- No TV (and no news). Stopped watching years ago, spend more time on productive things.
- No video games. I binge and play again for maybe 1 week a year.
- Spend free time with wife, because that's all she really wants.
- Workout 4-5 days a week. Lift early between 10am and 3pm, whenever I reach a good stopping point. Listen to Mixergy or similar podcast during workout. Do cardio in the evening (between 7pm and 10pm) and sit on the bike for 30 min to 1hr and read.
- Sleep 7-9 hrs/night.
- Never set an alarm.
- No alcohol, tobacco, drugs, coffee, or tea. Ever. Might sound crazy, but it's not hard since I just never started.
- Don't blog or use Twitter.
- Cut hair weekly (short haircut, cut it myself), shave almost daily (whenever I go somewhere). A military habit, but when you look good, you feel good.
- Had a few close calls while deployed (was a Marine for 8 yrs) and learned life is too precious and too short to do anything but my best work and left the Marine Corps as soon as I returned from my last deployment. I started making decisions based on what I'd regret the least, regardless of outcome.
Honestly, because he was in the USMC (US Marine Corps). You can't avoid being exposed to all of the above, and subsequently, its effects -- even if you yourself do not personally partake in any of those vices.
Flossing religiously. I used to be Bleeding Gums Murphy, but no more. A dental hygienist showed me the proper way to floss and now I will get up at 4am if I somehow forgot to floss before bedtime, go into the bathroom, and floss. I've only missed once in 7+ years. Bad gums are associated with heart disease, tooth loss, and other nasty effects. No thanks.
Quitting, after 30+ years, saying, "God bless you" (or really, "Gahblessyou") automatically after someone sneezes. If you stop and think about how dumb this is, it feels really good to break this ridiculous cultural habit. I've been "clean" from this for 2+ years now.
Seemingly small things like flossing and using your non-dominant hand to open doors improve self control. Deceptively small things like that lead into bigger things.
Using your non-dominant hand challenges the brain to coordinate a new movement. The brain is not an expert in this new movement. It has to work hard to get it right and does a bad job initially. Since it's bad at it, you have to stick with it to complete the movement. It takes longer, and during the process you have an urge to drop it and continue with the dominant hand.
Fighting off this urge and continuing to use the non-dominand hand at something you are bad at improves self-control. You put yourself in a position where you don't quit when something works poorly for you. You make a habit of sticking with things to get better. It's worth cultivating habits that get you exploring things you're bad at.
I admit shaving with the non-dominand hand gets dangerous. But you can witness this effect by trying something simpler like stirring a glass of milk or brushing your teeth.
I guess I never thought about it this way. The only time I ever did anything significant with my non-dominant hand was when I used to play lacrosse, and I had to shoot and throw the ball using both my left and right hands. Of course the purpose of this was trite; become harder to defend.
Anyway, using my non-dominant hand for trivial activities sounds fun. At the very least, should I lose my dominant hand in a light saber duel in the future with a man who claims to be my father, I'll know I've got an adequate backup.
+1 to your quitting acknowledging sneezes. That has always seemed to me like a pointless injection of politeness that continues only because of cultural inertia. Not sure how much it has improved my life, but it sure feels nice to be one less person doing it.
I'll say it loud and proud: "Bless yourself. I am no longer a sneeze acknowledger." I think I'll get that printed on a t-shirt
I've never adopted the "bless you" sneeze habit, but people think I'm being impolite. In fact, every time someone sneezes I feel the pressure to say it, but refuse to (it's just too meaningless / weird).
I mean it's really up to you but I disagree with this. Reading the news enables you to have an understanding of current world issues and become a contributing member of society. I'm not sure where you live, but I feel like in the Silicon Valley there is pretty large bubble where people are so focused on building a startup they forget how thousands of children are being gassed in Syria. I believe that reading the news can give you perspective on the world and life.
Just my $0.02. Don't have to agree just my thoughts.
There's a big difference between reading the news every day, reading the news every week, and reading the news every month.
I used the read the news every day (and reading news magazines weekly); what ended up happening is that I also ended up reading through a lot of fluff and reading about a lot of inconsequential mere-fact-stating news. Even if you read the news every week, there's a ton of repeated analysis that you have to filter out. I ended up realizing that this was a legitimate waste of time.
Now I just read the news maybe every month. I'll usually only read long-form synthesis/analysis articles, rather than the kind of stuff that comes in through AP/Reuters. The exception being news articles coming in through HN, of course.
Going back to your analogy, while I'll keep myself updated on the major movements in the civil war in Syria, what I don't need to read about is how 12 people died in a bomb blast on Tuesday in <city> or something extremely-low-level like that.
I agree with this. I also stopped watching the "The News" and quit following politics altogether. Much healthier and the time sink is gone.
I found over time that most people's idea of following politics was spending an inordinate amount of time memorizing either side's talking points. And to get really good at it (ie. arguing on forums) you'd simply need to memorize more of these talking points and exchange the proper insults (which always seemed to originate everywhere but my own mind).
Basically, I was done being a parrot and I'm healthier for it.
Picking up the habit of working regularly on side-projects.
I am lucky enough to have a couple of friends interested in working on the same project as myself. The habit of all of us getting together for a couple of hours during the weekend has tremendously advanced the project.
It helps to work with friends or people in general, because it rarely happens that none of us are in the mood for working. And when we are, we pull the other ones in.
For about a year before starting this, I would only ever so often sit down to advance the project, but after starting this 1-2 times per week get-together with them, the project has improved (complete code refactoring + 2 versions out on the App Store), in about 3 months.
As well, myself, I have improved as a programmer and have gotten a rekindled interest in programming. I think my friends can agree that it has affected them similarly.
That's really cool. When I've been trying to work with someone else on side projects, someone always wanted to quit. It's really hard to find people who will do that regularly.
I can understand. Maybe it's more important to find a project that motivates everybody. I usually want to quit projects that don't appeal to me very much as well.
I did a CS master's degree at night while working a full time job programming. After sitting 9 hours at work, I'd sit a few hours in class and then sit a few hours doing homework. After three years, I was a wreck. As soon as I graduated, a buddy of mine spurred me to join a gym with him.
Now I do heavy lifting 3 times per week and interval training 2-3 times per week. I'm not the healthiest eater (maybe I'll fix that next), but I feel great. There's something indescribably satisfying about breaking your own records.
It doesn't matter which exercise you pick. The benefit you get from doing something over nothing is enormous. The important thing is that you do something that you like enough to stick with. As a non-competitive athlete, I find that fitness is 80% attendance.
Stopped playing video games and stopped regularly watching TV or TV shows (though I still enjoy movies and TV shows, I don't make it part of my schedule). Biggest waste of time during my teenage years.
Fasting (< 500cal) two or three times a week is rapidly decreasing my volume, and bringing increased mental clarity and alertness. It's a good rhythm to get into, has a pretty dramatic (positive) effect on how I feel, and it's a nice way to atone for yesterday...
There was a great episode of Horizon titled Eat, Fast And Live Longer which tackled the benefits of fasting. Even a very reasonable fasting routine seemed to have a non-trivial positive effect on the show's host. It was convincing enough that I gave it a shot, and though I haven't been able to stick with it (or an exercise routine, for that matter), I felt significantly better in the ~week following even a one day fast.
One of the things suggested by a researcher in the episode, is to make your "cheat day" the day following a fast. Tell yourself that you can eat anything you want, because (and this was certainly my experience) even if you intend to binge heavily, you most likely will not. You will, however, still feel incredibly satisfied after devouring that bag of chips, or splurging on the cheesecake after dinner. I can't remember the exact number, but the researcher mentioned that during this routine, the subjects would only eat around 10% more than their recommended daily caloric intake.
Yeah, that show [1] suggests that there are number of positive effects to limiting calories and protein intake, such as reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, cognitive disorders, and an increase in (neuronal) cell-repair and longevity.
Something that I have noticed is an increase in self-control. Previously my relationship to food had been rather habitual and sometimes even addictive. I've found that fasting has made it a lot easier to control what I eat on the other days...
I stopped using shampoo and conditioner. It's the best fashion advice I've ever had and it's funny that it came from a hn article. Better looking hair, better protection against cold, no more dandruff, much smaller dry scalp patches and so on. Thanks HN!
Yes. Sodium bicarbonate. Make sure it doesn't have any flour in it.
Buy a tub of sodium bicarb and put it in an old shampoo bottle. Add water and mix - aiming for shampoo like viscosity.
Depends how much hair you have, your activity levels and where you live but start with using it once every couple days. You may end up at once / week, but depends on the above factors.
I just spend more time rubbing my scalp with my fingertips to get rid of dead skin cells or what have you. My non-scientific opinion is that that is what is important to keep your hair clean and shampoo mostly helps to lubricate your fingers and dry out natural oils.
No, shampoos are detergents, which is a chemist's way of saying they dissolve oils and therefore the other molecules and stuff that are trapped in the oils (like foodstuffs on a dirty plate). In the case of hair, that other stuff will include pollution from the atmosphere, salt from sweat, skin cells, bacteria, bacterial metabolic products (some of which cause odor), etc. Shampoos allow that stuff to be chemically freed and washed away.
The equivalent would be not using dishwashing liquid for your plates after a greasy meal. Hot water and friction can do a lot, but it is an uphill battle. In the case of hair, your method might just be "good enough", though. But I'm sure your hair won't get the "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" response.
Same here. I used to have really greasy hair and needed to wash it pretty much everyday. I read about this so gave it a try. After a few weeks the grease went away. Note that I still wash my hair, so it doesn't smell, but I just use water.
Every human is different, but yes I believe that's too much. If he had said, "I exercise 5 days a week, take 1 week off every 3 months and 2 consecutive weeks off per year." Then that is different. But he said he runs a 5k EVERY SINGLE DAY, and that is far too much abuse for a human body. The most insidious symptom of overtraining syndrome is a compulsive need to exercise.
If this individual is overtrained, his body will find a way to stop him. He will become ill from immune suppression or injured from the constant stress that never fully heals, or too depressed to exercise at all.
Body builders have a saying something like, "Muscles are made in the bedroom and the kitchen."
Prior to doing this, did you walk 10K every day? Curious about the diff between 10K run vs 10K walk. Personally, weightlifting 3x a week and roughly 10K walking every day does the same thing as running did.
I would love to do this but 10k/day is a lot. I tried it for one week and I was extremely exhausted. My productivity also dropped as I am very tired. What time of the day do you run?
Not the OP but that is not really how you start running 10K/day. You gradually build up endurance starting from a mile a day or so, till your lungs can deal with that. I run 5 miles on the days I don't weight lift. It is not exhausting or something. I do this in the morning and then go do my work stuff.
I'm not a beginner in running. Been running for more than two years but I find it hard to run 10k/day unless I don't have a job and don't go to work. I do the same I run on MWF and lift TThSat and that routine is ok for me. But running everyday is different.
Despite having a very long wish list of things I long for to do, I am usually in for redditing, reading HN, sitcoms, booze and weed. I hadn't opened Sublime for past two months, neither read anything nor any activity faintly productive.
After reading an amazing article [1], I have beginning to feel an amazing happiness with everything I am doing now and it just so simple. The trick is to ask yourself every time you start doing something: "What I will be doing now, Will it help me in future in anyway?". Of course, you must not drag yourself to despise everything not related to higher gains but realize that life in the future is function of what you do now, and the decisions you make.
Switching off the sound my phone makes each time I receive an email, text or messaging notification.
I also stopped checking my email actively in the evening (only once before going to sleep to make sure there are no emergencies) and I try not to touch it more than once on Saturdays.
I stopped relying on my cellphone so often. It feels good not to be a slave to every "Ding!" or "Beep!" that I hear.
I also got back in my old SEGA games and cooking food my mom used to make when I was a kid.
I grew up in church but slacked because life got hectic. Now I'm attending when I can, I'll read the Bible in off time and I've made myself more available to help others.
This might sound stupid, but it's something about the times where all I could do is go outside and play football in the park with my friends that I miss. Now with my younger siblings, I see them so attached to technology, it makes me sad that they're so trapped and in tuned with news and post from people they'll probably never meet instead of the people they're in front of every day...
That sounds like fun! I'm jealous. I never played Barkley, but I have fond memories of playing Streets of Rage and Madden on the Genesis. The controls of the current iterations of Madden for me are much to complex, it's a chore to remember and master.
I was going to through a Seth Godin Book, In which he talk about amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for fight or flight instincts.
After that I started thinking, most of the things I worry about doesn't end up happening. But, I was constantly worrying about it. Sometimes I wont go to business oriented community meet ups, just because my lizard brain throws some 'what if that happens' at me.
Recognizing that part of my thoughts and reacting only to things that really needed my attention helped tremendously in shaping my time, focus and work then on.
Reading. I never used to open a book for more than 20 minutes but once I started reading books I actually enjoyed (Gladwell, Freakenomics, other books related to business, personal growth, human behavior etc) I realized what an amazing habit it is. You learn a lot, work your brain, give the eyes a break from a screen and you can take a good book/kindle anywhere. No power needed. Start reading books.
I didn't like reading books as well, Even now its seems like work, that something I have to actively do.
Then I started audio books few years back, I read (heard) more than 10 books that year alone, Now I'm just a consumer listening not actively reading. I enjoy books lot more.
Outliers, definitely the freakenomics books, I enjoyed Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Lean Startup, Power of Habit, Defining Decade (if your in your 20's, fantastic book), The Happiness Advantage, Great by Choice from Jim collins...
Thanks! From that list, I've read Outlier, The Lean Startup, and Power of Habit. Currently reading A Short History Of Nearly Everything, and I plan on following that with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. After that, I will probably jump on Defining Decade.
Its winter now in India. Right now I'm doing a sleep at 11 - 11:30 and wake up 5:30 to 6 am routine. Then code for an hour or so. And then go for the walk and be back by 8.30 am. If I am not able to do a walk I do some calisthenics for 15 mins.
The weekends are more liberal. Things are a bit late but the only point is to not to miss the routine.
(2.) Quantified self: Targeting productive and unproductive time with RescueTime, and committing to explicit targets with Beeminder.
(3.) Less but better. Less input but better input. Less output but better output. Afford the luxury of being slow and having time for introspection and inspiration.
Maybe you're referring to something like the 80-20 rule, "Pareto principle"? More productivity by abstaining from perfectionism?
I just find it much more satisfying to produce small amounts of (what I consider to be) good output rather than large amounts of mediocre output. This isn't appreciated in all contexts, which is why I've called it a luxury.
In some sense, abstaining from perfectionism is the same as producing mediocre output.
I accept the fact that won't ever be mentally at 100% all the time, so I fill my day with many side-projects and can rotate whenever I'm exhausted with one task.
The output quality of each task might not be as high as when I committed myself exclusively to one thing, but overall I learn more and achieve more.
Travelling on a kayak (Passau-Bratislava in 2012 and Krakow-Gdansk in 2013). Both the memories and the planning for the future trips (Iceland 2014!) give me something to hold on to during the dark moments. Previously I used to travel by bike, but I had stopped that for 3 years before picking up kayaking.
I did the same thing, and it is funny cause now that I only drink sugar-free coffee I actually enjoy it much more!
And I'm also able to tell difference between good coffee and bad coffee cause there is no sugar in the way hiding coffee's taste.
I once complained at the office that we were out of sugar at the coffee corner, after same asking around, I found out that I was the only one in the office drinking coffee with sugar. That meant I alone consumed the entire box (1500 portions of 5g) of sugar... A collaege gave me the best advice ever: "It's all between your ears, stop with sugar and within a week you'll no longer mis it". He was right.
Started to practice genuine Shaolin QiGong & Shaolin Kung Fu. Got lucky with the master I found. Been practicing for 7 years, wouldn't trade it for a pile of gold. It just enables me to do everything better. I mean everything. Most of the ordinary day-to-day stuff doesn't bother me so much. I don't waste as much time as before doing useless things.
Also reduced the amount of TV/Internet time; started to eat vegetarian practically every day.
<shameless plug> I built this app just for that: https://routinetap.com. I'm working on a pure js version.</shameless>
I have been building micro-habits that make small increments in improving my life. I am currently working on three things: reading, exercising and coding; every day in my personal spare time. I use an iOS app to track progress (Way of Life). The key is to make them easy to accomplish so you do them everyday and it becomes a habit that can grow into something more difficult.
I stopped eating regular meals and live of a cup of black unsugared coffee, a cup of water and a daily switched apple or can of tuna in natural olive oil. I haven't felt healthier in years. Regular meals are not necessary to survive and with this diet you will save a lot of money, feel healthier and become spiritually awakened.
It was a long time ago, but I used a golf scoring gadget to keep count of my daily driving excesses. Counting a behavior changes it. The awareness broke the habit. Improvements of course were to the number of points on my license and the safety of all.
Program yourself to hate smoking. Continue to smoke but try to be conscious of it. Feel the smoke while you inhale, try to think about what's happening to your gum, teeth, throat, lungs, hands etc. look at yourself in the mirror and notice the negative effects of smoking. If you're in a city that bans smoking indoors then feel sorry for yourself everytime you go out to have a ciggeratte, because this habit is controlling you and making you do things you won't necessarily do. Start thinking about how the not smokers have a better life and how they're better for not letting this happen to them. Eventually if you keep thinking like that, just negative things about smoking, you'll start hating it and naturally cutting down until you find the right moment to go cold turkey and then just do it.
Oh its easy. I've already quit 10 times. I'm actually thinking of quitting again next week :)
Actually the only time I managed to quit smoking for more than a few weeks when I was away from my friends/girlfriend for a five months and had no one smoking around me all day. It's easy for me to quit, it takes me a -pretty painless- couple of days. But after a while I relapse.
Interesting. I found that going later in the day ( sometime between 10am and 3pm, whenever I take a break) is better for me because I'm most productive/focused in the mornings.
I prefer going as the first thing on the day. A 'shock' way to get awake. And I am definitely more productive at night. Something I love about it is that I got to the office with the blood pumping, while everybody is kinda asleep yet begging for coffee...
Also, I know that going after doesn't work out for me. Since at the end of the day I'm tired and it's somewhat of an excuse to miss the gym for the day.
But it's really a mater of taste and lifestyle. Most of my coworkers do at lunch time. This way they don't sacrifice much of their time since it's a forced free time on everybody here anyways.
I'm really curious about eating outside. I feel that only could have improved dry skin but that could have also been improved by eating more carrots and other dietary changes. I love eating outside!
Quitting eating outside was one of the best things I've made.
If I can install Rails 4 then I can prepare the best Curry Chicken out there. I eat more for less money and cooking became part of my hobby that helps to distress a lot.
Also, I was noticing my daily diet was based on the same quantity of dishes, what I meant was: trying different dishes wasn't normal, I hanged out always to the same places with the same menus, at the end eating a different thing was rare.
I go dinner around 2 times a month just to eat those things that are really hard to prepare: sushi, etc.
I started running and waking up earlier. They looked so big to begin with but they were very very easy to adopt. Now i am trying to finally quit smoking once and for all.
Psychedelic drugs. They help keep priorities in order and aid creativity by forcing you to examine different points of view and approach problems from different angles.
it seems almost everyone disconnect himself from the economy in some way to improve lifestyle. I myself stopped consuming sugar, started lifting weights, got married, got kids, learned how to make sourdough bread, kefir, how to build bicycle wheel, how to slaughter animal, how to keep bees... Wow it is a lot for the 3 years :)
- No video games. I binge and play again for maybe 1 week a year.
- Spend free time with wife, because that's all she really wants.
- Workout 4-5 days a week. Lift early between 10am and 3pm, whenever I reach a good stopping point. Listen to Mixergy or similar podcast during workout. Do cardio in the evening (between 7pm and 10pm) and sit on the bike for 30 min to 1hr and read.
- Sleep 7-9 hrs/night.
- Never set an alarm.
- No alcohol, tobacco, drugs, coffee, or tea. Ever. Might sound crazy, but it's not hard since I just never started.
- Don't blog or use Twitter.
- Cut hair weekly (short haircut, cut it myself), shave almost daily (whenever I go somewhere). A military habit, but when you look good, you feel good.
- Had a few close calls while deployed (was a Marine for 8 yrs) and learned life is too precious and too short to do anything but my best work and left the Marine Corps as soon as I returned from my last deployment. I started making decisions based on what I'd regret the least, regardless of outcome.