weight,
and was suffering with back pain and other achy bits.

------
gjvnq
How to propagate uncertainties.

Daily journaling.

That I needed glasses.

~~~
evolve2k
Willing to ellobarate on your actual daily journaling processes. When? Where?
Any structure around what you actually write/questions you answer.

------
RocketSyntax
* MVC programming (went to business school)

* Scikit-learn

* Road bikes

------
NebuREvoL
How do you look for stuff here

------
lutorm
Stoicism.

------
freenetpro
Exactly, This is the skillset that you will need for life.

~~~
mkl
What is?

If you're trying to reply to a comment, click "reply" right below it.

------
rodrigopacini
Cryptocurrency.

------
rafik7777
How do you get to work before 79:30am with a child?

------
rodrigopacini
Crypto

------
sebastianconcpt
* Full time remote jobs

* Conspicuous Signalling Theory

* The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

* Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault by Stephen R. C. Hicks

* The Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard e Hans-Hermann Hoppe

* The Red Pill

* How a Cultural War works and who is waging it against Western Civilization

* Lifting & dieting. The importance of muscle mass for everything in life

* How to cook tasty meals that fits an intense fitness lifestyle

* How hypergamy works (alpha seeds / beta needs)

~~~
AIX2ESXI
I see you're a fan of Jordan Peterson as well and the red pill philosophies.
Do you listen to any content creators on Youtube? My top 3 are Ronin man,
Sunrise Hoodie and Coach Red Pill. Many people just see the surface of the
various forums and loudest idiots and write the whole thing off as dejected
young men in the thralls of misogyny. In reality, they are modern day support
groups for men who have have been raised or in relationships with boderline
personality women and are going through abandonment trauma and or fucked by
their friends and society; the lessons these men have to teach are invaluable
and lifestyle it promotes is new age stoicism mixed with self survival and the
ability to see through desires and wants for others and yourself.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
I swear I cleaned up my room so now I'm heading to choose to lift some
sacrifices at the gym.

~~~
AIX2ESXI
Yeah, that the concept I am struggling with now. Picking my damn sacrifice
(been struggling to quit cannabis, been using it as a crutch since I was teen)

~~~
sebastianconcpt
Cleaning the room comes first (as metaphor). Then things will start to align
around that and your new, more mature self, will signal you what's the new
best use of your time/resources.

------
nEoRzar33
* Internal Family Systems made me more peaceful

~~~
cheeko1234
Do you have any book recommendation or other sources?

------
minexpert
I wish I had discovered interval training and olympic lifting earlier.

------
akachick115
Thank you for the recommendation

------
NewDayRisen
Way better than before.

------
rihegher
I wish I had been diagnosed as gifted earlier (around high school)

For the rest the timing was not that bad

~~~
rando444
If it's any consolation, it's common that children labeled 'gifted' early,
either don't live up to the label or are affected by the label negatively.

Even in my own adolescence I watched the most 'gifted' child eat batteries and
jump off the roof of the school.

~~~
Xelbair
I would actually prefer that label early on. I learned from my parents that
back in preschool and early primary school i was math genius. Supposedly i
astonished the ones administering preschool tests by doing stuff from two
grades above effortlessly.

Sadly later on I was stripped of my potential by math teacher in primary
school. I solved all exercises by writing the result outright, and she forced
me to write down every. single. step.

I got so used to that over course of 3 years, that now I'm slower than average
at mental calculations. i cannot do algebra efficiently without a piece of
paper anymore.

That teacher is probably the only person in my life i genuinely hate.

~~~
mkl
I have a PhD in maths. Writing down every step is the only way to get things
right and be able to verify that (essential for anything that actually
matters). The best maths advice I ever got was a high school teacher (not even
my teacher) looking at my work and telling me to write down more steps;
suddenly my accuracy and speed got way better.

Maths ability varies widely, and I don't think being able to do things a
couple of years earlier than your peers is that uncommon or really predicts
your later achievements, except for the encouragement of early praise pushing
you in that direction.

If you really want to be good at mental calculations, practice that. You
haven't lost anything you can't regain. However, pen and paper is more
accurate, more permanent, and can often be faster, though it feels slower
because you're physically moving a lot. Your hatred is beyond futile,
achieving nothing but hurting you and holding you back.

~~~
username90
Different people need different advice.

I love solving problems and am very good at it but writing things down makes
me hate maths, the act of moving the pen is much more effort than the problem
itself. I used to stump my professors by solving the problems they were
explaining in my head long before they would have gotten to a solution. But
then I got diagnosed with ADD after I completed my masters, I can write down
things no problem when I'm on medication, but if people forced me to write
down everything in school when I were undiagnosed I likely would have dropped
out of middle-school and maybe even committed suicide. Several of my siblings
dropped out of middle school so that is not an exaggeration.

I don't think that not writing things down held me back, I think it forced me
to become creative and learn things properly since I couldn't just follow
algorithms blindly like my classmates. So maybe I should be grateful that I
was diagnosed late and thus forced to invent my own maths throughout college.
I likely would have gotten perfect grades with medication, but I'm pretty sure
the things I learned and the intuition I built are way more valuable than
grades.

But if someone like you came around and thought I did things wrong then you
would have ruined my life. Please don't force that on someone else and when
they inevitably fail you just say something like "I guess he wasn't that good
after all, nothing I could've done!".

------
Sofia1996
I would open my cryptocurrency project, but if there was an idea that would
change the whole world)

------
Xelbair
Merge statements in SQL. Sadly i have to work with piece of shit called
firebird, which is both slow and full of exceptions. If you are forced to pick
a file based DB - pick sqlite, don't touch firebird.

I also have to work with a database schema designed by someone mentally
handicapped - i know for fact that it was designed in early 90s by someone
self taught.. and it never had a single refactor. They just migrated their own
file-based 'database' to firebird. Sadly this piece of shit software is used
very commonly in my field.

Merge statements make complicated updates blazing fast compared to any other
way.

That my engineering field is basically dead and i should've changed to
software development sooner.

