Wrestle the pig first, every day. Whatever is your worst, most unpleasant, annoying task for the entire day, do it before you do anything else. It minimizes your stress and worrying and puts it in the rearview mirror.
For a second I thought you were talking about masturbation.
Well yeah crank your hog first of course
SPEAK UP BROTHER, I CANT HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY CRANKED HOG
AROOOOOO
ABSOLUTELYCRANKINMYMF’INHOG
Spank the monkey
Filbert and Heffer playing “Spank the Monkey”
Oh bay bee, oh bay bee, oh bay bee.
Rocko?
Mrs. Bighead?
simultaneous phone slam
There was also that one that was cut from the camping episode.
Rocko is foraging for berries and he grabs one on a bush and the bush recoils and you hear a bear growl. Then a bear jumps out from behind the bush grabbing his crotch and running away in obvious pain.
Flog the dolphin
Mildly to firmly squeeze your penis while moving your hand back and forward
Choke the chicken.
Bash the bishop
Ok, I wrestled a cop and pinned him. What’s step 2? Please respond before his backup arrives.
I think you’re supposed to tickle his balls now.
Alternatively, if you’re neurodivergent you may have a better time doing the easiest tasks first to build momentum and motivation.
Yeah, everyone’s neurochemistry is different and should be experimented with.
I didn’t know this for so long, that I needed a few easy wins to set the pace, that I feel like I could have been way more productive throughout my 20s haha
Human memory is bias towards most recent things in a group set. If your set is a “workout” or a “workday”, doing the fun stuff last will affect positively all the memory items in the same group set. This works even if you know that your memory is doing this.
We don’t live in a “present now”. We live in a mental image constructed from memory of recent past.
Trick is not to do unpleasant stuff first, but to do pleasant stuff last.
My former mentor said: 80% of the deliverable is the 20% of the scope you really don’t want to do
I feel like saying “I have to do this before anything else” might very well end with me doing nothing
I always heard it as “Swallow a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day”. Same meaning, and I think I like yours better.
I don’t think “waking up early” counts, but it’s definitely the most unpleasant and annoying task of my weekdays, followed closely by actually getting to work.
I have some paperwork to do that will likely result in $2000. It’s been over a year and i cannot just sit down and do it. I stress over it every day but continue to put it off.
Today. Let’s both finish our paperwork today. The sense of freedom and achievement will be good.
Ok. I have a 2 hour car ride this afternoon. I will get everything ready this morning and do it in the car. Thanks! Good luck!
Excellent. I hope you did OK. I got mine done! It wasn’t as bad as I thought. If you haven’t finished yet, don’t give up, pick up the pieces and carry on. Thanks for being my Internet buddy on this.
Congratulations! I didn’t finish, but did get a good start on it. Thanks for the encouragement!
Well done. Starting is the hardest part. Are you going to do a bit more today?
I’m on vacation until Wednesday so I will finish it on my flight home. Getting started really was the hardest part. Now it’s just putting numbers into boxes and adding them up. By gathering info and starting on it, i find that the expected $2k gain is closer to $10k. That’s some great motivation to get it done!
I know this as ‘eat your frogs’.
But where will I find a pig?
They’re easy to spot. They’re typically wearing cute little uniforms & driving fun little cars with lights on top.
Best advice ever.
To stop infinite scroll on social media, quickly scroll 2-3 screen lengths down without looking at the posts. Now read the posts scrolling up. Eventually you’ll reach where you started and most probably the laziness to go all the way back will prompt you to exit the app.
How much better life is by simply not drinking alcohol.
Or soda. Or sugary drinks in general.
I hate the talk about soda. It’s a flavored carbonated drink and carbonation isn’t killing people. When schools banned sodas from vending machines, they replaced them with yoohoo and other drinks that had as much or more sugar than the carbonated drinks they removed. -stepping off my soapbox-
Fruit juice is notorious for this.
‘but its fruit juice! Its 100% natural!’
Most still have added sugars on top of the fact that most of the fruit has been squeezed out only leaving… Sugars.
Even on their own, the natural fruit sugars aren’t enough to make drinking fruit juice “healthy” when all the fiber has been squeezed out.
But the one two punch of sugars is just as bad as any other sugary drink.
Same with cans of Arizona or Snapple or anything else. It’s all terrible.
People don’t realize that ultra processed food is basically everything they eat and drink. There are very few things that aren’t, and they’re mostly whole food adjacent.
If it’s not straight up water and plain vegetables, fruit, and grain equivalents, it’s more than likely ultra processed no matter how healthy it claims to be.
So much of non-genetic cancers comes from what we ingest willingly. A large portion of it would stop if everyone ate a well rounded whole foods diet. But shit is expensive, takes time and kwh to make, and people are busy trying to enjoy life.
Conventional Cereal? Terrible. https://www.livestrong.com/article/13774827-is-eating-cereal-every-day-bad/
Certain processed fiber gives you liver cancer Ffs lol.
The problem isn’t carbonation (Bubly, Liquid Death have 0g). The problem is carbonated sugary drinks typically have more sugar than other sugary drinks, not a rule but per amount sold.
The typical soda has 38g of sugar per 12oz (can). Google states the following: Coca-Cola is 45g. Mountain Dew is 46g. Redbull and Monster are 34g. Arizona Sweet Tea is 31g. Apple juice is 33g. Orange juice is 28g. Cranberry juice is 42g.
Anything over 28g is no go territory for me. Anything under is generally not an issue blood sugar wise for me. Note: I am not diabetic.
I try not to drink calories at all, but if I do, it’s considered part of the meal.
I strongly recommend this, as strongly as reading the news everyday. Don’t watch or listen to it, READ it. It makes you conscious of your participation, makes it easier to remember, and over time, will sharpen your critical thinking skills
If you’ve ever thought ‘holy fuck some people are dumb’, well, if they read the news on the reg, they’d be less and less dumb, everyday.
I feel like there’s a subtlety here. Ocassional Glass of wine with dinner versus binge drinking.
Of course the problem is that the first drink makes then next one more attractive and degrades impulse control… so YMMV.
One is too many and a thousand is never enough.
Edit: I do get the irony of someone with my username posting this. I understand what’s wrong with binge drinking and me in general, I’m just not ready to fix it.
You and I are in the same place.
Well, I’m not in Texas, but I’m with you otherwise.
I’ll fix it sometime. Hopefully soon.
We’re gonna be alright, buddy.
Thank ya. We definitely are. My problem is, drinkin’ makes everything SO MUCH FUN. If it just wasn’t so damn fun, it wouldn’t be an issue
Wow. This thread got pretty real, pretty quick. I feel you though (you too, Texas).
You’re gonna be alright, too.
I was entirely satisfied enjoying that irony.
This, is why I don’t drink.
Having a glass of wine every day is not healthy.
Agreed, my intent was occasional. I shall go and put that word in.
I drink pretty much only on the weekends and that’s pretty seldom.
Is one glass of wine really that bad though? Like compared to a glass of grape juice? Because of the sugars and calories and is alcohol in this percentage range (approx 14%) enough to cause damage to your liver over time?
Again I’m talking about one glass
Any amount of alcohol is per definition unhealthy. The “health benefits” of red wine can easily be attained through other foods or drinks.
I’m going on holiday to Greece next month, so have decided to forgo my usual weekend ales until then. Partly to be a little more comfortable in my swimming shorts, but also because £10/15 a weekend adds up to a few cold pints of Mythos by the beach.
But I was amazed at how fresh I felt last Monday morning after not having drunk any beer over the weekend.
I had better seafood in Greece than anywhere else in Europe. Fresh grilled octopus with a squeeze of lemon, fried sardines, squid salad, everything just perfect. (Note: I haven’t done Nordic countries, and they might do cod/coldwater-fish/etc. better, but that’s be a different style.)
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Depends on the person. I’m content only have 1 at a time. I don’t have an addictive personality though. For some people this is great advice. Others, it doesn’t affect.
Yep. For me it made the week so much easier…wake up fresher, work out easier, handle job tasks smoother.
Friday night have fun. Wednesday? Nah. Tea please.
One time I was in Mexico with my wife while our daughter was still a baby and the lady at the front desk of the hotel where we were staying offered us a crib we could borrow. It was a kind gesture, but I was a little concerned because the crib seemed wobbly. I realized there were some screws loose but though I had a multitool on me, the holes were stripped.
So later, I was talking with a local and he’s like “I can fix that.” He comes over and pulls a pack of toothpicks out of his pocket. He sticks one into each hole and breaks it off so that it’s not sticking out anymore. Then he drives the screw back in. I shook the crib after that and it was rock solid!
Now I always keep some toothpicks handy. Fast-forward to just this year. My daughter is now an adult living in a condo, and was complaining the screw popped out of a kitchen cabinet door when her roommate yanked on it too hard. “I can fix that.”
Learn to cook the base of meals in different cultures. Like a Sofrito.
Most of the best classic dishes in the world really start with three or four ingredients and are just variations. You shouldn’t overthink it or buy rare ingredients. You’re better off picking one and mastering the basic steps. Learning to cook isn’t about learning to recreate a chef-cooked meal. It’s about learning to cook simple, cheap ingredients.
Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn’t formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook
When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.
Hey that’s a quality life changing hack right here. Food is the most important thing with sleep.
Would you have a list of those base meals maybe ?
@dephyre mentionned refried beans with rice in the thread. @DeltaTangoLima responded with bottled (canned) pasta sauce. I’d say learn how to make ratatouille and store (can) some when you can get the ingredient (green bell pepper, zucchinis, eggplan, tomatoes) at the right time of the year.
It’s usually just to take a small amount of delicious oil or fat — whatever you have on hand — and saute diced onions with diced bell pepper (or local equivalent) until the onions are slightly transparent. Keep going if you want the onions start being brown and have a sweet flavor. That brown is just the natural sugars coming out of the onion and is what “caramelizes” means. Caramel is sugar. And then add garlic and/or ginger and whatever spices you like.
If you want to, add meat. If you don’t, do not. (Often, that very oil step is done from browning meat and not wasting the fat.)
If you want soup, add a lot of liquid and whatever and cook it slowly. If you want paella, jambalaya, jollof, biryani, or equivalent — every culture has a rice dish — use the rice recipe on the bag as if it were water. (Use stock if you have any but water works fine.)
There are dishes that are different. Like fried rice and French Toast use old rice and toast respectively. Baking is a science. But anyone can make a pot of delicious with a few ingredients and it’s a 10 minute, one pot meal.
This is the way.
You start frying an onion and then figure out what you’re making for dinner.
There’s a book that you should pickup…
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat
It really covers everything you’ll need to be able to cook anything. They even made a 4 part series about it on Netflix.
I really like this. Do you have any resources I can check out that cover this?
A good example is The Curry Guy. Dan somebody?
Make a huge batch of base curry sauce, and then with a few more ingredients you can make dozens of Indian and Bangladeshi dishes
He’s got loads of recipes on his site, but his book is really useful in a kitchen
I started watching Babish & Weissman’s channels on YouTube during the pandemic. Both of them put out easy to follow videos, but they also include links to recipes in the video description, so you don’t have to write it all down.
The Basics with Babish videos are great because they show multiple dishes with a given protein.
I watch them both a ton, good stuff. Weissman can be a little snooty tho. K Keni Lopez-Alt is amazing 😍
Weissman does get a bit snooty & high priced at times. He also gets a lil too juvenile for my taste, but that’s my taste…
With his higher priced dishes, he does typically offer cost cutting options as goes through, which is nice.
I really like that both Babish & Weissman tell you why they’re using certain ingredients. That little bit of why helps me with substitutions if I ever don’t have or don’t like something used.
For sure, like some of his stuff is really good
I just found a japanese comfort food staple: Ochazuke - green tea rice. It just needs a couple of ingredients and is super quick. I was blown away by how good and comforting it was. Its Comfort in a quick bowl. And it’s super adaptable. You can basically add anything as tipping.
This is the blogpost that inspired me https://rasamalaysia.com/green-tea-rice/
Keep a set of swimwear in your car. If you go to a place and forgot your swimsuit? Got the backup. Go to a hotel and find out they had a pool you didn’t know about? Backup in the car. Accidentally shit yourself? Got at least something on you. Do I shit myself enough to worry about it? Not since I was a baby but now I know I got swim trunks in my car just in case.
Not really a “hack” but I don’t know why most people get into phone contracts.
Since college, I have always just bought unlocked phones with cash and then used the carrier’s prepaid plans and set it to auto pay.
I pay so much less than most people I know, I get all the same service, and my phone isn’t tied to a contract or carrier, so I can cancel my plan whenever I want and switch to another carrier by just buying their SIM card for ~$20.
My current phone is an unlocked Pixel 6a that I got on sale new for $300. I have unlimited talk, text, and data for $45 a month. And if I get sick of my current carrier or they bump my cost, I can just switch to anybody else for just the cost of a $20 SIM card.
I have so many friends and family members that complain about their phone bills being super high and their service sucking, but they can’t cancel their contracts without paying off their huge balances plus the interest and usually cancelation fees. Plus, because their phone is tied to the contract/carrier, they can’t even keep transfer the phone to the new carrier and have to get sucked into a “phone trade-in” deal and the cycle continues.
And for the folks saying that most people can’t afford to save up and buy a phone outright, there are a lot of places that offer payment plans for the phone, or you can buy it on credit and pay it off that way, which would likely be less interest over time. Or you could buy unlocked used/refurbished phones for 25-50% off their normal price.
Maybe it makes sense if you get a stipend from your company, or you bundle it with a bunch of other packages like cable TV or internet, but for just a cell phone, I just don’t get locking yourself into a crazy contract.
This seems like an American problem. This used to be the case in the Netherlands as well but over the years people have learned that SIM-only subscriptions are so much easier and cheaper that the majority of people now use SIM-only. In fact I know of no one around me that does it differently.
Also $45 per month is still expensive lol. I pay €12 a month. Sure, not unlimited but I never call or SMS so the 100 a month I get for that is way more than enough and I never finish the 10GB of data a month either. I can make either unlimited for really not that much more.
I believe a major factor in this was a ruling by the Hoge Raad that a “free” phone with a contract is unlawful and is actually a loan. Carriers now have to list the price for the phone and for the service separately, so it’s a lot more clear what the costs of the phone are.
Also, a “free” phone is now registered as a loan with monthly recurring costs, which impacts for example the maximum mortgage you can get on a home.
Also in the Netherlands and I have recently extended this concept to my home internet. Since 25 Mbps download / 10 Mbps upload is enough for my use, I no longer have an internet subscription and I make use of $25 LycaMobile unlimited data sim cards for home internet using a sim router. The IMEI of the router can be easily modified, which is also a plus.
Do you have a static or dynamic IP though? For some applications one would want a static one iirc
The IP is dynamic, but for my self-hosted services that require a static IP I make use of a WireGuard tunnel between my raspberry pi and a virtual private server. The VPS has a static IP, so my domains point at the VPS and then the VPS re-routes the packets via the wireguard tunnel. In a wire guard tunnel only the server needs a static IP, so the VPS can route packets to the client even if the client’s ip is dynamic.
Ok is toch iets te gecompliceerd voor me, en aangezien de vrouw graag vaste TV heeft zit ik zowieso nog wel even aan de KPN vast. Maar ik heb je comment opgeslagen, aangezien ik toch wel benieuwd ben en wil kijken of het op termijn. Dank iig!
If your’re at the point where you need a static IP, then 25mb down is probably not going to cut it for you anyway.
France is a bit similar, but a new phone company decided to cut down the costs by not providing a phone. 20 € a month formore data than you’ll ever need or 50 € a month with the latest iPhone included everyone chooses the first option
Have you checked price comparison sites recently? In germany you can get 10GB for 5€ now
Nice, over here $45 a month is pretty cheap, at least in my circles. Most people I know are paying close to double that.
I was recently comparing some phone plans and found that nowadays, you mostly just pay the actual price of the device, plus the normal subscription costs, no interest or anything.
Got a Pixel 8 Pro from Odido (awful service btw, would not go with them again). The device costs me 30 euros per month, for 2 years, which comes out to 720 euros at the end. That’s actually cheaper than the normal resale price of ~870 (average according to Tweakers).
Actually thinking about it now, I wonder what the catch is. That kinda seems too good to be true.
Bonus points in that android phones won’t have their bootloader encrypted by a cellular service provider.
Absolutely right!
It feels like the nineties/2000 just called :-D
I pay 10€/m for “unlimited” 5G (186GB/month IIRC).
Nice! Maybe Europe has it better, (wouldn’t be the first time lol.)
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Hey, don’t be shy ;-)
Part of the problem is that we’re advertised at constantly, so when the latest, greatest iPhone or Galaxy or Pixel comes along we feel like we need it. Because if we get the £1200 phone the resell value in two years will still be high, right? It actually makes sense.
But the only way to afford that is to borrow the money to pay for it.
I picked up an iPhone 13 mini last year, on a two year contract, for £29 a month. And that’s ok by me. By the end of my contract I’ll go SIM-only and my bill will drop to around £10 a month, which I’ll rock until Apple finally release another mini phone.
So this 13 mini will be the last phone I ever use…
I agree except who is charging you $20 for a sim?
Verizon, might have been a little less, but reasonable to me, I keep my phones for a long time, and I got a really good deal on it.
Because people want the latest iPhone or Samsung and paying $ per month works better for them than $$$ upfront. The alternate finance method you speak of isn’t very well known, so it’s most simple to contract with a carrier.
It’s different in the UK. Those who need a new phone but have limited funds usually buy a cheap or refurbished or used one and get a 12 month SIM only contract.
I get 30G data per month, which is more than enough, and unlimited calls and texts which almost all UK contracts have. Some providers offer free EU roaming as well. I pay £10pm.
I use Vodafone but I never buy through them, they are very expensive. I search around but for me Carphone Warehouse are always as cheap as anyone else and their CS is excellent.
Interesting, seems like Europe has some really cheap options, much cheaper than the US.
Phones are generally more expensive though. Maybe it evens out?
Hell go to swappa.com and buy an unlocked used phone.160 and you can have a S20 which works perfectly.
If you go prepaid for a year you can get service for even cheaper. I don’t need unlimited data so I buy a year of Mint Mobile’s cheapest plan for about 200 dollars which gives unlimited talk and text and 5gb data for only around 15 dollars a month.
Right on. I do need unlimited, as my job requires me to be on the road a fair bit and accessing lots of data.
But that’s a good idea, I’ll see if my carrier offers that option.
I should clarify that mint mobile also has “unlimited” and “unnecessary” plans for 30 and 40 dollars a month respectfully. (When prepaying for a year)
Quote: Unlimited plan incl. 40GB high-speed data w/10GB hotspot. Unnecessary plan incl. 60GB high-speed data w/20GB hotspot. Video @ 480p. Data speeds reduced after monthly allotment. Taxes & fees extra.
I don’t know if I’m grandfathered in or what but I have Google Fi (I know I know I suck) and have 3 lines unlimited everything for $80/month
Solid.
Google Fi is a god-tier service for traveling abroad. When I went to South America I paid nothing extra vs my friends who had to deal with Verizon’s ridiculous travel plan fees.
But who actually does this otherwise? I have seen those kind of contracts advertised, but I never see people actually having them, apart from some 16yo who want the new iPhone by all means and this is the only way they can finance it.
Almost everybody I know has something like this, growing up as a teenager it was the same too.
Wtf where your from? Is this some murica dumbness I’m to European to understand? Is it common in Europe and I just know smart people?
But yes, hyped teenager is the only group I’ve actually seen falling for that when I was at school
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something but here in Australia there’s no benefit to not having a contract.
With our largest telco the contract is really just repayments on the phone. 24x monthly repayments is always the same price the phone is retailing for outright. You could cancel the sim and just keep up the phone repayments if you wanted.
Interesting. Seems like my situation is pretty specific to the US. Lots of folks from other countries that seem to have much cheaper options by default.
If you need to remember something for the next time you go out, put your shoes somewhere odd. When you go to leave, you’ll remember you moved them, which will remind you why you moved them.
Or you won’t be able to find your shoes, panic because you’re running late, and forget about the thing you needed because of said panic.
That’s why you always leave a note.
If the note is with your shoes, does that make it a footnote?
Bah! Go to the Agony Booth,2 min!
Oh my god, that guys arm came off!
Even just a couple inches over is enough to remind me. Or just a separation between them instead of them touching. Or turn them backwards. Though, this only works if it’s relatively uncommon for you to do it. And if you live in a household that does indeed take their shoes off, some don’t. But it’s a surprisingly effective reminder if all that.
That’s me!
I’ll usually put a reminder or most often the thing itself in the shoes.
This, also, is me.
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This works even with abstractions.
Attaching an unrelated concept to another will help remember it.
I do it all the time by telling someone that I need to remember something… And clarify that I don’t need a reminder, I just needed to tell someone.
If I need to remember to bring something with me when I go out I’ll put my keys on top of it.
Great, now I’ve forgotten my keys!
(I don’t need them until I get to work.)
On the original topic, shoes last a lot longer if you don’t wear the same pair day after day. The continual dampness from foot perspiration breaks down the materials much more quickly. Giving each pair of shoes a couple of days to dry out between wearings will greatly extend their lives.
This effect may not be visible to many people, but if you have a physical job, it can save you a lot of money.
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Wait… Y’all regularly leave your shoes in a normal place?
I do this with my phone on my nightstand. If I need to remember something I put it out of reach
If you can’t find something and you’ve looked everywhere, get a flashlight and look again while pointing the flashlight. It has worked for me every time.
Further, if you drop something small, like a screw, set the flashlight on the floor. This will make all the small things cast long shadows and stand out way more.
A magnet also works for some items.
Same, I found my flashlight that way
I laughed at this because I have around ten flashlights and have absolutely used a smaller flashlight to find my Emisar D4V2 or my beloved DT8
why 10 though? Why not just, say, your smartphone?
I dunno, I just got some and just… got more hahaha. Even my shittiest flashlights are way brighter than any smartphone’s LEDs.
I mainly keep them everywhere so I can quickly take important cat pictures. Shining the brighter ones at the ceiling makes for perfect lighting for indoor cat pics. I don’t like using flash on animals, and my I keep my room pretty dim. But gosh dangit cats are so cute.
haha I guess their fur requires a special kind of lighting that I never thought about. I assumed funny internet cat pics were more moments of spontaneity than diligently prepared shooting sets hehe
I have about 6k photos on my phone and 80% of them are my cats being silly or adorable.
you have a serious problem and I love it
Turn those aux lights on, fam. They hardly use much more power than natural battery internal resistance, and you can’t lose it lol
Aux lights? I’m unaware of those!
But my D8 can burn things!
Wait, really‽
The D4V2 you were looking for in the above post has RGB AUX LEDs and I think a button light iirc. You can set them to a bunch of colors on high or low brightness, or even have them show the battery level. On low-brightness, depending on color, they can stay on 24-7 for 2-6 YEARS before running the battery down (hell, on high, they can stay on for 1-3 months before needing a recharge). They are wonderful for finding it in the dark.
AUX lights make it one of the best nightstand lights. Anduril 2 makes it have some cool tricks too. I have mine have high red aux when unlocked so it can be used as a darklight just by unlocking it, then it auto locks after a minute of non-use and the aux goes to low and uses colors to display battery level.
Look up an ANDURIL2 video guide or the graphical control layout to see how it is all done. (Videos help a lot)
Ohhhhh the fancy RGB lights! I have them on high brightness/cycle RGB because I use the hard lock when they’re not in use. I do have like 20 18650s from when I was vaping a mech mod so I change them out frequently! It’s insane that they can last that long in low brightness! I should totally change my mode to show battery level using the colors—I just have to read the maps of how to use one button to do that for both (my D4V2 is on the old version of the firmware and my D8 is on the new!)
I also am struggling to find out how to change my D8 to only light up one side or the other—I got warm lights on one side and cool/insanely bright on them other. I’d love to switch between them but I don’t wanna bother people and even with tutorials it’s tough for me to find exactly how to do that. Also The Map… my goodness.
The DT8? The flat one? I didn’t know that came in dual-channel. If it is ANDURIL2 then when it is on (single click from off) it is 3H (click-click-clickHOLD) to get into the tint ramp, which on a dual channel should slide between channel 1 and channel 2 (granular and smooth is selected in the deeper settings).
I heard that, at least in countries where we read left to right, we also look for things left to right. And if you reverse this and look from right to left that you’re more likely to notice something you otherwise missed. So I do that. But I have no data to confirm if it works…
I’ve heard from someone in the military that they teach you to scan from right to left and bottom to top if you have to stand watch/guard.
It probably stops your brain from going on autopilot.
You know the pop culture reference we use for someone who has misplaced their cellphone, “have you tried calling it?”
This will sound absolutely silly, but one day a friend was looking for some trinket which wasn’t a phone, and playfully I asked, “Have you tried calling it?”
They doubled down and started actually calling it, “Trinket… trinket, where are you?”
And wouldn’t you know it, within minutes they found it, and so far this has worked about 99.9% of the time.
So like using a flashlight focuses your eyes, having someone call it out loud kind of quiets the mind, too. It’s wild.
My mom prays to St. Anthony. #justcatholicthings
It works, if only because it calms the mind and helps to regain perspective. #justanxiouscatholic
Tony Tony look around. Help me find what can’t be found. Something like that?
Close! Don’t forget to thank the saint when you find the item. ;)
Tony Tony look around, something’s lost and can’t be found. Please help me find [item].
That’s what we used to say. I don’t think Tony liked me very much tho.
I never tried calling it like a pet, but I normally say “where is this damn thing?” And then find it shortly afterwards. I’m guessing speaking the object out loud let’s the object know you are looking for it. That way the object can show up and act like it was there the whole time.
I use my hands to kind of do the same thing. It’s probably the behaviour they modeled Monk’s “hand thing” after. It still helps even if I’m searching using my memory and spatial awareness to recall and search through something I am not currently looking at. Somehow, narrowing the scope physically with my hands helps. It’s probably a muscle memory or proprioception thing.
For example, if I want to find something to eat in the fridge. I generally won’t be able to think of anything by just opening the fridge and looking through it. Unless there is something super obvious like a leftover pizza box or something else impossible to miss like that. Just trying to search by looking at each shelf only increases the odds of finding something by like 5%. But when I use my hand and slowly move it down the shelves, I can somehow think more clearly about what is on each shelf than I could without using my hand. And, as I mentioned, it also works even if I am no longer looking in the fridge. I can do it with the door closed and still more clearly recall what was on each shelf.
It also helps when scanning through my whole house looking for something, with and without currently having eyes on it. Like scanning through the whole house room by room while still sitting at my computer, I do a much better job if I am pointing my hand at the place I am thinking about as I scan.
I should probably mention I am Autistic, my spatial awareness and proprioception are two areas I have seemed to benefit. But it’s very easy to get confused or distracted if I have too much information at once. So that is mostly what is going on. I can’t just imagine that I am pointing at something in my imagination to gain the benefit, I have to be literally, physically pointing. Although I can translocate, like not be at my house or fridge and still scan my house or fridge by pointing relatively where each thing would be if they were there.
It’s not limited in scope as far as I can tell. Though it is kind of limited in resolution. The bigger the area I am scanning, the less detail I can recall about it when I am not there, or “looking through walls”. But when I am there, I can go as fine grained as the search demands, just takes longer.
A Coast G20 flashlight is about $10 on Amazon, and has a very tight spotlight circle “inspection” beam. It’s my go-to for searching because it makes you focus on a small area.
Just how much cheaper and longer lasting keeping thing like rice, dried beans and flour can be. It’s amazing to me that no matter how empty my cupboards/fridge is I can always make fresh tortillas, refried beans, and rice in like an hour.
My wife’s Italian. Replace your items with always having a bottle of sauce and a packet of pasta in the cupboard, and there’s always a meal to be had no matter how empty the fridge is.
My GF is Italian too. One of the most important things I learned from her is literally this. Also, as long as you have any kind of vegetables in your house, you are always one step away from a pasta sauce.
100% For us, a passata, an onion, and some garlic is the minimum needed.
Probably helps that the FIL delivers us boxes of homemade passata all the time - we never have less than a dozen bottles on our storage shelves in the garage. But even if we were to ever run out, a couple of store-bought bottles in the pantry is our fallback option.
Amen to that. But I can’t do jar/bottled sauce so if I want easy noodles, it’s cook noodles, leave some pasta water after draining, throw in some butter at the end to make it thicc, then serve topped with olive oil/red pepper flakes/salt/pepper/parmigiano Reggiano (all things I make sure I always have in stock always)
I also keep a stack of cans of San Marzano tomatoes to make a red sauce any time I want, but that takes a couple hours instead of 20 minutes.
There are good sauces you can make from canned tomatoes in 20 minutes (depending on your prep speed).
My go tos are Putanesca & Vodka sauce, but there’s a lot more you can do. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything has a simple recipe and then a big list of variants, most of which can be done in 20 minutes.
Noted, thank you! I have a specific sauce I like to make, and I like it best simmered for a couple hours in a Dutch oven hahaha
Most of the sauce we use is home made. My FIL makes it every year and always gives us boxes of it. Way better than shop bought sauce.
Yes. And you can get all kinds of crap canned. The only thing I’ve found you can’t really replace is crunchy greens.
I’m not surprised people don’t know after decades of cold supply chain, but it’s a thing.
Drink water instead of soda, alcohol, other sugary drinks. Eventually you’ll find yourself to be an expert water connoisseur and prefer water over pretty much all beverages.
When I was in the end of my PhD, everything except writing my thesis made me feel guilty. I ended up learning to find joy and peace in doing laundry and washing dishes. They became my guilt-free breaks — I had to do these things. FYI - I didn’t enjoy washing dishes before.
Washing dishes has become a really powerful part of my day, haha. Not only is it still a guilt-free break but it is a daily reminder to be mindful. I’ve noticed that whenever I drop and break a dish, my mind is not present. In fact, in those moments my mind might actually be drifting somewhere negative.
Maybe not so much a “hack” as a … lesson? Or something? But yeah, the whole cliche about having the right attitude and being present and mindful. I try to apply it in other parts of life, not just the dishes.
You have discovered the subtle art of procrasticleaning
Yeah I was like wow I am so enlightened for the first part of the response and then I was like oh my god I am so seen. I. Am. The. Best. At. Doing. The. Second. Most. Important. Thing. I. Need. To. Do.
Tidying up makes the world go round.
The flip side of this is productive procrastination, where you do all the menial tasks before doing the task you don’t want to do. Generally you aren’t even aware you’re doing and most people can go their entire lives never knowing the term exists, and yet they’ll do it all the time.
You can’t fix a problem you can’t identify.
You’re welcome and I’m sorry.
this is how all the cleaning in my house gets done.
What do you do when you have identified the problem? :)
This is a great way to think. Some people are so frustrated with waiting in line at the bank or market. For me, it’s just another unintended break where I get to relax.
everything except … made me feel guilty learning to find joy guilty free breaks
How‽ This is perhaps the single most impactful problem I’ve in my life. I just don’t know how to beat this. I don’t end up doing anything else because I could be doing my thesis. But I also don’t do my thesis. Could you talk a bit more about how you got out of this line of thinking? Between this and ADHD I feel like I’m going suicidal. I haven’t had a vacation/gap/break ever where I’ve felt free and happy to enjoy.
Honestly, I still haven’t fully solved the problem. I wish I could give you a great answer.
Sometimes I have no struggles working and taking breaks, other times I fall into this same trap you’ve just described. I think it amounts to a lot of different factors — some weird paradoxical mix of procrastination, fear, insecurity, passion, displeasure, and overconfidence.
I’ve learned, though, to accept certain tasks as completely necessary in life (like doing the dishes) so that I am able to do them guilt free. At least I can do that. I feel you though. In a general sense, I still struggle with the problem.
I think part of it amounts to making a decision and sticking to it rather than being on the fence. Maybe that’s discipline? E.g., “this morning I will go on a run, make a nice breakfast, wash the dishes, get started on laundry, read or play music for a bit, and then finally I will sit down to work.” Then, when actually executing the first part of the plan, just ignore the ever living fuck out of any feeling of guilt. But, again, I am still putting that into practice.
Good luck to you and me.
Thanks for the reply :)
Yeah, I think it does boil down to accepting the situation and just doing it. Or forcing the self to do it after rounds of negotiations and arguments. One problem that I see with this- at least for myself- is that it leads to me doing just the bare minimum and then subsequently getting mad. I don’t really know, I’m also trying to figure things out for myself. Maybe medication is the answer
I call that productive procrastination.
You can just pinch the end of a banana to start peeling it. The effort required is far less than trying to overcome the ripping force of the stem.
- Safety razors - I’ve got thick growth and I was spending more and more on expensive multi-blade razors trying to find a decent shave without the blade going dull after 3 uses. The answer was to have less, better quality blades rather than the expensive trash in the market. A safety razor multipack costs a pittance and has lasted me over a year. Each blade is 2 sided and can be flipped. And when you’re done with it, it can be recycled with no plastic waste. There’s literally no down side if you wet shave.
- Electric screwdriver - it doesn’t matter how much DIY you do or how rarely you make IKEA furniture, you still need an electric screwdriver.
- Brain hacks - your brain and body are predictable physical objects that are programmed a certain way. If you take the time to learn how they work, you can use that to your advantage. e.g. If you know that procrastination isn’t a time management problem, but rather an emotional regulation problem about the task that’s due; then you can start addressing the cause. Or if you want to build a new habit, you can combine it with something you like, to make you look forward to it (e.g. pick a TV show you really want to watch and only allow yourself to watch it while you’re on the treadmill). Or realise that discipline and motivation are finite resources in the day. There’s too much info to cover here, but I learn about these things from podacsts mostly:
https://www.drlauriesantos.com/happiness-lab-podcast
https://www.schwab.com/learn/choiceology
https://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/
- “Good enough” tech - You will save a lot of money if you define your use case for tech and then buy a product that is good enough to do the job (and preferably secondhand). I’m currently writing this out on a laptop I bought last week for £150 from eBay, brand new condition Dell, Intel 8th gen i7, 16GB RAM and half TB NVME drive. My gym TV is a £30 IPS Dell monitor with a Fire TV stick.
- Facebook Marketplace - make a dummy account for a facebook marketplace. I have bought tons of “like new” things in brand new condition (e.g. a whole home weights gym setup) for a fraction of brand new price. Also if there’s anything I want to get rid of, then I just post it for sale. I have had a completely worn out, cosmetically destroyed desk that I posted online for £1. Someone came and collected it the same day. It saved me a trip to the junkyard by having someone come collect it and saved the waste by going to someone who will use it. 2nd pro tip: never post anything for free. Scumbag entitled people monitor facebook for free deals and you will have a bad time. Post things for £1 and you’ll get serious people who will be grateful.
- Accept what you can’t change - your life will be much better if you stop spending energy pushing against things you can’t influence. Traffic cop walking away after giving you a ticket? Accept the hit and walk away. You took a risk not paying for parking, it didn’t work out. Go home and tell your spouse about it; then move on with your life.
If you’re looking at a used car, enter the vin number into Google. It will often bring up photos from any auctions it went through and you might see that it had been in a wreck and fixed without being reported to Carfax.
