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Comment by treetalker | Hacker News Reader

The big one, for keeping my focus on the power of repeated, consistent action, and prioritizing my "future selves":

What is likely to happen if I do (or don't do) this thing one thousand days (or times) in a row?

Examples:

- exercising 2h per day and eating right --> I'm going to look and feel great and my health will be far better than that of my peers

- Should I buy these cookies along with the rest of my groceries? If I do that 1,000 grocery trips in a row …

- spending 30+ minutes per day reading the highest quality material I can find; taking notes; and figuring out ways to implement the knowledge and ideas I gain --> …

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I have a similar thing but for putting purchases in context.

If I buy a good quality pair of jeans and I wear them 200 days every year for multiple years, its cost per wear is negligible even if I pay 100-200€ for them.

On the other hand a pair of fancy suit pants I wear for that one wedding and maybe Grandma's birthday is going to have a massive cost per wear -> no need to get the top shelf stuff, maybe just rent? Grandma is fine with business casual so I can go in with a jeans and blazer =)

The same works with subscriptions. Youtube Family isn't cheap - but we watch so much Youtube content that just the ability to skip all ads on every platform without addons or special clients is easily worth the time saved.

(It's also interesting that kids under 13 can't be enrolled to a Family on Youtube and thus are inundated with unskippable ads...)

> (It's also interesting that kids under 13 can't be enrolled to a Family on Youtube and thus are inundated with unskippable ads...)

Welp, looks like the addons and special clients are useful after all x)

I like your approach to relating your daily choices to your broader life goals.

I think you'd like Atomic Habits [1] if you haven't read it already.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0...

This is a good one. What's gonna happen if I respond to comments on HN for 1000 days in a row? Uh oh.

You will have high reputation and be able to change the background colour, down vote comments etc.

Cute women who before didn't give you the time of the day will suddenly start paying you attention, slipping you their phone number, asking what you're up to on the weekend.

It takes altogether too long for many people to find out that they have a body.

I agree, it's not until something breaks that people realize they need to take care of their body.

how do you arrive at 2hrs a day? AFAICT 1hr a day gives you 90-95% benefit of 2hrs.

To put it another way, comparing to 2hrs

    15mins = 50% benefit
    30mins = 75% benefit
    60mins = 90-95% benefit
    120mins = 100%

Everyone has their own thresholds but paying double for 5-10% more doesn't seem worth it to me personally.

Real-life experience (over several decades). For me, one hour of even intense exercise is good but not enough to get me to, and keep me at, a point near my personal peak athletic performance. YMMV.

The secret is to have a very low peak. More of an athletic knoll really.

Is this based on personal experience, or do you have a source?

My own science-based impression was that it's more important to break up sedentary time with activity, and reach higher than mild physical exertion at least a bit, than it is to target any specific amount of time.

> I'm going to look and feel great and my health will be far better than that of my peers

Comparing your health (or anything to that matter) to your peers is a great way to boost and maintain insecurities. There is always gonna be a healthier, sexier, younger and so on. Good luck chasing that.

At risk of sounding very banal, comparing yourself to your version from yesterday is the best approach.

This is a fair point and I generally agree with you. That said, in this example I'm really using "peers" as a stand-in for where I or someone else in a similar situation will be with little or no regular exercise. (I'm a lawyer in Florida.)

I would expect less ambiguous definition from a lawyer :) (Please take it as a joke)

With the amendment it stands corrected indeed. Just added to make sure some people wouldnt take the idea of comparing themselves to peers as a generally good one.

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