Boring Advice Repository
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.
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Try to live close to where you work. Failing that, try to work close to where you live. Commuting takes a lot of time and you don't get paid for it.
Alternative: commute effectively. Taking a train to NYC from Long Island I get almost 2 hours to read/watch lectures or entertainment. Some days these are 2 best hours of the day.
A few months ago I got a new job that required me to commute for two hours each day. I tried doing many different productive things while sitting on the bus (the means of transportation I used), including reading, listening to audiobooks, watching videos, and even meditating. Eventually, however, I reached the conclusion that doing Anki reviews (using the AnkiDroid app) was, by a wide margin, superior to all these other activities. If you own a smartphone, you might want to give it a try. (And if you don't own a smartphone, you might want to consider obtaining one.)
Not all people can read on trains comfortably. (Likewise, some but not all people can sleep on trains comfortably.) Therefore, Beware of Other-Optimizing is particularly relevant.
I don't know, but I suspect this might be trainable. As a young child I used to get very nauseous reading in the back seat of cars. But since I would get bored with nothing to do, I would read until I was to nauseous to continue, and then try again once I felt better. At some point I stopped getting carsick from reading. I don't Know that I trained this though, it's possible I just grew out of getting carsick, all sorts of stuff changes as you get older.
And commuting is apparently just fairly horrible in general.
Practically all of the discussion I can find about this is very US-centric, and so conflates "commuting" with "commuting by car". A long public transport commute that was ideal in other ways (train journey, no changes, door-to-door, frequent trains with seats, signal) could be much preferable to a shorter drive; I use my commute to read, look at my TODO list, catch up with blogs etc.
Alternative: Prioritize the ability to telecommute over raw salary, if you're in an industry where you're able. Consider the time spent traveling when considering jobs.
If you can telecommute, also consider that you can live in a different state. Your paycheck can go further still when you aren't paying income taxes.
Telecommuting might not be the best thing for everyone. At home I have less social interaction and more distractions.
I've heard that telecommuting makes promotion less likely. If so, then you need to consider more than your current salary.
Promotion?
What, you want to put me in a position where I'm responsible for what a bunch of -programmers- do? Did I do something wrong?
IMO the optimal distance is 15-30 minutes by bicycle. That'll give you some exercise you don't have to do anything extra for, that doesn't take a lot of time. I've been working from home for close to 2 years now, and my fitness has taken a big hit. I've just started to ride my bicycle for about half an hour daily, but the problem is, I don't really need to do it, so it's easy to skip it if I'm busy or just don't feel like it.
I've considered this several times because I'm in range for it; but always reject it on the grounds that I don't want to sit around feeling like dried sweat and stink for eight hours. How did you deal with that when you were biking?
I put on deodorant in the morning, and I don't race, I just go ~16-17 km/h (on average, that is; faster on straight stretches, like ~20 km/h). On a normal city bike, not a racing bicycle. I might get a little sweaty sometimes, but never so much that I got smelly. (Edit: typo)
Showers. (One of the advantages of large workplaces.)
Start your post or comment with a summary when posting anything over 3-5 paragraphs.
Also: use paragraphs.
Spend more money/time on optimizing boring things you use a lot:
Shoes
socks/underwear
Mattress
Tailored clothes
Hygiene products that work well for you
Kitchen accessories (part of the reason you don't cook healthy meals for yourself might be because your kitchen work flow sucks)
Ergonomic setup at computer
Find what is best for you, and buy a lot of them. Then you can ignore this topic for a long time.
If you buy more identical pairs of socks, if some of them get destroyed, you can make pairs of the remaining ones. On the other hand, if you buy similar pairs, you will waste a lot of time sorting them.
...and a pillow (or two). Try different sizes and shapes.
For example a cutting board should be large and easy to wash. An increased size can make cutting much easier.
I have tried this with pants, because I have trouble finding comfortable ones. Unfortunately by the time I have a pair of pants that I'm sure are comfortable and I'm ready to buy five more of them, nobody stocks the same model anymore.
I recently had a sock cull, in which I got rid of every sock that couldn't immediately be visually matched with one of its fellows. I must've reduced the total number of socks I have by about two thirds, but the overall availability of matched socks is now much higher.
(For casual clothing, short (like, no-show) black socks are mostly more fashionable than white socks.)
For men, navy or possibly grey are good defaults for non no-show socks.
Previous LW discussion about ergonomics.
If you feel sad when you shouldn't feel sad consult a medical professional or therapist, they can help.
[Wish I'd realised that a few years ago.]
How do I know when I shouldn't feel sad? Also, it's scary. :(
If you find this list describes you well some fair portion of the time (say, more than 20%, though even that sounds like a lot given what I know about people who don't have chronic depression), that's probably a start.
As to it being scary -- yeah, it is. One really important thing to do ahead of time if you decide to seek help is figure out how to make a safe exit if you're uncomfortable, or don't want to continue with a specific provider. Some people find that easy; others find it challenging. Not sure which you are, or how much trouble you have asserting your own boundaries, but it's a very useful skill.
One practical matter of safety here: if you want to walk away from someone and you're worried they might escalate, know that in most cases they can only act without your consent if they believe you pose some specific danger to yourself or others. Think about what you're going through that might be interpreted that way, and be careful before sharing anything like that if you think you might want to stop seeing that provider.
Yes. The first therapist I saw was so bad that I called him to cancel after the first visit (though I still didn't have the guts to say it in person). Keep in mind that this is always an option. "I don't think this is a good fit" is a totally acceptable thing to say to a therapist or doctor.
Wow, a lot of things on that list describe me. I'm not even feeling that unhappy... I thought it was just low self-confidence plus some nasty ugh-fields.
Regardless, is low self-confidence getting in your way and making your life worse? If so, seeing a therapist might be one way to work on that.
I think a functional definition is best. Do your negative thoughts (sadness, depression, anxiety, or suchlike) interfere with your ability to live your life (hold a job, attend social events, etc)? Then talking to a therapist may be helpful.
You wouldn't be ashamed to visit a doctor for advice on how to deal with a nagging cough - emotions that impose a similar level of difficulty can be improved with expert attention.
The parent post shouldn't have made you sad.
My personal metric has been that it's reasonable to feel sad when there's a specific event (as opposed to a circumstance) to be sad about (death of someone close to me, breakup of a relationship, loss of a job.)
But whether or not you "should" feel sad, professionals can help.
The voice that is telling you that awful things are loitering just outside the edge of your awareness, I call The Jerkbrain.
I can self-report that directly and emphatically addressing it as such (usually "shut up, Jerkbrain!") has had helpful effects including:
I am not my jerkbrain, and you are not yours, either.
I guess it would be helpful to have a "normal" range of time in which it's reasonable to feel sad or weird after a death, break-up, etc. Sometimes, it feels like they all pile up.
If it's been more than a year, and it's disruptive to your daily life (trouble enjoying pleasant things, pervasive thoughts, crying spells, difficulty functioning at work, difficulty connecting with new partners, etc.), it's probably worth seeking help.
Heck, if it's been more than 3 months, you'll probably benefit from help.
If you have friends you trust, asking them is probably best, since they'll know how important that particular person was to you.
If you feel like it's "all piling up", that's a sign that you're dealing with more than you know how to cope with. That's exactly when getting someone else to help can be most useful.
Now I just need to convince myself to take my own advice here :(
For instance if you are having thoughts of self-harm.
A major mental change that allowed me to own less things was someone mentioning "treat craigslist as free storage." The idea being that if you ever really need X you can get it fairly easily. But this extends to retail goods as well. I now keep in mind that everything that costs<(.1)(paycheck) is already mine and I only go pick it up if I really, actually, need it.
Learn to cook at least a handful of simple, cheap, fast meals. This will have more effect on your resolutions to "eat healthy" than temporary spurts of mega-motivation.
(also recognizing that spurts of motivation are temporary in general, do not rely on them for lasting change)
Also make a list of those recipes (including ingredients) and store it somewhere in the kitchen.
When you catch yourself repeating the same three recipes over again, just look at the list for a new-old inspiration. Do it before you go shopping, so you can immediately buy the necessary ingredients. (If you go shopping on your way home from job, maybe you should put the list online so you can read it before leaving your job.)
Related: Shop with a list. Do not buy anything not on the list. If possible, do not put anything on the list that doesn't require cooking to eat.
(not having anything snackable on hand is a great way to ensure that you only eat when you actually need to. Most people won't go out of their way to cook just to satisfy the "hrm, I'm bored, let's eat something" impulse.)
Exception: vegetables.
Preparing a snackable version of vegetables (e.g. clean a few carrots, cut them to small pieces, and put them into the bowl) and putting it next to your computer could be an easy way to make yourself eat more vegetables.
In my exprience, following this advice leads to me skipping approximately every fourth meal.
Edit: to my detriment.
Converge what you enjoy eating with what you can cook.
If a complete stranger or an acquaintance can do something useful for you, ask. (Politely. At a convenient time. With an appropriate amount of honest flattery.) If they say no, don't press them.
Failure case: make someone else feel important. Success case: get a favor, maybe make a connection.
Always remember to thank them after they agree to help you and again after they've actually helped you, see for reference Ben Franklin effect , the 299th rule of acquisition, and the power of reinforcement.
A thousand times yes! And since this is a thread for boring, useful advice, I'll include the general version: Thank people who do things for you, whether or not you asked them to do it. It conditions them to help you. Thanking people reliably and sincerely is a powerful tool, and while there's a bit of skill to doing it well, it's more than worth practicing.
I'm worried about tactics like this being overused. Pleasantries really do become mechanical through repetition, and I'm not sure if short term benefits are worth it. More likely than not, a person may be conditioned to think that flattery is only given before a request.
Failure case: They feel compelled to help, resent you for it, and destroy your reputation by speaking ill of you.
Preemptive Solution: Leave a line of retreat, make sure that there is little/no cost for them if they choose to refuse; thus reducing the likelihood that they will help you out of compulsion.
How do you do that?
As far as I know there's no single sure-fire way of making sure that asking them won't put them in a position where refusal will gain them negative utility (for example, their utility function could penalize refusing requests as a matter of course) . However general strategies could include:
Not asking in-front of others, particularly members of their social group. (Thus refusal won't impact upon their reputation.)
Conditioning the request on it being convenient for them (i.e. using phrasing such as "If you've got some free time would you mind...")
Don't give the impression that their help is make or break for your goals (i.e. don't say "As you're the only person I know who can do [such&such], could you do [so&so] for me?")
If possible do something nice for them in return, it need not be full reciprocation but it's much harder to resent someone who gave you tea and biscuits, even if you were doing a favor for them at the time.
Of course there's no substitute for good judgement.
Obtain a smartphone. It will make your life better. (If you don't have one because you feel like they're overhyped, remember that reversed stupidity is not intelligence.) Here is a list of things I use my smartphone to do, in no particular order:
There is a possibility of wasting large amounts of time playing games which I curtailed early on by refusing to download games except during breaks from school.
(And having a camera good enough that text in pictures stays legible is sometimes very handy IME.)
My main objection to smartphone use is that by putting anything you want to pay attention to at your fingertips, it can introduce a certain distance from what is actually going on. I would not advocate, say, spending your 4 hours at the DMV observing your surroundings (that would be a waste of time). But I am concerned that time spent with portable Internet corresponds to ever thicker-walled and less-apparent echo chambers. Is this an issue you have thoughts on?
By way of example, I'm trying to think about the difference between reading a novel on the subway and reading the internets on the subway; the main distinction is that when I'm reading the novel, I'm aware that I'm not actually paying attention to my surroundings.
If I'm interacting with people, I treat it as rude to pull out my phone without asking.
If I'm already not-interacting-with-people, I don't see why it would be any worse than a book. So many other people have smart phones that "socialize while waiting" is dying off regardless of what I do, and a book generally kept people from trying to strike up a conversation anyway.
As to the "not aware I'm not aware"... I've always felt equally towards books and smart phones. Possibly a bit more aware with my smart phone, actually, since dropping it or having it stolen is a much bigger deal.
This is probably true, but I think this is a small negative and is outweighed by the large positives. If you decide you want to pay more attention to your surroundings with a smartphone, you can add an RTM item or use calendar alerts to remind yourself to do that periodically.
Indeed, one of the ways in which owning a smartphone has improved my life is by reminding me to do things which I need to do regularly in order to change a trait or habit. For instance, I used to have bad posture, which I corrected after setting A HIT interval timer to vibrate every 10 minutes, and interpreting these vibrations as reminders to improve the way I was standing or sitting.
Upvoted for this. I think possibly the single biggest impact of the existence of smartphones is that in a world where its possible to carry device cappable of accessing Wikipedia in your pocket means that no one ever has an excuse for being ignorant of basic facts about any subject that they had a reasonable amount of time to prepare for.
Another thing: I've found that listening to podcasts while doing mindless, repetative tasks (mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, cleaning) makes the process much, much more enjoyable.
If you are trying to do X, surround yourself with people who are also doing X. Takes much less willpower to keep doing it.
On a related note make sure that they are people who are actively doing X, or at least making credible progress towards it not just professing a desire to X. This is an easy mistake to make.
Don't beat yourself up.
If you are looking for employment, tell everyone you know. I have gotten 100% of my jobs from friends saying "hey, did you hear about this one".
The 80/20 rule is especially true for cleaning. Better to get it 80% clean twice as often than 99% clean half as often.
Not to mention the fact that getting it 80% clean will take much less that 80/99 of the time it'll take to get it 99% clean.
My understanding of the 80/20 rule was "80% of the work takes 20% of the time", so this seems already covered?
Never post a web link that requires readers to click on it to find out if they want to click on it.
Stop doing stupid shit seems relevant.
To summarize: if you're good at something and it doesn't seem like it's taken serious effort to get to where you are, there's probably some low-hanging fruit that you haven't picked, because you haven't looked for it. Put a serious effect into improving and fixing your small, frequent mistakes.
It's a meta-boring advice: Instead of looking for new cool things you could learn, do the boring work of fixing the mistakes you make.
Take melatonin a half hour before your desired bedtime. Set an alarm on your phone so that you remember to take it at the exact same time every 24 hours. This gets you to bed at roughly the same time every night and establishes a steady 24 hour cycle, but requires almost no willpower expenditure since you are already awake and it's just a matter of taking a quick pill. Worked for me.
My upvote goes mostly to the "set an alarm on your phone" part. So boring; so useful!
I can confirm this. I set alarms for the most ridiculous things -- eg, "Umbrella" 5 minutes before I leave the office so I don't forget it.
Set double layers of alarms. I've turned off the first one and slept another two hours, way too many times!
Get in the habit of not turning off alarms unless you're doing the thing you're supposed to do. This sounds impossible for some people I know. I used to be one of those people that would set 10 snoozes. But simply doing what the alarm says immediately IS a trainable skill. Every time you set the snooze you're reinforcing setting the snooze.
Yes! For example, if you have trouble getting up when you hear an alarm, you can repeatedly practice lying in bed and setting your alarm for one minute from now, then immediately getting up when you hear it.
When in need of a conversation topic, ask a question about the other person's life. Anything about their life. (If I can't think of something else, I ask about weekend plans.) Listen for what part of their answer they're most interested in. Ask followup questions about that thing. Repeat as necessary.
People like to talk about themselves. This cuts awkward silences down to nothing and makes people like you. I've also learned all sorts of fascinating things about my acquaintances.
Although it should be noted that while this is usually a good idea, it doesn't work on everyone and you should notice if your conversation partner doesn't seem very enthusiastic about talking about themselves. (Yes, I do mean myself - not a big fan of vacuously discussing what I'm up to, most of the time.)
In this situation, what would you suggest for your would-be interlocutors? Would it be acceptable for them to make clear that the conversational ball is now in your court and be fine with nonconversation meanwhile?
Do you have more examples of specific questions you like to ask? I've been trying to figure out a good way to get people to talk about the people in their lives (friends, family etc.), just cause I usually like to hear people talk about that.
Simple things I've asked are:
Do you have roommates?
But I'd like to figure out how to get people to tell me stories and descriptions of the people in their life.
EDIT: I just now realized that your comment above is a great example of the sort of follow-up questions I'm talking about. Well played.
Examples from the past week:
As you can see, this is at best an imperfect tool for getting a specific type of story. The core of the technique is that I don't have anything in mind when I start, and I'm not steering towards any particular topic.
I haven't tried to get stories like the ones you're looking for, but I've found that being direct is usually a good approach. Maybe just go with "so who are the important people in your life?"
Tips on giving a speech or presentation:
This. In my experience at least 50% of computer presentations started at least 15 minutes late because of some technical problems. But people always believe that the computers are the same everywhere, therefore nothing could go wrong. (Then they turn on the projector and see only a blue screen. Or the light bulb is burned out. Or a remote control is missing; or a cable. Or the presentation is in PDF and the computer can only run Powerpoint, or the other way round. Or it's a different version of Powerpoint. Or the computer does not recognize the memory stick in the USB port. Or, most importantly, something else.)
This applies to posts as well. If you've got a long one, start by giving the reader a clear idea of where you're going and what his payoff will be. Motivate the reader.
In addition to optimizing boring things you use frequently you should optimize boring things you do frequently. You usually need to set a side a time to do this, rather than hope you remember to do it when doing a boring thing. On a related note beware reoccurring commitments. Remember, for less than a dollar a day you can waste 300 dollars a year.
Map things:
If you're terrible at brain maps, learn a bunch of routes. If you're terrible at that too, carry paper maps.
Related: buy a small and reliable compass. Not a compass app for your phone, but an actual compass. GPS, your own spatial awareness, and reasonable assumptions about geography can all let you down, but north is always north.
Edit: I will now ruin the punchiness of this comment with an explanatory edit. I do a lot of walking around a large city. Google Maps is fairly reliable but leaves much to be desired. Establishing GPS location, battery consumption and occasional out-and-out wrongness are common bugbears, so I started trying to navigate without it.
The biggest problem I found was orienting myself. Surfacing from a subway stop only to have no idea which direction was which, I'd sometimes fall back to GPS just to check what direction I was facing (which Google Maps is really bad at anyway. Anyone who's ever done that "let's walk ten metres in this direction to see what way I'm pointing" thing will know what I mean. I played around with some compass apps, which are just as much of a pain as Google Maps. Eventually I just gave in and bought a compass.
Almost equivalent: Buy a lightweight and reliable spear. Not a speargun or an effective modern weapon, but an actual pointy stick. Guns, the rule of law, supermarkets and the reasonable assumptions that your geographic location contains no dangerous predators can all let you down. But a pointy stick is always a pointy stick.
This is an unfair comparison, especially in light of the explanation given in the edit.
OP's point was that GPS can frequently be unreliable. In terms of navigating without it, basic orientation is typically enough to get you started, and "smart" substitutes for a compass are strictly inferior to an actual compass.
The edit does indeed change things. If I was replying to the edited version rather than replying to the original version I would reply differently. But judging a reply because it does not apply to what is now a completely different comment is an error that I strongly discourage.
Almost all of the value of the advice comes from the two additional paragraphs. Even then I suggest it somewhat exaggerates the relative value of carrying a magnet. This distracts from the probably overall more valuable advice of doing an additional 15 minutes research when purchasing a GPS device in order to maximise reliability.
Get some decent winter clothes if you live in a climate where this is necessary. I can't tell you how many people I know at my college that have been going here for four years, complain about the weather, and don't own anything more than a sweatshirt to keep them warm. If it's windy, a raincoat can go over a fleece-style under layer and makes a huge difference. If it rains or snows, get some boots and maybe some wool socks. A hat and some gloves work wonders, too. Glove liners work nicely as light-weight gloves that can keep your hands warm when either driving or walking places but will get wet quickly if you put your hands in snow. There's no reason to be uncomfortably cold.
Long johns seem to be something that a lot of people who didn't grow up in the snow never think of. Standing around in freezing weather being cozy is awesome.
Conversely, sometimes people wear dark-coloured, tight-fitting, full-length clothes and then complain about the heat. I understand why in certain situation someone might not want to wear tank tops or shorts, especially if they (think they) are not very conventionally-attractive, but lighter colours, looser-fitting clothes would still help.
Combining the two, I've meet at least one person who would dress more or less the same way in January and July and complain both about the cold and about the heat.
EDIT: I meant “I understand” in a descriptive way (‘I think I know what's going on in their minds’), not in a normative way (‘ugly people had better please cover their bodies’). Body policing is evil and I'd rather not do that.
Some previously posted boring advice about maintaining an exercise routine:
I was successful in keeping a strict (but light) exercise routine for a year. Here are the main things I think helped me form the habit:
I think this is really important and not mentioned enough.
On this note, something I've discovered:
Jogging sucks when you're overweight. Jogging is awesome when you're already fit.
Try things again as you progress. You may find them considerably more pleasant.
Find what works; if something doesn't work, find something else that does. If it stops working, immediately start looking for something else in turn.
I don't exercise at home because it's too easy to rationalize that I'll do it in five minutes, and never actually do it. Whereas if I go to the gym every day on my lunch hour, there's little room for procrastination.
Requisite meta: Pay attention to boring things that people who have accomplished goals you want to accomplish do more.
Wash your hands before every meal.
Watch your internal monologue for two patterns: Hero stories where you are in the process of solving problems, and victim stories where you are incapable of solving problems. Attempt to reinterpret victimization stories into as-yet-unresolved heroic stories.
Identify emotionally draining people in your circles and spend less time with them. Alternative: Identify and fix major sources of emotionally draining interactions in people you like to spend time with.
Be helpful. I have built a significant network of useful people, and in many cases the relationship started from from me offering to do small favors - as small as helping put away chairs after a lecture - and striking up a conversation.
Addendum: while on occasion I use this technique consciously, there is some concern about seeming transparent (still don't let this stop you, especially with unique opportunities at stake). Best reward yourself for being a helpful guy/gal, make it part of your self image. As your status grows it will be quite natural to offer help to important people (I once got the nerve to offer help to a very rich mayor of a major US city, as I had something to offer. Nothing came of it, but still).
If you spend a lot of time frustratedly explaining to people why you don't do some common social activity, consider giving in and just doing it.
There have been a few discussions on Less Wrong about how to explain to people why you don't drink. I eventually got so frustrated at having to verbally offset the mistrust I received through not drinking, I just went ahead and started drinking. It obviously depends on your social situation, but for me this amounts to maybe four glasses of wine a month, which is a ridiculously good trade-off.
After putting polyurethane on the floor of a house, I had an -excellent- reason which few people questioned: After polyurethaning the floor, alchohol started tasting like polyurethane smelled. (To this day it still hasn't faded completely. I stopped drinking entirely for a long time there, and still can't do straight whiskey shots, which was my old standard. Went from tasting pretty good to... awful.) Takes about thirty seconds to explain, and most people accept it just based on the weirdness of the reason.
Can you find nicer friends? No one has ever been weird about the fact that I don't really drink. (If anyone tried to be weird about it, I think I would claim there was alcoholism in my family - there's not, as far as I know. And not be friends with them.)
Without outright asking or commenting, people can still subconsciously judge, especially in certain situations or social groups.
For example, I am the president of my chapter of my fraternity. Some people interested don't drink. While for the most part people look past the not drinking, there are some activities or events where drinking is common. We have had some non-drinkers still enjoy themselves, but some have been scared away as a result of said activities.
I think an equal precursor to the idea of being judged for not drinking is how you handle being around others who are. If you can still enjoy yourself without the alcohol, in a lot of cases being judged for it is in your imagination. If you sit there awkwardly in the corner sober while everyone else is having a good time, the judgement is very real. It's just not entirely for the reason you think.
Always negotiate on salary, i.e. ask for more than their initial offer. Patrick McKenzie explains why.
Whenever you make an investment, try to begin capturing value from it as soon as possible after spending the money/time for it. Converse: if for some reason you cannot begin exploiting an investment until a certain date, delay purchasing it until that date.
(I learned this from playing the board game Agricola, where a common error mode is to use the "Expand House" action early on, but then delay the "Family Growth" action. The former action is an expensive prerequisite of the latter, which is the one that actually benefits your position. The smart move is to do Family Growth ASAP after Expand House.)
Note that this applies to entertainment and hobby purchases. Put the stuff on a wish list and let it sit, until you know you (will) have the spare time to enjoy it.
Building off of an earlier comment. Setting alarm(s) for anything you need to at/by a specific time increases the chance you will actually do them, while decreasing the amount of time you spend worrying about doing them. Corollary, this can make your watch/alarm clock/smartphone a single point of failure for a huge chunk of you life, so take good care of it and/or have a back up.
ETA: "worrying about"
This reminds me that I need a better alarm app so I don't have an ugh field about setting alarms.
In addition to making lists for "work," make one for things you want to watch, read, and/or play. You'll feel more productive and motivated even when taking a break from work.
A few random tips:
Reminded by the conversation about phone alarm clocks - if you have trouble getting up in the morning, schedule two alarms, one thirty minutes prior to when you want to get up, and the second when you actually want to get up. Set an energy drink or large cup of coffee next to your phone/alarm. When the first alarm goes off, drink the coffee/energy drink, and go back to sleep.
Invest in an automatic soap dispenser for dish soap. http://www.amazon.com/simplehuman-Sensor-Sanitizer-Brushed-13-Ounce/dp/B003JTCAHK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362766673&sr=8-1&keywords=simplehuman+soap+dispenser is what I use; it's refillable, adjustable, and accepts just about anything. (I previously used one of those dispensers with proprietary refills; they were expensive, dispensed too much soap, and when I drilled a hole in the top to refill it, it refused to dispense soap, although that may have been some kind of error on my part.) Makes a small but noticeable difference in the pleasantness of doing dishes.
Invest in good tools, and keep them in good repair; if it's a one-off task, get it used, but get it good. Exceptions - tools which are more work to maintain than they save you (I'm looking at you, paintbrushes); tools which are expected to be destroyed by the work done with them (as the roto-rooter guy put it, in his line of business, all gloves are disposable); and tools you intend to misuse (flathead screwdrivers in my house are disposable tools that get destroyed frequently). If a job seems ridiculously hard - if it takes you two hours to drill a hole in a 2x4 - you're not using the right tools. Get the right tools, or borrow them. (On that note, it should be obvious, but treat borrowed tools with respect and return them promptly.)
Sometimes the right way to do things is the wrong way. I eventually gave up on the concrete saw while cutting out a new basement window and just started smashing things with a sledgehammer. It was easier to repair the excess damage with some new concrete than to do the job right to begin with.
If you have no idea what you're doing, hire somebody who is willing to work with you for a few hours. I'm 10x better at carpentry since I hired a carpenter. (And one of the important things I learned was one I never would have learned on my own - namely, that sometimes the correct solution is to just hammer things in until they fit.)
On a continuation of the previous two, everything really is a nail at some point. Be prepared to use the tools you have. It's not a bias to put the resources at your disposal to their fullest use; it's only a bias to fail to consider acquiring new resources when the situation demands it.
Don't spent $100 to save yourself $10. This should be obvious, but the number of times I've done something like spend an hour trying to save a $.10 plumbing part rather than just destroying it and replacing it...
When getting rid of things, don't consider how you feel about getting rid of it, consider how you feel about not having it anymore. If you don't expect to regret it, don't think so hard about it.
When cleaning house, prioritize getting rid of those things without practical utility first. Even duplicate tools serve a purpose.
If you're one of those people who buys things they intend to resell, first resell what you have. Otherwise you're not being a shrewd businessperson, you're just shopping.
Keep basic maintenance items on hand. Expand your definition of basic. If your kitchen drain falls apart after your hardware store closes, are you going to be able to cook dinner?
Buy a couple sealed 5 gallon jugs of water and store them. Even the least-disaster-prone city can still have broken water mains.
On a preparedness note, if you live anywhere prone to blizzards, keep a stock of medical supplies. Keep more gauze than you think you'd ever need; wound dressings need to be changed frequently. Keep a bottle of iodine on hand as well; a useful all-purpose disinfectant with a decent shelf life (5-10 years).
Invest in a good set of locking pliers/vise grip pliers. These are some of the most useful tools you can keep in your home, and a lot of people don't even know they exist.
Also, experiment with going to sleep earlier.
Google it.
If you're trying to learn a foreign language, get a channel in that language and leave it on in the background, occasionally sitting down to watch for a few mins, for example while eating breakfast. Do this for a year. Improvement doesn't always have to take effort.
Get a credit card with no annual fee (preferably one with 1% cash back). Pay absolutely everything with card (only rent/mortgage, loan payments, and utilities should be paid in a different way, and that's only because they don't accept credit card). Pay it off in full once every month (the same date every month, and only once a month) before the due date so you never give the credit card company anything more than the actual cost of what you bought.
This makes it incredibly easy to track your finances. Rent/mortgage and loan payments are fixed. If you make a steady monthly wage you know exactly how much money you are getting every month and exactly how much you have left for all non-loan expenditures. That number should be at least $100 more than you pay to the credit card to pay off your past month of living every month.
When you bank more than usual in a month you feel awesome. When you have to pay more than you made in a month you realize immediately and can take quick steps to curtail it.
This also gives you real-world data as to what living costs, helping you to avoid the planning fallacy.
Using a debit card gives you most of the same benefits, but has slightly different costs. If your doing this it makes sense to research which one is best for you.
In general, a credit card will be the better option.
1 cards are safer and more fraud resistant. A credit card company has to cancel a false charge if you tell them to, it's much harder to get a bank to give you money back to too up an account. 1.5 related to one, you want to not give your bank account number out more often than needed
2 more credit cards have benefits than debit cards do.
I used to forget to brush my teeth a lot, or even when I'd remember I'd shrug it off out of some sort of extreme level of laziness. Here's how I fixed it: I put my toothbrush in my shower. I brush my teeth in the shower. Saves time, makes it easier to remember, and it's less boring since I'm multitasking.
Shaving in the shower is useful for me as well.
Plus you get to spend more time in the shower!
Floss.
For those who hate flossing, consider investing in a waterpik or similar product. My breath went from persistently horrible to perpetually pleasant when I started using one.
Using antimicrobial mouthrinse is more efficacious.
"... in combination with toothbrushing, daily use of the tested mouthrinses may result in a higher interproximal plaque reduction than daily flossing."
"Floss, brush and use an antimicrobial mouthwash".
Don't smoke.
Also seriously look into regularly using other sources of nicotine unless it's included in your workplace's drug screens.
I just posted this on my Facebook wall and realized it might belong in this thread:
If you're picking out a CPU or graphics card for a custom-built personal computer, ignore basically every number the manufacturer provides to quantify its performance, and go look at some benchmarks. Not because the numbers the manufacturers provide are inaccurate, but because there are so many factors that go into how good hardware is besides the those numbers, that you will never get as accurate an estimate from them as with direct measurement of the performance.
Also, make sure they are compatible with your motherboard.
Never take gossip at face value.
When you eventually hear the other person's side, don't take that at face value either.
Upvote comments that you think are useful on LW in general, not just comments you found personally useful. (A note to myself as I read this thread).
As for this thread: wouldn't upvoting commens that you think are useful for someone else but not for you be actually an indirect case of other-optmizing?
Give people permission to bug you.
If you commit to doing or following up on something for somebody, tell them to bug you if you don't get back to them about it. You'll feel less stressed about remembering or being obligated to do it because you've shifted at least some of the responsibility to them and given yourself external pressure, which is ultimately more efficient than relying on your own willpower anyway.
Conversely, give yourself permission to bug people, though without judgment. You know how you feel when you have email in your inbox that you know you really ought to get to, but don't? Somebody is feeling that way about your email right now. How helpful would it be if they electronically tapped you on the shoulder as a reminder? More helpful than getting more and more resentful because they've forgotten/don't care/don't consider you valuable enough to bother replying.
If what you are doing is not working, do something else.
Whenever you need something for which just buying the popular version on amazon won't work, seek out the enthusiast forum for whatever it is you're trying to buy. They usually have a sticky that will flat out tell you what is considered a great cost/performance item by experts.
Disclaimer: you should not do this if you are the sort of person to fall down the rabbit hole of new enthusiasms.
Meta: Perhaps we should all pre-commit to rewarding people who say boring but true things, in general upvotes and/or social cache goes to people who say interesting things regardless of truth.
Boring true things tend to be already known, and not as useful as true interesting things.
If it's boring enough, it is a waste of time to say. I think what people in this thread are looking for are true things that are not as interesting as normal, but not really really boring.
1+1=2.
If you're good at something, do that thing.
(Obvious caveats apply.)
The Joker
So it's not obvious to me that this is a good idea. On the one hand, comparative advantage. On the other hand, fixed vs. growth mindset: you can change what you're good at, and this might be valuable. Aaron Swartz wrote a nice blog post about how restricting it is to be good at one thing because it feels like you shouldn't do other things that I can't currently find.
Yes; "do that thing" should not be confused with "do only that thing".
Although this may not be for everyone, I'd recommend listening to audiobooks. The main advantage is that you can easily listen to them while walking or taking public transport, while cooking, while exercising, etc., which I personally find makes these activities a lot less boring.
I've also found that my personal rate of reading is faster with audiobooks (using RockBox with an mp3 player to speed up playback to 3-3.5x) than with normal reading, at something like ~450 words/min or ~1.3 pages/min. Most of the speed increase comes from me being really slow at reading normally due to getting distracted, focusing too much on thinking through one part, or just forgetting to read quickly, but still.
Podcasts as well, there's lots of good content and with an adjustable speed player (e.g. beyondpod) you can absorb it fast.
When starting a business, know your costs. The amount you need to earn (today / this week / this month) to break even is a number you should have essentially memorized. Beware ignoring so-called minor costs or failing to allocate costs to revenue sources.
AKA know your "nut".
As per Yvain: Use amazon prime
As per me: Also use slickdeals, sign up for alerts for things you need but don't need right now. You can then safely forget about it until an email alerts you there is an excellent deal on one. I use this for things I need to buy intermittently such as supplements.
Don't forget to check retailmenot for coupon codes when buying online.
I don't understand...the benefits he mentions are a result of Internet shopping in general.
How does Amazon prime, a $79/year deal for free two day shipping significantly improve upon this?
Also, if you are in school, Amazon Student lets you get the 2 day shipping free.
Learn how to remember people's names.
Of course you're horrible with names. That's because you haven't learned how to learn them. You evolved to know something like 100 names at a time, so your software needs an upgrade if you want to do more than that. Use the mnemonic technique called "linking" or "chaining". This video is cheesy, but it's exactly how I do it.
Calculate the VOI on giving this a try. If you go to conferences very often, or have lots of students, or live in a large city or something, it's probably really useful to you to be able to remember names. Especially given that you can google any name you manage to remember. And consider the psychological effects! A person's name is her favorite word, and knowing it is the password to her attention.
By the way, I'd be very interested to hear from any face blind people who have experimented with this.
ETA: This is also a fantastic party trick I use all the time.
Start saving extra money while you are young.
I disagree with this one if you mean in the sense that "compound interest will make you rich!" meme. If you mean in terms of having emergency funds and or saving for shorter term freedom (being able to quit your 9-5 temporarily if an opportunity you want to pursue comes up) I agree.
Maybe the saved money itself during youth is not as important as starting a good habit. Then when you start making decent money, you already have a habit of saving them, and you are already familiar with how it works (you don't have an "ugh" field about money and saving).
strongly agree. I get a lot of mileage out of the rule of thumb "keep your lifestyle expenses a pay raise or two behind you."
I have seen people argue for the reverse, on the grounds that the money you'll save while in your n-th job (for small n at least) will likely be negligible compared to the money you'll make when in your (n + 1)-th (or is it (n + 1)-st?) job.
This worked for me before I was 30; later my income stopped raising quickly. I admit this could be because I made a few stupid choices. But I think that for most people their incomes stop raising rapidly at some age.
Is there a rule of thumb which would work well for both situations? For example "always save x% of what you made N years ago"? ... Oops, that is exactly the opposite of what this article suggests. A smart seeming advice, which no one would ever use in their real life.
You can get soluble fiber (for example, dextrin, which is long indigestible chains of glucose) from the store. So if you aren't eating enough fiber due to how inconvenient vegetables are, you can start with this. It will make you thirstier, less hungry, and more regular. It also seems to improve blood sugar levels. The popular brand for dextrin is Benefiber, however I have only tried WinCo's version, Qualifiber. I paid $5 for 38 servings of 3.5 grams, which are 1/3 a daily supply at full strength.
Note: Fiber intake should be increased gradually, and with plenty of water.
AFAIK, the evidence that fiber is good for you independent of increased fruit and vegetable intake is poor.
I was moved to post this by the fact that numerous LW participants apparently find the preparation and consumption of food to be such a huge imposition that they're willing to try rather radical interventions just to avoid cooking and eating. Assuming that such steps don't appeal, may I suggest some more mundane ones.
Write a weekly meal planner. This eliminates the extra cognitive load of having to think about "what am I going to make for lunch/dinner" on a rolling ad hoc basis. It also makes it more likely that your grocery shopping purchases will actually match your consumption needs.
To the extent possible, parcel the ingredients out by meal in your refrigerator as you stock it. This saves preparation time later.
I can't guarantee it will work for everyone, but I think a typical individual can save themselves both time and stress concentrating meal selection and the early stages of food preparation all at one time per week, rather than repeating the process on a daily basis.
Bring your coat - but don't wear it. Being cold burns calories and improves circulation.
On that note, does anybody have any boring advice for cold-weather exercise? I can jog in 110 degree, 100% humidity weather, no problem. I grew up in the swampy parts of Texas. Heat and humidity are no problem for me. But jogging in cold weather - < 60 Fahrenheit - is killer; my throat feels like I'm swallowing jagged chunks of ice.
If, realistically, you aren't going to do a thing, proceed immediately to figuring out the best way to not do it.
This sounds too punchliney. What do you actually mean? What part of not doing it needs figuring out? How to avoid it? What to do instead? Something else entirely?
How to avoid it at minimal cost, retrieve the resources spent on preparing to do it, get some of the (refactored) results you wanted out of it, and update on the information that you're not going to do it to avoid being in situations where you're supposed to do equivalent things later.
Very insightful. Not boring at all.
Too insightful! Not boring enough!
Intriguing! Do you have any concrete examples? I'm having a hard time visualizing any.
From today:
"Yeah, I'm not gonna get around to making those cookies today. I will put the butter back in the freezer, instead of leaving it out on the off chance I change my mind."
Basically, don't be poised to do things when poising takes resources and you won't do the things.
I much prefer this version to its grandparent.
Don't get arrested.
Don't wait until things are horrible before making them awesome.
Before heading to the gym for a workout, plan out your workout in detail (what exercises, in what order, how many sets, how many reps) and preferably carry a piece of paper with the workout written on it. This leads you to getting more done in less time. But more importantly, this prevents decision fatigue from draining your willpower; and you need willpower in large quantities to finish your workout.
If you want to stop taking prescription meds and they're cheap enough, keep buying them and stockpile.
(Source: Burninate)
(Fat free) yogurt is cheap, tasty, healthy, lasts a long time in the fridge, and requires no preparation and only one utensil.
In addition to budgeting time, budget mental energy. Cooking may take a bit of time, but it doesn't take much mental energy once you've done it a few times. If you have a bunch of chores to do, don't batch them up completely; batch them into chunks and use those chunks as mental breaks. Just because cleaning isn't fun, doesn't mean it is as mentally draining as learning mathematics. (Too punchy?)
Supplementing potassium has a large effect on mental performance for some people, it's cheap and easy enough to be quite worth trying. Personally I add a few grams of KCl (nusalt) to a drink.
What is the actual evidence for this? I've only heard gwern say that Kevin said it was good. Google thinks it's for everything but mental performance.
If you have trouble getting into an exercise routine, try this. Join a gym, and go every single day and do the same exact thing every time. For a lot of people, doing something every day is a lot easier than coming up with a schedule that changes depending on the day, especially if one of the changes is 'do nothing on Sunday' (recipe for doing nothing on Monday too, and then forgetting about the whole thing).
What I do is this. I wake up to my alarm, and then I immediately go eat a light breakfast, and then head to the gym. Once at the gym I stretch for like 5 mins, run on the treadmill for 5-10 mins, do a couple sets of military press or something, and then go to the sauna. Hits all the major pieces. Flexibility, cardio, lymph movement, resistance training, sweating, etc. Once I finish at the sauna, I take a shower, put on fresh clothes, and then start my day. I essentially use the gym as my 'morning routine'. I'm not ready for anything until I put on fresh clothes after my (quick) workout.
As per user Wedrifid you can try sucking on a nicotine lozenge while you do the exercise.
This honestly made me smile in a "man do I love LW" sort of way.
If there's a goal you're working on that looks like it's going to take a lot of time and effort to achieve, spend a good chunk of time thinking about much faster ways to accomplish the goal before taking the slow route. Quick fixes and shortcuts aren't always bad.
Try to think critically about everything, not just the things you and the people you know of habitually think critically about.
Don't ignore obvious, commonsense explanations in an effort to be interesting. Keep in mind that the world is a complicated place and there's lots you don't know. Apparently hedgehogs (people who make confident, frequently wrong predictions based on simple models) are more likely to get media attention (and, based on my observations, internet attention as well). So, as a corollary, if you're thinking something outrageous, that idea likely found its way to you because it's outrageous, not because it's accurate.
Don't get worked up about jumping through administrative hoops such as filling forms, filing tax returns, sending applications. Especially don't go on a moral plane and say things like, 'I shouldn't have to do these things' or 'This is degrading'. It is much more easier to just do the work which cannot be reasonably argued with. Further, if you don't, you can stand to lose a lot. And not for interesting reasons. Think of it as one-boxing on Newcomb (though without the million dollars).
Also, if you make a half-decent salary, ask yourself whether you ought to be doing it at all as opposed to delegating it to e.g., a tax professional.
Probably one of the most important rationality skills I have learned is to really internalize the principle "my time is worth something" and spend money on delegating tasks I find annoying or time-consuming.
I tried delegating my taxes to a tax professional last year. It took -more- time, not less.
This year it could potentially save my time, because I already know my deductions are going to be pretty significant. (1/5th of my pretax income last year went towards a new roof. And I bought a new computer for work. And a bunch of other homeowner investments that AFAIK are deductible.) As opposed to last year when the "professional" ignored me when I told her my deductions wouldn't exceed the standard deduction, and insisted on going through mounds and mounds of paperwork and receipts, trying to get me $1 over the standard deduction. (I think we ended up about $50 short, and that was after some very... creative deductions.)
Be cautious with professionals who think they know more than you about your business, I guess.
Sounds a lot like "paperwork is a mild annoyance to me, therefore people who claim to find it painful are just being drama queens".
In certain classes of cases*, the best way to find out answers to your questions is to ask them (rather than doing your own investigation).
Not sure if that's borderline punchy.
*For example, when trying to locate something while driving/walking around, when inquiring about poorly documented local activities, when your solution of some problem/research question may have one of many possible flaws (and thus you would need to look up each possible flaw to investigate it, while an expert may be able to spot the flaw immediately), when your quick google search fails to yield clear results, etcetera. Also see this comment.
[The starred things were edited in to improve specificity in response to comments.]
Usually the best way to find out answers to questions is to do a single google search. If present the search result that includes the domain "wikipeida.org" usually gives decent answers quickly.
The parent would be greatly improved by replacing the 'usually' with a more representative frequency ("sometimes") or including a qualifier.
You're right - and I think this is a common failure mode of the population at large, but my most common failure mode is not finding something in a quick google search then failing to just ask someone else who probably knows while either wasting too much time searching or giving up. At the risk of the typical mind fallacy, perhaps this is the most common failure mode of the average LW member as well. If the grandparent could somehow be changed to target people like me better, I think that would improve it the most.
Buy the most forgiving toilet paper you can afford.
Moisturize.
Getting a bidet is better as far as pampering your sensitive regions goes. Especially if you easily get hemorrhoids.
If you are feeling just a little sick, do not go to work. Apply for sick leave and stay home. Not only will you recover more quickly by getting more rest, you also protect your colleagues from getting infected.
I think the usefulness of this advice depends on the person receiving it. For some people, this translates to
"If you can muster up even a little excuse not to go to work, don't go."
Call your cable company to try to negotiate a better rate.
Which works better if you a) check out the competition from the phone company to get a competing offer or b) call the "cancel my service line" which is empowered to give extra deals. Here is a random article with some further tips along these lines.
If you type a lot, buy a mechanical keyboard.
If you are having trouble finishing tasks on a task list, make a task schedule.
Don't use 'dimmable' LED lights.
Why?
The mechanism of dimming is to strobe. Professionals claim that it is imperceptible, and it indeed can't be noticed consciously. However, it becomes painfully obvious when looking at a moving object.
Get a bulb of the appropriate brightness and use it.
META: There is a good reason to assume that an punchy-sounding piece of advice will be more useful than a boring-sounding piece of advice: all other things being equal, the listener is usually more likely to have already heard the latter than the former. (Of course, “more likely” != “sure”, and also people often do forget advice they've already heard, so it's not like boring advice is always useful; but the tone of this post appears to imply that punchyness and usefulness are not in fact positively correlated.)
Perhaps we should try to convey useful advice in punchy ways to make them more memorable, and to encourage people to spread them. Aphorisms are probably very popular and widely shared because they convey information which readers likely already know, but which hitherto had never been shared in such a witty, laconic way. Reading an aphorism prompts you to think, "Wow, this is true, and it is so eloquently expressed -- funny how I didn't think of saying it like this." People tend to remember aphorisms better for that reason, and they also tend to share aphorisms more often with their friends, because they want to come across as witty themselves.
Wait, people are more likely to have heard boring advice than punchy advice? Why do you say that? I would have assumed the opposite (punchy advice is more interesting and therefore more likely to be repeated).
Don't get involved with crazy people.
Don't get in a committed relationship with someone who is cheating on their current partner(s) to be with you.
(I learned this one from Tom Sawyer.)