
What should you do every day to improve your life? - Wump
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/05/what-10-things-should-you-do-every-day-to-imp/
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enraged_camel
At the risk of sounding too harsh, I'll admit that I was expecting some kind
of groundbreaking insight on improving my life. Instead, all I got was the
same generic "exercise" and "laugh more" bullshit. Gosh, perhaps I should just
tickle myself!

At the abstract level, I find it a bit depressing that the blogosphere seems
to be chock full of people who regurgitate common knowledge and attempt to
present it as something new. There seems to be very few people who have unique
insights worth following and sharing.

My rule with my personal blog has always been: don't write it if it is not
new, original, or at least somewhat interesting. This is perhaps why I stopped
doing it. :P

~~~
maneesh
Do you exercise daily? Do you take walks in nature? Do you keep a gratitude
journal? Do you meditate?

Because if there is a single one of these that you don't do, maybe the problem
is that you don't execute on the good advice already around you.

~~~
diminoten
Am I the only one who almost literally vomits when I hear the phrase,
"gratitude journal"?

Maybe it is just me, and I'm some kind of happiness hating troll (I really
don't think so, though!) but there's a certain point at which I feel like a
person keeping gratitude journal is trying to stave off a deeper and more
problematic depression that ought to honestly be addressed with more serious
activities besides writing down what you're grateful for every day.

~~~
mongol
I never heard of the concept until a few moments ago and I already know that I
don't like it.

EDIT: Now I reflected why I didn't like it. And it is the word gratitude.
Granted, I am not a native English speaker but Wikipedia tells me this:
"Gratitude, thankfulness, gratefulness, or appreciation is a feeling or
attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.
" In other words, it implies that there is someone in the other end of a happy
feeling to be feel thankful to. And sometimes there is, but being grateful for
nice weather, hearing birds singing or being able to walk (not being disabled)
implies to me that there is someone "larger" (read a God) out there to be
grateful to. And that does not sit well with me. For example, I can be happy
to be in good health, but that does not imply that gratitude goes with it.

~~~
bostonpete
Meh. I'm not religious but I feel grateful and thankful for precious time I
get to spend with my kids, for beautiful weather, etc. That doesn't mean I'm
grateful to anyone or anything in particular.

Honestly, some people are so militantly anti-religion that they get up in arms
(so to speak) at anything that could even be construed as having religious
connotations.

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SonicSoul
here's a list that i've compiled over the years.

Daily Habits:

get rid of idle internet time

morning self reflection: what structual and systemic things can be improved
today (improve one of the systems)

mental excercise: pick a subject, try to come up with 40 ideas.

go over goals

learn 1 thing before work (could be done in 15 min of reading)

throught the day, stop and classify thoughts as "useful" , "not useful"

do the hardest thing first.. before breakfast..

step out of the comfort zone at least once. (challenge promotes growth)

work on verbal communication (5-15 min practice)

get at least one thing done and off the TODO list

1 HR of quality reading

while being at work, WORK (be results oriented)

spend some time to clear mind clutter and BE IN THE PRESENT

short term sacrifices for long term rewards (expenses, nutrition, excercise)

plan out next day in advance (next week, month)

before taking any action (or not taking action) project forward (30 seconds, 5
minutes, day, year, 30 years) would you be better off with different choice.

recharge emotional energy​

~~~
RivieraKid
How do you work on verbal communicaton?

~~~
SonicSoul
English is my 2nd language so a lot of it is American English pronunciation
exercises. I imagine native speakers would do something similar in the form of
tongue twisters (the kind of thing anchors do to warm up). Or if you got that
down, practice the Australian accent. Can never go wrong at parties :)

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danneu
I think the best reason to laugh is: you're laughing. You're exposed to
something funny. Humans connect over laughter and funny things. How do you
build your sense of humor if you aren't laughing?

I had a roommate last year that moved to Austin from Iraq. He was self-
conscious and had trouble socializing. I introduced him to some of my favorite
American TV comedies like "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". The
transformation in his sense of humor was incredible.

One of my favorite things to do before a date is to watch something that makes
me laugh. Totally changes my mood.

~~~
jiggy2011
I find laughing difficult. Not because I don't have a sense of humour, I get
jokes but I very rarely find something funny enough that I can't help but
laugh out loud.

I'm not sure if I've ever laughed out loud at a sitcom, even ones that I
enjoy. The same for stand up comedy, the rest of the room can be in stitches
but my expression rarely changes beyond a slight grin.

This can sometimes be awkward when somebody is telling me an anecdote that is
intended to be humorous, because I always end up feeling like I should force
out a fake laugh.

~~~
javert
I personally tend to have a lot of underlying "social abnormality," including
being a chronic grouch, but not laughing at stuff is actually not a problem I
have, surprisingly enough.

Do you think this is related to some other aspect(s) of your personality? If
so, what? (if you don't mind sharing)

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nonrecursive
I really believe that expressing gratitude every day has a positive effect, so
much so that I made a clojure-based site, <http://gratefulplace.com/> (and
wrote about the code at
[http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/programming/dissecting-g...](http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com/programming/dissecting-
gratefulplace/)).

For the past year I've spent a few minutes every morning thinking about what
I'm grateful for and it's had a big positive influence on my life. I'm
definitely happier.

------
harshathlete
I agree with most of the commentators below (especially enraged_camel)... I
mean did the blogger put any actual thought into writing this post or did they
just copy paste stuff that umpteen other blogs have regurgitated over and over
a million times ?

I exercise regularly and it definitely helps me in other areas of my life but
I wont just advise "exercise daily" as the solution to anyone and everyone who
has any questions about getting better.

What has worked for me so far is to set just 1 concrete goal for the year or 6
months and break it down into the smallest possible pieces and act on it
daily.

What doesnt work... 1\. Setting too many goals... I mean cmon are you going to
start mediating, execising, going out in the nature, maintain a gratitude
journal daily ? Sure maybe for 3 days..but once the novelty/willpower wears
off, you will be back to square one...

2\. All or nothing... Either you exercise daily or you quit..All of us get
trapped into the perfection trap and end up doing nothing.. I would rather
exercise/meditate/scratch-my-ass 2-3 times a week until THAT becomes a habit.

3\. Giving up at the first sign of failure and blaming yourself... Too many
people say to themselves "Oh I went on a diet but I ate that cookie..I am a
failure... might as well eat the entire box and start afresh from tomorrow"/
"I just dont have the discipline, I am giving up".. Know that you will fail a
few times before you get the hang of it..which goes back to #2...dont focus on
perfection, focus on progress.

That's it... Just 1 goal to be broken into smallest possible
pieces...something you can act on daily...or perhaps a few times a week...

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dreeves
This seems like a great excuse to pimp my startup! <http://Beeminder.com> is a
goal-tracking tool where you have to keep all your datapoints on a "yellow
brick road" to your goal or we charge you (actual money). It's less perverse
than it sounds though -- you can think of it as a fee for a service that
happens to be waived if you never actually needed its kick in the pants.

It's perfect for things you want to commit to doing daily. In fact, it's all
about that, as opposed to StickK which is not so data-oriented and just has
weekly reports.

Our litmus test for whether you should beemind things like in TFA is:

    
    
        1. How certain are you that you *want* to do this?
        2. How certain are you that you *can* do this?
        3. How certain are you that you *will* do this?
    

If your answers are "absolutely", "definitely", and "given historical
evidence, not entirely" then you'll probably think Beeminder is super great.

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mirsadm
Sounds like the people in this discussion need to do some exercise, have more
sex and laugh a bit more.

~~~
ramblerman
Preferably at the same time.

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mehmeta
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Am I the only one who's turned off by this number? I understand that's what
you're supposed to do and doing this is a nice way to get a bump on your
traffic but being bombarded by the links just gives me the feeling that the
entire content is there to do just that, rather than conveying any useful
information.

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SethMurphy
I would put writing right up there too. It forces you to think creatively
and/or analytically and you become a better communicator. Communication can
not be underrated as a key to successful relationships.

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thirdtruck
Exercise 30 minutes.

Spend at least 15 minutes journaling the events of the day.

Spend at least 15 minutes planning out your schedule and goals for the next
day.

Punch a velociraptor in the jaw.*

Each some greens.

*Optional

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jamessun
Read Hacker News... Someone had to say it :-)

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jcfrei
eat more goji berries </sarcasm>

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jrogers65
Spend less time on social news sites.

