Ask HN: Habits that have improved your life in many dimensions | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Habits that have improved your life in many dimensions

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Career, love-life, education, health, wealth, finance, family, marriage, etc all are different dimensions of one's life. And habits are the building block of one's life.

What habits have you built for yourself (maybe by rectifying past detrimental habits or building entirely new ones) that have improved your life in many dimensions? If possible describe a bit about what role the habits played in improving your life.

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- low-effort persistence: spreading skill acquisition over a long time rather than concentrated attempts. Eg. reading a foreign language tabloid on the bus from home to the office. Made me appreciate small victories and make better use of idle time.

- gym: my, rather pragmatic I believe, personality will often rationalise me out of making a concentrated effort. In the gym I step into a robertfrank615-type alter ego which pushes me through the pain of all those sets. The health benefits and the experience of doing something out-of-character improve every aspect of life.

- scheduling something fun for Monday: dance classes or debate club on Monday evening is the best way to exorcise those Monday blues.

- tolerating difficult people: those hidden gems have nowhere else to turn and become loyal friends and allies.

- keeping your enemy close: I keep myself informed on a low level of news from the opposite political spectrum, which helps me map those blind spots.

edit: blogging helps me organise my thoughts and compartmentalise knowledge https://blog.georgovassilis.com/

> tolerating difficult people: those hidden gems have nowhere else to turn and become loyal friends and allies.

Suddenly wondering if I'm someone else's difficult person. Probably my wife's

Heh. If you're only worried about your wife, you're probably doing better than me...

The comments seem to largely reflect "boring stuff that everyone already knows", like exercise. And as annoying as it is, my answer is the same. The habits that have improved my life the most are the normal things everyone keeps telling us about: going to the gym, striving to keep a relatively healthy diet, getting enough sleep.

I was fortunate in that working out for me has a more jarring/obvious effect than it does for some people that really kicks my ass into gear. I have really bad knees, and the only thing I've found that consistently allows me to live without knee pain is strengthening my legs[0]. If I stop working out and let my quads get weak, there is a gradual but noticeable decline in my mobility. I can't tie my shoes or walk down stairs without pain, wake up at night with hurting knees, etc. So for me, it's either get to the gym (or run, but I prefer the gym) or live in pain. So I think that's the most noticeable habit that has improved my life.

[0] I wrote about my experience with this here: https://liza.io/how-leg-extensions-saved-my-knees-quick-knoc...

Had the same with my lower back. After seeing various "quacks" I finally stumbled upon a young physiotherapist who did some measurements and said I just need to strengthen my core, here's a bunch of exercises. After 10 years of suffering, my back's perfect because of this advice - get stronger.

I've found that people often search for some obscure hacks to make their lifes better, but really the most obvious advice is usually obvious because it's well researched and works. So for me those habits were: get enough sleep, exercise, eat real food, watch your stress levels.

there are many niche unorthodox things that give way higher return than obvious orthodox advice. I won't name the one I found the most leverage as my account is semianonymous.

I find it tirying. Reddit and to lesser but still high degree hackernews is giving such uninformed advice about many things. Twitter is also full of people that for example recommend the same 10 books on startup ideas, like Lean Startup bible.

To keep in this theme, as this might not be that controversial I've read many good books about business innovation and it's so hard to find anyone mentioning them. On top of my head Something Really New has 39 ratings on goodreads and 4 on amazon. Yet it teaches you so much with comming up with startup ideas. All of my best ideas came from applying the method it teaches.

There are other hidden gems. The book that had a life changing effect on me has 23 ratings on goodreads. It seriously changed my life in way that cannot be described in words. I sometimes just walk and hit my head. It's so obvious what the book is suggesting, yet all people ignore it because of evolutionary instinct blindness. Contact me and I will explain in full.

edit: might be the case that some things are competetive vs cooperative. Meaning, sharing knowledge about startup ideas is not worth it for you as you help your competition, but anyone would happily share that ketogenic diet can help with mental illness

Thank you for sharing.

I would love a full explanation if you wouldn't mind, please do tell more.

I already posted but here's another one - probably stretching the boundaries of habit a little but anyway:

I spent a good chunk of my life refusing to pay for things I could realistically do myself - gardening, minor repair jobs around the house, admin stuff etc. Now a little older and wiser, I look back and realise that the benefits of doing those things are probably minor compared to the stress and pressure they put me under, having to add "build that swing set" or "mow that lawn" or "build that bookcase" to my epic list of stuff to do every week.

I've tried to _break_ the habit of automatically going "I could do that, I'm not gonna pay someone else" to looking at how much work something is, and whether it is worth my time to do it or pay someone else to do it, and also try and factor in the unseen costs and the expertise before I decide to take on a project.

Sure, I can put together a kids bike. Easy peasy. But if the shop will charge me $10 to put it together, and it'll save me an hour and a bit of stress, it's worth it.

Yes the money=time thing is very true. Actually time is often more valuable than money, especially as you age. I know someone worth several million dollars who drove home and back(30 minutes one way) because he forgot a $10 coupon. This form of time wasting can become pathological due to distorted priorities that were useful to someone in their youth but becomes a form of OCD.

It's definitely an illness. In that situation, you have to ask:

- if someone offered me $10 right now to drop what I'm doing and drive for an hour to collect a coupon for them, would I do it? Or would I try and talk them out of it as a waste of their money and my time?

Listen without thinking of what to respond. Especially dating, interviewing, negotiations, public speaking, scolding kids.

If it's a really important conversation, get a dedicated note taker because it's hard.

Find core pillars of what someone is saying. Someone ranting about tax could be humblebragging, trying to show off their financial expertise, making empty conversation to bond/venting, solving a puzzle, selling a favoured political party, attacking rich people, and so on. Frequently two people are talking about entirely different topics and get frustrated.

It leads on to the habit of better note taking. Information is associated, like branches of a tree. If you remember what someone was trying to say, you can easily remember what they actually said.

After a while, this results in a photogenic memory effect.

> Listen without thinking of what to respond. Especially dating, interviewing, negotiations, public speaking, scolding kids.

I find it hard because I usually take time to think to respond. I have to remember that taking the time to think and silent pauses are ok.

You don't always have to say something though. Sometimes you just want a variation of "Tell me more."

- Go to bed late. Late at night is when I am most creative

- Eat what I want. My body knows what it needs.

- Never tidy my room. Life is too short for that!

LOL, this is the opposite of most of the advice on here

I wanted to make a comment that could simultaneously be read as:

- Sensible

- Contrarian

- Satire

Haha. You should be more specific.

For me going to bed late is 1am, for most of my friends is 8am.

I love night creativity, all is quiet everything is open for the taking!

So many "gym" responses giving me the guilts and reminding me that I really should start exercising one of these days

my habits:

- drink a large glass of water first thing in the morning

- skip breakfast - far from being the most important meal in the day I find I have more energy if I don't eat until after 1, and it means I'm fasting for 16+ hours every single day without even trying

- I limit my todolist to just three important things. I actually get more done by focussing on three things a day instead of having a giant list of 20 things to get done this week and feeling every day like I've failed.

- connected to the above, I make a monthly goal list, and I pull some of the three things from the monthly goals (but there are always unplanned items)

- I turn things off at night. saves a tiny amount of power and reduces the risk of fire

- I try to reach out to a friend every day. even just an IM. feels like I'm keeping friendships alive that might otherwise have dwindled because we were both too busy. this has resulted in the same friends reaching out to me too, so I think it works

Learning to trust others and understanding my emotions.

For me, these were world-altering.

I went from barely being able to function in society because I would constantly second guess everything I heard (causing me to deliver projects that were only 70-80% overlap with what was wanted). I had significant trouble with perspective-taking and authenticity, so when I did mess up, it was difficult for others to take my side.

The lack of trust and emotional understanding also caused heavy compartmentalization, I had completely different habits/behaviors socially, professionally, and when dating.

These two things almost magically (this is how it felt in comparison with grinding for ever achievement I had previously, but it still took work) granted me social skills that I never believed I'd be able to have and to build meaningful relationships with others.

I grew up parentified, instrumentally, and emotionally neglected. It was so bad that in HS I believed I didn't have emotions like other people.

Nerd time.

Gaming, watching series, movies, reading novels, Lego. All of this helps me stay fresh-minded, sharp, and creative. Me.

Another example: exercise/gym? BORING. I got myself a Switch with Ring Fit Adventure. Previously I owned a Wii with the balance board.

The ring thing seems cool. How much on an exercise do you get with it?

I used to play Ring Fit a bit (some years back), but nowadays primarily run outside, go to the gym, swim, cycle. Honestly, in my opinion, the Ring Fit game doesn't really compare to a gym workout or run. There's a few exercises on it which are quite effective, but nothing you can't similarly do in the gym or on the mat without the game.

The advantage it does have is the gamification may motivate you to work out more than you may do otherwise.

I love it. I end up sweating a lot, and it has like 30 difficulty levels for you to choose from.

Going to the gym even when I don't have energy to do the workout. I don't mean forcing myself to do it anyway, I mean just going there - sometimes doing lighter workout, sometimes doing just light cardio (eg. walking while listening to podcasts), sometimes just going to the sauna, and sometimes just coming to the gym to walk right back.

However, most times, I'm more languorous than tired and after a warm-up I do the whole workout.

And strength training is great for a) general health b) better mental performance c) looking good d) having more energy.

Amazing what pumping some iron for 30 minutes twice a week can do. There is a sweet spot between sedate and obsessed with fitness.

Also buffers! A buffer is a redundancy built in to planning. It is leaving earlier than you need to for example. It is doing something earlier than required to allow for delays. It is having frozen bread for those mornings when you run out of the fresh stuff.

Similarly mise en place, or setting things up before you use them. The always packed gym bag for example. Or the key ring holders where your keys always are.

One habit that has somewhat helped me is free-writing. Not for the sake of creating art, but for the sake of just expressing myself. I've been very lethargic for the last couple of years or so - I find it very hard to write things (that aren't HN comments), and my mind gives me a lot of resistance. But setting a timer to 10 minutes, playing ambient noise on headphones, then forcing myself to write down anything that comes to my mind helps me "open up" in a way. There's no "wrong thing" to write - just write whatever your mind wants to write, repeat words, write nonsense, animal onomatopoeias - anything goes, as long as the words flow. Touch typing helps a lot.

I feel like I'm very "closed" by default, in terms of my relationship with the world - I see, hear and feel things, but they feel dull, I can't really feel them. I can comprehend them, but it just feels empty, as if the whole world is fake - I listen to music, but it doesn't move me at all; I eat food, but I do it as quickly as possible to finish with the hassle; I watch a TV show but I need to put effort into not turning it off... After a quick session of free-writing, I find it easier to feel. Perhaps it's like a meditation of sorts.

> I feel like I'm very "closed" by default, in terms of my relationship with the world - I see, hear and feel things, but they feel dull, I can't really feel them. I can comprehend them, but it just feels empty, as if the whole world is fake - I listen to music, but it doesn't move me at all; I eat food, but I do it as quickly as possible to finish with the hassle; I watch a TV show but I need to put effort into not turning it off... After a quick session of free-writing, I find it easier to feel. Perhaps it's like a meditation of sorts.

I can relate to this a little I think, though maybe not to extent you describe. For me it's mostly around people and feeling like my emotions are "dull" in comparison to others.

For example, I understand when someone is telling me an emotional story and can comprehend why it made them sad or happy or whatever, but I find it hard to really engage on an emotional level. I used to see scenes in movies where a character is telling another why they're sad or whatever, and the other character gets emotional as if they're reliving that experience/feeling some semblance of the same emotion as the person speaking. For a while I thought it was just one of those things they did in movies that didn't reflect how people actually work, but I've since gotten feedback that people _do_ legitimately relate to each other like that. If someone tells me they're upset about something I'll understand it, but usually won't really feel anything unless I'm somehow the cause of it, which is different because then I'll feel _my_ side of that experience (guilt, remorse, confusion, defensiveness, whatever), not theirs.

Both reading and writing fiction seems to make this better for me. A good story helps to drag me into another character's shoes, which then seems to make it easier to get into real people's shoes as well, for a while.

Working in chunks of time with a break in between, in a structured way. I typically do a 50 minute work / 10 minute break cycle, or a 75/15 cycle. It works very well for getting things done efficiently.

> Working in chunks of time with a break in between, in a structured way.

In other words: Pomodoro Technique.

It sounds really cheesy (and to be honest, it is a bit cheesy,) but The Miracle Morning[0] is a set of habits…collected into a system by Hal Elrod that have been very beneficial to me. The habits are:

* Silence (this could be meditation or prayer if that’s your thing)

* Affirmations (this is the one I struggle with the most - it feels the most self-help-guru-esque to me. I implement this as reviewing “what are the things that are important to me, am I doing them, what am I not doing that I should be doing?”

* Visualization - visualize how you want your day to go

* Exercise

* Reading

* Scribing - aka keeping a journal.

The idea is to do each for ten minutes every morning.

0 - https://miraclemorning.com/

It’s interesting because I’ve experimented a lot and this is almost the exact opposite to what I like my morning routine to be though I do see the benefits of the approach.

Breaking it down:

- Silence

I suppose my mornings are silent by default atm but I should probably start playing some music again as it normally gets me going a bit more.

- Affirmations

I feel like first thing in the morning is the period of time when I least need to hear an affirmation. For me, an affirmation is most useful when things are going to shit. Though I can see how doing them regularly in the morning might lead to you remembering them when you’re in more adverse scenarios.

- Visualisation

In my opinion, this should be done at the end of the previous day as part of your planning. If you’ve time blocked your day the night before, you should just be able to open up your calendar app in the morning and get a quick overview of how your day is meant to go down.

- Exercise

I prefer stretching/yoga for 30 mins. I rarely find my mind and body very amenable to getting a sweat on within an hour of waking up. And only doing it for 10 minutes isn’t really that beneficial unless you’re going to do HIIT which my mind and body are DEFINITELY not amenable to within an hour of waking up. The only things I could see really working for this is if you want to go for a quick walk (as I think getting out of the house early normally puts you on a productive path) or if you want to crank out a quick 50/100 reps of a bodyweight exercise like burpees, press ups or squats just to get the blood flowing. That being said, if you are one of the people like Jocko who can summon the will to crank out an hour of heavy exercise immediately upon waking it does tend to kick your day off well.

- Reading

I literally experimented with this yesterday for the first time in a while and remembered the same conclusion I came to the previous time I tried it. It’s a low effort, passive activity that is better suited to the evenings when your energy/willpower is depleted. Assigning it to prime morning time isn’t the best use of time.

- Journalling

Yes for people who are creatively blocked or going through mental troubles. No for everyone else. If you’re one of the former it helps you get on track for writing or gets your headspace in order. For everyone else, you know what you should be writing or doing so just get on with it. Save your journalling for the evenings to reflect on the day and how it went.

Atm, my morning routine is pretty much this:

- Wake up

- 2/3 lessons of Duolingo to get a win before I’ve even got out of bed

- Make bed/tidy bedroom

- Meal shake for breakfast

- Brush teeth

- Yoga 30 minutes, possibly while listening to a podcast

- Start working.

I say “pretty much” as I’ve got into a nasty habit of reading through my RSS articles after Duolingo which I’m going to stop as it means I spend too much time in bed and the day gets off to a sluggish start.

Reading back through this I think there are probably two different camps of people. The first camp prioritise starting the day from a tranquil, calm and relaxed state. The other camp prioritises building momentum quickly to snowball them into the day. I’m in the latter camp but I can see the appeal of the former.

I know it sounds stupid, but I've learned to make an effort to be nice to the person at the supermarket checkout. Say hello, ask how their shift is going, pleasant smalltalk.

Not only has this forced me out of my anti-social comfort zone[1] and helped me gain confidence when dealing with strangers, it's also turned the whole 'shopping' thing into a less traumatic experience - something I used to think was impossible.

[1] - I'm face blind, which makes starting a conversation with strangers a bit fraught as they might not, in fact, be strangers.

Gym is good, running outdoors is better imho. Especially if you can do it on trails in a park / forest.

Haven't had much success with fitness, but for some reason I went from not being able to run at all to running half a marathon. Took me a few years (mostly due to lack of motivation) but the fact that I can run for two hours non stop without any specific program / schedule still baffles me and adds great value to my life. I did lose a lot of weight (unrelated to exercise) and just the fact you're dragging around less weight makes running MUCH easier.

Go traveling solo without any concrete plans. SEAsia is great: safe, easy, lots to see. Did this a lot between 20-35 years old and they were all very formative experiences. Sitting on the banks of the Mekong talking to random strangers, getting drunk with Laotian youngsters, riding a motorbike around Vietnam ... can't beat that.

Regarding relationships - work on it. Read some psychology books on this subject, they will open your eyes. Don't assume the other person's just there to improve your life.

Think very carefully about having kids. They're awesome but a lot of focus is on the pregnancy / delivery. After that it's all up to you and there aren't a lot of helpful resources. The first 5 years need A LOT of attention. Kids don't come with a manual and by the time they start moving on their own and talking they'll have taken over your life. And you're responsible for theirs. Get it wrong and you could end up messing up their life. Issues that seem small & insignificant can grow bigger and more complex over the years and before you know it you've transmitted to them the same traumas your parents gave you.

Pay more if it will make the experience significantly better. Oftentimes, paying just a little more will save you tons of headaches and potential problems.

As an example: if Flight A is $100 but has a layover of 3 hours, and Flight B is $160 but direct (saving you 4 total travel hours), always go for Flight B. I have chosen A many times, only to be stuck on the runway, standing hours in security, missed my connecting flight, and so on.

Getting up at the same time every day and getting immediately out of bed.

I've been doing this since the new year. It has been fantastic for my productivity, and I get to spend more time with my wife without feeling stressed for time.

I used to think I was a night person. Turns out: I just had very poor sleep habits and didn't know how to fix them.

Getting out of bed immediately is a great one.

- drinking at least 500ml of water immediately after waking up (cannot overstate the importance of this before making any decisions. dehydrated brains make bad decisions)

- lifting weights 3x a week (particularly monday/weds/friday, look into "stripped 5x5" for getting started) with light cardio on the other weekdays

It seems like most people do mon/wed/fri and the gym seems most packed these days.

Agreed. There's literally no difference doing Tue/Thu/Sat if you have the time, and it's usually quieter.

Your gains lag one day behind the parallel-universe version of you who observes international chest day.

I looked up "stripped 5x5", it states:

> you could work out Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday or some other combination like that

http://newbie-fitness.blogspot.com/2007/01/stripped-5x5.html

It's basically stronglifts 5x5 but with less squatting. Less good for beginners imo.

Reach out to friends and people you’d like to be closer with regularly. Make and keep plans to do things with people in person. It’s far more important than people realize. Isolation is a killer. Online is no substitute.

Being just your innocent self an having compassion for all your faults, meaning great awareness about them, and those of others. You will easily smile at all times and find lots of meaning in every moment.

Getting married and having kids = best move I've ever made.

I sincerely hope this is not a habit you have

I laughed so much

Delegating as much stuff that you hate as possible:

Hate doing laundry? -> Take your laundry to a laundry shop.

Hate cooking? -> Always eat out.

Hate cleaning your apartment -> Hire a cleaning service.

Hate driving? -> Take Uber or move closer to work.

Hate volunteering? -> Donate to charities and volunteer orgs to do that for you!

________

And at the same time double down on the things you enjoy or/and earns you more money.

> earns you more money.

Probably going to have to, if taking you up on all the other advice.

Journaling AND systematically reviewing the journals after certain time periods. If you’re only doing the former you’re probably only reaping about 40% of the benefits of journaling.

What is your review schedule/system?

I only started a couple years ago, but review only when I remember pertinent entries.

Went into it a little bit here, I call it recursive journaling.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34686207

The best way to set it up is using Obsidian with the Calendar and Breadcrumbs plugins.

Gym/Exercise improves everything.

Investing in fitness (weight lifting, running, eating well) probably has the most impact, but that is fairly obvious. Likewise never reading anything in bed other than long-form books.

The one habit the was very surprising to me was daily meditation. I didn't expect to enjoy it, or derive any benefits, but I did.

I think any beginner app[1] (or maybe book) and 10-15 minutes a day for a 2-3 months is enough to get the n00b benefits I got, namely:

- less reactive to pretty much any kind of negative external whatever, from random assholes to force majeure

- almost complete elimination of the feeling of boredom from my life, regardless of circumstance

The above two things, in turn, led to improvements in just about all my meaningful relationships.

[1]: Specifically, in my case, I read the book Waking Up, by Sam Harris, which caused me to then read Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan, and then I ended up getting the Waking Up app to guide me through the daily practice (but I also tried Ten Percent Happier and Headspace and believe any of them would work).

I find it hard to do 10 minutes. I think even something as short as 5 minutes is still beneficial.

I fixed poor sleeping habits which changed my life completely.

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