Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that improved your life?

Re:Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that imp... by kszx on Monday November 25, 2013 @06:56AM (#6793586)

(1.) Eat well, drink well, sleep well, work well.

(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.

(4.) When you can't sleep, don't try to.

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Re:Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that imp... by alexenko on Monday November 25, 2013 @07:17AM (#6793651)

Never heard of Beeminder until now. Out of curiosity, what targets do you have that work really well for you?

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Re:Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that imp... by kszx on Monday November 25, 2013 @08:07AM (#6793815)

I have the best experience with targets where data logging works automatically, i.e., where I don't need to bother with manual data input.

- RescueTime: Productive and unproductive time, or specific software/website categories, automatically logged by the computer;

- Draft: Words written every day (just started, but looks promising);

Also successful: binary variables (1 or 0 every day, either done or not done).

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Re:Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that imp... by VMG on Monday November 25, 2013 @07:35AM (#6793707)

funny, I'm having positive results with the inverse of (3)

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Re:Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that imp... by kszx on Monday November 25, 2013 @08:15AM (#6793848)

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.

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Re:Ask HN: What habit have you dropped or picked up that imp... by VMG on Monday November 25, 2013 @10:52AM (#6794693)

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.

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