Here are some random pieces of life advice that I wish my past self (1 to 4 years ago) knew.
- Have a chat with yourself for quickly jotting down notes
- This is pretty handy, whenever I need to jot something down I write it in a chat I have going with myself on Slack or Matrix. Everything gets kept forever but I don’t need to put in effort to organize it since old stuff naturally goes away to scrollback.
- Bring nametags with you everywhere
- I go to a lot of events where people don’t know me. I always bring a bunch of nametag stickers with me in my backpack (you can get these on Amazon from like $6); being able to quickly put on a nametag I brought with me is pretty useful when none are provided.
- Don’t run your own mailserver
- This seems like it will be fun and give you experience learning about email, but actually managing one and keeping it up-to-date is pretty annoying and not worth it.
- Have a smartwatch for tracking your sleep
- I find sleep-tracking statistics on my Pixel Watch 4 super interesting and useful for making sure I get enough sleep; I wasn’t sure if getting a smartwatch would be worth it at first but it definitely is just for that alone.
- Fuzz your birthday when posting it publicly
- You should treat your birthday like a password since a lot of places use it for identity verification. Don’t tell people your actual birthday, add or subtract a few days instead. (You should probably use your real birthday when on official forms though!)
- Pack your bags the morning you leave
- When I travel I defer most of the packing until the morning when I leave, since I need to use a lot of things (e.g. toothbrushes) until right before I leave.
- Get noise-cancelling headphones
- These are expensive but a great investment, especially if you spend a lot of time in video calls.
- You should probably be taking vitamin D supplements
- I had a blood test and learned I had far too little vitamin D; you should probably be supplementing this.
- Be much more willing to ask other people to do things
- I avoided making requests of other people too much in the past because I didn’t want to bother them, but I think I went much too far and avoided making requests that would have helped me a lot without imposing too much of a burden.
- Tell other people your plans
- I’ve found that telling other people my plans for what to do has really helped flesh them out.
- Be a new homunculus
- From Nate Soares: “close your eyes for a moment, re-open them, and pretend that you’re a new homunculus”
- This is the best advice from Replacing Guilt, which is overall a pretty good self-help book. I find it very helpful for remembering that I’m trying to improve my life going forward, and I my future actions shouldn’t necessarily be tied to things I’ve done in the past.
Sorry for the Inkslop listicle, I had to get something out and I’m running out of ideas.
