1 like = 1 way to live better. I'll try to keep a ratio of 50% things I actually do, 50% things I should do but don't.
1. Eat lunch alone. Catching up with co-workers 5x/week doesn't do much beyond what you'd get from 1x/week, and a good podcast is more interesting than your best colleague.
2. There are more great podcasts than you'd ever have the time to listen to. If it sucks after 10 minutes, skip half an hour ahead. Still boring? Delete and move on. Obviously, do the same for books.
3. Buy a $20 bar of soap on Amazon just to see how it feels. If it doesn't do much for you, go back to $4 bars. Liquid soap has a very low ceiling, so don't bother.
4. Put a reminder on your phone to call your grandma. Ask her to tell you about some of the dumbest shit she has ever done.
5. If you love dogs but can't own one, volunteer to walk a neighbor's dog once a week. Dogs are part of the share economy.
6. Have sex in a public park at 1 am. 10% chance of getting caught = 10x erotic excitement.
7. Do vacations where you just spend two weeks in a city. You'll run out of touristy things to do and discover the climbing gyms, live shows, art classes that you'll love. You'll also be forced to start actually chatting with the locals.
8. Ask people to stop giving you non-consumable gifts. A physical thing that's not 100% what you need costs more in storage and opportunity cost than it's worth.
9. Take a tab of acid and hang out with a 5-year-old as equals.
10. The #1 measure of an exercise program is "is this fun enough to keep me coming back to the gym?" I don't care how "efficient" HIIT is, it's for masochists.
11. Binge a show/video game for a couple of weeks, then take a break from TV for a couple of weeks. Trying to limit yourself to an hour a day is less fun and more addictive.
12. If you're not obese, have you considered that losing 20 pounds will not actually solve your problems? Keep your weight stable, and work on the insecurities that make you scared to take your shirt off.
13. If you live in a big city, it's fine not to cook. The cooks at the Mexican spot on the corner are better than you and appreciate your patronage.
14. Any <$100 purchase that may turn into a hobby is worth it even if the hit rate is low. Sports equipment, a musical instrument, art supplies... If it doesn't catch, gift it to a friend.
15. Find a medium of expression and do it every day for three months. If you're a words person - 100 Tweets. An artist - 100 sketches on Instagram. Music/dance person - 100 TikToks.
16. Expensive personal lube is worth every penny. Same for hot sauce. Just don't get the bottles mixed up.
17. You just read 17 tweets in a row. Close your eyes and count to 10 to break the dopamine loop and make sure that browsing Twitter is the thing you want to do most right now.
18. If you have too little social life, wake up at 10 am every day. Too many people bothering you - wake up at 5 am.
19. If you can't give it up completely, try to constrain the bandwidth of how much you hear about politics. On Twitter, for example, you should mute 90% of the people on your timeline that talk about politics and mute the least-charitable term in every tweet that makes you angry.
20. Give meditation a 50 hour trial with a good app or guidebook. If it ain't your thing, give it up.
P.S.
The best places to meditate are cathedrals and church pews.
P.S.
The best places to meditate are cathedrals and church pews.
21. Play a competitive team sport, but don't show up if you're not ready for 100% effort - your teammates can tell.
22. If you're not having fun on dates, think of something you enjoy and do that as a date. Painting class dates, hiking dates, ping pong dates, board game dates...
23. Learn to be ok with nudity and to disentangle it from shame and sexuality. Go to a nudist lodge, or just throw a nude non-sexual party with your trusted friends.
24. If you're bored at home and hate it, move to Brooklyn. Stuck on another crowded subway and hate it - move to a college town in the mountains. The city you live in has a massive impact on your life. If you're single, consider also the dating market and gender ratio of singles.
25. Yes, moving to a new city will make you restart your social life from scratch. But is that a bad thing? Are you sure you have the best reputation / social role / circle of friends you could have?
26. Any life advice that isn't aimed at you personally is not designed to be followed to the letter. Try to resonate with the overall philosophy that generates it instead.
27. Do blind tastings of wines, then just keep buying the $10 bottle one you like best. Novelty is good, but let's be honest: you can't really tell different Malbecs apart that much. But buy great wine glasses - they last much longer than the bottle.
28. Put art on all your walls. If you can't afford originals, buy prints. Can't afford prints, buy posters. The selection criterion is a piece that you can stare at for at least 10 minutes straight the first time you see it. When you find better art, take down the old stuff.
29. If you're thinking about doing that degree, think twice. Can you start doing now what you hope to do with the credential? If it's a PhD, think ten times. Also underrated: dropping out of grad school one year in.
30. You won't get money, status, fascination, impact, and career capital at the same job. Pick two, get the rest elsewhere in your life.
31. Set a pile of bills on fire. Watch your partner kiss someone. Go to an open mic and bomb. Observe in precise detail how you feel. You will learn that your emotions are much more complex than "this is bad and painful", and they're often quite unexpected.
32. Take MDMA once a year, at home, with a person you care about.
33. Your parents can handle hearing about your crazy life, dumb mistakes, and weird opinions. How will they learn to respect you as an adult if you don't believe in your own story enough to share it?
34. If you've been waiting for months for someone to create an event and invite you, whether a book club or a BDSM orgy, just throw one yourself. Most social scenes suffer from lack of initiative, not excess.
35. Read Emily Dickinson, her poems are both poignant and immediately accessible. Memorize at least 5, they're quite short. The soul should always stand ajar...
36. Every week at the grocery store buy one ingredient you're not sure what to do with.
37. Not a single Rwandan child was helped by you finishing a meal you didn't enjoy.
38. Stand in the shower and repeat out loud "my opinions on guns, taxes and immigration have no impact on the world" until inner peace arrives.
39. Yes, manic pixie dream girls and insouciant bad boys. But have you tried dating sincere, honest, and responsible people who actually care about you?
40.
41. "I know we were just introduced, but I forgot your name."
"I saw the email you sent me last month, I just procrastinated and forgot."
"This is the best effort I was realistically going to make."
Try it, it's liberating.
"I saw the email you sent me last month, I just procrastinated and forgot."
"This is the best effort I was realistically going to make."
Try it, it's liberating.
42. If a friend makes less than half your income, you should pick a place in your price range and pay for both of you. And if a friend who makes 2x offers to do the same, accept it graciously.
43. If your spouse, friend, or family member is doing something dumb but not strictly harmful, try thinking of it as their artistic expression instead of using facts and logic to fail to talk them out of it.
44. Buy some crypto. Checking Coinbase every day provides the same excitement of checking social media, but at a fraction of the time expenditure.
45. Old: buy 20 of the same pair of black socks so you don't have to worry about matching.
Bold: buy 20 colorful pairs and don't worry about matching.
Bold: buy 20 colorful pairs and don't worry about matching.
46. Collect anonymous feedback from everyone you interact with. Here's where you can give me mine: admonymous.co/yashkaf
47. Do one of those threads. So far in a single day I've practiced brainstorming, made some Twitter friends, and actually thought about ways to improve my own life that I'm going to implement.
48. Shower in the evening instead of the morning. You'll sleep much better when you're clean, your muscles are relaxed, and your body cools after a warm shower. And if you don't sweat at night (keep the bedroom cool) you'll be clean in the morning.
49. Interview people you know, even if they're not famous or attraction. Just write down 10 questions and hit record. You'll learn a lot and deepen the relationship.
50. When you're home alone, blast some music and dance. Don't think about your body, just focus on the music. Then do the exact same thing when you're at a dance party.
51. Tinder is a terrible dating app in the US but an excellent way to find a dinner buddy while abroad. Make it explicit that that's what you're looking for.
52. Make one friend from every weird worldview you can. A Mormon friend, a SJW friend, a transhumanist friend, a crystal healing friend, an 8chan friend, a hard normie friend...
53. Study an ancient pantheon+mythology and find a god to channel. catb.org/~esr/writings/…
54. Take some improvisation classes and realize that the best way to approach most social situations is as an improv scene. This goes double for Twitter.
55. In ⚽/🎾/🏓/🏐 , keep your eye on the center of the ball through the hit. The goal/court/table doesn't move, only the ball does.
56. Wrestle while naked and covered in coconut oil.
57. Participate in exactly one riot in your life.
58. Order weird clothes off the internet. I just got a package of "Japanese streetwear" that I'm going to wear to a housewarming tomorrow.
59. Talk to people on flights. Start at the boarding gate. Offer people gummy bears to break the ice. If you're sitting next to boring people, find someone cool and ask to switch next to them.
60. Learn to make one cocktail really well and always have the ingredients at home. It impresses people, and no one ever expects you to pull off a second one. My go-to: cucumber elderflower gimlet.
61. Travel with a hiking backpack, not wheeled luggage. You want to move freely, not to be tied down to a heavy box dragging behind you.
62. If someone could really use your help but it's a big project, ask them to hire you at a fair price. Do the same when you need help. There are amazing win-wins to be had.
63. Sex doesn't have to be symmetrically satisfying every time. Some nights are just for giving, some are just for taking. Same for relationships in general.
64. Facebook is for event invites only, not for scrolling. The timeline content is worse than what you'd get anywhere else, the people you know in real life are not the people posting the best stuff online. And the algorithm is designed to fuck with your brain.
65. Get massages, give massages. You don't have to know what you're doing to make someone feel great. Use scentless baby oil, or moisturizer if the recipient is not going to shower afterward.
66. Before lying or doing something unethical, consider the possibility that you and everyone you know will live for hundreds of years with enhanced memory and reputation tracking.
67. Try a much harder mattress. Try a much softer mattress. They all have 100-day free trials now, there's no excuse for spending thousands of hours on a less-than-perfect mattress.
68. Cars are good now. You don't really have to learn anything about cars to own one. But you should learn some driving skills.
69. Nice!
Keep making this joke, happiness is built up of simple pleasures.
Keep making this joke, happiness is built up of simple pleasures.
70. Don't nitpick tweets, that's the opposite of good improv.
- "But what you wrote doesn't always apply because..." Congrats, you got someone annoyed and now you'll just sit there getting frustrated because you expect a response and aren't going to get one.
- "But what you wrote doesn't always apply because..." Congrats, you got someone annoyed and now you'll just sit there getting frustrated because you expect a response and aren't going to get one.
71. Once in a while let yourself cry, scream, fight, and eat your boogers. That shit worked in kindergarten, there's no reason to completely give up on all of it now.
72. There are way more fruits in the world than you know about. When you travel to South America or Asia buy a couple of each at the supermarket and try them.
73. Put more light in your house. More. Still more.
74. Stop lurking; write that comment. You know the saying about letting people suspect you're dumb rather than opening your mouth and removing all doubt? Fuck that. We know you're dumb, and you get less dumb by saying things and getting feedback.
75. Should you watch that movie / play that game / read that book? The formula is:
# who rated it 5/5 + # who rated it 1/5 - # who rated it 3/5. This doesn't apply to everything, but it applies to media.
# who rated it 5/5 + # who rated it 1/5 - # who rated it 3/5. This doesn't apply to everything, but it applies to media.
76. Most great music is made outside your country and in other languages. 
77. In any giant museum, your goal should be to spend 5+ minutes with 10 amazing works, not 5 seconds with 1,000. If it's the Louvre, one of those should be Guérin's "The Return of Marcus Sextus".
78. At any massive party/event, your goal should be to make 5 connections, not 500 business cards. Also, throw quarterly parties with only the most recent friends you've made to consolidate the relationships.
79. Unless the guests haven't seen each other in more than a year, parties with an agenda >> general hangouts. Some ideas: silent party, deep question party, touch/cuddle party, relating games party, art/performance party.
80. Free will. The anthropic principle. Solipsism. The simulation. Moral realism. They're fun to argue about at 2 am after several beers but don't take any of them seriously as guides to actually living your life. It should all add up to normalcy in the end.
81. Tell bad jokes as soon as you think of them, even if it's just to your exasperated spouse. You only start making good jokes once you remove the unconscious filter stifling your generative brain.
82. Unless one of them is your friend or boss, you should spend 100x less time thinking and talking about billionaires than you currently do.
83. Are you really going to give up on expressing yourself, learning from mistakes, attracting like-minded people, building a reputation, and changing the world because someone may someday try to cancel you? They can smell the fear, you know.
84. If you're moving chargers and cables around, you need to buy more chargers and cables. A girl in every port, a USB-C in every room.
85. Go to sleep at a reasonable time instead of trying to write 100 tweets in a day or catch up on all the other 100-tweet threads. Twitter will still be here tomorrow.
86. For a few days try to only eat a short lost of simple foods. For example, carrots+almonds+yogurt+water. You'll eat less during this without being hungry and enjoy food a lot more afterwards.
87. Do you know what a sex toy in your butt feels like? You should at least find out.
88. Don't put money in savings accounts, let alone CDs, let alone secured CDs. These are all scams. You should own mostly stocks, but if you want low-yield-low-volatility you can get the Fed rate with no lockup or fees at online brokerages.
89. An espresso machine with all the functions (grinder, milk steamer, etc) not only makes better coffee but also provides you with a meaningful, multi-step ritual to start your day with.
90. Doctors are human, they have biases and make mistakes. It's your job to be educated about your conditions and the drugs you are prescribed. If you're confused, ask for details or a second opinion.
91. Most sexually active Americans have two things: herpes (often unsymptomatic for decades), and an irrational fear of herpes. It's not part of standard STD tests and worth checking. If you have it, congrats: you don't have to worry about catching it.
92. Giving life advice to a thousand people on Twitter is an act of service, but giving life advice to a single person is often a brash power move. Same for challenging people's models of the world. Remember that every act of communication has two sides and a context.
93. Don't keep watching a bad TV show just because your friends are talking about it, it's a terrible time trade-off. You can read a recap or even better - bring up richer topics of conversations.
94. Learn how caffeine and alcohol affect you. I know people whose quality of sleep improved dramatically once they stopped having coffee after lunch, it turns out they are metabolizing coffee very slowly.
95. If you're not waking up at sunrise on purpose, your bedroom should be dim when you wake. Put up blackout curtains and get rid of all electronic lights.
96. Every "spiritual" thing is worth trying at least once: Sunday mass, holotropic breathwork, any sort of ritual. They have purposes and benefits that can't be explained ahead of time.
97. Walk, and do things that encourage you to walk even more like soft-soled shoes and good audiobooks. Humans are made to walk, if you're not enjoying it and not getting 10k steps you can get there with good design choices.
98. If you think you're running 10 minutes late, text to say you'll be 15 minutes late. That way the other person gets one disappointment and one pleasant surprise. Most people do the opposite: say they're 5 minutes late and end up annoying the other and looking like total fools.
99. When you wake up to a long day on not enough sleep, start with tea instead of a triple espresso. You want to pace your caffeine intake instead of crashing at 1 pm.
100. That's it, fam, we made it to 💯!
The hundredth tip is to read putanumonit.com where I write about applying analytics where most people go by intuition and vice versa, and other ideas that this thread offers a taste of.
The hundredth tip is to read putanumonit.com where I write about applying analytics where most people go by intuition and vice versa, and other ideas that this thread offers a taste of.
101. I never said I'll cap it at 100, did I? The reason I didn't is that I wasn't sure if I have 100 in me. Anyway, tip 101 is: overpromise AND overdeliver.
102. When looking for employers, an absolute key is whether they're raking in 💵. No friendly culture, creative freedom, or generous package survive long in an unprofitable business. You're investing your time and energy in an employer, so think like an investor.
103. Habits are reinforced by your habitual environment. If you want to start meditating, doing pushups, intermittent fasting etc, try starting on a vacation where the new circumstances make it easier to integrate new habits.
104. At work, if someone needs me for a meeting/call, I don't accept until they send a clear agenda or list of questions. If I need someone's time, I always send a clear agenda and list of questions.
105. Keep fresh fruit around. Even I end up throwing a couple out once in a while, it's hugely valuable to have a tasty apple closer at hand than a cookie.
106. In case you missed it, humanity has fully optimized apples. Snapdragon, Zestar and SweeTango if you can find them, Honeycrisp as a backup, Fuji in a pinch. All other cultivars are a distraction.
107. You can wear the same outfit to the office two days in a row. Your boss won't notice. Your colleagues won't notice. The only people who'll notice are those who have a crush on you, so this is a good way to find out who those are.
108. You wouldn't clean a mud-print off a couch with dry toilet paper, would you? Extrapolate to the bathroom.
109. Becoming a tea connoisseur is as fun as becoming a whiskey connoisseur but much much cheaper. Craft beer snobbery is in the middle price-wise but can veer dangerously close to obnoxious hipsterism.
Start a tea club at work, it's an excuse to chill and socialize deliciously.
Start a tea club at work, it's an excuse to chill and socialize deliciously.
