
Ask HN: What are your best life hacks? - vail130
What are some of your best life hacks? Not just limited to tech, although it is pretty ripe for hacking. I'm interested in social interaction-based hacks, too.
======
patio11
1) Own a business suit. It hacks other people, because whatever problem you
are trying to get resolved does not happen to the sort of people who wear
business suits. It also hacks yourself - you'd be amazed how hard it is to
sound like an absent-minded twenty-something when you look like the CEO of a
multinational. (Trust me.)

2) Writing letters - on paper, physical letters - is the most underrated
professional skill there is. Every bureaucracy in the world is a machine to
turn letters into things you want. When possible, hand-deliver the letter
while wearing a business suit. (Not joking.)

3) You will end up like the people you associate with. Choose friends
carefully. (Want to lose weight? Make thin friends. etc, etc)

4) Crock pots: cooking without all the sucky, time consuming parts.

~~~
zaidf
_2) Writing letters - on paper, physical letters - is the most underrated
professional skill there is. Every bureaucracy in the world is a machine to
turn letters into things you want. When possible, hand-deliver the letter
while wearing a business suit. (Not joking.)_

As intriguing as I find this idea, I couldn't help picture it a bit creepy to
write _and_ hand deliver(I can do one or the other). Then again, that's
probably why it works. What context have you done that for?

I very rarely write but do have a handwritten journal which incidentally
everyone in my life wants to read though I mostly figured it's to find what
I've written about them.

~~~
patio11
Immigration, taxes, landlord issues (the tpoic was "compelling reasons why,
despite being a foreigner, I would be a poor option to steal from"), resumes
(+), etc.

\+ I think resumes are for suckers but if you're going to write one you might
as well be a sucker in a business suit.

~~~
MarkSimpson
Really? What do you do instead of a resume? Just a cover letter?

~~~
mcherm
Oh, you still need a resume but you don't start by delivering it. You start by
talking to the person who is doing the hiring. the resume only comes out when
they say "I'd like to hire you please send your resume to HR".

~~~
mkramlich
Agreed. Plus it's better to have some sort of public "surface area", presence,
reputation, whatever, thats out there, and let people come to you. I'm very
close to living a 0% resume life right now (not perfect, got a recruiter
demanding one last week but they get off to a bad start with me when that
happens, and I have lots of non-resume-needing opportunities on my plate to
pick from). I think resumes are:

(1) retarded

(2) archaic relic of past age (like a horse & buggy in a world of interstate
highways & helicopters)

(3) distorting

(4) low fidelity

(5) too confining

(6) too static/dead (not interactive, searchable and multimedia, like a web
page)

(7) surpassed by the ability to have online presences and profiles

and (8) far far inferior to just showing your past work directly and relying
on word-of-mouth recommendations and Internet findability, plus, having a
personal conversation and telling someone what you can do for them, and doing
it.

I once got a paying gig because when the client typed in a certain combination
of keywords in Google, I came up as the #1 result, 1st page (!). You can't
beat that. And that sort of recruiting/hiring/sales channel was just not
possible even 20 years ago. Let's take advantage of it. Death to the past.
Long live the present-becoming-the-future. :)

------
jasonkester
I've got a lot of mileage out of this Employment Hack:

Treat your job as an unimportant thing that's easily replaced, as opposed to
your Career that's Important and Fragile and something that you should never
ever mess with for worry of ruining your entire life.

If you're not sweating your Career, you're more likely to do silly things like
take too much vacation, even long sabbaticals. You're more likely to stand up
to silly policies in your Big Company and even find ways to work them to your
advantage. If things start going downhill, you'll be more likely to simply
bail and go find someplace better.

But if you get into this space where you worry that you're going to be laid
off at the first little screwup, and that will mean you have to move into a
cardboard box and ask for spare change at the offramp, you're only going to
get deeper and deeper into that space until you're stuck. And you're going to
cling to your crappy job as though life depended on it while they keep
treating you worse and worse.

I have thoroughly employable friends in their 30s who live in constant fear of
being laid off, and it's ruining their lives. And I have the example of
myself, who didn't sweat it too much, spent the better part of his 30s on the
beach with a laptop, and seemingly landed on his feet, more employable than
ever.

It's just a job. Try not to give it too much importance.

~~~
g0T
This rings true with me. Although yet to hit the heights that you have, I
treat my job as just that. Not a matter of life and death. Its especially true
when you realize how quickly you will be replaced when you go.

~~~
Johngibb
I left my job after 3.5 years back in December. Leading up to giving my notice
was the most stressful time in my career. Then, after 15 minutes of a
professional conversation (and then 3 hours of friendly chit chat about
starting my own company) the stress was gone. It's not a big deal. Two weeks
later, I was free. I'm still on great terms with them, and even get jokes from
my old boss about coming back some day and ending my 'poverty strike.' :)

It's really not a big deal to anyone but that fearful little voice in your
head.

------
geuis
Use the other door. The next time you're in a crowded place, like a mall, and
lots of people are trying to enter or exit, take notice. Almost 100% of the
time, _most_ of the people will all be filing through one door that is open
because other people are going through it. This is despite the fact that there
is probably one or more perfectly good doors to the left or right of it.

Something similar for revolving doors. Most venues that have revolving doors
also have normal doors for wheelchairs, deliveries, or whatever. Stick a large
group of people together, and they start clumping up trying to go through the
revolver, instead of just going through the other doors.

Being aware of this crowd behavior is a great way to bypass lines, avoid
frustration, and beat the crowd.

~~~
Beanblabber
On the topic of doors. I have a hack that speeded up transit and benefited
many many people daily.

There was a main entrance gate at my old high school. There was four sets of
double door that opened out, that allowed students into the campus. These
doors are damn heavy and one night I was cruising with my friend and I told
him, I got an idea. I refused to answer any of his inquiries.

We arrived at the high school, I climbed up onto the top of the gate. On each
door was the little hydraulic system to stop the doors from slamming shut (
know what I'm sayin?) These hydraulic arms were just little planks of metal. I
pushed them down with my foot. This created tension when the door closed on
the two arms. Instead of sliding freely(and the door closing), the arms rub
and create enough friction to hold the door open.

Now instead of the doors swinging close, they remain open daily, until they
are closed for the night. Every day I would walk through them, and see every
other student walking through my simple little hack that got the doors to stay
open all day.

tl;dr: Hacked some doors at my old high school so they would stay open instead
of closing.

Edit: My logic is: I used the doors... four times a day average. Took three
seconds to open and walk through vs one second to just walk through. So two
seconds to open. About 180 days of school times four years.

180x4x2/60= 24 minutes

While not substantial, I just saved a person 24 minutes of their life.

~~~
cloudkj
Like. I do these type of time-saving calculations in my head whenever someone
like the bus driver drives too slow and fails to make a light, thus costing
everyone on the bus an extra minute of their lives.

You actually saved 24 minutes times, say, 3000 students, which is
24*3000/60/24 = 50 human days saved over the span of four years. Not to
mention, this hack may well have lived on since you've graduated, so that's
many more days of savings. Nice.

~~~
aw3c2
And then you starting calculating how much time you spent in the bathroom and
hopefully you realise that time is not the essence of life.

------
jarin
I don't really keep a traditional to-do list anymore. I tried GTD several
times over the last 5 years and it's just too cumbersome (and having a huge
to-do list is pretty daunting). I keep high-level project to-dos organized in
Basecamp, project ideas are organized in soywiki, and any critical reminders
are in Google Calendar (with alerts).

The real hack that I do though is every morning I take a post-it note and
write down 3 things that I will finish that day. Then I stick it to my monitor
and do the things. After that, I relax and play Starcraft 2 or work on
personal projects.

Before I started using the post-it note, I would have a day or two where I was
really productive, followed by several days of lackluster productivity. Now,
by committing to fewer items per day but actually accomplishing them all, I'm
way more productive overall, my clients are happier, and I'm actually making
progress on my personal projects.

~~~
demoo
I'm also using the post-it note. But thing I've noticed is that when I write
my to-do list the day before, I'm more productive. Because: \- I don't waste
time figuring out what I need to do when I'm most productive (mornings) \- I
already know what my day will looks like the night before, which gives me some
ease of mind

------
Eliezer
Sitting next to another person while writing increases my writing productivity
by at least 400%. In retrospect it took me _way_ too long to break down and
try this.

My shot at immortality costs me $120/year for membership in the Cryonics
Institute and $170/year for $250K of 10-year term life insurance of which $50K
goes to CI.

I lost 20 pounds on Seth Roberts's fixed-point diet (aka the "Shangri-La
diet") and gained 10 of them back after the diet stopped working, but it's
ridiculously easy and works better for some people than others.

An awful lot of the rationalists I know have moved to open relationships.

~~~
ThomPete
Open relationships sounds good on paper but only works as long as you are not
actually in love.

~~~
shubber
At the risk of sounding merely contrarian, I can offer a handful of
counterexamples that I know personally.

~~~
ThomPete
Are you sure? I mean it's very easy to see when it goes wrong but seeing that
it's all fine is a different thing.

There is a reason why the experimentation with that kind of relationships have
been on a decline since it's peak in the sixties/seventies.

We are talking about being in love not just being fuck buddies.

------
kouiskas
Use a vertical monitor for your code editing. Having twice as many lines of
code in front of you at once makes a big difference. Most skeptics haven't
really tried it.

Stop wasting time obsessing about the best coding setup and the best editor.
I've seen very poor developers with incredibly advanced typing shortcuts that
they spend hours perfecting. They still write shit code (maybe they do so
faster...). I use the standard configuration for an editor I like, which is a
text editor only, not an IDE. I think the extra seconds here and there I spend
typing repetitive parts of code give me time to think about what I'm going to
do next. If you've ever spent half a day writing macros that save you
milliseconds, then you're fooling yourself into thinking that you're
increasing your productivity. And as I've mentioned, "lost time" isn't lost if
you're spending it thinking about the problem you're solving.

Limit your use of debugging tools. I'm self-taught and in my early years of
programming (Pascal) as a teenager I just didn't know how to use a debugger.
It's given me a 6th sense in figuring out where the problem is in the code
when I encounter a problem. Developing that ability makes you work faster
because most times you _know_ immediately where the problem is, instead of
hunting things down in the debugger in a systematic fashion. Next time you're
tempted to immediately fire up the debugger, just don't and try to figure it
out only by looking at the code.

~~~
anonymousDan
The problem I have with a vertical monitor screen is that I end up craning my
neck to see the text at the very bottom of the monitor.

~~~
reeses
That's why I use horizontal screens as well.

If you're looking at a screen or paper all day, you want narrow text to avoid
a lot of unnecessary eye movement, and relatively short windows so you avoid
unnecessary head movement.

Readability is still a good reason for keeping functions narrower than 80
columns and shorter than 24 lines.

------
pmcginn
I used to be bad at names, but eventually I figured out if I repeat a name a
few times within seconds of learning it, I generally remember it. "Hi Kevin,
nice to meet you, I'm Pat. I was going over there to refresh my drink, you
need anything Kevin?" It can sound a little weird, but it's made a huge
difference for me, and people love it when you remember and use their name.

Quit drinking so much soda, and switch to diet when you do. (I lost a ton of
weight like this. Seriously, a bottle of Coke is over 200 calories. If you
drink multiple sodas a day, you can cut out the caloric equivalent of a Big
Mac and fries without altering what you eat at all.)

Buy as many monitors as you can fit on your desk. Consider a bigger desk.

~~~
listic
Remember: not everyone needs to lose weight and/or cut their calories.

~~~
kristofferR
Almost everyone should cut their sugar/artificial sugar intake at least. I'm
quite skinny and am working on gaining muscle, I don't want to lose weight,
but for the last two weeks I've abstained from soda, candy and white
carbohydrates (wheat, pasta, spagetti). It has made a huge difference on my
energy level, feeling of well being (every day is just "better") and skin
quality.

Saturday is my cheat day where I'm allowed to eat everything I want. I ate a
pizza and drank a bottle of soda. The pizza was great, but the soda was way
too sweet for me. I literary had to force myself to drink the rest (I don't
know why I felt I had to empty it). Today I woke up feeling tired the same way
I used to feel before I started eating/drinking better and with a huge pimple
in my forehead.

~~~
listic
> Almost everyone should cut their sugar/artificial sugar intake at least.

Then we should be talking about that, not cutting calories and losing weight.
I think I could use more energy, feeling of well being and skin quality. But I
suspect that if I just throw away carbohydrates from my ration, I won't be
able to get up in the morning ('cause there will be not much left and I'm not
eating much as it is, anyway).

I'm not even pro-soda. I could understand if one says that soda can be bad for
one's stomach or teeth (diet coke won't help here). I have a problem with the
line of reasoning that soda contains calories and everyone needs less of them.

It just undermines the credibility of the dietary advice when the author
assumes as a given that everybody should eat less.

------
jsilence
Socks tend to become lonely, loosing their other half, which makes you end up
with lots of single socks in the drawer.

I ditched them all and purchased 20 pairs of the same socks. I never pair them
up, but simply dump them in the drawer after washing.

This way I don't have to pair them up and I never have to quest for "the lost
sock(tm)".

~~~
avree
Conversely, you can take my approach: give up wearing matching socks. :)

~~~
Tharkun
That's what I do. I just dump all my socks in my drawer and pick two every
morning. Sometimes they match, most times they don't. This has been the
subject of much amusement at the office and with my family for many years now.
I can't count the number of times I've had to ask people why they assume socks
"should" be the same colour.

------
mantalk
Life is an experiment. Whatever you do, try, learn, iterate.

Remember, though, that time is your precious resource. You'll never, ever get
it back. All life hacks must either extend your time, shorten tasks, or make
your time more meaningful.

Here are a few things that came to mind:

Productivity:

* Make a check list. Once you start, you won't be able to believe that you lived life without one. Can't overstate this one.

* I wrote a script that takes screenshots every half minute and lets me see what I've been doing. Huge time-saver. Check-lists also help.

Mental/Spiritual/Creative Well-being:

* Read an actual book that's actually not on a screen. Don't do anything else concurrently.

* Keep short, creative side-projects/weekend projects that you can be excited about. It'll keep your creative juices flowing.

* If you're in a rut, start saying "yes" to things more. It's too easy to stay in.

Fitness:

* Cold shower in the morning, and/or swimming in cold water. A few minutes of this and you'll feel like you ran 10 miles.

* If you're going to enjoy soda or something bad for you, enjoy it in small sips.

* F.lux for your eyes.

* Eat when you're hungry or low on energy. Don't eat when you're not hungry or not low on energy.

Social interaction:

* "Flirt" with everybody. Men and women. Don't overdo it or be weird about it, but the qualities that are successful in flirting tend to be endearing.

* Pay attention to people. "Being there" mentally can be hard, especially when you're tired or your company is tiring, but you've got to try.

* Low self-confidence is a road to all bad things. You're better than that.

* "I like your shirt/watch/shoes/bag" and get ready to hear a story.

* If you can use someone's name, use it. If you can't (and I forget names _all the time_) see if you can introduce a nearby friend. ->* Need help remembering names? Apparently this is an old sales trick (I haven't tried it but it's brilliant): index names in your phone book by category, as you may know WHERE you know a person from but may not be able to remember their name. So for a guy you know from college and whose number you have but you can't remember his name, you can go through your "College" contacts to find "College Ted." Hopefully the name resonates when you see it; I haven't tried this yet.

Time for sleep, I think, but hope these are helpful to someone...

~~~
quizbiz
can u publish that script that takes a screen shot?

~~~
morbidkk
<http://www.rescuetime.com/> will give you analytics for free

~~~
iamgoat
I've used this before as an offline app <http://www.manictime.com/> (win)

~~~
mantalk
Very cool--thanks, guys!

------
nhebb
\- Persuasion: Mention an idea in passing then wait a week or two. Mention it
again in terms of "you know that idea you had ...". This is a surprisingly
effective hack on stubborn managers. If they think they'll get the credit for
an idea, then they are much more likely to go along with it.

\- Drink a glass of water when you first wake up. It will curb the temptation
for high carb breakfast foods and reduce coffee intake.

\- If you have annual reviews, write a list of your accomplishments for the
past year and send it to your boss about a month before reviews are done.

\- 10% rule: Allocate 10% of your work time to pet projects that make you
happy. The projects should be for the company, and if you have to put in extra
hours to find the time, do it. Don't tell anyone about them until they are
completed/successful. Bury the failures. This tactic puts a little control and
satisfaction back into your life if you have a job that sucks.

\- Barter: You'd be surprised where it works. I got a $100 off a jacket at
Nordstrom doing this and $50 off a TV.

\- Pasta: If you're on a ramen budget, bulk pasta is just as cheap and more
nutritious.

~~~
J3L2404
Great life hacks, but how do barter with a big retailer?

~~~
nhebb
The funny thing is, I just asked. With the Nordstrom jacket, I had just
graduated and didn't have much money. I told the salesman that I needed a nice
blazer for a job interview (which I did), that I really liked one in
particular, but it was over my budget. I asked if he would sell it to me for a
discount. He pulled me off to the side - I don't think he wanted anyone to
overhear - and told me OK. He didn't call a manager - he just did it. I've
heard that Macy's gives their employees a lot of autonomy as well.

Flipping it around, I've had customers email asking for a discount. I've
gotten to the point I don't even ask why. From my perspective, I'd rather just
to give them one and secure the sale than try to haggle over price and
possibly lose the sale.

------
ZhannaSchonfeld
The best life hack advice I ever got was from my first internship. It was at
an engineering firm and as I was sneaking out the back stairwell for a
cigarette (yes, I was a smoker for a brief period, shame on me) I ran into an
engineer and he asked what I was doing, so I made something up and said I was
running an errand. I returned his question, "what are you up to?"

Engineer: "I'm carrying a clipboard" Me looking confused. Engineer: "if you
ever want to look busy, just carry a clipboard...."

Worked every time!

~~~
Syama
When i was younger i used a clipboard as a prop to get though the back boor of
concerts...check my clipboard while walking at a fast pace worked 90% of the
time....

------
iuguy
Your brain is a very elastic thing. I've found over the years that I can
reprogram (for want of a better word) my head and my personality.

Case in point - Up until 5 years ago I was petrified of needles. My mum used
to have to inject herself twice a day due to diabetes until she moved to a pen
when I was a teenager, so you think I'd be happy with needles. Oh no. I was
scared out of my wits by them. Petrified that they'd hurt more than anything
going in. Of course, when I had to have an injection for anything I'd look at
it, tense and terrified so the experience would be horrific. I reprogrammed my
mind to avoid tensing up, not to look at it, to focus on something else and to
accept that this is going to hurt, but not as much as my mind thinks it would,
and after a few injections I'm now able to have them without freaking out. A
couple of months ago I developed pericarditis and had to have a catheter -
normally this would freak me out, but I knew that along with drawing blood
samples it had to happen and I had to let it happen so I dealt with it.

I also used to get very stressed out very easily and had a quick temper. I
realised that I needed to do something about it as I could flare up and it
would upset those near to me. I in effect forced my mind to realise that when
I got angry, upset etc. over something that I could not change, all I was
doing was upsetting those around me and raising my blood pressure over
something that I had no control over. Getting angry at this point has
absolutely no chance of any form of positive outcome. Thus, if getting angry
doesn't help solve the problem, but not getting angry at least makes you feel
better about the issue and better prepared to address the problem, it's much
better not to get angry. It took several months of working on it and I do
occasionally get wound up easily by some things but I'm definitely a much
calmer person as a result.

I've done heaps of other things to my mind and personality in the hopes of
making me a better person - becoming more sociable, more comfortable speaking
in public, no longer wanting 'stuff' in my life, all with pretty good success.

------
pella
#1. _What if a simple mental exercise could improve your memory and
intelligence?_

<http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/>

#2. Dual N-Back Community [ lot of tips: Dual N-Back, Brain Training &
Intelligence ]

<http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training>

#3. Memory hack .. [ Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. ]
<http://ankisrs.net/>

#4. Medication hacks:

ADHD: [http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/02/22/what-patients-say-
wo...](http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/02/22/what-patients-say-works-best-
for-adhd/)

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: [http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/02/03/surprising-
new-data-...](http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/02/03/surprising-new-data-
what-really-helps-patients-with-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/)

#5. self-monitoring / Self Tracking

tips: <http://quantifiedself.com/>

#6. Lonelyness hacking:

<http://www.meetup.com/>

------
cambriar
I wanted to listen to my music in a way that my iPod wouldn't allow. So that
day, about a week ago, I wrote an app to play my music the way I wanted. It
has a big button, when pressed once marks that position of the song, twice
immediately loops from the first mark to the second.

I felt like I had just grabbed a wrench or something and fixed a part of my
life, but the wrench was Xcode.

~~~
someperson
Can you elaborate?

Are you in effect creating a playlist with the "best" parts of songs.

Exactly what hardware are you using for this? "Classic" iPod with a custom
firmware like Rockbox? Or iPhone/iPodTouch?

~~~
cambriar
I just used some of the 'classic' built in features. Nothing too fancy, just
loop over whatever part of the song you choose however many times you choose.

Screenshot <http://cloudedbox.com/LoopTee.html>

------
saulrh
Two here.

1) Make the placebo effect work for you. There is an overwhelming amount of
evidence that says that the placebo effect works. Deep down, I know that the
placebo effect works, and that simply thinking that I'm getting better makes
me better. So, whenever I feel like I'm about to get sick, I tell myself that
I can make myself feel better - and I get better. I got this working a few
years ago and I haven't had a cold or allergies since.

2) Whenever you get a new program, hit every button. Every last one. Click on
every menu option, check out every dropdown, explore the entire preferences
and settings dialog. Eventually you'll start to develop an odd intuition for
finding things, even in weird GUIS and ones that make no intuitive sense. It
also means that you've seen that one button in the corner that does exactly
what you want, which is very helpful.

~~~
Estragon

      > Whenever you get a new program, hit every button
    

Or you could just read the manual...

~~~
anonymousDan
This presumes there is a decent manual!

------
X-Istence
If I am in a conversation with another developer because they asked for my
help I will stop talking if it looks like they are 1. either ignoring my
advice 2. or have understood enough and are busy doing what they need to do or
3. are busy doing something completely different.

This way I don't waste my time, and I can quickly get back to what I was
doing. I tend to spend a lot of time explaining concepts even to people that
may know what I am talking about so that I don't have to be interrupted again.

I work better while in an almost empty room with no movement around me and no
noises other than the music I am playing.

I tend to spend too much time multitasking so I have disabled all of the
notification features on most of the apps I use (such as Mail.app, Adium,
Twitter, and others) now they can't interrupt me with an badge stating how
many messages I still have unread in my Inbox. It has given me a cleaner
experience.

Socially I have started cutting out those people that only demand my time but
don't provide me with anything. There is no reason why I should be spending my
time writing a long reply when I know you are not going to read it or provide
some sort of adequate answer to the questions I posed in an attempt to help
you. This is in real life as well, phone calls and the like.

~~~
richtaur
I've been running iTerm and MacVim in fullscreen mode and that alone has done
wonders for my productivity. I like the idea of closing Adium and the mail
app, but I just don't know if I could do it! I feel paranoid when they're not
open.

~~~
X-Istence
Don't close them, just remove any of the icons that show up. For Adium for
example turn off the default jumping action, and sound action, and just leave
up a small badge if you require it to feel safe, or turn that off as well. Now
your chat client becomes more like email.

------
danilocampos
When pulled over by the police:

Surrender completely, be kind, considerate and honest. Haven't gotten a ticket
in nine years. More, if you're curious about the step-by-step:

[http://blog.danilocampos.com/2010/10/23/how-to-get-away-
with...](http://blog.danilocampos.com/2010/10/23/how-to-get-away-with-a-
traffic-infraction/)

Having a notebook:

A notebook large enough to comfortably dump your thoughts into but small
enough to be always near your keyboard is awesome. The notebook helps with
procrastination, especially when avoiding some gnarly bit of code you don't
know how to write. I just start describing the problem and how I might solve
it.

After awhile, I have:

\- An idea of what I need to look up

\- A basic list of tasks

\- A clearer understanding of what I need to do

~~~
true_religion
I have to say the "rules" are a great hack.

Thanks to them, I've never gotten a ticket while inside my own district.

While I have gotten tickets outside my district, I have had violations ignored
or reduced drastically merely for coming across as a "good guy".

The police aren't there to mess up your day unless one of you is in a bad
mood. You can't control his mood, but don't make your mood the problem.

\----

That said, if you're looking at something worse than a traffic violation--
invoke every possible right that you can.

~~~
danilocampos
> That said, if you're looking at something worse than a traffic violation--
> invoke every possible right that you can.

Definitely true – I'm assuming we're talking speeding tickets or missed road
sign of some sort. If you're transporting drugs or weapons, or driving under
the influence, that's a whole other deal.

Hack:

Don't transport anything illegal, including an inebriated driver.

------
Evgeny
Here is my financial "hack" if you can call it so. Helps to save some time and
money when you really need it.

Plan all your meals and everything else during the weekend. Buy stuff on the
weekend. Then, your commitment is _not_ to pay for anything Monday to Friday.
No coffees, icecreams, drinks or whatever else you might be tempted to buy. If
you feel like you need something desperately, put in on the list and buy when
the weekend comes. Rinse and repeat.

------
wattjustin
Focusing on actual productivity instead of all the apps, software, and
techniques to get things done. It's taken a while to learn that, but a very
valuable lesson in my opinion.

------
karolisd
Do open mics, whether it's comedy, poetry, or music. Put yourself in front of
a crowd. You might bomb and embarrass yourself. But afterwards, you'll still
be alive. You'll walk back to your same life, but stronger.

I totally agree with the business suit. There's nothing like wearing a suit.
(I wonder what it would be like for a woman to get fake tits? Is that the
equivalent? I'm not being sexist just making a joke)

Keep track of what you eat. Before you eat something, remember everything
you've eaten that day. Keep it up and you'll be surprised how much your eating
habits will change.

Bike everywhere.

Go with your gut. I think a lot of us love analyzing things to death because
we love flexing our brains. Use the gut.

------
yoshgoodman
Get your self tested for ADD,

I know this sounds weird but up 10% of people have it. And with treatment,I
got tested and my coding started to become more in depth.

My concentration is more then i can ever imagine. Before I would work 30mins
30 mins(a life hack I got from HN previously) off like a previous. Now I can
work 2 hours straight with even better results from what I would do in 4 30
min work sessions.

~~~
hacker-gene
So what was the treatment that enable you to increase your concentration? Not
medication I hope. I'm bad at focusing on one thing for more that 30 mins at a
time, and just accept it as one of those things in life.

~~~
yoshgoodman
Yes it is medication,

I dont see any thing the matter with medication. Just like a diabetic person
can not make insulin from their pancreas. An ADD person does not make enough
dopamine in their brains to carry signals.

Medication of course needs to be prescribed my a medical Doctor and you should
never take other peoples drugs.

There are a lot of variables, dosage, type of ADD, diet, lifestyle, history.

Medication is not the only treatment for ADD.

Here is an interesting clip
[http://wellnesshour.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&Item...](http://wellnesshour.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=11&task=videodirectlink&id=46)

------
alinajaf
If you're working on projects outside of your full-time job, do it BEFORE
work. Go to sleep relatively early, wake up at 5 and put an hour towards your
projects every day.

You can work in the evenings as well, but you've done your work, so there's
nothing wrong with chillaxing with your other half/friends/beer/PS3/any
combination of the above.

~~~
X-Istence
I can't do it before work, especially since I am not a morning person. I do
all of my best work at night, which is when the company I am employed with
doesn't get me ... so really doing projects late at night is a win-win
situation for me.

------
Mahh
Putting myself in positions where I have to pull through.

Like signing up to be a TA at the university -- now I know that I have to
really master the course content.

Or telling people that I do/will do x and y.. so now I have to do x and y or
else I'm a hypocrite and that sure would be bad. I tell my friends that I get
out of bed by counting down out loud from 5..0, and that I ALWAYS get out of
bed at 0. And I've convinced myself that I'm a hypocrite or fool of some sort
if I don't follow through, just because i told people.

Also made a fun screen scraper last week for a course at the University that
filled up with only Seniors and Juniors(has at least 100 students trying to
get in). Crontabs to run my script which logs me into the course website and
checks the spot availability of the class(and then alerts me if it's open).
That's fun because only me and the other CS kids could possibly do this.

~~~
Turino
Can you expand on how one would get started writing such a script? I've been
meaning to do something like this for a while (partially as a legit exercise,
partially for fun).

------
hanifvirani
As some of you might know, trains are very crowded here in India. I take a
train to work. My simple hack is a marked position on the station where I
stand when the train arrives in order to be the first one to grab the handle
of one of the marked compartments that I always get in. After the people on
the train alight, I can sneak in quickly. Using this hack, I am the first one
to get inside the compartment 90% of time, no matter how large the crowd is.

~~~
goombastic
Mumbaikar!! I do it too. :) Hey there.

------
bergie
When writing code, use Literate Programming. Not JavaDocs-style API
documentation, but actually explain what your code is doing and why inside the
code itself. When explaining stuff you will be able to catch bugs before even
running the code.

And as bonus, you'll have documentation that isn't a burden to maintain.

Docco or Noweb are good tools for this. Here is one of my Docco examples:
<http://bergie.github.com/VIE/>

------
rodh
My trick for remembering names: When I meet someone new, I try and think of
someone else I know with the same name (a friend, famous person, etc.), and
picture the two standing next to each-other.

With unique and foreign names I try and thing of an object or animal that
sounds like that name. Sometimes I've had to get a bit more creative, like
associating my Nepalese acquaintance Badu with Fred Flinstone (yabba dabba
doo), but it always works.

~~~
dctoedt
> _associating my Nepalese acquaintance Badu with Fred Flinstone (yabba dabba
> doo)_

If I were to do that, I'd probably end up forever calling the guy Fred
instead.

Or maybe I'd remember it wasn't Fred, but it started with a B, so it must be
... Barney.

------
Udo
Okay, just life hacks, no tech:

Figuring out how to skip boring classes and phys ed in high school (mostly)
without getting caught. Ah, good times.

Bypassing uncooperative assistants on the phone in order to schedule meetings
with their superiors (OK, not my proudest moments actually).

Faking attractiveness and social intelligence in order to get girls with all
kinds of tricks, including infamous wing man maneuvers.

Wow... I better stop right there. Those are all kind of terrible :-(

~~~
Beanblabber
Now, this is the part where you elaborate and tell us how you did such things.

Honestly, your post is more suspenseful than a cliche horror movie.

~~~
Udo
I'm not trying to sound extra cool, if that's the reason why I'm being modded
down. Those are just hacks I did when I was a lot more foolish than today. As
with many things, the actual implementation is quite lame and dubious...

Escaping classes: we had these forms where we were supposed to enter our
missed classes and then present them to the various teachers for signature at
the end of the month. The weakness of this concept was that teachers had
gotten so used to the forms that they didn't keep records of their own when
people failed to show up. If you simply "forgot" to fill out and present the
form 80% of the time, they would happily sign the other 20% without getting
suspicious. Of course, after about a year of this, some of them were on to me,
but since I always showed up for exams I guess we came to a silent agreement.
One time, a teacher figured out what I was doing and asked me point blank; I
admitted everything and to my surprise he said it was OK but I shouldn't tell
anyone.

Skipping phys ed was harder. We had several sub-groups with different
teachers. Turns out, when you left one sub-group for another, but failed to
show up at the new one, nobody noticed because the new and the old teacher
didn't ever speak to one another. This only worked because I didn't even show
up once at the "new" teacher's lessons so she didn't know who I was. It sounds
cool, but it almost got me expelled when school administration found out after
two years. However, maybe I got lucky, they were simply incompetent, or they
just decided to not care, because after the "formal investigation" was
announced, I never heard from them again. Maybe they were ashamed that
something like that could actually happen and since I never bragged about this
exploit they just chose to ignore it.

Getting past assistants: this involves flat-out lying, which is why I don't do
this shit anymore (nor do I need to at my current job, thank the gods). I
believe assistants are in constant fear of screwing up. They're supposed to
screen the calls and weed out people who just want to sell stuff to their
boss, but at the same time they're terrified of false positives. So I
basically implied that I knew their bosses. It worked almost every single
time, the lies just had to be bold enough. Like, "oh, when we were playing
Tennis the other week he said I should coordinate with you about getting an
appointment in this month". Stuff like that.

Getting girls: leaving aside the classic wingman tactics at parties (most of
which involve either distracting a girl's friends in order to isolate her
and/or putting on a show to appear cooler), this one is actually more of a
self-hack. It involves faking confidence and importance, and saying things
that sound smart because they're prepared in advance.

Like I said, pretty stupid things, actually.

~~~
ycnewsname
nice

------
reeses
* Pick an editor and stick with it. If it's EMACS, learn enough keybindings to be useful and learn elisp. Go through the phase where you run gnus for email and erc and all those silly add-ons. Get your .emacs up to 50-100k. Use that for a few years then throw it all away.

Look for force multipliers/secret weapons:

* Use an IDE. Yes, this contradicts the first point, but an IDE with intelligent context-based autocomplete (MSVC, IDEA, etc.), inline API references, and an inline debugger.

* Learn how to use a debugger. It's programming from the opposite direction: partition the problem space and drill down.

* Learn how to use a profiler.

* Learn your shell and those weird little commands like seq, find, awk, sed, perl -p -i -e, cut, tr, etc, and bash string manipulation.

* Scripting language!

Non-programming, work related hacks:

* Dress well. You'll be taken a lot more seriously if you have a well-tailored suit coat/sportcoat/etc. Even over jeans and without a tie. Watch what happens when you get on an airplane with a nice sportcoat. Make sure you understand accessories, too. Doc Martens don't go with "business casual," nor do white gym socks.

* Outline what you're writing. Whip up a quick outline then flesh it out. You'll save yourself revisions and write an organized email/document/paper first time through. I can write more in 30-90 minutes than most people can in two days.

* Master your grammar and spelling. Don't screw it up and you won't have to proofread. Learning two or three other languages (at least one romance language) will make this much easier.

* This has been said all over the place on HN, but be expensive. Their perception is your reality.

* Always have a point of view when walking into a discussion. If you need your outcome, keep feeding everyone until they come around to your way of thinking. Eventually you'll overcome everyone else's objections.

* Document presentation style is very powerful. Learn to use LaTeX with custom fonts (this ties nicely into outlining), or even Sweave to include R calculations, print it out on thick stock, and put it in a folder. I swear clay-coated 400dpi NeXTLaser output fom FrameMaker got me a +0.5 on every paper I wrote. Be consistent with this so people recognize your "brand". It makes it very difficult for people to sell your ideas as their own.

* Know a little about a lot. You never know when you'll have a chance to talk about Croatia when you're in the elevator with the CEO.

* Master Google-fu. It's amazing how many people don't know how to search effectively. If you can do it quickly enough, you'll appear to know everything. Email comes in at 10:04, you see it at 10:05, you reply with an answer by 10:10, and you're a wizard.

Home/life hacks:

* You can make whatever you want with wood, metal, acrylic, fabric, drywall with a jigsaw, dremel, table saw, heat gun, welder, cutting torch, sewing machine, etc. It's all hackable and doesn't require a lot of training. Your city probably has a coop with classes, or you can enroll at a community/junior college and get access to all kinds of crazy gear. Or you can tear something apart and see how it's made, then wing it.

* Buy clamps. C-clamps, vise grips, spring clamps, etc.

* Buy a globe and spend time just eyeballing it, spinning it around in your hands. Geography will imprint itself in your head.

* Always have something to read. Use any downtime to read it.

* Keep food stashed in your car, desk, etc. A Luna/Clif/Power Bar will get you through that low blood sugar phase, or more importantly, get your partner through it when they're cranky and they have no idea how close they are to being left in a ditch by the side of the road.

* Put your stuff away and keep your place clean. Hire a housekeeper to do this for extra points.

* Either have someone wash and iron your shirts (a couple bucks a shirt) or find a really good non-iron shirt (Brooks Brothers makes some that work really well). Ironing your own shirts is a waste of your life. Make sure they fit.

* Get exercise, especially cardio. Strength training isn't bad, either, but cardio will make you feel good all day.

* Learn to fight, or at least to defend yourself. Never be afraid of physical intimidation. The pain from just about any fight-related injury will go away in a day or two, and you'll heal not long after. Get that into your head and you'll come across as one of the people bullies should avoid.

* Always be creating something. I have two or three projects in some stage of completion. They can be pointless (a coat for your dog?) but it gives you something to focus on and get tangible progress.

* Compound interest. Friend AND enemy.

* Realize that everyone worthwhile has one or two peccadillos. Don't get hung up on them as long as the rest of the package is excellent.

* Daydream. With a piece of paper and pencil or pen nearby.

* Don't type too much on a frickin' community forum. You look like someone who has nothing better to do at 6am on a Sunday morning. (Oh yeah, DST...I wondered how it got so late.)

~~~
Evgeny
_Keep food stashed in your car, desk, etc. A Luna/Clif/Power Bar will get you
through that low blood sugar phase, or more importantly, get your partner
through it when they're cranky and they have no idea how close they are to
being left in a ditch by the side of the road._

Wait ... is it specifically for diabetics? Then I think you should specify it.
I personally am trying to maximise time between meals and not to have any
snacks in between. For those not having any disease, the human body is
extremely efficient in maintaining blood sugar and homeostasis in general even
during prolonged fasting. And intermittent fasting has significant health
benefits.

 _Either have someone wash and iron your shirts (a couple bucks a shirt)_

Well, I made a habit of ironing five shirts for the next week during the
weekend. When you're used to it, it takes a minute or two per shirt. Maybe
it's cheaper to hire someone for couple bucks per shirt, but my time is not
that precious yet unfortunately.

I wholeheartedly agree to most of the other points.

~~~
tnorthcutt
_Wait ... is it specifically for diabetics? Then I think you should specify
it. I personally am trying to maximise time between meals and not to have any
snacks in between. For those not having any disease, the human body is
extremely efficient in maintaining blood sugar and homeostasis in general even
during prolonged fasting. And intermittent fasting has significant health
benefits._

Not just for diabetics, if you ask me. I'll occasionally have a "low blood
sugar phase", where despite having eaten at my normal times that day, I'll
just run into a complete wall and need to eat RIGHT NOW, and if I don't I
start to feel miserable very quickly (faint/weak, etc.).

------
math
"do your time" working for the man in a developed country for 5-10 years,
saving as much as you can as you go. Then move to a developing country to
freely work on projects for pretty much as long as you like. In terms of
lifestyle, there are pros and cons, but so far the pros are far outweighing
the cons.

------
lionhearted
If you have to make an important proposal, get it on _really_ nice paper. Go
to the print shop and ask what they can do - it's amazing what $15 gets you in
terms of wow factor.

------
zaidf
Too lazy to create reviews for a final? Create a google doc with a chapter
number on each row and email your class asking x people to signup to do y
chapters each. When done have em paste it into a master doc. Boom! You have a
crowdsourced study guide!

------
fijter
1) Job/Tech related: When starting a new project try to think of something
new, something you wish to achieve. Like "I'll switch to VIM for this project
in stead of TextMate" or "I'll use CoffeeScript here in stead of Javascript".
This way you develop yourself further every project and it won't feel as much
like you are doing the same thing all over again every time.

2) Start your own company / start as a freelancer. Come on, you can do it ;)
It's not for everyone but ever since I've started doing this I haven't had any
regret for doing it. You will have lots of extra time and freedom to try new
stuff; And once you have the right clients you only need a couple of hours a
week to get the same amount of money you now get working your ass off
fulltime. Only do this if you know you are good at what you do. Make sure
you've worked in the same field before so you know what to expect and be aware
of.

3) Not going to work for yourself? Switch jobs once you get bored. I've seen
people work at the same job for so long they go into auto pilot and they don't
develop any further. In the last 5 years I've had 4 different full-time jobs,
at every switch you will learn some new stuff, either tech or business
related. No one ever questioned my loyalty and I've had I nice raise every
time I started something new.

4) Some big buildings with lots of companies in it have a private parking lot
with some guy in a booth checking out if you can park there (most of the time
this is for suppliers or people with some kind of access card). Just approach
the barrier, smile at the guy in the booth, and raise your hand. Most of the
time they will just let you through. If they don't they will ask you why you
are there. Just say you are delivering a package for Company X, they will let
you through, no further questions asked.

------
Gatsky
For learning/remembering efficiently:

The spacing effect:
[http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak)

The testing effect:
[http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDFs/Roedige...](http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDFs/Roediger_McDermott_McDaniel_inpress.pdf)

------
Nervetattoo
Overdo things — especially breaks. At work I stopped drinking coffee from the
machine and do it as labourous as possible; Grinding the beans, making
preferably one cup at a time using an Aeropres. This makes me refocus on the
coffee and thus have an actual effective break. Obviously the coffee itself
gets hell-of-a-lot better!

I fullscreen every app I use to avoid multitasking. My terminal (vim user) has
opacity so I can glimpse the browser behind it for visual cues on what I'm
working on.

Turn off all notifications that goes beyond a tiny status light, or similar.
Decide for yourself where to focus, dont let the email, IM refocus for you!

Weekly dinner plans. On sunday or monday, plan every dinner for the week. Shop
once on monday. This saves you money and makes it a lot easier to eat what
your body really needs.

Social life; Volunteer! Its the best and easiest way to make friends. Period
Especially if you have trouble in this department.

------
statictype
Brush while in the shower.

~~~
dctoedt
> _Brush while in the shower._

Not sure how that saves time, unless you're so coordinated that you can wash
your body with one hand while you're brushing your teeth with the other.

Also, it would seem to waste a bit of water.

~~~
statictype
Most of the time when I shower I usually let the water run over me for some
time. I use that time to brush.

Yes, it probably is using more water but I waste that water anyway.

------
eof
Last time one of these threads came up, someone mentioned using the privileged
security lines even without a first class ticket or whatever frequent-flyer
status you need. I just flew out of Chicago and skipped a pretty decent sized
line without any fuss from anyone.

~~~
true_religion
Yeah those lines operate via the honor code. No one is actually going to stop
you. That said I consider line jumping to be cheating, not a "life hack".

~~~
whatusername
I've seen tickets checked in Melbourne (Australia) in the Qantas terminal.

------
Jayasimhan
Never do anything to kill time.

~~~
jonsen
You can't kill time anyway. But it will kill you.

~~~
Johngibb
I recently came across a quote that I really liked: "As if you can kill time
without injuring eternity"

~~~
bricestacey
That's from Thoreau.

------
dalys
I never put a really big task on my todo list. Instead of having "Write 500
page report about XYZ" on your todo, break it down to smaller jobs, but not
too small. So instead, write down "look on wikipedia about xyz for 60
minutes", "open up Word, come up with a first draft title, and write down the
chapters needed". Makes it A LOT easier to get started on something! If the
task is too big I, and many others I suspect, just procrastinate. You end up
with half a day gone just thinking about how hard and big the project is,
instead of just opening Word and writing down a title, which is better than
nothing.

------
RK
Whenever possible, pass off laziness as efficiency.

Don't be afraid to take your own path. When I decided to switch research
topics during grad school, no one was actually doing what I wanted to do, but
I was able to convince a couple profs to work with me, successfully have them
apply for an NSF grant on my topic, and form a brand new research group of
questionable officialness.

I think this has been mentioned before. When purchasing stuff in (US) stores,
you can generally swipe your card and enter your PIN before they are done
ringing your items up. Makes things go a little faster and you feel like
you're in the know.

------
mkramlich
1\. don't spend money on things you don't need, otherwise you won't have it
for things you do need (food, shelter, fuel, healthcare, tools, retirement,
training and "down time", etc.)

2\. avoid ever having to be in a queue (of people, cars, callers, etc.) --
well, a blocking one, if it's asynch/callback, so you can do something else in
the meantime, that's not so bad

3\. avoid paying for things that are free (drinking water, the ability to
exercise (I think gym memberships and "exercise machines" are pretty close to
throwing money away))

4\. don't commit to any deadline or scheduled time/places for things unless
there's a strong personal benefit for you

5\. take a nap/veg/slackoff whenever your body/brain seems to need it (you'll
be healthy, happier and more productive) -- coupled with, whenever you do have
the desire and energy to work, work, don't slack off -- this takes judgement
but both types of things are needed to achieve balance, but your ups will be
higher and your downs won't be as down -- this lifestyle is almost impossible
to live if you have your own family and/or a salaried 9-to-6-cubicle-
corporate-commute job, but much easier to do as indie contractor/consultant or
entrepreneur

------
todorovS
I would say listen to Baz Luhrmann - Wear sunscreen. The song is one big life
hack and one of the best ones in my mind.

------
Tharkun
When a meeting goes off topic, stand up and walk out. It's a good wake up call
for all involved. And if they suddenly decide that there's something important
they were meant to ask you but forgot because they were too busy discussing
the weather, they'll ask you before your hand hits the door knob.

~~~
daystar
and how does one do this without appearing rude?

------
hoget10
Have a little chime that goes off every five minutes. If you're not doing
something worthwhile when the chime goes off, then start doing something
worthwhile (for me that's whatever's next on my to-do list.).

www.online-stopwatch.com/interval-timer/ works great.

------
lothar
Rejection Therapy. Seriously. You meet more people, get more stuff and lose
the ego. I find I'm a lot friendlier and social because of it:
<http://www.rejectiontherapy.com>

~~~
combiclickwise
I agree

------
edge17
measuring the quality of a parking spot based on walking time rather than
proximity. people spend so long circling for parking, if you just part 3x as
far, you'll save way more time and won't burn fuel needlessly while circling.

------
handzhiev
work: \- Do the hardest/ugliest/most boring things first. The rest of your day
will get better and better

health: \- Remove sugar. Not consuming sugar will make you feel less
sleepy/lazy and healthier. If you can't live without it, try to replace it
with fruits or dark chocolate

general: \- Ride a bicycle. It will help you save money, be healthy, feel
cool, and even save time

finance/money: \- Put money aside for buying various stuff (I have "tech fund"
and "travel fund" for example). When you want to buy something big, use money
from the fund

\- Never get into consumer debt

------
atgm
I bake chicken wings and drumettes for a slow, but low-fuss dinner. Cover with
salt and spices, rub in three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, bake on
aluminum foil for 50 minutes at 190 C.

In those 50 minutes, I can clean my apartment, go for a walk, start the
laundry, or whatever. The prep time for dinner takes me all of five minutes.
They taste delicious and it's very easy to scale up (provided you have oven
space) for visitors.

------
mynameishere
Stopped eating lunch and lost 50 pounds in about 6 months.

------
irrationaljared
Walk away from a tough problem

This one has served me well a number of times. I'll get stuck with a problem
that I'm just banging my head against the wall trying to solve. Then as soon
as I walk away (to go home for the night or to drive somewhere or something)
I'll come up with a solution.

Since recognizing this pattern I'm pretty good at walking away from problems
and letting my subconscious go to work. Can't tell you how many times it's
worked.

------
jschuur
Always take the stairs, and feel good about the fact that you're just a little
bit less lazy than the people taking the escalator.

------
remthename
My doing list. I found whenever I made todo lists, I would never get around to
doing them. More time went into planning the days, weeks and months ahead than
actually getting stuff done.

Now I have a doing list. I write down what I am going to do and then I do it.
When I finish what I have done, I cross the task off.

------
MarkSimpson
Ask your superiors for advice, even if you don't have any intention of
following it. They'll love you for it.

------
netaustin
Get good at every system (software or otherwise) you depend on, and stick with
them. Don't take on new systems until it hurts too much not to.

For me, this means that I run the same GTD/Pomodoro routine day in and day out
using Remember the Milk. And I won't evaluate alternatives until I can't help
but.

~~~
mhansen
Don't you worry about getting stuck at a local maximum of productivity?

------
mark_l_watson
Most of my life I have worked a maximum of 32 hours a week. Not only does this
give me time for exercise and extra fun, but also time to promote my career,
not a particular job, by offline learning of new skills and writing. The 20%
"lost" revenue is a reasonable cost.

------
olegious
Only diet advice you'll ever need- cut out grains from your diet. Will never
have to worry about weight again. Eat meat, fish, fruits and veggies. Have one
cheat day during which you eat anything you want. Easy. Simple. No diets, no
counting calories. Done.

------
gbog
Only one hack: get the f... out of your country, go to Africa, China, India.
Don't bring any survival kit, live the life of these billions of humans,
you'll never need fancy lifehacks anymore.

------
cosmok
I have forced myself to stop checking mail, facebook, time, etc. on my mobile
after I have decided to rest. I have slept better since then.

------
nazgulnarsil
Setting goals and then pursuing those goals along any avenue, not just the
obvious ones. Empiricism along the way.

------
pmb
When giving a high-five, watch the other person's elbow and not their hand.

------
combiclickwise
who read this bottom up? Thats one tip from me

read the last page of a newspaper/mag first

------
farout
Stop reading unless it can help you immediately - got this tip from 4hour week
from Tim Ferris's book.

Books are first vetted for fit by analyzing the star3 comments in Amazon. Then
I write what I will do once I read this book before I read actually it.

I read the book and then do the items. Then I analyze: did this book do what I
needed it do. To help me become better at predicting.

I used to read about 10 books/week for the last 15 years. Now I only read 2
per week and many weeks none because I am too busy doing ... and WOW what a
difference. I wish I started doing this earlier.

------
camperman
StrongLifts 5x5 - real strength and fitness for geeks like me.

Getting Things Done using Org mode (very simplified).

The Unschedule from The Now Habit.

Many tips from The Four Hour Work Week.

Make lists. Not too many. Mostly do.

I'm sure I'll think of more...

