I wonder if the final room is not visible on the Marauder's Map because it's warded or because the room you enter is determined by whether/how the potion is flawed.

As a veteran Potion's professor, Snape would be able to predict very accurately the way a first year would screw up such a fiddly task. Screw it up in the right way, see an innocuous final room with a little "Well done, don't spoil it!" from the Headmaster. Execute it perfectly and trigger... what exactly?

I've spent the last year or two planning the perfect schedule, the perfect study methods, the perfect piano practice plan, and so on, but never got around to actually implementing them. Every time I tried, I worried that I was not doing things in an optimal way and wasting time; obviously I knew I was wasting time even worse by not doing anything, but I was still paralyzed.

This year, I finally decided to just start doing the things I want to do without worrying whether I'm doing things in a horribly inefficient way. I got a piano teacher again so that I would be forced to stick to their plan. I started studying my textbooks and making flashcards in Anki, not worrying about whether the flashcards were very well-crafted or not.

I think the line of reasoning that finally led me out of my rut was that not doing anything was a waste of time, so it would be better to do something suboptimal for a year and only reevaluate my plans afterwards. So even if I'm being inefficient this year, it's better than doing nothing.

I think it's more likely that Quirrell has the Resurrection Stone. When Harry shows him the Deathly Hallows symbol, he cuts their meeting short and hurries off somewhere. In canon, the stone was set into the Gaunt family ring, which Quirrell would have seen and would know the location of (it is implied that HPMOR follows the canon relationship between Tom Riddle and his family: "I have long since resolved my parental issues to my own satisfaction", "my family are long since dead at the Dark Lord's hand", Snape and Moody meeting at Tom Riddle Senior's grave).

On the other hand, I didn't see it at all, so it takes all sorts, I guess.

Could the thing in the mirror be the Resurrection Stone, instead of the Philosopher's one? Linking Hallows seems more likely to lead into the prophecies about Harry than simply retrieving Flamel's stone.

Many firms require job applicants to tell them either how much money they're making at their current jobs, or how much they want to make at the job they're interviewing for.

Citation needed as this is actually illegal in many jurisdictions. They may ask, but they may not require disclosure.

What do you think? If you were applying for a job that you wanted, and the company said "You must give us proof of your current or most-recent salary or we will not give you an interview," what would you do?

Next job please. I wouldn't want to work for these jokers.

I'd nominate C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters as a soft skills book, that gives your System 1 a lot of vivid, specific ways human thinking goes wrong to chew on and find ways out of.

One of my favorite examples is this passage which made a big impression on my System 1 about things that do bore me but I nonetheless get sucked into. (Context note: Screwtape Letters is written as a series of letters from a senior devil to a junior tempter about how to lead human lives astray)

You will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say...'I now see that I spent most my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.'

For me, thinking of this passage (and the horror of coming to say "I now see that I have spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked") helps me feel very motivated to snap out of boring, sterile activities. It makes the consequences clearer, and, it gives the action of closing the site/app/etc a sense of thrilling defiance.

Use delayed responses to wean needy people when you think they are abusing your time and helpfulness. For instance, the new guy comes by asking for help getting started but keeps coming by for things he should do himself. You don't want to be rude but want to stop it. Progression like immediate response->5m->1h->1day has worked for me with email.

Delayed response is also great to cool off heated discussions.

Might seem trivial, but what's a good way to find someone willing to teach cooking skills? Asking friends until you get a hit? Posting on Craigslist or Reddit? I'd like to learn to cook better, but I don't know anyone who would be willing to tutor me off-hand.

My library system lets you request books from anywhere in the county from your home computer. I put the book on hold, and then I get an e-mail when it arrives. Also, when a book isn't in the library system, I'll often buy an ebook edition or wait for it to enter the system.