
Ask HN: What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour? - newsbinator
A lot of what hackers do takes years of building knowledge upon knowledge. That&#x27;s also true for physicists, marketers, salespeople, managers, etc.<p>Are there any quick wins that 30 ~ 60 minutes of intense concentration can generate?<p>For example an average person, if focused, can learn to read (but not understand) Korean decently in under an hour.<p>A person can also learn a few guitar chords and possibly play a carefully-chosen song in that time.<p>But those aren&#x27;t valuable skills in themselves.<p>Do you know of any simple + valuable wins in your area of interest?<p>(&quot;valuable&quot; intentionally left vague)
======
RobertRoberts
How to cook for yourself, really, really good food. I no longer crave
restaurant food, and all of the really important things I learned about
cooking take just the time to read it, hear about it and then try it. All
without any special hardware.

A few examples:

1\. Cooking jasmine rice: rinse it first, 1 c. water to 1 c. rice ratio. Bring
to boil, turn down heat to lowest setting. Leave lid /the entire time/. Fluff
the rice (look this up) when done. (about 12-15 min of cooking)

2\. Baking a cake: (any square pan yellow cake) Read how baking powder
actually works, then you realize you need to mix and bake quickly. Letting it
sit before baking will make a flatter cake. Also, stick a butter knife in the
middle to test when it's done, if it comes out with batter stuck on it, it
needs a few more minutes.

3\. Eggs: When frying, scrambling, put the eggs in warm water before cracking
to make them room temperature first. They cook better this way.

4\. Chocolate syrup: 1 c. water, 1 c. cocoa power, 1 c. sugar, 1/2 tsp
vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt. Blend it in a blender. (sealed container works best, as
it's messy) Better than store bought, super cheap, use organic if you like...

etc...

Why is this valuable? Because I am no longer tempted to waste money at
restaurants any more, or buy unique expensive organic products (because I can
make them now). I feel incredibly free and liberated that I get food at home
that tastes better than what is at a restaurant now. (for about 90% of the
stuff I like)

Also, I can teach my kids, and they start life with these skills. Great
question, way too many things to write down...

~~~
WillDaSilva
You mentioned cooking jasmine rice using a 1:1 ratio of water to rice, but
rice generally can't be cooked using a linear ratio like this. As you increase
the amount of rice being cooked, and change the size/shape of the cooking
vessel, more of the water will be lost as steam. It's easiest to use a rice
cooker, which will allow you more flexibility with regards to how much
water/rice you used, but if you don't have a rice cooker (or anything that can
work as a rice cooker) then I'd recommend the method where you cook the rice
in a covered dish in the oven.

~~~
monetus
Good advice on the water. Similar to how people learn ovens, it helps to learn
pans. The best method I've tried so far is a ~2:1 ratio (adjust to desired
texture) in a 14" wide, lidded, enameled skillet. I'll try the oven again soon
to compare, but that particular pan on a stovetop is hard to beat. Learn your
pans.

~~~
RobertRoberts
That is a good point. I have often found the temperatures in recipes to not
work great with my combination of pots and pans and need to tweak.

But you only get to the tweak stage after you start trying to cook at all. (a
lot of people don't cook much or try to make meals they think are out of their
reach)

------
unlinked_dll
How to properly wrap cables. A/V and cable techs are super anal about this and
it takes just a few minutes to learn, it will change your life.

Cables should never be coiled in the same direction. It creates kinks when
unwound and make it extremely likely for knots to form (ever leave your
headphones in your pocket?).

If a cable isn't being installed permanently it should be "wrapped" using a
technique called "over-under". Hard to describe in text, so here's a video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpuutP6Df84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpuutP6Df84)

Personally I disagree with his method, what I do is do the "over" loop by
placing my palm _over_ the cable, and on the under loop, put your palm _under_
the loop. Then when you pull the loop to your fixed hand, you always keep your
palm down when laying it. Very quick way, eventually becomes fast with
practice. Also useful to unroll kinks from the cable when you wrap it, and
always tie the bastard off because if one end falls through you'll get knots.

~~~
galfarragem
I learnt this while working in trades. Working with trades people or handymans
will teach you a lot of practical skills that are useful in daily life.

~~~
greyhair
Thirded. I worked as a farm hand on a nearby dairy farm through high school,
then six years as a mechanic before going to college. As a farm hand, you
learn early how to arc weld, or cut steel with an acetylene torch, along
simple carpentry and plumbing, as well as mechanical maintenance on equipment.
It isn't all just feeding and milking cows. You also learn to deal with shit.
Literally tons of it.

~~~
MS90
I'm willing to bet that cattle ranchers and dairy farmers deal with more
bullshit per capita than any other profession.

~~~
ticmasta
but they don't even have BAs and PMs...

------
DoofusOfDeath
If you've been married for a while, learn who your spouse is _now_. (I mean in
a good way, by taking an hour to rediscover what his/her hopes and dreams are,
what interests they've gained / lost, etc.)

He/she is probably a pretty different person than the one you married. It's
easy to overlook that.

~~~
Fnoord
I'd say that applies to being together, not necessarily being married.
Nowadays, we don't all live in a religious dominant society (anymore) where it
is required or normal to marry.

~~~
bostonpete
Marriage is not a strictly religious institution.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Very true: My marriage is legal. We didn't actually care if we were married or
not, but boy oh boy immigration would rather us be married. So we are. We'd be
together nonetheless, marriage was just the means of doing so.

But I think the poster's point was that this advice is basically advice for
long-term relationships and really shouldn't be viewed under the light of
marriage only. Since many folks don't _have_ to be married to be a family, a
good number of folks are skipping that step.

------
harrisonjackson
CPR/Choking/First Aid course is probably close to an hour.

How to change your own oil - probably lots of other money-saving home and auto
DIY things...

Speed reading and memory tricks can be a multiplier on learning other skills.

How to use automation tools like Zapier and IFTTT - again, a force multiplier.

You might be interested in this book [https://www.amazon.com/First-20-Hours-
Learn-Anything/dp/1591...](https://www.amazon.com/First-20-Hours-Learn-
Anything/dp/1591846943/) \- the author has a youtube video that covers it
pretty well in 15 minutes - similar to 4-Hour chef, too

~~~
kasey_junk
I’m always amazed when the “change your own oil” option comes up in these
discussions as it’s a very classic example where having specialized tools s
and doing it a lot really speeds you up. And it’s a dirty job without a lot of
intellectual interest. Further you can get it done for you in 10 minutes for
approaching minimum wage.

Unless you work on your car for fun and have things like a lift sitting around
it seems like a fairly useless thing to do yourself.

~~~
wenc
Agreed. Which brings me to something I learned in an hour (from Ricky Yean's
insightful piece on "mindset inequality" [1]) and which I'm still learning
recognize in myself -- i.e. the disadvantaging qualities of a poverty mindset.

Quote from article: _" Being poor makes you suck at using money as a resource.
My time was always cheaper growing up, so I got used to opting to spend time
rather than money. I had to fix this way of thinking when we raised our first
seed round, but it took quite some time. A simple decision to hire a new
employee, for example, took a very long time–to the point that it cost us
growth."_

When you're raised in poverty or a poor student (like I was), resources are
expensive but time is cheap, so the tendency is/was to use my own time to save
a couple of bucks here and there.

When you're no longer a poor student, this poverty mindset can actually work
against you if you apply it to everything. It can be growth limiting step.
When you have money, time is much more precious and and the time/money trade-
off looks very different. In many situations, money is "cheaper" than time.
One therefore needs to learn how to redeploy that money to access cheaper less
expensive resources than time. But if you have a poverty-mindset, you never
learn how to do this and hence are at a disadvantage in life, even as you
become middle-class or better.

Take oil changes for instance. 5W20 non-synthetic oil costs about $10. An oil
change costs about $25 here in Chicago, and can be done in 15 minutes -- and
done impeccably. The difference is $15. If I were to do it myself -- without
the right tools, plus I don't have a garage and it's really cold outside -- it
would take an hour and it would be a sloppy job. $15 is a fraction of what I
make per hour, and I figure if I pay someone to do it, I can redeploy that
time (plus any number of 1 hour chunks spent on things where I have no
competitive advantage) to thinking and cultivating myself or even just
relaxing (idleness is crucial to creative thinking), the culmination of which
is top-line growth, and I figure I'd make back that $15 (3 times a year =
$45/yr) many times over.

It's ok to DIY for fun and for self-enrichment (I admire handy people), but as
a universal prescription, it can potentially be a rate limiting step for many
people.

Side note: if you're landlord/homeowner however, DIY is very high leverage
(vs. paying tradespeople) and one's payback can be huge. One has to make that
calculation for oneself.

[1] Silicon Valley founders who grew up poor can’t shake “mindset inequality”
[https://qz.com/602770/silicon-valley-founders-who-grew-up-
po...](https://qz.com/602770/silicon-valley-founders-who-grew-up-poor-cant-
shake-mindset-inequality/)

~~~
boring_twenties
I'd be careful with those "impeccable" $25 oil changes. The only time I've
ever tried one, they threw out the filter housing along with the old filter,
and just "installed" the new filter without the housing. This was immediately
before a 400 mile road trip through the middle of nowhere. Good times. Never
again.

~~~
wenc
As with everything YMMV. Oil changes are so commoditized that it is more
likely for nothing to happen. I don’t know where you live but 25 is kinda of a
standard price in most places I’ve ever had an oil change at.

------
krosaen
Setup and learn how to use Anki to practice spaced repetition. Going forward
you can now decide what you would like to remember (so long as you are willing
to spend 5-15 mins a day reviewing)! People's names, that command you always
look up, your credit card number, interesting statistics (e.g number of
passenger miles per death for bicycles vs cars vs planes) foundational facts
in your field that will allow you to ponder and recognize them over and over
(e.g multivariate Gaussian distribution).

[https://apps.ankiweb.net/](https://apps.ankiweb.net/)

~~~
chirag64
There's also Quizlet which is similar but I find it better because you can
preview entire pre-built card decks on it which makes it searchable on google

[https://quizlet.com](https://quizlet.com)

~~~
hartleybrody
Quizlet is great if you're looking for pre-built decks, as you mentioned. As
far as I'm aware, there's no spaced repetition feature, which is the main
value in Anki.

Also, one of the values to me in using Anki is creating the cards myself. It
allows me to mull things over and decide what part of a fact is important, and
how I'd like to recall it.

Relatedly, the value isn't necessarily in reading someone else's study guide
before a test, it's in creating your own study guide. That process helps you
understand and retain the material far better.

~~~
hikarudo
Like you, I used to think that creating my own decks is better than using
someone else's.

But then I listened to a podcast episode, by The Learning Scientists, in which
they say that research evidence shows that your time is better spent doing
only retrieval practice (reviewing flashcards) than creating cards + retrieval
practice.

Retrieval practice and spaced repetition (which is what one is doing when
reviewing cards with Anki) are the most effective methods for learning for
which we have strong evidence, according to the same podcast.

------
koliber
Understanding compound interest thoroughly.

Compound interest is probably the most powerful "force" governing out lives.

It is crucial when borrowing money, especially for longer terms.

It is crucial when saving and investing.

It is crucial in self-development, where a tiny 5% improvement in some area of
your life per year can mean that you are twice as good at something in 15
years.

It is important when evaluating any kinds of improvements in personal life or
in business.

The trick is that the percentage never sounds like much. The number of years
always sounds like a lot. Nonetheless, the years WILL pass whether you want
them to or not, and what tiny life choices you make throughout have a huge
impact on where you will be in the future.

Being aware of that does not take much. An hour of intense concentration
should be enough to get this insight. Of course, this depends on your age and
math background. However, I feel confident saying the above as this to the
Hacker News audience, as the above requires nothing more than an imagination
and the ability to add and multiply by decimals.

~~~
ryanschneider
I think a seriously overlooked application of this principle is in nutrition
and dieting. Over- or under- eating by a small percentage of your required
intake might not have a discernible effect immediately but really adds up over
time, both for weight loss and gain.

~~~
glofish
It is not how it works at all.

The fallacy here is that a human body is a machine with well-defined intake
and output.

How would one even know what is "exactly" the right amount?

Over a year we consume 1 million calories. If one were just 0.1% off of
systematically eating more (or less) than required then according to your
model one would end up being 200 pounds fatter or 200 pounds leaner ... do you
think that anyone can regulate up to 0.1% accuracy to what they actually need?

eating a little more or less has absolutely not discernible effect the body
adapts to it.

~~~
JoshuaDavid
0.1% of 1 million calories is 1000 calories, which corresponds to about 0.3
pounds. If someone gains or loses 10 pounds in a year, that means they were
around 35000 calories away from equilibrium throughout the year, which is more
like 3-5%.

So a 5% calorie deficit or surplus would have a fairly small effect during a
single year, but over a decade or a lifetime the effect is huge.

~~~
glofish
oops, I sure got my digits wrong

------
lsiebert
How to do various knots comes to mind. Square knot, A sheet bend, clove and
trucker's hitch, prusik, the alpine butterfly knot, and bowlines can all be
learned rather quickly, then practiced so they can be remembered easily.

[http://paracord550milspec.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/How...](http://paracord550milspec.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/How-to-Tie-20-of-the-Most-Useful-Knots.pdf)

~~~
arvinsim
I remember learning these before but due to not finding any use case for them,
I already forgot how to do them properly.

Only thing I regularly tie nowadays are my shoelaces.

EDIT: Grammar

~~~
mkl
> Only thing I regularly tie nowadays are my shoelaces.

For that, in much less than an hour, you can learn the Ian Knot:
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm)

It makes shoelace tying very fast and secure (the GIF at the top is how long
it actually takes!).

~~~
jholman
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/betterbowknot.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/betterbowknot.htm)
for life

~~~
mkl
Hm, well that looks much slower, and the Ian Knot never comes undone for me.

~~~
dvlsg
Ian's secure knot is great, too.

------
geowwy
If you're going overseas, learn a little bit of the local language.

    
    
      1. Hello
      2. Goodbye
      3. Please
      4. Thank you
      5. Me
      6. You
      7. Him/her
      8. This
      9. That
      10. Here
      11. There
      12. Do you have this?
      13. Where is this?
      14. How much money is that?
      15. Where is the toilet?
      16. Digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)
    

You'll be surprised how much of the language you pick up naturally just by
memorising some basic words and using them.

~~~
lisper
I always try to learn how to say, "I'm sorry, I don't speak X" in language X.
When I was in Japan I got an unbelievable amount of leverage out of being able
to say, "Sumi masen, Nihon-go hanasei masen" which, of course, means "I don't
speak Japanese" in Japanese. The local's faces would light up and often they
would respond in Japanese despite the fact that I had just told them that I
don't speak Japanese.

~~~
kqr
Similarly, _Excusez-moi; parlez-vous Anglais?_ is how you get a French person
to speak English.

~~~
eps
The full handshake sequence is usually longer that this.

They will first reply with "Non", often coupled with a wounded look.

Then you have to start speaking in a very broken French, ideally with a
monstrous accent (though this comes naturally).

And only _then_ they will suddenly re-discover their long forgotten English
skills, which will turn out to be quite decent.

~~~
switch007
I agree. The French are clever (and very nice people). They know you’ve just
learnt that one phrase in order to unlock their English: you have to work a
bit harder. They want to see a bit of pain first.

~~~
mikorym
French mathematics is famous for being written as prose and by extension for
being much more instructive than an English equivalent (provided that said
mathematics was discovered by a French person).

~~~
shantly
This is very relevant to my interests. My French doesn't go past "haltingly
read newspapers" and "acquire food, shelter, and directions in a French-
speaking region", so would any of this prose-heavy mathematics be available in
English translation? Are there any particular authors you have in mind?

~~~
mikorym
I can't speak French, so my comment is based on what other mathematicians tell
me.

Unfortunately, Grothendieck, Galois and as far as I know, Bourbaki is not
fully translated. And unless someone actually spends many years doing it, a
lot of it never will be.

I also think Russian is useful, especially to read some old texts from the
cold war era. But a lot of the books are translated (but not the papers).
Kolmogorov's books and probably quite a few others were translated not very
long after they were written.

But, to be honest, I think knowing French and Russian is more of a personal
pursuit than a necessity to access the mathematiacs. Galois wrote down very
little and his memoirs (written by someone else) should be the interesting
historically. Grothendieck should also be interesting, especially to see his
unrelenting commitment to translate everything to category theory. However,
for almost any topic, somewhere, in English, there would be a good source.
Bourbaki was never really "completed" and I am not sure whether it's useful to
read those texts (rather than the stuff that was inspired by them).

I can recommend Lawvere's books, especially _Conceptual Mathematics_ since
it's even accessible for high school students. My main interest is in category
theory and set theory, so it may well not be what you are interested in.

I've also seen really useful stuff in the internet era, like _Category Theory
for Programmers_ by Bartosz Milewski.

------
tempestn
How, and why, to invest in a simple portfolio of index funds. Split between
equity and fixed income based on your risk tolerance, and diversify equities
globally. This will give you a low-cost, set-and-forget investment portfolio
that you can add to over time without ever having to worry about what you
should buy or what the market might do. Just add to it regularly over time,
and end up with solid retirement savings. The market and your portfolio will
certainly fluctuate, but there is no need to react to these
fluctuations—simply rebalance based on your investment plan (say, annually).

Here's a good primer from the Bogleheads forum:
[https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investing_s...](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investing_start-
up_kit)

~~~
bionsystem
I would be very careful with financial advice in general and "set and forget"
strategies are definitely among them. There is some controversy with ETF based
allocation strategies (see Michael Burry's recent claims) that may or may not
be valid, but in general I don't think there is any shortcut for financial
education such as "just buy diversified ETFs" (and this applies to many other
fields as well).

~~~
apexalpha
I don't know, for people who neither have the time, skill or will to invest
individual companies' performance a low-cost, very broad ETF is pretty
universally excepted as your best bet.

This doesn't mean there is no risk.

------
smaddox
Mindfulness meditation. Sitting with your thoughts and emotions, experiencing
them, and understanding them, rather than avoiding them or distracting
yourself from them can have a dramatic effect on your life. And 10 minutes a
day for a week can get you far enough to see some real benefits, like reduced
stress and increased awareness of unhelpful thought patterns.

~~~
samfar90
I don't want to sound ridiculous, but I've gotten the same benefits that you
seem to describe (I have never tried mindfulness) since I started to smoke
weed.

~~~
tudorw
Mindfulness is a lot cheaper :)

~~~
collyw
Depends. I get better effects from meditation after having just completed a
ten day course. But it takes a lot of time to get there and to keep doing it
on a daily basis. If you used that time for something that earned you money I
doubt it would work out cheaper.

------
aeternum
Regular expressions fall into this category. While they might take longer to
master, you should know the basics after an hour.

I've been surprised at how often people convert long lists line-by-line. You
can sometimes take what was a multiple-hour task and complete it with a
handful of cryptic characters.

~~~
jeltz
Can you really learn regex in one hour? I learned them so long time ago and in
a gradual way that I have no idea how long it would take if you focus on it,
but I feel like it would be more than an hour since I think most people would
need to play around quite a bit to really grasp them.

~~~
collyw
There is a way of thinking when you deal with regexes that took me a while to
get.

Reading the first chapter of ORiley's Mastering Regular Expressions was what
made me get it and that was maybe an hours worth of time.

------
PeterStuer
Skills are gained through practice. To get good at non-trivial skills requires
more than an hour.

Knowledge is gained through insights. While a full understanding and
implications of an insight can take a lifetime, an insight can be triggered in
under an hour.

Now which insights are most valuable? That is always going to be personal and
relative. But one of the insights that touches all people and is almost
universally lacking or deeply misunderstood is the insight into money. What is
it exactly, where does it come from, who controls it? ...

So that would be my choice. Spend an hour learning about money. Here is a
decent and easy starter in under an hour.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8i-4HpKlM&list=PLyl80QTKi0...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8i-4HpKlM&list=PLyl80QTKi0gPBcb32paMvXxcq7UUeJskV)

~~~
taffer
> Here is a decent and easy starter in under an hour. >
> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8i-4HpKlM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8i-4HpKlM)

It should be mentioned that the video presents a fringe theory (MMT) that is
highly controversial among economists. I would recommend the Khan Academy
series on banking and money as an alternative, even though it is longer than
an hour: [https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-
fi...](https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-
finance/money-and-banking)

~~~
PeterStuer
While the short video series is indeed also criticizing the traditional econo
101 money account (I'll leave it to the discretion of the viewer whether that
critique is deserved or not), it does also address and explain the traditional
views in a concise and accesible way in under an hour.

~~~
bluesign
I agree they explain basic concepts in an easy and accessible way, but there
are a lot of missing pieces intentionally omitted.

I don't know how many times refers 'creation of money by banks', but it was
the essential point for sure, and totally wrong one. Rest of the video all
depends on this.

~~~
PeterStuer
Nobody disputes banks create the majority of the money. The dispute is on
whether that amount is bounded (by some multiplier on Central Bank created
money) or de-facto unbounded by a multiplier cooperatively controlled by the
collective bankers, and probably even more specifically whether the latter has
been impacted at all by the Basel accords.

~~~
bluesign
Actually it is disputed, even 5th part of the video tries to address that. (Do
banks create money or just credit?)

Which tries to prove that banks create money (not credit) cause money you put
on bank is guaranteed by government.

But in reality, (even mentioned shortly on video), it is that your deposit is
insured by banks via government.

~~~
PeterStuer
"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it
probably is a duck.", whether you call the duck "credit" or "money".

And beyond the capped consumer risk the financial crisis was prove that the
fragility of the interconnected banking system will be fully underwritten
'above and beyond' by the governments if push comes to shove.

------
scandox
Credibility of sources. I learned this in 40 minutes of a medieval history
class. It is simply the constant habit of asking:

Who is speaking?

Why are they speaking?

What have they to gain or lose from speaking?

What have I to gain or lose from believing/disbelieving what is said?

I actually by instinct tend to believe people are mostly speaking in good
faith so this is a great corrective for me. Also I have a habit of seeking
reassurance instead of allowing bad news to register. So again a good
corrective.

~~~
ehecatl
And "To whom are they speaking"?

What you are giving a succinct overview of is Aristotle's _Ars Rhetorica_
Cracking read, BTW.

~~~
scandox
Yes indeed I had neglected the "To whom"...which reminds me how often I think
a message is aimed at me (egomania) when in fact it has an audience I am not
even aware exists...

------
keiferski
The Cyrillic script is fairly easy to learn and will let you phonetically read
a bunch of languages (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Mongolian,
and Serbian to name a few.) Each language has a few unique letters and
pronunciation can vary slightly, but for the most part they are the same.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script)

~~~
mantap
IPA is also amazingly useful if you want to learn another language or even
just learn to say someone's name correctly.

Having a notation for sounds helps you to understand and speak foreign
languages, because you can think of what someone is saying in IPA and not in
some flawed English transcription.

~~~
SkyMarshal
What's IPA? Googling that is gonna show a of links for beer.

~~~
SllX
Also a little life hack that has served me well for over ten years, and rarely
fails me: Wikipedia’s disambiguation page for those hard to Google acronyms.
The format will be something like:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_(disambiguation)

If there’s a long list, generally it will be organized by context.

------
johnlbevan2
Learn how to ask a question.

Think of all the times you've seen poorly worded questions on Stack Overflow,
in support tickets, etc. Think of the power that being able to get answers to
your questions has.

Most of us are good at asking questions where we're working within our comfort
zones, but struggle when we're on unfamiliar territory (e.g. I'll ask a better
question if I have some issue with my code than I would if I were talking to a
mechanic about a problem with my car, since I don't know the terminology /
worry more about appearing ignorant in the latter scenario). However, by
taking time to consider what's useful to the mechanic & what I can report as
fact vs my opinion, I can ask a cleaner question.

Related, it's also good to learn how to think about things as a collection of
dependencies, and how to debug/analyse issues by testing different parts of
that dependency graph to isolate variables and narrow down where in that graph
an issue must exist. This both helps to ask cleaner questions, provide more
background information, and often to resolve issues for yourself.

~~~
csours
A valuable resource I've used for myself and for people who ask me questions:
[http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-
questions.html](http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html)

~~~
johnlbevan2
Great resource - thanks for sharing

------
bArray
Do nothing. Seriously. Allow yourself to become bored and you'll find your
brain has suddenly got time to work on all the problems you mentally shelved.
There's a good reason why a good number of ideas happen in the shower.

~~~
Double_a_92
I find it difficult to ever feel bored. I could look out of the window for
hours and find infinitely many details to entertain me. Almost as if there is
a positive offset to my "exitement" level... On the other hand regular
activities (e.g. eating in a restaurant) start stressing me out too much, so
those things become less enjoyable. Is this fixable?

~~~
username90
Nothing strange, you just spend more time processing information than average
people.

My mental model is that any point the brain is dividing its resources between
execution of current events and processing old events. If it spends too much
time processing old events then it has no resources over to properly execute
in the now.

When this happens some people just drop the unprocessed tasks from the queue
to free up resources while others (like me and you) starts experiencing
immense stress forcing us to drop what we are currently doing instead.

One way is not the other, sometimes I wish that I could execute better in the
now but sometimes others wish that their brains didn't automatically drop
important experiences without properly processing them first.

How to fix this? One way is ADD medication, increasing your dopamine forces
your brain to focus on the now and drop old packets. It helps me execute
better but I definitely become less creative and have a harder time
remembering what I did when I took them. I might feel more creative when I'm
on them, but most of those thoughts will be gone without a trace since they
weren't properly processed.

------
citilife
Learn how to read quarterly earnings (and other financial documents).

It's amazing how simply it is to see if a company is making money / losing
money and how that'll impact your view of the world.

For instance, Uber as it is today, is going out of or dramatically changing
its business. Might not see that from all the hype, might not see it from all
the user, but the terms sheet doesn't quarterly earnings doesn't lie ($1B in
losses quarter-over-quarter).

Has helped me (and friends) reduce losses and improve earnings by identifying
good / poor investments.

~~~
vast
And how to learn it?

~~~
VLM
Hilariously, I think most Gen-Xers learned from playing Railroad Tycoon
computer game where the detailed score sheet is the three sheet financials.
For a short period of time in the late 80s there were plenty of 12 year olds
who understood quite a bit about financial statements and what they imply
about how a game/business is being run.

I don't know the modern equivalent that motivates a game player to learn to
read financials.

Obviously you can/could/do play RRT "just one more turn" all night long until
4am every day just like the Civilization series of games, although actually
learning how the numbers interact with each other and in-game behavior
probably took one hour spread out over time. None of the concepts are terribly
complicated once you memorize the definitions and important ratios.

Honestly you could get a basic start at reading financials, if provided with
experienced tutoring, in an hour of clock time while playing RRT.

It was kinda ridiculous half a decade later in high school taking econ class
and seeing the dry and boring way they tried to teach reading financials. You
could replace an entire multi week unit of the class with perhaps three class
periods of playing RRT.

------
mikorym
Binary Search. (And its antithesis, exponential growth.)

In my opinion it is the single most important piece of computer science
insight with the constraint that you only have less than an hour.

I often use binary search as a sort of thought experiment into whether
something is "obvious" or not. As a child, I would say exponential growth is
the one thing that I developed no intuition for between the age of 1–11. Even
now, I regard exponentiation as the one really fundamental thing you possibly
won't discover or have intuition for on your own and first see it at school
(in contrast to addition or multiplication maybe). And even then, you have to
accept exponential growth before you start to "understand" it. Maybe if you
are Gauss, it's different for you...

Binary search is also a nice way of explaining counting, specifically the
combinatorics thereof. You can write down the numbers [0,...,2^n-1] in binary,
and then show how when you halve each time with binary search, you actually
are just checking the leading bit (and then discarding it). When you have
discarded all the bits in that way, then you have found the position you are
looking for.

~~~
nurettin
This is the first thing I talk about when someone asks me what computer
science teaches a person and how it relates to real world. It covers a
practical example and lets you touch on topics like algorithmic complexity.
And it takes 5 minutes to explain. So I fill the rest of the time by
demonstrating a simple sorting algorithm on paper and I finish off by drawing
a simple maze and solving it with breadth first search by marking squares with
numbers.

~~~
notelonmusk
Since you mentioned sorting 'on paper', here's the sorting algorithm you'd use
as a human sorting papers :)

[https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-manual-sorting-
algori...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-manual-sorting-algorithm-E-
g-if-you-had-a-stack-of-papers-that-you-wanted-to-sort-alphabetically-what-
would-be-the-most-efficient-way-to-do-it-What-if-you-were-okay-with-them-
being-off-by-one-or-two-from-their-sorted-position)

------
dougweltman
Learn how to use Google Search effectively. It's a "language" we use every
day. Mastering its few features can make any search so much more effective and
precise:

[https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433)

~~~
lelima
wow that's handy!

~~~
xhruso00
By using these techniques Google thinks that I am a bot and after 3 queries I
have to fill CAPTCHA.

------
aamederen
Basics of presentation skills like

\- Using voice, body and mimics properly

\- Not putting lots of text on slides and just reading them

\- Using bullets instead of paragraphs

\- Tell a story and use a less formal more friendly style (not always but
applies to majority of technical presentations)

A nice video about the topic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB2pl1QbY3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB2pl1QbY3I)

~~~
lozf
Good call, reminds me to mention Julian Treasure on How to speak so that
people will want to listen.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIho2S0ZahI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIho2S0ZahI)

------
xouse
People think touch typing takes a long time to learn, and getting good does
take a while, but it only takes about an hour to memorize the alphanumerics
and which finger types what well enough to break the hunt and peck looking at
the keyboard cycle forever. Once the cycle is broken just typing casually is
enough to eventually achieve mastery. It's only that one or two hours that
really suck, and then that week or so of being kind of mediocre that keeps
people stuck in the suboptimal local maxima of not touch typing.

~~~
taneq
If you use a computer in any way in the course of your job or daily life,
touch typing is the single biggest improvement in productivity and quality of
life that you can make. It is SO much faster and easier than hunt and peck.

~~~
tarsinge
Second this.

Also more specific but if you are french the keyboard layout is not great for
programming (because []{}';. are not straightforward). I’m more happy since I
switched to QWERTY layout for programming. Since I touch type I can easily
switch depending on the task.

~~~
sgdpk
Just to add that this is not about QWERTY. The portuguese and spanish layouts
are QWERTY, but still a pain [1]. Typically the best is to look for the US
QWERTY layout or the international layout [2], the ones that have easily
accessible brackets.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KeyboardLayout-
Portuguese...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KeyboardLayout-
Portuguese.png)

[2]
[https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/106058/difference-...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/106058/difference-
between-us-qwerty-and-international-qwerty-apple-keyboards)

------
peteforde
There's a growing realization that you can completely side-step the need for
Single-Page App frameworks like React using websockets and the morphdom
library.

Projects like StimulusReflex (Rails) and LiveView (Phoenix) allow developers
to build complex, reactive modern apps faster and easier by rejecting the need
to even have client state.

[https://github.com/hopsoft/stimulus_reflex](https://github.com/hopsoft/stimulus_reflex)

[https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_view](https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix_live_view)

I haven't been this excited for a web technology since Rails came out.

~~~
escanda
Your mind will be furtherly blown when you realize this has been working for
decades in JavaServerFaces!

~~~
aitchnyu
Jose Valim responded to me saying its a fast, simpler, stateless and scalable
solution compared to stateful solutions. For an example of stateful Java/ .Net
app, I use a site that randomly logs me out, logs me out after inactivity,
opening stuff in tabs are hit and miss (older ones let tabs mirror each other
in background), normal UI actions has unexplainable pauses.

[https://elixirforum.com/t/phoenix-liveview-is-now-
live/20889...](https://elixirforum.com/t/phoenix-liveview-is-now-
live/20889/71)

------
aazaa
Two suggestions.

1\. Research a daily exercise routine that requires no equipment class, or
gym, can be finished in 30 minutes and can be done while traveling. The goal
should be to increase flexibility and strength, but not necessary build
muscle. This stacks the deck in your favor against the main enemy of fitness -
failure to do some kind of activity every day.

2\. Understand the periodic table. It's one of the most successful mental
models in science, and the basic principles can be grasped quickly. The most
important division is the columns (groups). The column an element appears in
tells you the ratio with which it will combine with other elements to form
compounds. From table salt to amino acids, these rules predict elemental
compositions of the things in this world you interact with all the time but
may only rarely think about. From there, you can predict the products of
reactions that you know nothing about. This macroscopic predictability can be
explained rigorously through quantum mechanics or heuristically through Lewis
theory, depending on how deep you want to go. For simplicity stick to the 8
main groups. The transition metals are a can of worms best opened after
grasping the rest of the table.

~~~
jonnycoder
Your first point reminds me of this talk about consistency in training and why
russian wrestlers are supposedly always the best:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbCcWyYthQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbCcWyYthQ)

I've been applying this concept 5 days a week to do 20 min of exercise. It's
so much easier to do more in the long run by doing it everyday and not going
all out exertion.

------
saalweachter
Spend an hour learning whether you can safely attempt something.

There are two complimentary problems: some people don't realize that they can
do something, and will never attempt it because they assume it requires
training and skills and materials and time beyond their reach; other people
don't realize that they _shouldn 't_ do something, because it is dangerous,
because it is illegal, because it would require far more resources than they
can reasonably devote to the project, because they just aren't good enough.

Regardless of which camp you tend to fall into, spend an hour every now and
again determining whether something you're thinking about is feasible. Maybe
you discover, "Huh, it's really easy to repair my running toilet, and very
little can go wrong in this case". Maybe you discover, "Wow, if I screw up
that electrical work I could electrocute myself or burn my house down, and I'd
still have to get it inspected in my jurisdiction anyway so I might as well
hire someone.". Maybe you discover that your startup idea would require an
absurd amount of capital and would probably only ever have razor-thin profit
margins at best, maybe you discover you could make a reasonable living self-
employed.

~~~
hnick
This is underrated. Of course I knew most plumbing probably isn't too hard but
I never gave it a try until I complained about fixing a leaking tap and a
friend showed me how. I bought my own simple tools and have fixed a bunch more
in our house by myself (it's just getting to that ~10 year age right now).
Here a plumber will charge $150 just to show up.

That really opened things up for me and now I often check things like
repairing drywall or replacing a door handle on YouTube. It's a really good
way to gauge if you think it's something you can handle.

------
coltnz
Logical fallacies - how not to think.

Kelly criterion - what can you afford to invest.

Polya's problem solving method.

Salary negotiation skills.

Rich Hickey's Hammock driven development (for non programmers too).

No Limit Holdem Poker flop and turn odds calculation.

~~~
Zanni
If you play blackjack for money, you can improve your EV significantly by
devoting an hour to learning (most of) basic strategy. If you already know
basic strategy, you can learn the basics of card counting in an hour. (Actual
card counting requires significant practice after you "know" it in order to
maintain a correct count under stressful conditions.)

~~~
mason_jake
Agreed on learning blackjack. I went to Las Vegas about a month ago and spent
the four-hour plane ride trying to memorize some of the pattern in a blackjack
strategy chart. I didn't memorize all of the actions for every possible hand
combination, but I learned enough to be dangerous (read: enough not to make
dumb/obvious mistakes). I ended up quadrupling my money (only a few hundred
dollars) and have been playing really well on a blackjack app on my phone.

Practice makes perfect is really the maxim here.

------
Eliezer
If you have even a small amount of math talent, you should be able to grasp
the key ideas in Bayes's Rule that quickly iff you read
[https://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule_guide](https://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule_guide).

~~~
schoen
The biconditional is a pretty strong claim here (especially considering that
you yourself have written well-regarded introductions to this topic).

~~~
Eliezer
It's spoken tongue-in-cheek, but in fact I don't know of any other intros
including all of my own other efforts that I would make that claim about.
Writing Bayes intros that actually work and introduce the most critical
concepts is _hard._ Read the Arbital intro and compare others before you
assume I'm joking or that the joke is false.

------
vajrapani666
Holotropic breathing. Someone in my town offers workshops on Conscious
Connected Breathing. I would have never thought that just breathing for an
hour would fundamentally change my life, yet here I am. My relationship with
deep seated trauma has been completely transformed. Technically the breathing
was 2 hours, but it felt like 45 minutes. It feels like I now have access to a
powerful drug, and an accessible way of asserting agency over my feelings and
body.

This is one of those body upgrades that falls in the same category as Lasik.
Tuning your core senses and ways of obtaining your needs tends to ripple
throughout everything you experience and do. This breathing upgrade changed
everything.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
inducing euphoria via mild hypoxia is not a good idea. The people touting this
in the west mostly don't have the qualifications for doing this practice
safely.

~~~
vajrapani666
It wasn't euphoria. It was the realization that the finest intricate details
embedded in the way I breathe, reflect my experiences, and my emotional
connection to those details is strongly influenced by what I experienced when
I was too young to remember. If anything, the way we breathed -- wouldn't
cause hypoxia. Despite years of mindfulness meditation, in which I focused on
my breath, that experience changed how I fundamentally relate to my breath.

------
kendallpark
Memorize important phone numbers (eg, close friends and family). Memorize at
least one of your credit card numbers.

It's not uncommon to find yourself in a situation without a phone or wallet.
Can't tell you how many times a would-be tricky situation was easily resolved
by having a particular number in memory.

~~~
AlexCoventry
Don't forget to memorize the security code!

~~~
kendallpark
And expiration date!

------
joecool1029
Learning basic regex (regular expressions) will save literal days (maybe
weeks) of time when editing code, text, or searching/organizing anything. I
can't think of a single skill more useful on a computer.

While regex turns pretty hard fast, the basics can be picked up within an
hour, or at least the ability to know what to reference when something needs
to be done.

------
shoo
For the lame definition of valuable: if you are not in the practise of
negotiating, try to negotiate in more situations and see what happens!
Attempting to negotiate will not harm your situation when dealing with another
party making you a genuine offer.

Even if you are a very mediocre negotiator, you might be able to easily eg
obtain a somewhat higher salary when starting a job versus just accepting a
given offer if you're not aware that negotiation is possible/expected.

(This doesn't work in all situations, some employment markets are highly
regulated and don't have market rates, negotiation is more likely to produce
better results if you are in a stronger negotiating position...)

If you have an hour, read [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

If you have a few hours, read through the book "getting to yes"

~~~
Tomte
I think "Never split the difference" by Chris Voss is the better book if you
can tolerate a bit of bragging.

~~~
shoo
In your opinion, what does Voss' book do better?

There's also a Farnham Street podcast with Voss:
[https://fs.blog/2018/01/chris-voss/](https://fs.blog/2018/01/chris-voss/)

~~~
Tomte
It doesn't focus exclusively on "let's make the pie bigger", and it's more
hands-on. NStD gives you practical tips, GtY is more of a framework (and maybe
an ideology).

------
exDM69
Learn how to sharpen a knife or chisel or axe or other tool. Suddenly every
piece of hard steel turns into a tool when you know how to get it sharp.

All you need is some abrasive (e.g. sandpaper at 600 and 2000 grit) and a
piece of leather to strop it (optionally some chromium oxide or something for
honing compound).

Then you can level it up from there and learn how to heat treat steel (you'll
need a blowtorch) and you can make sharp and pointy things in all shapes and
sizes.

For example I once needed a very small chisel, so I made one out of a two inch
nail. It wasn't great (not hard steel, didn't retain an edge for long), but it
got the job done.

~~~
xhruso00
Reminds me that my friends are laughing at me that I am having SAFETY knives

------
devnonymous
A lot of devtools and configuration oddities can be learnt in an hour or less.
One can become a fairly proficient/well informed user of any of these. The
$VALUE for any/all of these are huge !

    
    
      * keyboard shortcuts for your preferred UIs
      * vim (/ your preferred $EDITOR)
      * tmux
      * make
      * readline
      * strace
      * gdb
      * valrind
      * tcpdump
      * wireshark
      * basic bash
      * all sort of server configs:
         - nginx
         - apache
         - postfix
         - ldap
         -...
      * compiling the linux kernel
      * understanding the sysctl tunables
      * pick a binary file format and understand it
      * pick a protocol and understand it
      * man proc 
      * iptables
      ...
      ...
    

You get the general idea. Personally, I sometimes feel the only reason I am
respected by my colleagues is simply because I know a little about a lot.

If you have an hour to spend, don't look for the biggest bang of the buck /
the _most_ valuable. Explore something small that you use all the time / wish
to understand better but didn't take the time.

~~~
blaerk
This will also ease communication and working with sysadmins. Everybody wins!

------
mojuba
You can learn the basics of DJ-ing on digital decks in an hour. However, it
can take years of practicing to reach a level of a mediocre DJ who can lead a
party with a lot of people you don't know. DJ-ing is a surprisingly difficult
underappreciated skill, which can also be very rewarding when you learn it.
The decks become your musical instrument on which you can modify the original
music as much as you want and glue together pieces in a myriad of possible
ways to build one long running non-stop musical track.

------
Waterluvian
Learn NATO phonetic alphabet while in traffic. Keep a reference card in your
car's visor and then read out loud every license plate you see.

~~~
derpherpsson
WHY

~~~
funklute
It's super useful if you're on the phone, having to spell out a list of
letters, e.g. a postcode

~~~
yread
If the other side also knows NATO alphabet. There are too many uncommon words
for the average helpdesk operator

~~~
scottlocklin
The other side will either know the NATO alphabet or be able to understand it
anyway. It was designed to be interpreted and used by non English speakers,
since most of NATO doesn't/didn't speak English. I've used it dozens of times,
zero errors.

It's really good enough to be considered a sort of spoken language Golay code.

------
quickthrower2
Go through your expenses and identify waste. Even if you’d don’t keep a budget
check your credit card statements etc. cancel unrequited subscriptions, haggle
utility bills, refinance loans, etc.

~~~
dokem
But looking at my credit card statement gives me anxiety.

~~~
Danieru
That's the point! Thinking about money should not be a cause of stress in your
life. If money is stressful then budget/expense tracking is what you _need_.

Since we got married me and my wife have been tracking every expense down to
the penny. The net result has been no fights about money, everything was known
and obvious from the records. Every so often we come together, look at the
numbers, and decide things. You might decide an expense is worth it, or you
might decide an expense is not worth it. Without measurements you cannot make
that decision, with measurements you are in control.

Once you are in control money should become a tool, and a source of freedom to
spend on what you value.

------
psychoslave
Meditation.

Seriously.

Take time to focus on your focus. For me, it's a really hard exercise, and
before I really started to practice it daily, I always had this a priori that
spending time on "doing nothing" was just a waste of time. I couldn't have
been more wrong, of course.

I still feel like I have much progress to do, but now I understand how
practicing the art of focusing on focus (aka "concentrate on here and now",
"mindfulness" and so on) helps to focus on a selected task in general.

Also if you have indeed a [30-60] minutes vacancy window, having a nap is a
good option. Especially if you have to solve some mind blowing issue. Trust
the power of you unconscious force. I can't put my hand on it right now, but
there is an excellent essay by Pointcarré on this topic.

~~~
pzumk
Meditation isn’t something to learn within an hour, unfortunately. It took me
really much time to actually learn how to meditate but now as I know how to do
it it’s awesome.

~~~
psychoslave
Well, there is two side of it: \- of course, meditation is an art that you
don't master in the minute (and that most likely can always be further
strengthen); \- anyone which has a bit of free time can practice it, all it
asks is the will to improve its meditation skill to quickly feel practical
benefits.

------
sumgame
Funninly I just went for the Wim Hoff fundamentals course yesterday and it
fits the description very accurately.

You can learn it online by watching the video or downloading the app and
shouldn't take more than an hour. But preferable do the cold exposure part of
it with somone around.

The breathing technique by itself is still great though

~~~
vekker
I had an accident last week and find the Wim Hof breathing tremendously
helpful with managing the pain and inflammation.

I highly recommend learning this technique. It's free, you can find plenty of
YouTube videos. A "proper session" should take 20 minutes (= until your breath
retentions are at least 2 minutes long and you feel the effects).

The cold exposure is also great to experiment with. I find that regular cold
exposure, learning to control the gasp reflex and calming yourself down in
spite of the feeling of the ice is something very useful to learn and a
"skill" that carries over to general pain and stress management.

------
mappu
Keyboard shortcuts for Excel + what exactly a Pivot Table is

~~~
rudedogg
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c)

Qualifies at 54 minutes!

------
vinhboy
Learn how to use deals site to save a ton of money:
[https://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9](https://slickdeals.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9)

I can't overstate how much money you will save by simply setting up alerts on
sites like SlickDeals and learning the basic lingo like YMMV, B&M, PM etc...

At the very least learn about the TofuVic's purchase point for toilet paper so
you don't waste money wiping your ass.

~~~
cientifico
It's weird that they forbid any user from Europe because of data privacy law.

~~~
sshine
This is a weird side-effect of Americans reacting to recent EU GDPR
legislation.

------
lisper
Basic social skills. How to make small talk, especially with non-technical
people. It's easy to learn, but if you're a hacker then it probably doesn't
come naturally and so it must be learned. But you will get enormous leverage
out of learning it.

~~~
lawlorino
IMO if you're the kind of person who needs to improve on basic social skills,
an hour of practice is probably not going to be enough. You also didn't
describe how this could be practiced in an hour?

~~~
lisper
I would start here:

[https://www.improveyoursocialskills.com/basic-social-
skills-...](https://www.improveyoursocialskills.com/basic-social-skills-guide)

Like any other skill, you are not going to master it in an hour. But an hour
of study and practice can produce dramatic results.

------
haddr
Read Schopenhauer „The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument”. It’s a
short read, but mind opening if you’re new to the subject. If it seems too
long then just read some shortened version. If you still have some time after
that then go to “list of cognitive biases” Wikipedia entry and continue there.

I believe it is crucial to understand what tricks others are using in
arguments. And also what’s our cognitive limits and logical fallacies when
trying to understand the world.

~~~
justinclift
Looking at Amazon reviews of it, one of the commenters says it's a rehashing
of the 1896 book "Art of Controversy", available online free (public domain).

A quick search online shows an example of it here:

[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/controv...](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/controversy/)

Does it seem the same to you?

~~~
haddr
All are in public domain now. Read the one i mentioned as it is shorter read.
If you like it then go of the other one.

------
ricg
Learn how to juggle 3 balls.

Not only is this a lot of fun, it will also train your reflexes. It's like
having a hidden superpower. The next time you are about to drop something,
you'll be amazed how quickly you'll be able to reach and catch (don't try this
with sharp objects, obviously).

Lots of resources available on how to start. Here's one:
[https://youtu.be/x2_j6kMg1co](https://youtu.be/x2_j6kMg1co)

------
tobireif
CSS Grid is very useful, and it's fun:

[https://tobireif.com/posts/layout_fun_with_css_grid/](https://tobireif.com/posts/layout_fun_with_css_grid/)

The spec is great for learning Grid:

[https://www.w3.org/TR/css-grid-1/](https://www.w3.org/TR/css-grid-1/)

------
IvyMike
One minute: what a dechoker is and how to use it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkqgexP_NNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkqgexP_NNE)

One hour (because as easy as it looks you're gonna have to do it at least 4
times): deboning a chicken:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfY0lrdXar8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfY0lrdXar8)

~~~
self_awareness
This is horrible. I'm not even a vegetarian but I can't watch it.

------
georgewsinger
Reading a syntax overview to the Wolfram Programming Language:
[https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/Syntax.html](https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/Syntax.html)

This will allow you to program in the (in my opinion: extremely underrated)
language that WolframAlpha is built over. WPL is more concise than any other
LISP, and has extremely powerful visualization capabilities built in. In fact
everything is built in. You almost never need to import a library to get
something done.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
And it recently became free software! And it lets you play graphs as sound!

------
n0pe_p0pe
Keyboard shortcuts.

Entirely changed my computing experience once I stopped using a mouse for
everything except graphic design-related tasks. You can learn most of the big
ones for your most used apps in an hour, keep a cheat sheet nearby yr PC in
case you forget some. Like cooking its an easy skill to build quickly if
you're a knowledge worker since you're always in front of a computer anyway.

------
jt2190
How to ask better questions.

Before asking any question, I now ask _myself_ :

* Is this the right person to ask? How likely are they to know the answer? Should I trust their answer?

* Would knowing the answer change my next step?

* Have I spent a reasonable amount of time trying to answer the question myself? Am I depriving myself of an opportunity to learn?

------
nxpnsv
I would suggest learning juggling a basic 3 ball cascade. It’s great for
training concentration and coordination, and also quite addictive.

~~~
tempestn
I learned this back in the early 2000's because I moved to a new city, didn't
have a cellphone, and was waiting for my landline and internet to be hooked
up. So I literally knew no one and had no contact with the outside world.
Then, seriously, I happened to find a set of juggling balls in the back of the
closet of the room I was renting—the previous tenant must have forgotten them
there.

With literally nothing else to do, I taught myself to juggle. Took me longer
than an hour, but not all that much longer. (Started with one ball tossing
back and forth, then two, before moving to three.)

~~~
nxpnsv
That rings true, I spent a weekend in the 90s to teach myself. I taught a
bunch of people to juggle since - usually with an instructor an hour to reach
something like juggling is achievable.

------
tempestn
I have to say, I was skeptical of this whole thread based on the title—what
could you really learn in an hour of any true value? Well, it turns out a lot
of things. I even added one to the list. Now I know how to properly wrap
cables and tie my shoes. Thank you for posting this.

------
VLM
Learn very basic weightlifting, like how to design sets (12 or so light reps
to warm up, aim to run out of energy around 8 reps for "production" sets, do
about 3 production sets a couple minutes of rest in between). With only an
hour, limit to relatively safe machines (LOL at learning olympic squats
correctly and safely in only an hour of coaching).

If you need motivation for why human bodies need to lift, "The Barbell
Prescription: Strength Training for Life After Forty"

~~~
ulucs
Alternatively you could just read Starting Strength. The only exercise that's
difficult in technique is the Power Clean, and you can replace it with Chin-
ups. Even Rip does it in his Practical Programming book.

Seriously though, your stabilizers are important and machines do nothing for
them.

~~~
VLM
Its all in what you want to do. The barbell prescription book goes into great
detail on medical research on the effects on blood chemistry and general
health of the ratio of muscle to fat and so on. For that, it doesn't matter if
all the muscle in my body is in my left calf or stabilizers or whatever. On
the other hand SS and similar IS vital if you're going to work a blue collar
job and lift and install plumbing all day long at a construction site. Another
topic is the machines make it virtually impossible to hurt yourself no matter
how dumb you are WRT liability insurance reasons, so they're quite safe,
whereas everyone doing free weights eventually ends up in the ER self
inflicted.

Overall the machines are BOTH a good gateway and a good terminal activity.
Wanna move up to free weights, can do! Wanna just have better blood sugar and
osteoporosis outcomes for the rest of your live and never move up to free
weights, can do!

Free weights do nothing for stabilizers anyway. Run the trig and static
engineering numbers. Sine of 10 degrees is about 0.2 so for people starting
out, benching 50 pounds with ridiculously bad form only loads the stabilizers
(triceps, maybe?) with 10 pounds at 10 degrees off ideal, and even noobs start
triceps extensions way more than 10 pounds. And "experts" have perfect form so
there's "zero" load. Due to trigonometry you can't work your delts merely by
using ridiculously poor form when bicep curling. The whole stabilizer issue is
a bro-science thing that requires not running the math or engineering statics
vector diagrams.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
If stabilizers were not important, one would be able to lift exactly the same
free weight as you do on a machine (after practicing form with light weight
under supervision for a while). Is that true?

------
borumpilot
How to fight and take a punch.

People are capable of taking much more punishment then they think. With an
hour of practice, you can overcome the initial fear and act much more rational
when push comes to shove.

I understand that this is not just "intense concentration" while sitting
behind your desk, but that is exactly the point of learning, get out of your
bubble.

~~~
mac1175
I suggest Brazilian Jujitsu. The rolling aspect of training trains you
mentally to not to panic and problem solve the situation, deal with pressure,
build cardio and relearn how to breathe, and adapt to different body types.
Unlike striking martial arts, less worry of CTE.

~~~
mac1175
In regards to what can be learned in an hour, a roll with someone gives you an
idea of what it is like to be on the ground with someone in a fight without
striking, biting, eye gouging, etc.It is a decent simulation if what would
happen when on the ground and the idea that if someone doesn't honor your tap,
you can be in big trouble.

------
Fnoord
I'm not exactly sure how to word it, but my suggestion is privacy related: the
implications of publicly sharing information. Why? Because these days, once
the cat is out of the bag, oh boy, is it out. I believe this is important for
young and old.

Young, because statistically they still have a big life ahead, and realizing
this will save them harm, and potentially make them more private about
sensitive subjects. I'll hold my breath when my daughter gets in her teenage
years. I doubt they'll teach her this at school (it absolutely should be
taught though).

Elder, because society has changed so much, and once you're older it is more
difficult to keep up (and part of you doesn't want to anymore). Getting on the
bandwagon is difficult, and once they do, this part should be an integral part
of say "how to use the Internet" (or "how to use your first smartphone"). It
could also lead to higher participation of those who are afraid of new
technology, thereby leading to more inclusion.

The lesson could have some good examples, could be a workshop, or an open
dialogue. Perhaps even a game.

A more advanced lesson two could have a more advanced level of how sharing
information privately can become public (by government, blackhats, "freindz",
broken cryptography, etc).

------
lrem
How to frame your photos, as in where to point the camera at. Most family
members could skip a level or five of they had the patience to internalise a
15 minutes YouTube video.

------
kqr
I don't know if an adult can do it in an hour, but learning to ride a bike is
_very_ useful/freeing.

~~~
seaish
I have a friend who did learn to ride a bike in an hour. I was extremely
surprised, but he is the fastest learner I know so I don't think it's typical.

~~~
saalweachter
Frankly it is easy as an adult, even if falling is probably worse.

You would not _believe_ how uncoordinated children are, and how much better
you are at using your body a few years after it finishes growing and you've
had some time to get used to it.

(I mean, developing proper instincts about stopping and turning can take some
time, but just mastering going slow and not falling down isn't too hard.)

------
LouisSayers
Boxing / self-defence.

While you'll have to do a lot of practice to have the moves come fluidly and
naturally, you can learn the basic principles of boxing or self defence very
quickly if you do a 1-on-1 session with a pro.

Even for myself - someone that does 4-6 hours of boxing a week, it was
incredibly valuable getting a couple of 1-on-1 sessions and having my
technique scrutinised.

------
ahmaman
Learn how to make good coffee - Here is for example how to make a great cup of
coffee using an Aeropress.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmjPjZZRhNQ&t=252s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmjPjZZRhNQ&t=252s)

Learn the basics of economics -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0)

Learn how to journal.

Learn the basics of meditation.

Learn how to learn stuff using flash cards -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzCEJVtED0U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzCEJVtED0U)
\- I used this method to learn Finnish ([https://mansour.blog/how-to-learn-
any-human-language-the-sto...](https://mansour.blog/how-to-learn-any-human-
language-the-story-of-how-i-learnt-finnish))

Learn how to make good food - making good (amazing) food is surprisingly easy

~~~
Jeff_Brown
I wish I had learned -- in fact I wish everybody learned -- labor economics
before going to college. That we expect kids to make such a financially
momentous decision without having any idea what they're doing is absolutely
nuts.

(Maybe read a microeconomics textbook first; labor economics is a
specialization of that.)

~~~
ahmaman
Couldn't agree more! It's amazing how people can research the best gadget for
days but when it comes to taking a mortgage its out of a sudden "I don't have
time to research this"

------
aaron695
Depends what you know.

Learn to Torrent, steal from media companies.

Learn to cook another meal, steal from food/delivery businesses.

Learn about DOI's and Sci-Hub and steal from Academia.

Learn how to log into your financial management plan and make a change, steal
from the banking sector.

Learn CPR, steal from death.

------
tasogare
I would say learn your partner’s erogenous zone.

~~~
sshine
If only finding a life partner took an hour, too.

------
samvher
This is not really a tech skill, but it can help you save some time a couple
of times a day which you can then spend on other things ;) Relearn how to tie
your shoelaces:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WgSwvDkJVxE](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WgSwvDkJVxE)

~~~
Geee
I was going to post this same tip. I have been using this method for a few
years now and it's great. It takes 15 minutes to learn and then you have to
just stick to it to make it quicker.

------
joemccall86
If you are on a unix system with vim installed, fire up "vimtutor" and learn
basic vim usage. At worst you become at least more productive on the de-facto
editor installed on most unix systems. Personally I find myself incredibly
more productive using vim over most other text editors.

------
progval
Learning to use a fire extinguisher. It's not hard, but not obvious either.
And you don't want to have to figure it out on your own when you actually need
it.

I personally had a training course at work, but I guess you can also find
videos on the internet.

------
kitd
If you have to work with the linux or mac command line at all as part of your
job, 'sed' and 'awk' are 2 commands that will boost your productivity hugely.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
I use sed routinely for string replacement. Don't know how to use it for
anything else. I also use grep, find, and wc routinely. For anything more
complicated I reach for a full-featured programming language. I never feel
like I'm missing anything.

------
Mizza
Learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube using the "beginner's method." Maybe not
as valuable as you were hoping, but getting the methods down feels good and
gives you a new hobby of competing against your own best times.

~~~
ghurkan
I learned how to solve Rubic's cube when I was in high school as some kind of
party trick, with the beginner's method. Years later, I still remember the
movements and recall them in a short notice. Couple of months ago I attended a
conference where companies where giving out swag and gift cards to those who
give their contact details or watching a demo. After the demo, they told that
if I can solve a Rubic's cube and be one of the first 20 to do it, they will
give $25 gift debit card. I solved it in a couple of minutes and got my card
and had delicious Buffalo Wings with it, so, definitely worth it :)

------
hombre_fatal
How to shuffle cards, especially without needing a surface to do it.

This video did it for me:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdCia_d1u5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdCia_d1u5c)

~~~
alanbernstein
Don't get me wrong, that's neat, but do people often find themselves needing
to shuffle cards without having a surface?

------
boomlinde
Pick up any GNU/BSD tool you use but don't fully understand and read the man
page. There is often something valuable that you'll learn in an hour.

------
ken
Learn to tie the basic knots. 3 to 5 knots will cover 95% of the situations
you'll ever encounter. They're easy to learn. When someone tosses you a rope,
you have no excuse for not knowing what to do with it.

~~~
zepolen
When someone tosses me a rope I'll toss it to you ;)

------
methusala8
Download Vimium and install it in the chrome browser and then learn the
shortcuts. It should take less than 30 mins to learn and practice.

[https://github.com/philc/vimium/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/philc/vimium/blob/master/README.md)

------
cynusx
Understand the emotional intelligence matrix. It is almost trivial to learn
but since it's not taught in computer science schools, I had to spend a decade
learning its' lessons the hard way.

[https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-intelligence-
framew...](https://positivepsychology.com/emotional-intelligence-frameworks/)

Your performance on all its' disciplines can scientifically be assessed with
an emotional intelligence test and given that all organizations consist of
people it is very important to get good at it.

------
tyingq
For people building websites, learning what the experience is like for your
users with old hardware or limited bandwidth. Buy an old used Chromebook (<
$100 shipped), and use the bandwidth throttling feature in Chrome's dev tools
to ratchet down to low end DSL speeds. See if your site is still usable.

------
tim333
Maybe the basics of "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
[https://fs.blog/2012/07/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-
peo...](https://fs.blog/2012/07/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people/)

Then applying it will take longer though.

~~~
_wzsf
Real friends don't let friends read "HtWFaIP".

~~~
pjmorris
The key for reading HtWFaIP is to understand and practice sincerity.

"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it
made." \- Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux

Don't be that person. Cultivating genuine sincerity is part of your own self-
respect. If you genuinely do that, you can safely read HtWFaIP.

------
justinclift
Soldering is a useful skill that's easy to learn the basics of, and can be
done in an hour. You'll need to have bought a basic soldering kit before you
get to it though. :)

~~~
AnnoyingSwede
I agree on this, but even better, stick welding. I learned how to stick-weld
in my shower (since it was the only place i could do it without risking of
burning down my apartment)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Ro9VqLwfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Ro9VqLwfU)

~~~
justinclift
Oh, interesting idea. Recently learned to do gasless MIG welding, as it's
pretty easy and the gear is cheap. Similar to stick in that way.

Wanted to learn it a few years ago, but didn't have a suitable place I could
do so. Hadn't thought of "in the shower cubicle".

------
tarsinge
SQL is a good fit for one hour I think.

Not « valuable » for work but interesting for stimulating other parts of your
brain, which can have interesting side effects:

\- juggling (3 balls). Great for arms and hand coordination and trusting your
left hand.

\- drumming (common patterns). Good gateway to music production.

~~~
Lendal
SELECT INSERT UPDATE DELETE

If you're going to write software for a living, learning those three simple
commands well can save you so much future pain. Just do it.

------
jldugger
> Are there any quick wins that 30 ~ 60 minutes of intense concentration can
> generate?

Well, the _most_ valuable ones were probably taught to you in kindergarten, eg
tying ones shoes, writing your name, etc. ;)

I feel like in my profession (AI/Devops/SRE), a lot of knowledge is high risk
(you never end up using it) high reward (if you do need it, it's super
valuable). Look at those 'things every programmer should know about X' pdfs.
They're like 100 pages long and full of obscure stuff programmers don't
actually need to know. Similarly, the LDAP for Rocket Scientists book most
folks don't need to know, until you're trying to debug and authentication
issue, adding a new schema, or trying to speed the system up.

If there is anything truly simple yet valuable, it's probably pretty basic,
like 'know your IDE, know your VCS'. And probably kinda meta -- learning about
learning. Random ideas:

\- An hour running through chapter 10 of the git book can help users
understand what git is actually doing

\- an hour running through a debugger tutorial on your IDE of choice can make
up for a lifetime of printfs

\- learn a note taking system like Stanford Notetaking system

I suspect what people really want from this question is more "whats the most
valuable thing people haven't yet learned in an hour?" Which kinda depends on
the person, no? But I do plenty of interviews, and here's a small idea set:

1\. Learn statistics. Virtually nobody knows anything about them. Even AI
engineers can't discuss the central limit theorem. I'm still re-learning this
stuff but it seems dang useful for discussing how to tune alerts.

2\. Learn spreadsheets. With the advent of google docs and shared storage,
spreadsheets you make are basically for life. That dramatically changes the
cost benefit analysis of planning documents. Learning how to build and reuse
them can help in a variety of contexts.

3\. Use git for settings and configs, even personal and minor stuff. I have my
homedir in git, and that forms a framework for studying settings. Learn a new
timesaving vim setting, add it to git and it's mine for life. Add a new shell
alias, and it's available on every system I use regularly -- I have a Chef
cookbook for setting up my user that includes checking this repo out.

------
fbn79
I think one great and simple skill would be use Google more efficiently. This
will give you better access to global knowledge so better generic problem
solving abilities. See a complete list of google operator
[https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-
operators/](https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/)

------
rapnie
Learn blind typing with 10 fingers, if you were not doing that yet.

Not only will it be a timesaver for the rest of your life, but it allows you
to get into flow much easier, where your thoughts stream effortlessly to the
screen.

~~~
kqr
And if you thinking about re-learning how to type anyway, try doing it on an
optimised but common layout like Colemak or Dvorak. Basically no extra cost,
but even greater savings!

~~~
jholman
Ugh.

I continue to be skeptical that there's any substantial performance
improvement. The published research is obviously ambivalent-at-best. And my
anecdotal life experience also make the Dvorak typists look pretty mediocre
(including the ones who've been doing it for a decade).

On the other hand, a very real cost is that if you want to pair, or receive
coaching from a mentor, or coach someone, or just let a significant other type
a quick email on your laptop, that works poorly. Though you could view that as
a perk, I suppose. Also keybindings optimized for physical layout on QWERTY
will no longer apply to you, which can be inconvenient.

~~~
kqr
I'm sure that depends on how you define "performance" \-- for me, the greatest
benefit is in hand comfort, not speed.

Switching between Qwerty and Colemak for any of the reasons you mention has
never been a problem for me either. Obviously, going from Colemak to Qwerty is
going to be inconvenient for the sole reason that Qwerty is inconvenient, but
that's only because you become aware of how much you contort your fingers
unnecessarily once you've been typing for a while not doing that.

I agree keybindings can be an issue, though. For me, personally, it's minor
compared to everything else, though.

------
GistNoesis
Two hind-sights for an hour :

\- Learn how to fall.

In skateboarding :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hundbrub8iQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hundbrub8iQ)

In a more general way, it can be enlightening because it is a fundamental
learning principle. When confronted to something new, you will make mistakes,
what you need to learn is not how to avoid mistakes but how to avoid
catastrophic failures (i.e. how to reduce the cost of mistakes).

It's learning how to fail safely so that you can do more cycles and let
exponential growth due to iterated processes settle.

\- Learn to spot cycles.

A cycle is a sequence of actions that can be repeated. Ideally cycles would
repeat indefinitely but usually they have side effects. Characterize the
cycles : timescale, resources created and consumed, compare the value
relatively to the values at the same instant of the previous cycles. Is it
good or bad ? How frequently can it be repeated ? Can I do every part of the
cycle on my own ? How can it be optimized ? And for almost cycles : How to
close the loop.

------
z3t4
Many people think that if they just become successful they will be more happy,
but it's actually the other way around. First comes happiness, then comes
success. A happy life will be a successful life.

~~~
forgotmypass9
In my experience, this is not true at all. When I had a solid job, I was the
happiest person alive. When I was struggling to find a new job, I was the most
depressed person alive.

It's not just me, there was a study saying that money correlates to income
perfectly - up to $70 000, after which there is no correlation at all.

Unless your definition of "not successful" includes people who make enough
money to paying living expenses.

~~~
z3t4
Indeed economy security is one of the corner pillars of success. Think of it
as part of the hierarchy of needs. But you can be upper class and still feel
miserably, then you think if only my startup takes off I will be happy. But
that will only lead to more work, not happiness. It's better to do something
you love, be around people you love, etc, which is more likely to lead to
success.

------
jonmal
Learn how to give and receive feedback, both privately and at work

Too many times do we give feedback to people we both care of (and don't) in a
way that hurts the individual rather than help them.

If the aim is to create better relationships with those you care for, then
study feedback techniques, so you can deliver it in a constructive, radical
candor way.

Useful in personal situations as well as at work.

------
thsealienbstrds
Read a few chapters in 'a mind for numbers' to understand how learning works
in the brain. It will give you an idea about how much effort it takes for your
brain to actually learn something, and so will help you plan anything you'll
want to learn in the future. In my opinion, they should teach this knowledge
in schools everywhere.

------
known
[https://www.quora.com/Can-you-sum-up-all-of-your-
investing-m...](https://www.quora.com/Can-you-sum-up-all-of-your-investing-
mistakes)

[https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-dumbest-psychology-
trick...](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-dumbest-psychology-tricks-that-
actually-work)

[https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cool-computer-
hacks](https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-cool-computer-hacks)

[https://www.quora.com/What-words-of-wisdom-can-really-
make-a...](https://www.quora.com/What-words-of-wisdom-can-really-make-a-
difference)

[https://www.quora.com/How-did-China-eradicate-a-large-
amount...](https://www.quora.com/How-did-China-eradicate-a-large-amount-of-
poverty)

------
colechristensen
How to cook eggs.

Pick two or three styles of egg and spend an hour (and a few dozen eggs)
preparing them over and over keeping notes on the conditions and outcomes of
each generation.

~~~
bronco21016
I purchased “The Food Lab” by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and it completely changed
things for me. He spends an extensive amount of time in the book describing
techniques and tools in a very hackerish kind of way that finally taught me to
cook at a level closer to my wife who spent her earlier years working in
restaurant kitchens.

Cooking eggs, in any variation, is discussed at length in the book and it’s
well worth the read.

~~~
kqr
"Cooking for Geeks" is another newcomer-friendly resource in the same vein.

------
Pinegulf
Basic (office) exercise and stretches. I've gotten old(er) and really wish I'd
done those for my neck and shoulders.

~~~
mikelyons
It makes such a difference, this and posture. I've had so many injuries and
joint problems from not doing this, luckily I've made it a routine in my 30s

------
eralps
It is probably a bit out of context but my car's battery died yesterday.
Apparently I left the headlight open and for some reason it did not beep while
I was leaving the car.

I learned how to jumpstart a car. Definitely a valuable skill.

------
vanni
How to Solve a Rubik's Cube:

[https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-solve-a-rubiks-cube-
step-...](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-solve-a-rubiks-cube-step-by-
step/)

------
jvanderbot
CPR. Basic first aid. When your child or spouse is choking, bleeding, or
unconscious, you will not care about anything else.

------
crispweed
The concept of diminishing returns, perhaps, together with the corollary, by
which I mean the fact that you can often get easier profits or make progress a
lot more easily by switching to some less explored avenue.

~~~
notelonmusk
Does this apply to PhDs?

------
ajot
I've seen it in a subcomment, but here it goes anyway: to tie your shoes
properly. At least avoiding the granny knot [0], and I would suggest using
Ian's secure knot [1], too. It's been a life changer for me not to stop all
thr time to re-tie my shoes.

[0]
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/grannyknot.htm)

[1]
[https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm](https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm)

~~~
saalweachter
I use a similar knot derived from the "standard" (bunny) knot, rather than the
two-loop knot. You just send the bunny around the tree twice, and you
similarly never need to retie your shoes while wearing them.

------
skelet
How to cut vegetables.

There's a lot of people with a fear of cooking, but it really is not a magic
skill.

There are just a few techniques that need to be learned to get started and
those don't need hours and hours to be understood.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
Taking value literally, spend an hour learning how salary negotiations for new
jobs work and how to ask for & get more. patio11 has written an excellent
intro to the topic, and if you're an entry-level Silicon Valley engineer, this
is _easily_ worth a cool million ($25k/yr * 40 years) in lifetime earnings.

[https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

------
ta1234567890
Meditating. You can learn in 5 minutes.

One of the easiest ways is using an app like Calm or HeadSpace.

Alternatively, just sit down wherever you fee comfortable and won't get
interrupted for a few minutes, close your eyes, then count your breaths from 1
to 10, then repeat, start from one of you get lost (very common).

Regular meditation practice can help you in many ways, the most valuable to me
is the improved ability of staying present, which seems to improve a lot of
different aspects of my life.

------
mister_hn
Git. It has few commands and can be rapidly learned in one hour, mastering
commands such as

Git fetch

Git pull

Git commit

Git push

Git merge

Git log

~~~
mk89
This.

I would add -> understand how git works. The difference between merge and
rebase, what Head is, what Tip is, etc.

~~~
mister_hn
that's out of 60 minutes time

~~~
phaemon
No, it isn't; you can learn git internals in less the 60 mins. They are really
simple. It's people's imagined model of how git works that is complicated so
they assume git itself must also be complicated.

------
chrisweekly
Learn to sit "zazen" (seated meditation). Even 30 minutes is enough to convey
the basics of posture, breathing technique, and context; actually practice a
first meditation for 10 minutes; and briefly discuss afterwards. I received
such instruction following my cancer diagnosis about 7 years ago, and have
made meditation part of my daily ritual ever since. It's been transformative.

------
omarhaneef
I think the most valuable thing you can learn depends on what you already
know.

If person A knows differential equations but not regressions or Python, and
person B knows Python but not the other two and Person C knows regressions but
not the other two then the most valuable thing they can learn in an hour will
be different.

It might also depend on their goals (does person B want to learn data science
of websites)

------
achenatx
How and why to eat a low carb, high protein/fat diet. Most people are obese
because of 20-30 years of marketing around high carb low fat diets.

How to make and follow a budget to save money. Including all of the yearly or
even every 10 year expenses that you might have.

How to invest your savings in index funds to become financially independent

How to handle and shoot a firearm to protect yourself and your family

------
robotresearcher
You can grok elementary analysis of algorithms (‘Big-O’) in an hour, and have
a thinking tool that is useful once in a while.

------
teekert
I learned docker-compose in roughly one hour. It changed my mind on Docker as
adding extra complexity to: docker-ize all the things and update with docker-
compose up -d!

I guess this does depend on some prior experience with docker and perhaps on
me avoiding docker-compse because I thought it was docker for pros. Instead,
it's docker for dummies.

~~~
smrr723
What resource did you use to learn it?

~~~
teekert
I wanted to start running Home Assistant using Docker (on my main server
instead of a dedicated Raspberry Pi with Hass.io) and came across this page
[0], search for "Docker Compose", I copied the yaml, ran docker-compose up -d
and boom. Shortly afterwards I added mosquitto and sabnzbd to the yaml and all
three now update very easily and everything became very portable. Before I was
keeping docker commands somewhere in an md file.

Edit, I hope to learn Traefik reverse proxying in one hour next ;)

[0] [https://www.home-
assistant.io/docs/installation/docker/](https://www.home-
assistant.io/docs/installation/docker/)

------
dancek
Learn an aphorism by heart and think of situations it applies to. Pick
something important that you believe in. Then, over time, you'll remember the
aphorism in various situations and slowly adopt it as a life value.

Examples:

\- Getting what you want will _not_ make you happy.

\- It's hard to get what you want. But it's easy to want what you get.

------
irreality
Basic docker commands

    
    
      docker ps
      docker inspect
      docker exec
      docker run
      docker build
      docker rm
      ...

------
Havoc
Basic understanding of accounting concepts. A successful hacker will
presumably find themselves one day staring at a balancesheet of sorts for
his/her startup.

e.g. That credit will sometimes increase a balance, sometimes decrease it
depending on nature of the account. i.e. it's reversed for say asset versus
equity.

------
notelonmusk
Off-topic:

Since you left 'valuable' intentionally vague, I asked myself what the value
of a piece of knowledge would be.

So I quickly came up with a simple model. Just take the integral of the value
you get from this piece of knowledge over time, I thought. This helps you
measure if a one-time payoff of knowledge A is better than the repeated payoff
of knowledge B. Then I realized gauging value is more nuanced. How to model
the value of things that are less tangible like insurance? The Heimlich
maneuver may have a really high value in the case that my friend chokes, but
very low value otherwise.

But this kind of knowledge is harder to focus on when we measure our knowledge
by some simple value model. Surely you didn't expect an answer to "the most
valuable thing you can learn in an hour" to be about what the best kind of
insurance you should get?

------
mcswell
"Oh, God. I've lost him. And I never told him anything. I just wasn't ready,
Marcus. Five minutes would have been enough." \--Henry Jones, Sr.

(five minutes, not 30-60!)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np4OojYGixI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np4OojYGixI)
@1:00

------
slouch
Take the meeting with the free financial advisor your credit union provides.
Meet with them once a year for an hour.

I just found out that managed money accounts aren't just for people with more
than one million dollars anymore, and moving my money this year will likely
make me thousands of dollars over the next 30.

------
kodebrew
Understand what "cost" means to an economist.

To understand cost in economics you'll learn topics like externalities
(positive and negative) as well as internalities and their meaning. You'll
dive into concepts like opportunity cost as well as fixed vs sunk costs.

Once you get at truly what cost means to an economist you will be so much
better informed in making business and personal decisions. In my line of work
(software development) so many products and daily decisions hit the sunk cost
fallacy of wanting to hang onto projects we are in love with. Other ideas like
negative externalities really are the underpinning of understanding why
climate change is out of control.

Cost is always oversimplified. Spending some time to understand it deeply and
learn the concepts and common language is incredibly valuable.

------
Curzel
I'd say basic CPR, you never know

------
valuegram
Regular expressions (regexp) can be understood at a pretty impactful level
within a solid hour of focus. For all the developers or even just heavy
computer users, the ability to find and replace exactly what you're looking
for is a game-changer.

------
ca98am79
One of the most valuable things that I have learned, which you can learn the
basics of in 30-60 mins or less, is how to meditate (Vipassana). Basically you
sit and close your eyes and focus on the feeling of your breath below the
nostrils. When another thought comes into your mind, bring your attention back
to the sensation of the breath coming in and out of your nostrils. That's
pretty much it. And it is the only thing that was able to treat my panic
disorder, and I tried many other things before meditation.

It's also helped me in many other aspects of my life, but mostly because it
has help my peace of mind.

------
scienthusiast
You can learn the method of loci (also known as "art of memory"), a very
efficient memory technique that unlocks the potential to remember things you
never dreamt of remembering, like a long list of digits. The steps of
memorizing are: \- choose a journey of specific locations to look at that you
already know (like going around the place you live, look at your bed, then
your desk, then at the door of your room, etc) \- at every location you
visualize a mental picture, whose components code for the information you want
to remember

When you want to retrieve the info, go through the journey, find the pictures,
and decode them into the info you want.

Obviously, the thing that requires some work is the code. A simple code for
numbers would be to assign to every digit to a consonant sound, and make words
with those consonants, filling gaps with free/non coding vowels. For example
(I'm French and adapted my French code here, so this code might be unadapted
for the frequency of English consonants, but you may change it as you see
fit): \- 0 to Z/soft S (zero starts with z) \- 1 to L (they look like) \- 2 to
N (2 vertical bars in 'n') \- 3 to M (3 vertical bars in 'm') \- 4 to R (four
ends with r) \- 5 to V (five ends with v) \- 6 to S (six ends with a S sound)
\- 7 to T (7 looks like a reversed t) \- 8 to Sh/Ch (eight contains an H,
which is pronounced with a sh) \- 9 to B (b looks like a reversed 9)

Now, you can use this consonants (actually, consonants sounds rather than the
letters) to form words that are easy to visualize. 94 could be a BeeR, 30 a
MaZe, 18 a LeaSH, and so on. You can also combine the words in some ways to
remember more info per location.

Memory athletes spend a lot of time training their journeys and codes and
stuff to achieve some amazing/unbelivable performances ([http://world-memory-
statistics.com/disciplines.php](http://world-memory-
statistics.com/disciplines.php)), but it's an extremely gratifying skill that
develops really fast. If you have aphantasia or a hard time orienting yourself
though, it's probably not for you, but I would estimate that at least 95% of
people can develop a seemingly amazing memory with this method.

------
known
I'd suggest
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Me...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines)

------
mcgwiz
Learn the basic techniques and the rationale behind non-violent communication.
It is a tool that can make the most difficult, risky discussions in your
personal life a lot more constructive and beneficial.

------
leto_ii
Two quick things from back when TED talks were actually interesting/useful:

1\. How to tie your shoes the right way (so the knot doesn't come undone):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA)

2\. How to dry your hands with a single paper towel (so that you prevent
unnecessary waste):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc)

------
lispm
Lisp: [https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/common-
lisp/](https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/common-lisp/)

------
yodsanklai
Spending a little time to learn the tools you're going to use often.

A few examples come to mind. Learn how to type on a keyboard. I feel sorry for
my family doctor, slowly typing prescriptions using its two indexes. He could
spend an hour to learn the right typing method, and within a few days, he
would save time (and money).

An example is using Excel. I'm guilty of this. I always struggle whenever I
have to use it (not often, but often enough). I should really spend some time
once for all.

------
tsumnia
Learning that learning takes more than an hour, no matter the domain. You said
it yourself: "A lot of what hackers do takes years of building knowledge upon
knowledge". Understanding a skill takes time, energy, and discipline to
improve is all you can do.

Everything else is simply spending an hour "doing something". If you keep the
"something" to a smaller set of "things", then maybe you can learn something
over several one hour sessions.

------
hnick
I don't think it's been said which surprises me, but basic programming of
course. Programming properly requires a mindset where you are thinking about
'what will happen if this happens?'. A lot of people don't seem to naturally
think like that. It can be helpful.

For a more practical example, you can easily start a blog and learn the basics
of Wordpress in an hour. A lot of small business owners in particular can
really benefit from this.

------
ThinkingGuy
The NATO spelling alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, delta ... yankee, zulu). I
learned it through my background in amateur radio, but I've found it to be
very useful, even outside my IT career, where I had to convey some precise
series of letters over a voice link.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet)

------
Jeff_Brown
In five or ten minutes you can learn make.py[1], a dead-simple alternative to
Makefiles.

Those are both examples of "automated build tools". If you do data science,
and have even a moderately complex graph of dependencies (i.e. some files need
to be built before others can be built), such a tool is an absolute lifesaver.

[1] [https://github.com/zwegner/make.py](https://github.com/zwegner/make.py)

------
Kye
Read through Farnam Street's list of mental models: [https://fs.blog/mental-
models/](https://fs.blog/mental-models/)

They won't change your life overnight, but as you read one or more will likely
click with some tricky problem you're in the middle of. For me, that was
inversion. Flipping things works for digital artists, and it works for
thinking about problems.

------
slowhand09
Learn how to get out of debt!!! [https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-the-debt-
snowball-method...](https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-the-debt-snowball-
method-works)

Step 1: List your debts from smallest to largest regardless of interest rate.

Step 2: Make minimum payments on all your debts except the smallest.

Step 3: Pay as much as possible on your smallest debt.

Step 4: Repeat until each debt is paid in full.

~~~
wyxuan
Dave Ramsey had been called out for questionable advice, and it's not
something you could change and learn in an hour

~~~
Jarwain
From what I understand, there are two ways to optimize the climb out of debt:
optimizing for financial efficiency and optimizing for motivation

Financial efficiency typically calls for paying off the debt with the highest
interest first, followed by the next highest, so on and so forth. This
minimizes the amount a user has to pay in the long term. However, some people
have trouble following this kind of abstract strategy, staying motivated and
continuing to pay off their debts.

Dave Ramsey's advice focuses on optimizing for motivation. Pay off the
smallest debts first, get those easy wins before tackling the harder debts. In
the long term, this might be more expensive for the individual, but for some
it is a more effective technique for staying motivated and continuing to pay
off their debt.

Ultimately, people should do whatever works for them. Either way is a valid
path to becoming debt free

~~~
slowhand09
I agree. Ramsey's method motivates people. People who aren't motivated will
likely take forever to pay their debts, or fail at it. Ramsey's method
promotes some sacrifice now, and reaping benefits later. Delayed
gratification...

------
geerlingguy
Honestly, Ansible. I spent a week on Puppet a couple years ago, and was barely
making progress. (Disclosure: I'm not a Ruby developer and only have basic
understanding of that language).

I picked up Ansible in about one hour and already had a server's setup
automated by the end of that hour. Now I automate 99% of everything using
Ansible... and it's not much more complicated today than it was when I
started.

------
cjfd
I think some decades ago I read the manual of gnu make in about an hour. After
that is not great at it but can write a Makefile for a simple project.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
There's a much simpler Python-based alternative[1] called make.py.

I rely heavily on Makefiles, and only recently learned about make.py. What
Makefiles let you do is great, but make syntax is an absolute minefield.

[1] [https://github.com/zwegner/make.py](https://github.com/zwegner/make.py)

------
uber-geek
Algorithms are used in nearly every aspect of computing. If you could learn
the basic flow of how an algorithm works, that would be very beneficial.

------
scarejunba
Use Upwork or a similar service to outsource some of your drudge work.
Suddenly you'll find that you can accelerate yourself so much more.

~~~
kqr
Can you expand on this?

~~~
scarejunba
Sure. Let’s say you have some mundane task: you’ve got some number of people
with varying dietary restrictions and they want to go to dinner together. You
don’t know which places can accommodate you. Don’t do it yourself. Just ship
the info over to someone you pay $25 to do the work. You can then use the time
more productively.

Eventually, you can see the MTurk / Upwork folks as just slow executing
programs. For some jobs, some guy in Southeast Asia will do it for $4. Don’t
even think about it.

This works across the spectrum: want to clean up formatting in a doc? Ship it
over. Want to transcribe a video for captions? Ship it over. Want a quick
scraper for a few websites? Ship it over.

The objective is to not be the bottleneck on any task.

Get a quick idea of what the labour looks like. Southeast Asia at $5 is great.
Americans at $15 are a waste of time. South Asians at $8 will break even.
Eventually, every hour of your time is spent on the time that is special about
you.

~~~
kqr
This sounds great. How can I trust the quality of the output?

~~~
scarejunba
Many of the things are easier to check than to do. And where it isn't, you can
have multiple people do the same thing.

And last of all: if you build a working relationship with the guys who do good
work you can use them for more work.

~~~
kqr
I'd be worried that multiple rounds of feedback back and forth would cost more
time and money than doing it myself.

Having multiple people do the same thing, and finding people who are quality-
oriented and trying to stick to them sounds clever, though.

~~~
scarejunba
I never really give feedback. I either keep on or end contracts but I never
attempt to coach them into being useful. The cost/benefit isn't there, as you
pointed out.

Sometimes, it's just that the question isn't suitable for this method and I
just sink the project till I can think of better.

------
AnnoyingSwede
Any DIY skills, may it be plastering a wall, hanging a mirror, painting a
wall, unclogging a waste pipe. Youtube is filled of videos from people that
gets your inspiration going, and many things that seemed like a drag are
actually both relaxing and enjoyable as you broaden your skill-set, and it
will save you tons of money as you become more independent as a human being.

------
jstrieb
Simple physical penetration testing tactics are easy to learn and apply
widely. These skills can be a quick way to have better security awareness, and
can be a fun party trick.

For example, many of the techniques listed in this (<1hr) video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnmcRTnTNC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnmcRTnTNC8)

------
gaurangagg
One of the most valuable things which I learnt was how to tie shoe laces using
Ian Knot -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgSwvDkJVxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgSwvDkJVxE)

Saved me incredible amount of mental harrassment which I used to get when shoe
laces used to get unwound which I used to brisk walk.

Life is good after learning it.

~~~
setman2
I wonder why no one learns to tie it this way? It is less common because it's
not as intuitive?

------
throw1234651234
The truth is that you can't learn anything useful in an hour unless you don't
know really, really basic things about life.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
I disagree. I learned the basics of the Variant library (which provides open
sum types) for Haskell yesterday in about 90 minutes. It was awesome.

~~~
throw1234651234
Because you already knew Haskell and you knew what open sum types are. You
learned some semantics.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
All true. I would only add that learning "mere semantics" in many cases allows
you to use a powerful new tool.

------
daodedickinson
Well... um... if someone wants to love me you could definitely maybe get me to
fall in love with you in an hour of conversation.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
There's actually a technique for this!

Two people stand about 4' apart, and take turns asking personal questions.
Start simple and ramp up, like from "What is your favorite color?" to "Who did
you like better, your Mother or your Father?". Move to "Have you had a friend
pass away, and how did that affect you?", "Are you happy with your life?" and
so on.

Try to answer truthfully, and pay close attention to your partner's body
language, facial changes, voice quality. Empathize silently using the same.

After 10 minutes, normal folks feel a closer bond. Unreasonably closer.

------
vfinn
First aid skills, e.g. Heimlich maneuver. You might end up saving someone's
life by being able to act calmly and correctly.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
I saved my grandmother's life with this. She was embarrassed and didn't want
me to. Super weird. She looked all round soft but her diaphragm was
surprisingly tough, and it took a couple tries. A year later I learned that I
had broken one (maybe two?) of her ribs.

~~~
vfinn
Thank you for the story! I helped my brother who was choking on a cough drop.
Didn't use Heimlich, but nevertheless it was a scary experience. I hesitated
to which one is the correct move. Edit: As far as I understand, one uses
Heimlich if hitting on the back while bent doesn't work.

------
geekus_maximus
Learn how to regulate your sympathetic nervous system with diaphragmatic
breathing. I know that meditation has been mentioned various times, but
breathing as a subset of meditation is useful whilst sat in a meeting or
conference, as it's approaching your turn to speak. It has worked wonders for
my state of mind before public speaking.

~~~
bootloop
Any good resources you know?

~~~
geekus_maximus
[https://www.healthline.com/health/diaphragmatic-
breathing](https://www.healthline.com/health/diaphragmatic-breathing)

One can vary the pattern to determine what works best for them. For me it's
"in for 5, hold for 5, out for 5". As in breathe in slowly over five seconds,
hold for five seconds and than exhale over five seconds.

------
mekoka
Some years ago, I learned how to tie my shoes from this video
[https://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes](https://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes).
I believe those 3 minutes were among the best time investments I've ever made.

~~~
clarry
One alternative is to eliminate the problem entirely and get shoes without
laces.

------
shartshooter
_Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to use
it in a fruit salad._

Learning facts are great if you’ve got an hour but really understanding should
take time.

I’d say if you have an hour that is free try to be completely independent of
thought. No music no podcasts no interacting with(or influenced by) other
peopl. Try to be present

------
Dangeranger
Learn how to meditate.

You cannot master meditation within one hour, but you can learn the skills you
need to begin your practice.

With six guided sessions of ten minutes each you can be well on your way to a
more focused, less anxious, and happier life.

My recommendation would be to find a practitioner near you, or use one of the
guided practice apps like Headspace or Calm.

Good luck on your journey.

------
hariis
Fasting... in fact, if you simply stick to just one simple rule which is, eat
ONLY when you become hungry, you will reap rewards. Hint: Not everyone needs 3
meals a day.

In order to this, you need to become aware of your body and mind. And for
this, you need to learn Meditation which is simply a practice of mindfulness
for a set period of time.

------
teeray
I learned morse code in about an hour using:
[https://morse.withgoogle.com/learn/](https://morse.withgoogle.com/learn/)

It’s a surprisingly good trainer that includes good mnemonics and follows the
advice of spaced repetition research. It also covers digits and punctuation
too.

------
AlchemistCamp
Here are a couple that have changed my life:

\- Learn the basics of how to meditate. Any of the top guided meditation
mobile apps is enough to get started, as is an hour with a teacher.

\- Learn to create a WordPress blog. Doing this was the first step on my path
to becoming a developer, learning about online marketing and even meeting some
of my best friends!

------
lemurmoreno
The hour when I learn a lot is when I talk with my grandfather or elder
people. They have a lot of knowledge to share.

------
jstummbillig
I see a bunch of vague and non answers to this question. Here is mine: Git
rebase + squash

Actually sitting down and understanding what it's about, trying it out and
implementing it should be possible within 1 hour without ever having touched
it before, and has at least a huge potential to make you way better at Git.

~~~
jobigoud
I only have a vague idea about what this does so I may be missing the point.

I only ever saw this as a way to hide the multiple commits that go in the
creation of a given piece of code, in order to present a neat commit as if
everything was figured out first try. First, I don't like to have too many
commits that aren't pushed to the remote repo, if my machine fails, I would
loose work, so usually I only have one or two commits unpushed. Secondly, I
like to think of the history as containing these previous tries, and sometimes
I will realize that the end result has a subtle bug that was introduced
somewhere along the line while piling on the feature.

I work mostly on repositories with very few team members (1 to 5).

What am I missing? Why would I destroy history? Is it reversible? Is it just
to hide messy progression?

------
astrophysics
Valuable? Giving a proper blowjob. You can learn it in an hour and make insane
amounts of money doing just that.

------
rutierut
To be wrong.

Don't identify with your point of view, you are not your opinion and your
worth is not defined by its validity.

------
johnsimer
Negotiation.

Very basic rules you can learn, that will increase your earning potential by
over 7 figures throughout your life.

------
Spankophile
Compound interest is a great call. I'll add: "Never spend your principal."

In fact, people should all read:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon)

------
foobarbecue
Obviously, it depends on what you already know. Otherwise I would say spend an
hour learning addition.

------
movedx
> What's the most valuable thing you can learn in an hour?

All the answers to this thread, once they've built up.

Given enough time there would be about an hour of reading and contemplation to
be had, and in that time a good deal of advice would be received that can
later be acted upon.

------
mettamage
> A person can also learn a few guitar chords and possibly play a carefully-
> chosen song in that time.

Not true, there are many 4 chord songs. [1]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Smt1VsoqQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Smt1VsoqQ)

~~~
Jeff_Brown
_So_ many.

But just learning proper guitar form -- holding the strings so you won't hurt
your hand with time (your fingertips should be perpendicular to the neck, not
flat against it), and so your fingers don't block neighboring strings -- is at
least an hour-long job.

------
saalweachter
How to use a library. The organization of the books, how to look them up by
subject or title, the different media available, how to request inter-library
loan, and how to ask a librarian for help finding what you are looking for
when you aren't sure.

------
giarc
How to use a password manager (and then spending the next 45 minutes changing
your passwords).

------
newguy1234
Learn how people manipulate one another in various contexts (online, in-
person, social settings, sales settings etc.). Just being able to pick up on
the red flags will help you go along way in terms of making sure you don't get
frauded or scammed.

------
dqpb
The killer app for education would be a system that can predict this for each
person, over and over again.

Given your current knowledge and life experience, what lesson are you best
primed to receive, that will result in the highest information transfer, in
one hour.

------
swader999
Learn Wim Hof's breathing technique. [https://blog.spire.io/2018/05/20/wim-
hof-breathing/](https://blog.spire.io/2018/05/20/wim-hof-breathing/)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Or maybe not: [http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/07/28/breath-
holding-m...](http://www.capradio.org/articles/2017/07/28/breath-holding-
meditation-leads-to-two-drowning-deaths/)

~~~
swader999
Don't do it while driving or near water. Same goes for trying to sleep - avoid
this around water too.

------
ChrisRR
As a programmer, learn to use a version control system if you don't already
know how.

------
werber
How to revive someone with narcan

~~~
Jeff_Brown
I didn't realize anyone can buy naloxone over the counter!

------
adamnemecek
Basic reverse engineering. Download hopper and hack away. Nothing more hacker
than that.

~~~
self_awareness
Use Ghidra, because it's free.

------
ishwarjha
Here is what I suggest — Just loose yourself in a dense forest in the early
morning for an hour. Walk and reflect on your journey so far. The alone time
will help you loosen yourself and know where you stand for real.

------
sachop
Go to featured articles at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page).

Learn something interesting within few minutes everyday.

------
toddwprice
Meditation. It's a skill that can be learned quickly and teach you to notice
not just your constant firehose of thoughts, but the emotions that come with
them and which often steer you towards poor decisions.

------
sjapkee
>A person can also learn a few guitar chords and possibly play a carefully-
chosen song in that time.

He can't. He'll know how to play it, but it will require many hours of
repetitions to reach enough speed.

~~~
mikelyons
maybe spend an hour ... every day!

------
tempsy
Basic options trading.

Most people should learn how to use a covered calls strategy to build income
outside of owning stock outright.

With a covered call, the idea is to sell/write out of the money call options
with a strike price higher than what it is today. You collect this premium
while still owning the underlying stock, and if at expiration the shares are
lower than the strike price you wrote the option for it expires worthless and
you keep the premium. If it expires in the money, then you are "assigned" and
you will sell the shares you have at the agreed upon strike price while still
keeping the premium.

It's the least risky options strategy, safer than owning stock outright, and
can create steady income for you in the form of the options premiums.

------
throw1234651234
"For example an average person, if focused, can learn to read (but not
understand) Korean decently in under an hour."

Correct. I also recommend reading 3 books a day to change your life for the
better.

------
eugenekolo2
* Filing taxes if in the US.

* CPR

* Cooking a couple of meals

------
dcolkitt
History is a pretty much endless well in this regard. Pick some era or focus,
and read the major wikipedia articles on it. For example the Franco-Prussian
War or the reign of Augustus or the early history of vaccinations.

In 60 minutes, you can pretty much become more educated on about a specific
historical event than 95% of people you'll meet.

------
maerF0x0
Your true hourly income (something like days worked * average hours - costs of
your job) and then automate/outsource anything worth less than that so you can
focus on increasing your income/salary.

Hypothetical -- 240 days / year , 10hr days ("gotta hustle!") , + 2 hours of
commuting, +30 mins of preparation you wouldnt do if it werent for your job
==> 3k hours per year.

say you make 90k per year => $30 an hour.

    
    
       * Automate healthy meals for $15 per saved hour? Do it.
       * Automate maid services for $25 per saved hour? Do it. 
       * Fix your care in 8 hours when the shop quotes you 3*125 an hour? => Do it.
       * Clip coupons for an hour to save $12? Skip it.

~~~
Anon84
This should be calculated on the "take home" pay not the pre-tax value

~~~
maerF0x0
+1 This is a fantastic point! I no longer can edit my post though

------
tonyedgecombe
Double entry bookkeeping.

------
kqr
Reading scientific articles/papers is something I think has to be learned, but
probably possible within an hour. That's a skill I've found use for over and
over.

------
paulcole
Take 10 minutes and think deeply about the fact that you’re probably wrong
about most things. If your immediate instinct is to tell me that I’m wrong,
take 20 minutes instead.

~~~
rwnspace
The trick is to reduce the number of falsifiable beliefs you hold. It grants
you an immense amount of conviction, and can be very effective in the short
term, although the price is a crippled perception...

A commendable way to spend the remaining 40 minutes is to reflect on becoming
so brave in the face of failure - of being wrong - that you seem almost
foolhardy to others. Ideally, you want to be really quite wrong about many
different things in myriad interesting ways.

------
enriquto
If it is the _last_ hour of your life, learning music is the certainly wise
choice given by Socrates. I don't see how it can be different for any other
spare hour.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
If it was the last hour of my life, I'd spend it making sure that certain
people knew that I loved them.

------
drited
There's a book called Mathemagics with chapters which take about an hour to
read which will teach you how to remember numbers and do mental arithmetic

------
sellingwebsite
Sales. If you only have 1 hour to learn anything, learn sales. That's a skill
that can come handy in many areas of life, not only in business.

~~~
tasssko
Where would you start? I’m in the “learning sales stage” of my career and have
stumbled on Sandler sales training. I’ve talked to a really excellent sandler
trainer (link down below). The gist of what I discovered is that I must learn
new habits when making sales calls (i.e more listening, better questioning,
resist making assumptions). None of these things take an hour. However here is
a YouTube video by the Sandler Trainer I talked to. It will take you less than
an hour to watch and you could learn something.
[https://youtu.be/I4qrQz8h0AM](https://youtu.be/I4qrQz8h0AM)

------
hannofcart
How to play poker. It's the advice I'd give my younger self if I could go back
in time.

An hour is more than enough to learn the rules and basic strategy.

~~~
yangikan
Can you please point to some resources?

------
t-h-e-chief
Sand blasting, esp. soda blasting. You can start with cheap equipment and work
up from there. If I had to start from scratch, this would be it.

------
biased_coin
Pomodoro technique - Takes a few minutes to learn and setup an app. It has
helped me be super productive with tasks requiring concentration.

~~~
pheelicks
And if you can't abide by a timer, use this to completely lock your screen to
force the downtime:
[https://github.com/felixpalmer/Cherrola](https://github.com/felixpalmer/Cherrola)

------
janee
Play frisbee or table tennis for an hour straight. It's surprising how quickly
you can go from complete noob to ok with both of those.

------
Jemm
How to calm yourself.

Whatever it takes be that meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, yoga...

Learn how to quickly calm yourself when you feel you are becoming upset.

------
jakobov
The basics of evolutionary psychology. It is a less bullshit version of
psychology. It will help you understand yourself and society.

~~~
gwd
OTOH... [https://xkcd.com/775/](https://xkcd.com/775/)

------
seiko988
You can learn the principles of good city design / urbanism in about an hour,
which could inform your next housing selection.

~~~
setman2
Can you elaborate? Any good examples?

~~~
seiko988
Considering time in the day and human walking speed, it turns out that if
people cannot walk to their destination within 10 minutes, they will opt to
drive. So if you are looking for a place to live in the city, be aware of your
walking radius (walkscore.com will map it for you)

------
acacar
AWK.

The hour I spent learning AWK way back when must have saved me a few days,
cumulatively, on mundane data munging tasks over the years.

------
calferreira
The value in doing nothing, just observing with a clear and patient mind.

I believe that has been lost and it's also very important.

------
wayneco
learning basic electrician skills for use in power outage/natural disasters.
Everything in our world is powered by electricity, nobody knows how to help
themselves in creating their own when the power goes off. Use of generator to
power their house, basic setup and ops of batteries and solar panels, etc.

------
kahlonel
Learn how to do rear naked chokehold. You’ll probably use it once in your
lifetime, but learning it is worth it.

------
carapace
Self-hypnosis. You can learn the basics in less than an hour and it can be an
amplifier for most other things.

~~~
renox
Any good pointer on this?

~~~
carapace
In re: hypnosis in general the books I recommend are: "TRANCE-formations" by
Bandler and Grinder, and "Monsters and Magical Sticks: There's No Such Thing
as Hypnosis?" by Heller.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/956297.Trance_Formations](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/956297.Trance_Formations)
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/447454.Monsters_and_Magi...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/447454.Monsters_and_Magical_Sticks)

As for self-hypnosis, you can learn it from a book or a website, but you might
also want to check out the people locally who are into hypnosis and self-
improvement.

Personally, I get really good results from a very simple induction. It has a
lot of names, "Betty Erickson’s Induction", "See, Hear, Feel Induction",
"5-4-3-2-1 Induction", and so on. It's easy to remember and reliable. This is
a good write-up of the process:
[https://www.practicalhappiness.co.uk/media/download_gallery/...](https://www.practicalhappiness.co.uk/media/download_gallery/5%204%203%202%201%20Relaxation%20technique.pdf)

That should be enough to get you started.

FWIW, although I'm not a hypnotist I know a lot about it, AMA.

------
opsunit
That as you age an hour is extremely valuable. You only have so many. Don't
waste them on bullshit.

------
diehunde
Personal Finance concepts. There are several books you can read the most
essentials chapters in an hour

------
demarq
implementing min max in every language you know. it surprisingly encourages
you to both use a ton of language features as well as allowing you to see
patterns across all programming languages. this is probably more fun if you
build tic tac toe on top of each implementation

------
antman
Nutrition. An essential life skill.

~~~
notelonmusk
I can understand the value, but what exactly about nutrition to cover in one
hour?

------
andrew_
In the area of the U.S. I currently live in - a few common phrases of
conversational Spanish.

------
ottomanbob
Any shorthand Roman alphabet. Saves time and offers not insignificant amount
of encryption.

------
janpot
Learn to relax, take an hour off.

------
rglover
How to not talk and just listen.

------
jacobush
Meditation.

------
s_dev
I'm convinced the gist of any given unix command can be nailed in an hour.

------
mertnesvat
How do sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves effects cardiovascular system.
Spent less than hour or so to understand them 3 years ago now I think because
of that my life is so much different than what could have been.

Consequently, I learned that our breath is so much important than what I
really thought. Because of this knowledge, breathing exercises, meditation,
Wim Hof breathing method and Cold Therapy made a lot of sense and started
using them since then.

Just one question and less than hour research lead to many changes.

It's definitely something to learn, we're learning so things why not little
bit more about this sophisticated machinery called body.

PS: Again it's super subjective question so there's also generally what
fascinates me most is this variation how different the answer it is to this
question.

If we ask this question to the bacterias or viruses the answer wouldn't be so
much different I guess or let's make it even fish, dog. Another reason to be a
humanist.

------
sshine
I spent the last hour reading this thread, and I learned to tie my shoelaces
differently, that Sam Harris has a somewhat pleasant voice in spite of his
unpleasant world view, and that beyond juggling, CPR and personal finance,
there's really nothing I'd like to learn in just an hour.

------
trumbitta2
Writing a functional component in React, and some uses of it.

~~~
trumbitta2
Hey downvoter, I learnt that little bit in one hour, and it was pretty useful
from the get go in my area of interest.

------
meiraleal
\- How to exercise \- How to eat (or better, when to not eat).

------
eliseumds
Advanced Google Search syntax + the Ngram Viewer.

------
crispyambulance
What's the deal with "an hour"? You have more than "an hour" you have many
hours.

Why the extreme time restriction? Not everything is hackathon.

------
pixelpoet
Ray tracing will always get my vote.

------
suneeshtr
You can learn tailoring in an hour.

------
abeyki
30~60 minutes is really a vague amount to time to learn something new. Maybe
you could learn the basics of trading in that time.

------
softwaredoug
If you’re a freelancer: invoicing

------
undoware
learn how to tie a good knot. Just one. Practice.

I recommend the alpine loop or shoreline hitch.

------
nightnight
Redux gave me superpowers.

------
mchanson
Salary Negotiation Basics.

------
Bootvis
Obligatory XKCD:

[https://xkcd.com/519/](https://xkcd.com/519/)

------
xchaotic
Read 640 comments on HN

------
Grue3
Folding a shirt in 2 seconds. Knowing this method will save you hours of time
later.

------
plg
How to take criticism

------
zelly
the man pages for git

------
tudorw
Tactical Breathing :)

------
davidhariri
Compound interest

------
disordr
How to negotiate.

------
earnubs
How to stretch.

------
sgarst
Learn to type.

------
tus88
Double unders.

------
jraedisch
Whether or not Bitcoin should be worth anything.

------
buboard
\- SQL

\- Quaternion operations

------
Bambo
Encryption!

------
westonplatter0
asking open ended questions.

------
mv4
CPR.

------
Iwan-Zotow
Python

------
balabaster
I can't be sure that my path to relative success will work for everyone, so
take my tips with a pinch of salt. I find though that the steps I've taken
below have made me a valuable team member that continues to be sought after
for years at a time with teams I have and continue to work with...

1\. Learn to drop your ego. This is one of the single biggest things that
change the dynamic of your interactions with those around you. It will change
the quality of every relationship you have for the better. It will make you
more approachable. It will make people want to include you, confide in you and
will help them trust you.

2\. Meaningful interaction with your peers. Learn to understand things from
the point of view of others, and I don't mean just those that think and
believe the same as you. I mean those that in some cases think and believe the
exact opposite. Become someone valuable to others. Someone they can rely on.
Someone they will not go to battle without, and someone they will not leave
behind in a firefight. This takes time and effort. Do what you say you're
going to do. Be there when you say you're going to be there. Say you're going
to be there. Show up. Like Othello, this one you can learn the principles in
10 minutes, but it takes a lifetime to master and takes conscious discipline
every day. But like compound interest, it adds up exponentially.

3\. Learn to be seen in a way that people respect. People tend to respect
those that grant them respect. Don't let their respect or any resulting
admiration give you a big head. Your greatest value is being there to serve
others.

These were the most difficult ones but are the ones that will catapult your
relationships forward. Relationships are the key to your success. I believe
they're the key to all of our successes. They're the difference between making
it because of sheer dumb luck, and making it because you made a difference to
those that have the power to drag you forward and effect positive change in
your life. The fun thing about these points is they're all free and you can do
them whether you're homeless living on the streets with no money or already
earning millions of dollars a year.

... next up, some tangible skills that are valuable... these are likely to
cost some money, so unfortunately, they're pretty inaccessible to those that
don't have access to resources that will allow them to learn.

4\. Right now the market is making a steady and urgent march towards AI and
machine learning. If you're not already aware of it, get on board. Maintain
discipline enough to learn something every day capitalizing on what you
learned yesterday, even if it's the tiniest steps. The few people you can't
automate out of a job are the ones that are building the automation and work
in areas that benefit the march towards automating all the things. You don't
need to learn AI specifically, this is but one niche. Take a look at market
trends more than specific things. Especially in our industry tools go in and
out of vogue overnight. But trends stick around for the longer haul. The trend
towards cloud computing, the trend towards machine learning, the trend towards
what will come after which will be related to the problems we cause today
developing things we're not capable of fully comprehending until it's too late
- which is a trend humanity has proven we fail at since the dawn of time.

5\. Learn to apply your skills with massive growth and scalability. Learn how
to execute, predictably and reliably. This is what will earn you a great
reputation that you can build on for your entire career.

6\. Now you've built all that up, if you've done everything right along the
way, you're now in the perfect spot to do it all for yourself and earn a
billion dollars.

I presently sit between 5 and 6 and hope that my journey into building my own
company will allow me to use what I have learned in my career to help drive
those behind me forward.

I know Kevin Spacey may not be the greatest role model, all things considered,
but he did say one thing that stuck with me.

 _" If you're lucky enough to do well, it is your responsibility to send the
elevator back down."_

------
nick88msn
Regex

------
adharmad
vim

------
suyash
Meditation

------
monkeycantype
Hirigana

Or

Hangul

~~~
rootsudo
Hiragana and Katakana.

~~~
pvinis
I don't think any of these are something you can learn and remember in one
hour.

It's a good start though.

~~~
monkeycantype
I think you can learn to recognise the base hirigana characters with 95%
accuracy in an hour. I had expected it to be much more difficult. I used the
app ‘pastel’ I think it will take vastly more time than that to have the fluid
instant recognition I have with Latin characters

------
lazyeye
Humility

~~~
Jeff_Brown
Extremely valuable. In an hour you can learn why it's important. Mastering it
could take a lifetime.

------
agumonkey
inductive combinatorics

------
kisanme
Basics of a knowledge area!

------
jacobwilliamroy
Winning lottery numbers.

------
probinso
fishing knots

------
zerubeus
reactjs

------
lakesta
to swim

------
artur_makly
meditation

------
undoware
This post occasioned me to coin "dunning-krugerbait".

If you think you have cooking sussed in an hour, you're doing it very wrong

~~~
kleer001
OP said "learn" not "master"

~~~
undoware
You can't learn cooking in an hour. Period.

~~~
kleer001
A gate keeping comment like that makes you look ignorant, petulant, and
antisocial. Nobody is attacking your knowledge of cooking or your value as a
human being.

~~~
undoware
I don't feel attacked, and my knowledge of food is far from comprehensive, and
I certainly didn't intend it as such. I stand by what I said: you can't learn
anything about cooking in an hour except what you need to take the next class
on cooking. Do that for a few months, or even a few weeks, and you get
somewhere. Scope, my friend. Scope.

------
rolltiide
Estate planning

Having assets fully owned before a marriage basically exempts you from all
socioeconomic gotchas in a divorce, even in “community property” states.

This misconception has occurred primarily because nobody owns anything and
instead go into marriages with nothing or a 30-year mortgage. So they are
subject to the full whims of the state.

------
slowenough
Probably meditation, pranayama, basic stretching, basic posture, basic self
awareness.

------
nancycut9
certified ethical hackers for hire :
[https://www.hackerslist.co/](https://www.hackerslist.co/)

------
nancycut9
hire a hacker : [https://www.hackerslist.co/](https://www.hackerslist.co/)

------
nancycut9
[https://www.hackerslist.co/](https://www.hackerslist.co/)

------
learnstats2
On the contrary, it has taken me years to _unlearn_ compound interest.

When you start with relatively little, compound interest is relatively very
unhelpful - it compounds wealth and benefits people who have started with
something more than you.

Twice as good at nothing is still nothing.

~~~
rfc
Alright, I'll bite. This is such a victimhood mentality and a ridiculous
statement.

I wasn't wealthy when I started investing. Hell, the first dollar I put into
my long term portfolio was when I was living in my car! I started with ~$200
that I made from doing a collection of odd jobs (mowing lawns, computer
repair, moving dirt, etc.). Every extra penny I made went into investing into
a moderate portfolio focusing on high yield dividends (4-6%).

As I've grown in my career, got married, etc., I've kept effectively the same
principles. I now get great passive income after 10 years of doing this and
it's only getting better with each dollar we put in.

It is possible with the right mindset. In an investing group that I'm part of,
my story is the norm - not the exception.

~~~
clarry
A bit of calculation would show that a lot of people have no chance of
building "great passive income" in 10 years. They simply do not have enough
income to save that much.

"I started with $200" tells us nothing useful.

I can start with $5 and have great passive income if I'm making $100k and wife
is making $70k and both of us are capable of saving a good chunk per year.

I can start with $5000 and have little more than extra pocket money after 10
years if my salary is in the $20k to $30k range and I'm capable of saving $100
per lucky moon.

GP is absolutely right, compound interest does not do much if you don't have
much. There is nothing ridiculous about it.

~~~
exergy
There is most certainly a category of people who cannot save _at all_ because
some combination of life factors lead them up shit creek, but there are plenty
of low income people who could do with a lesson or two from Mr. Money
Mustache. He has various case studies involving low income people and there
are legions of journal entries on his forums where people earning pittances
have nevertheless saved enough to be secure. Many have saved enough to retire
early.

Nothing is one-size-fits-all of course, but I'd much rather be surrounded by
those kinds of 'can-do' types who don't sit around waiting for life to come to
them.

~~~
falcolas
Mr. Money Moustache is a terrible example. He (and his wife) had a $200k+ job
within a year or two out of college. He is still working. He is making money
off his website and as a motivational speaker. He has to spend a significant
amount of time managing his investments to ensure that they keep an average of
over 4% return.

MMM's lifestyle works well for MMM, because of his circumstances. Those
circumstances don't easily carry over to the general populace.

~~~
shantly
Where I fell off the MMM train, within hours of discovering it, was a post
about healthcare costs on the individual market where he wrote about how cheap
they could actually be...

\- If you had enough money in the bank to cover an extremely high family
deductible for a year without it causing serious pain, if something bad
happened, AND ALSO

\- Two adults either of whom could, in months if not weeks, land a job with
decent to excellent pay and a much better family insurance coverage, so
there's almost no risk of having to pay that high deductible more than once,
worst-case scenario is one of you has to work for a while.

Like yeah, no shit buddy, if you have in demand skills and are already rich
health care can be cheap. Stuff's cheaper for the rich, news at 11. Thanks for
the advice.

Then what really got me were the people in his comments section (can't recall
if he was down there too, but he certainly didn't discourage it) shitting on
anyone who even _ever so timidly_ pointed out that this advice was entirely
useless—no part of it actionable—for people who were still trying to _become_
FIRE-tier rich, despite its being presented as generally useful advice and a
tone of "I don't get why people complain about health care costs, what
dummies!" throughout the post.

------
weiser
How a blockchain works.

~~~
arcticbull
They said valuable haha, a solution on a decade long quest to find a problem
isn’t really valuable.

~~~
nnq
Maybe bitcoin and crypto are not valuable... but the mathematical ideas of
blockchain are, after the bubble dies they'll just become boring pieces of
crucial infrastructure that sit in the background but they'll be there, it's
the only way to ensure data auditing and integrity, and sooner or later people
will be ok with paying 10x or 100x storage and compute costs for auditable
integrity.

It's just that the real deal insight behind blockchain is not sexy and not
something that's easy to make money from...

~~~
arcticbull
> ...after the bubble dies they'll just become boring pieces of crucial
> infrastructure that sit in the background

Well if the value is Merkle trees we can just say that ;)

> ... it's the only way to ensure data auditing and integrity

It isn't.

> ... and sooner or later people will be ok with paying 10x or 100x storage
> and compute costs for auditable integrity.

They won't.

------
FailMore
How to interpret your dreams accurately from this paper:
[https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz](https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz). Interpreting dreams
accurately = clear directions for personal development / ability to do the
work of a therapist for yourself = personal growth.

