This is an extension of a comment I made that I can't find and also a request for examples. It seems plausible that, when giving advice, many people optimize for deepness or punchiness of the advice rather than for actual practical value. There may be good reasons to do this - e.g. advice that sounds deep or punchy might be more likely to be listened to - but as a corollary, there could be valuable advice that people generally don't give because it doesn't sound deep or punchy. Let's call this boring advice.
An example that's been discussed on LW several times is "make checklists." Checklists are great. We should totally make checklists. But "make checklists" is not a deep or punchy thing to say. Other examples include "google things" and "exercise."
I would like people to use this thread to post other examples of boring advice. If you can, provide evidence and/or a plausible argument that your boring advice actually is useful, but I would prefer that you err on the side of boring but not necessarily useful in the name of more thoroughly searching a plausibly under-searched part of advicespace.
Upvotes on advice posted in this thread should be based on your estimate of the usefulness of the advice; in particular, please do not vote up advice just because it sounds deep or punchy.
Well, those particular two aren't actually less dangerous to me, on account of a latex allergy.
(I don't know if the gum -actually- contains latex, but it sure as hell tastes like it. Problem there is that nicotine tastes like an allergic reaction to me; both "taste" like needles stabbing into my tongue. Either way I'm staying well away from the gum, and using the patches, which merely cause me skin irritation, sparingly; mostly I use them for lucid dreaming, as they're the only reliable mechanism I've found for inducing strong dream states.)
Trying to get accustomed to e-cigs, but they're pretty harsh.
Nicotine patches seem to often contain latex, explaining your skin irritation, but the one gum I found docs on the issue, Nicorette, specifically says there is no latex in it.
I also wonder why you'd find e-cigs harsh - I was under the impression they were just water and nicotine and possibly a suspension like glycerol, which seem much milder and less irritating than the witch's brew of tobacco smoke.