Brand, thing, behavior, method, advice, mantra, etc.
I swear by Blackwing pencils.
Also, the ‘two minute rule’, which has really improved my life: “if it takes two minutes or less to do, just do it now; if it takes longer, schedule it.” I’ve got untreated attention issues and it’s very easy for me to notice something needing done, and overlook or procrastinate it because it seems inconvenient in the moment. Having a totally painless rule that forces me to acknowledge that thing I should pick up, that trash bag I should change, etc, or, to at least put on my calendar anything I mustn’t forget in the long run has been great for me.
uBlock Origin forever and always. I’ve recently reinstalled Windows within the last 30 days and thus have a fresh installation of my browser and uBlock Origin – I have already blocked 609,521 ads, wild.
https://ublockorigin.com/ (Platform links at the bottom)
Make sure you use it with Firefox. It works better.
Try leave everyone and everything better than you find it.
The philosophy of Bill S Preston, Esquire, and Ted “Theodore” Logan:
“Be excellent to each other”
It’s really not that difficult to do the right thing, be an upstanding citizen, and contribute to a decent society.
Party on, dude
party on @dirigibleprotein and @Aurenkin!
A few years ago I read a post about self improvement where someone wrote about the concept of no-zero-days to form habits. It basically means you just need to do something meaningful every day to make it count, even if it’s something very small. Read one page in a book - no zero day, do 10k steps - no zero day…
Of all the things I read and tried in the past to change my behavior, get more active, learn new things etc, this by far worked the best for me and basically changed my life.
Right now I have 18 different habits I’m tracking on my phone. Things like reading, learning Spanish, doing chores, solving a puzzle on lichess, taking a cold shower, learning something about world affairs/history, taking care of my finances, meditating etc…
I don’t need to do all of them, one is enough. But because they require so little effort I quickly started to do more and developed habits I don’t need to force myself to do.
Now I have a 1500+ day streak on Duolingo and do 2-5 minutes of Spanish lessons every day. For more than 4 freaking years. This eventually ended up in visiting a language school in Spain last summer. One of my best vacations ever.
I read almost daily and found interest in new genres. I get enough exercise at least a few times a week. I educated myself about finances and now I don’t live paycheck to paycheck, paid off my debt and started to save something.
I later read about this concept in the book Atomic Habits and found variations of it in songs like Little Acorns by the White Stripes. In the end it’s about breaking things up into small, easy pieces so you don’t get overwhelmed or give up before you even start.
If anyone asks me what I swear by it’s this. It’s like magic.
If you wouldn’t take advice from someone, then don’t accept their criticism.
I see your blackwings and I raise you my mechanical contestant - the uniball kuru toga. The rotating lead gimmick actually works pretty well and the elite has just such a nice weight to it because the barrel is this nice knurled metal thing (I think the advance upgrade is also metal, but I don’t have that one to compare)
Speaking of uniball, while I’m normally a fountain pen adherent, my go to non-fountain pen is the uniball eye. Such a surprisingly nice pen for the price, and while it’s not exactly the same, because it’s a liquid ink roller ball it’s still much nicer to write with because you don’t have to apply pressure to make it write.
Oh I’ve been curious about mechanical pencils with rotating lead! The rotation mechanism activates whenever you lift the tip up off the page right? Do you think it would still benefit folks who mostly write in cursive?
They’re neat (I’ve only tried Uni’s), though imho I prefer the manual control of a regular mech/pencil when writing in cursive, because then I can choose when to rotate the lead (ie by rotating the entire pencils).
If you’re used to writing with pencils you don’t even think about it anymore. It’s as natural as dotting an
i.It behaves closer to a regular mechanical pencil for cursive, but there is some difference. Ngl I use mine for maths and numbers and diagrammes so I don’t run into that issue a lot
If someone can’t explain how something works, they either don’t know how it works out don’t want you to know how it works.
Things can be complicated and have nuance, but there should be a general basic theory.
The thing is, sometimes you just can’t find the right words to explain it in a simple way. It happens to me all the time.
I usually forgive not knowing the right vocabulary as long as it is close enough.
Finding vocabulary at all can be a challenge in and of itself. If I get too lost for words I sometimes can’t find any - it’s not that I don’t know how things work, I don’t know how to say it.
No-one ever lay on their death bed wishing they’d done more ironing.
On the whole (unless it’s necessary for a professional environment) it’s a waste of time. I iron nothing, and got rid of my ironing board because it was just getting in the way. I’ve kept my iron just in case, but last time it was used was about 5 years ago when a friend was staying who needed to iron a shirt for a funeral.
I’ve found that a hand-held steamer (use distilled water) gets me by for those few cases where the wrinkles just have to be addressed.
Why distilled?
Distilled water has no dissolved solids, so when its turned into steam it leaves nothing behind. If you use regular tap water you’ll be eventually left with crusty calcium buildup on the nozzle of the device.
When it comes to food: Try everything once. You never know if you like it if you never try it.
I’m not talking get a whole plate of the food, but just try a small bite.
I had an ex who wouldn’t try anything, it was infuriating. I asked him once whether he liked a vegetable, he said no, I asked how it had been cooked when he had it as maybe he’d like it if it was done a different way, and he said he’d never tried it. The only vegetable he’d eat was broccoli. He got upset when I said he had the eating habits of a toddler but I stand by that.
For a moment I was wondering whether the “two minute rule” was a lower hygiene standard for the acceptable time in which you can eat things after dropping them on the floor.
The only thing I’ve found in life that I find super helpful or swear by is using dated lists to organise what needs doing in my life.
The dated lists I find helpful as well - I’ve been doing this daily for the past few months just to keep track of work tasks and personal tasks that I really shouldn’t forget about.
