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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
I changed the icon location, and my muscle memory still was trying to open them from the previous location, basically in a complete auto-pilot mode. That led me to a realization of how fucked up the situation was, and eventually helped me uninstall/reduce screen time of those apps.
For some reason I always have a habit of scroll to the bottom of any list and reading up. Like I wanna confirm how long the list is before working my way up
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 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-
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.
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’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.)
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.
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?
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.
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.”
Another adjacent life hack is when assembling flat pack furniture, use a quality wood glue on all the joints and connectors, but especially those little wood dowels. It won’t make it indestructible, but it’ll hold up far better over time.
I’m so glad you posted this - my integrated fridge door has dropped slightly after being taken off and put back on when installed. Can’t really screw back into mdf/chipboard/whatever and I’ve been stressing about getting it fixed for months because whilst it’ll get worse over time, it technically works and no doubt the fitter would say I need to take the whole thing out and replace the side panel.
Sometimes fridge doors sag because the bushings on the hinges break or deteriorate. I’ve fixed them before by adding washers in place of the bushings, or cutting a new bushing out of a hard plastic cutting board.
Well the toothpick shifts to one side as you put the screw in.
The problem with a stripped hole is that the hole is now as wide as the screw, so the screw has nothing to grip anymore. Conventional wisdom in this case is that you should get a wider screw and try again, but that’s not always something you have on hand, especially when travelling.
But the toothpick hack takes it the other way. It’s effectively narrowing the hole again by taking up space in it, and now your same screw can work again.
You can do something similar with damaged metal threads, instead of toothpicks using copper wire strands. Project Farm has a video on the technique comparing it to other fixes: youtube.com/watch?v=jknMrFOGMOQ
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This works for so many occasions too. At a watermelon eating contest? Backup in the car. Going to a funeral? Backup in the car. Need to bury a body? Backup clothing, right there.
Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Thank you. It’s worse than you think. I’ve recently uploaded 20,000 photos to my laptop… which now has about 30k photos on it. A majority of those are of my cats. The quantity exploded when we got baby kittens.
10,000 years from now, once they dig out the digital backups and find your strangely well-preserved collection. They will immediately assume from the sheer proportion of photos of yourself vs your cats, that cats were the dominant life form who kept humans around as pets
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).
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.
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
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.
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…
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.
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.
There’s a difference between high quality plastic performing filtration while it’s cold plastic and cold water vs crap plastic that’s regularly exposed to high temperatures during transport and storage with the same water contained the entire time.
Maybe, I’m no expert. But, I’ve seen a test showing a consumer water filter increasing microplastics by 1000%. Could just be only that specific filter or filter type. I believe it was a Zero filter, which I think uses resin beads for ion exchange.
Interesting, I used ZeroWater for a while … and know others that do. But yeah, searching around it seems it’s only ConsumerLabs.com that came up with that result and all other filters were removing microplastics.
I have a water filter at home. I never use bottled water. Almost every public space also has clean and safe water so if you bring a reusable water bottle with you, you’ll have free water everywhere.
Take one end in each hand, hold it “like a frown” in front of you.
Bend it in half downward and bite the peak of the bend with one of your canines.
when it snaps open, shove one half of the banana into your mouth, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
Shovel the other half into your mount, (chew if needed, then) swallow.
Bananas are the way they are through millenia of selective breeding, so there’s no reason to think that monkeys know anything we don’t. If pinching the bottom is easier than bending the stem, your banana isn’t ripe yet and doesn’t want to be eaten until later.
Yes. Every time, it’s gone less well than opening a banana from the stem end, unless the banana was horrendously underripe. I’ve never had the problem the alternative approach is claiming to fix unless I’ve intentionally opened the banana badly on purpose to prove a point about the problem really being people opening from the stem end incompetently.
While I can concede your point that it’s feasible and possibly even more practical to open from the stem, I gotta say that since switching to the other end years ago(because I saw a similar thread on reddit), it’s been super easy and I’ve had zero issues. The stem just has a higher rate of fucking up, but it’s not like either end will fully decimate the banana. Peeling properly after it’s opened is an easy fix either way.
A) that seems backwards: an under ripe banana will be stiff inside so you can snap the peel around the stem when you bend it, while a riper, softer banana will mush inside when you bend the stem. And,
A) The peel becomes easier to tear faster than the inside gets softer. You don’t need to snap it, it doesn’t need nearly enough tension to count as a snap once it’s ripe.
B) The banana’s been selectively bred to want to be as delicious as possible. It only wants you to be happy.
My partner hates when I open bananas like this because there’s a little dark part of the banana under that end of the peel that she calls “The Ban-anus” and thinks it’s gross even if I pick off that part and don’t eat it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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:
“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.
I have given away things I state are broken but if someone wants to try and fix them it’s free on Marketplace. I did not have to take one thing to the dump when I moved last time this way. The guy messaged me later and said he was able to get a new pump for my old espresso machine and get it working nicely, so good for him.
I fully agree on the safety razor! I got so frustrated with the multiblade razors. Since I tried the safety razor, I never looked back. And as a woman, I don’t have a beard or super thick hair, they work their charm just the same :)
I bought a 50 pack of feather blades and a 12 pack of arko sticks in 2014 and I’m still going through them. I’ve been shaving for a decade on like a $30 expense.
I’ve got a pre-paid, burner sim card for bullshit like this so I don’t have to use my real number for anything.
Keep a bullshit number, bullshit email address and keep bullshit name/DoB. The pro-tip there is to start valuing your privacy and stop giving companies your data.
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.
It’s a reporting system for vehicles so that the next owners of a vehicle know its repair history. It will also tell you if any loans or leins are placed against the vehicle, so you don’t get screwed.