2013 June-August Life Hacks Thread

Writing down a letter of gratitude can substantially improve happiness for months

This is only one out of many studies showing this. Writing elaborate (at least 300 words) gratitude letters is perhaps the easiest and nicest thing you can do to improve happiness. Extra points of happiness for someone else if you actually go there and read it out loud to them :)

From post on Dark side hacks:

Clenching your fists and thinking evil thoughts can increase strength and willpower. (Hung & Labroo 2011, Schubert 2004, Gray 2010)

I wanted to be able to quickly switch from a sitting to a sanding desk when using a computer. First, I bought cheap benches I could use to convert my sitting desk to a standing one, but I found that the conversion hassle prevented me from wanting to go from the sitting to the standing position. Next, I intended to buy a desk that you could quickly and easily raise or lower, but I found this cost more than an additional computer. So, I bought an extra computer for my office and have one on a normal desk and the other in a permanent standing desk position. Dropbox makes it easy for me to quickly switch when working on a file.

Embodied Cognition Hack: Posture Improvement

1. Take a powerful pose to feel powerful

2. Tense muscles for willpower

3. Cross arms for persistence

4. Lie down for insight

5. Nap for cognitive performance, vigour and wakefulness

6. Hand gestures for persuasion

7. Gesture to self for comprehension and memory

8. Smile for happiness

9. Mimic to empathize

10. Imitate for comprehension and prediction

chaosmage said:

This is a simple idea that I came up with by myself. I was looking for a means to enter high functioning lots-of-beta-waves modes without the use of chemical stimulants. What I found was that very bright light works really, really well. I got the brightest light bulbs I could get cheaply. 105 watts of incandescents with halogen gas, billed as the equivalent of 130 watts of incandescent light. And I got an adaptor like this that lets me screw four of those into the same socket in the ceiling. The result is about as painful to look at as the sun. It makes my (small) room brighter than a clear summer's day at my latitude and slightly brighter than a supermarket.

What do you see as the primary reason to prefer this thread organization over the rationality diaries?

I also thought of creating a 4th tree

4)Isn't terribly and obviously inconsistent with the laws of nature

so people could post things they don't actually think work. Is that a good idea?

Using present pain to reason more mathematically about intertemporal options.

For a while I've been thinking that when facing a trolley problem, I should pinch my left arm once while reasoning about letting the one person be killed. And my right arm five times, for the five people that should be saved. More interestingly it seems that when reasoning about a problem in the far future mental slot versus a near future one, bringing them both to the present in the form of pleasure could aid thinking/motivation accuracy. I see no reason why the same would not work for pain.

Along the lines of the post on Dark side hacks:

Watching darkly motivational videos. For example villainous scenes from a movie on youtube.