Lifehack Ideas January 2015

Any shy nerds interested in leveling up their social skills should consider working as a volunteer petition signature gatherer. In the U.S. at least, to run for a political office you often need to get a huge number of people to sign a petition. If you are one of the people getting signatures you have to approach strangers, quickly pitch your candidate, and then ask for a signature. This is a great, socially acceptable way of overcoming shyness plus you can help out your political tribe. To do this, contact a local branch of the political party you most support and offer your services.

I don't read books anymore, I use the built-in text-to-speech accessibility feature that all modern smartphones have and let my phone read the book to me at a speed close to my normal reading speed. You can of course do this while driving or doing other chores.

Started unplugging my DSL modem for periods of offline work or reading e-books off an internet capable device when I don't want to be distracted by impulsive browsing. If stuff comes up that I want to look up, I write a line on a post-it note. Seems to be just the right level of annoyance to get up and plug the thing back in that I won't do it without thinking.

Ask yourself how much better or worse you are going to feel after completing a task you're procrastinating on. Write the answer down and put it to the test. After doing this several times I'm finding that I wrongly assume I'm going to feel worse after finishing the task, which makes me procrastinate.

Three-minute TED talk about how to properly tie your shoes.

Paruresis is a type of phobia in which the sufferer is unable to urinate in the (real or imaginary) presence of others, such as in a public restroom.

A proven method of physically treating paruresis is through breath holding. The paruretic person takes a deep breath in, exhales about three-quarters of it, and then holds their breath for a given length of time, usually 60 seconds or less, and in doing so, the internal sphincter muscle of the urethra relaxes enough so that the person can urinate freely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paruresis#Treatment

I wanted to stop using Facebook, so I deleted my account and then blocked the domain.

Now I don't have any friends anymore, and I have a lot of free time.

For those of you in the content creation/sharing business:

Using newsblur, I go through a ton of content every day. I'll click the "save button" if it's interesting, then tag it according to a standard categorization scheme.

Here's what happens via IFTTT and Zapier:

• It get's added to my Buffer (bufferapp.com) to get scheduled on facebook, twitter, g+, and linkedin
• It gets saved to my evernote, for later searching
• It gets added to my contactually articles, so that I can share it with people in my network when it's time to ping them
• Based on what category it's tagged with, it gets posted to the relevant subreddits
• It get's added to a google spreadsheet for the category, for a later "best links of the month" post.

Really easy way to keep relevant social channels up to date without putting in a ton of extra work.

For several years I had lower back pain reoccurring regularly - pulled muscle. I tried the standing desks and it helped but not that much. Then I heard it was due to weak core muscles. Once I started doing the exercises it helped quite a bit. I just did the ones where I was on my back and I did them in bed.

But once I stopped having back pain as often then I stopped doing the exercises. Mainly because the exercises are boring and easy to skip. For the last year I have had luck using the slendertone waist band. It seems to work. I play video games to take my mind off the 30 minutes of discomfort - plus it is positive reinforcement .

edit for clarity

I wanted to invest my money, but I didn't want to waste any effort thinking or worrying about it, so I made an account on Wealthfront, set up a monthly recurring transfer, and then put it out of my mind.

Have no internet at home and no smartphone.

For Linux users (or Mac OS X users that use the Terminal) who want to pick up a journaling habit:

I set up the following aliases to DRAMATICALLY reduce the "activation energy" for writing a journal entry:

alias jcd='cd <journal directory>'
alias today='jcd; vi `date +%Y-%m-%d`; cd -'
alias yesterday='jcd; vi `date -r \`expr \\\`date +%s\\\` - 86400\` +%Y-%m-%d`; cd -'

So if I want to write a journal entry, I just type 'today' and get started. Note that this also has the secondary benefit of keeping journal entries nicely organized by date.

BTW, I am no writer, but this technique has gotten me to write a decent amount over the years:

$ jcd; cat * | wc -w
    92804

Here's how I calculate 15% tips in my head. After getting used to this approach, I could consistently beat friends who were fumbling with their smartphones.

BTW, math majors have a reputation for NOT being able to do mental arithmetic, so being a math major who could do this was a fun and ironic way to defy stereotypes.

Preparation. Memorize the product of each digit with 1.5

• 1 x 1.5 = 1.5
• 2 x 1.5 = 3.0
• 3 x 1.5 = 4.5
• 4 x 1.5 = 6.0
• 5 x 1.5 = 7.5
• 6 x 1.5 = 9.0
• 7 x 1.5 = 10.5
• 8 x 1.5 = 12.0
• 9 x 1.5 = 13.5

Step 1. Round your bill to two significant digits (35.76 -> 36)

Step 2. Recall the product of the first digit with 1.5 (3 x 1.5 = 4.5). The tip is going to be pretty close to the product you recalled (4.50)--you just need to adjust it upwards a bit using the second digit.

Step 3. Recall the product of the second digit with 1.5 (6 x 1.5 = 9), divide the product you recalled by 10 (9 / 10 = 0.9), and add it to the result of Step 2 (4.50 + 0.90 = 5.40) to get your final result.

Congratulations! You've just calculated your 15% tip to within an accuracy of 10 cents. If you want more speed, you can round your bill to just the first significant digit and skip Step 3--this will give you a 15% tip to within an accuracy of 1 dollar. Alternatively, if you want to impress your friends with more accuracy, you can keep more significant digits around and continue adjusting.

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