6 ms·

Ask HN: What is your “I wish I did it sooner” moment?

51 points by softwareqrafter 9y ago

cvaidya1986 9y ago
Work on what’s interesting to me regardless of what’s cool or perceived as valuable
cvaidya1986 9y ago
Just ship and iterate
KGIII 9y ago
Hmm... I don't really have one. Oh, I've made lots of mistakes and done lots of things at the wrong times, but that is what has made me who I am. I kind of like who I am, so I wouldn't want to change that.
nhayfield 9y ago
Wish I bought bitcoin when it was $12.
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  Everyone I know who bought it at $10 sold it when it was $20, thinking they had the steal of the century.
- tabeth 9y ago
  Why don't you buy now? If may be worth $10,000 in the future. Though, it may also be worthless, too.
- rabidrat 9y ago
  I bought BTC around that price. But I lost my wallet key. :(
  - naveen99 9y ago
    Give hashcat a shot
  - celticninja 9y ago
    Do you still have the wallet?
fairpx 9y ago
For our company (http://fairpixels.pro http://fairpixels.pro) it was productisation. We used to operate like any other UI design agency, prospecting, talking to potential clients, going to networking events etc. But by productising our service, building a sales funnel and treating the entire flow as that of a SaaS. It enabled us to: * Lower prices (Since we didn't have to spend time networking, prospecting etc.) * Create predictable sales funnels * Spend more time working on the stuff we love, instead of wasting time with prospects that weren't interested in the first place.
chollida1 9y ago
I think I've said this before but its 3 things that all end up having the same effect. 1) Meditation to get my mind in check 2) Fitness/Diet, making sure I'm at an appropriate weight and fitness level 3) Sleep, shouldn't require any explanation. Having these 3 things in check is the equivalent of 10+ IQ points. The last two items shouldn't require any explanation but Meditation is one that people often have issues seeing the value of. For me meditation does 2 things, 1) it allows you to master the art of "staying in the zone". Lots of meditation is just accepting that you mind has many thoughts at once, acknowledging them and continuing on with what you are doing. Once you can master the art of acknowledging your thoughts but not letting them disturb you, it lets you maintain a flow state in the real world. I can now get interrupted and almost without fail immediately get back into a productive work state. 2) I've noticed that as I get older that most of what makes a person look smart in a conversation is that they've already had the same conversation and thought through their opinions. When mediating on an idea, its very similar to having these conversations about ideas. You get to flesh out your ideas by having this conversation with yourself. It's an invaluable took to have.
- mrks_ 9y ago
  Do you have any advice on how to build the meditation habit? I tried reading and following Search Inside Yourself, but it didn't stick.
  - cw_ds 9y ago
    There are apps that will count your streak. Some paid, some free. I've seen that help lots of people get consistent with it. My own is to pick an easy time and duration to meditate for, such as every night before you get into bed for 5 minutes. I think for folks on the lazier side (like me) the habit for something like meditation should start with as much convenience as possible. That's how I started flossing every night (and started having good visits to the dentist for once).
  - chollida1 9y ago
    Nothing that I'm sure would "Just work" for everyone. For me a few things I do when I'm trying to build a habit, this is general to building habits and not specific to meditation. 1) Like going to the gym you need to do it on a schedule. Even if you don't feel like going to the gym just go for 5 minutes, if you don't feel it then leave. Meditation is the same. Just do it for 5 minutes, if you aren't feeling it then stop. 2) do it every day, even if its not the same time each day, even if you get interrupted, even if you aren't feeling it, just do it. 5 minutes each day is better than not trying because you believe you are too busy. I do it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 3) Track it to make sure you are making progress. Something about what gets measured gets done. Truer words have never been spoken. 4) Give it time, again using the gym analogy, expect it to be a good month before you start to see results. I mean you might see results earlier, but doing it for a week and getting frustrated that you aren't seeing any results is, well, silly. But I think alot of people actually make this very mistake. You wouldn't expect to run 3 times and then run a marathon on your next outing. Meditation follows the "before you are good, you'll be very bad at it" law that most things follow.
Schizotypy 9y ago
Fucking bitcoin. I should have invested when I first learned about it, it was $4 per btc
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Wanted to put in $7k, at $7, so 1,000 coins. But I didn't want to send a copy of my passport to some shady (Magic the Gathering) exchange in Japan. And it would take 3+ weeks before I could get my coins. What an idiot I was.
  - adamnemecek 9y ago
    I could have bought 10000 btc for 50usd. I’m still crying myself to sleep some nights. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92.0 The reason I didn’t was because back then that was like half iirc of all btc and I was suspicious.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Horrible thing to say, but at least I feel a bit better now! Too bad I didn't hear about Bitcoin in 2010. I hadn't heard about it until like 2012.
      - redmaple 9y ago
        I mined and threw away ~400 btc around 2010-2011 :(( ... twice
- limeblack 9y ago
  Having friends that did this you would be surprised how much of it was mined away. My friend bought some early and lost it all do to mining.
  - odonnellryan 9y ago
    What do you mean?
methodover 9y ago
Joined an ultimate frisbee rec league, a year ago. And I'd never played a team sport before, unless you count middle school basketball. It's turned out to be a great community. Plus it's great exercise, of course. And it encouraged me to improve my cardiovascular system, so I wouldn't poop out so quickly on the field. The community is the big thing though.
andrei_says_ 9y ago
Stop eating processed sugar(s), white flower and meat. Learn to let go of opinions I am attached to and become open to alternatives faster (it is actually a body trick). Embrace myself fully with all my “defects”.
- kostarelo 9y ago
  What's the body trick?
- lastofus 9y ago
  For the last week I've been making a conscious effort to only eat foods with no sugar. It turns out, this is way easier said than done. It seems like this limits your diet only to vegetables and meats (or meat substitutes). Things I would've never expected with sugar nutritional facts. Things like whole wheat loaf bread, plain unflavored yogurt, and cottage cheese. One would think they would have sugar-free options if you look hard enough, I can't seem to find any.
  - ohyes 9y ago
    Sugar is in bread and yogurt and cheese naturally. It's required for the fermentation process to happen. The real concern IMO is sugar added. This should be pretty easy to find for cheese and yogurt, for bread you might have to get into homemade / high quality sourdough (real sourdough) to not have sugar added.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    The natural sugars found in dairy and fruits are much different for your body than refined sugars. I avoid refined sugars, but my diet contains a lot of sugar from (plain, with cut up bananas) greek yogurt, milk and kefir.
- sethjgore 9y ago
  What is white flower? Carbs?
  - 9y ago
cvaidya1986 9y ago
Stopped explaining myself
kentt 9y ago
i3wm. I thought it couldn't be that much better, it just a window manager. Now it's hard to imagine using anything else. If you want to get started the long exhaustive way, start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1I63wGcvU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1I63wGcvU4.
- iopuy 9y ago
  Definitely a technical thing... but I agree using a tiling windows manager has brought new and improved changes to my work flow as a developer. The thing no one ever talks about is you must also have a standard (gnome, kde, etc) windows manager handy to use at a moments notice because there are things that will be hidden in a tiling manager and you won't know they are gone if it is the first time running a program. Setting up a VPN, doing heavy duty network config, and system administration I would advocate are better suited trying for the first time without a tiling manager. After the steps have been mastered and the command are known is when i3wm really shines. I'm sure there are many counterpoints speaking to how easy it is to use i3wm to configure XYZ but after years of using it I am drawn to launching new programs without it to get a feel for them until I learn the requisite commands and switch over to i3wm.
- bananicorn 9y ago
  Same, but with st[0] - besides being one of the few git repos I downloaded which compiled on the first try. (I actually had the luck to hear about i3 when setting up my arch install for the first time, but hell yeah I agree on that). [0]st.suckless.org
pasbesoin 9y ago
Stopped believing authority figures. Listened to myself and my own intuition -- both informed and "gut reactions". Acted on same. Learned to defend myself. Mentally, physically, emotionally.
flashman 9y ago
This isn't happening for a month or two yet, but I hope moving out of an expensive city to work remotely will be my moment.
PascLeRasc 9y ago
For me it's been to stop trying to learn software development just because it's hip and there are a lot of jobs in it. I just really could not care less about it. It's let me spend more time on things I do care about like hardware development and industrial design. If I can't physically touch something I don't care about working on it. Oh, and meditation, L-Theanine, and taking walks outside during work breaks.
Arete3141 9y ago
I wish I had known when I was younger that a lot of the people who shoot down ideas, minimize your creativity, and say "that's impossible" aren't smarter than you. They're just more insecure. It's easier to say no to everything and look like a genius, then to say "I wonder...", and try, and fail, and try some more -- and perhaps (who knows?) actually be a genius. With all of the concomitant messiness and failures and actual real life kept in the mix.
- zootam 9y ago
  >Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. ― Steve Jobs
blawson 9y ago
The day after I figure out how to navigate modern life without a smartphone.
k4ch0w 9y ago
Realizing that other people aren't way more intelligent than me and i'm stupid. It's just a perception based on nothing more then them acting more confidently, because they had an upbringing that gave them more self esteem. When the time came to perform I always exceeded the expectations of those around me because I always beat myself up and told myself I was stupid and not good enough. The insecurity pushed me to always try harder but in the end I was better than I realized. I just one day had to let it go and realize those thoughts of not being good enough weren't real. Another thing is stopping relationships with people that would belittle, insult or use me. I instead paid close attention to who was there for me and built me up. I gave those people 5x the attention and built a stronger relationship with them because thats who you want in your life. Quality friends > Quantity. If someone keeps blowing you off you aren't a priority in their life, and you should treat them the same. Oo last one. Ask that cute girl out, if you're reading this, I know you are more than good enough.
taway_1212 9y ago
I (at least partially) wish I didn’t spend so much time looking for my „true calling” (which I didn’t find), and just ground my way to early retirement in high paying jobs. The search made me a more interesting person, but without it, I could be retired already.
- anotheryou 9y ago
  I decided quite early to separate calling and job, but tried to keep a balance between both. A part-time career is difficult too :) I'm currently grinding an a 40h-week. My plan is to do it for a year for money and reputation and than find something part time, which sadly is quite difficult as a product owner/project manager. Maaaybe some start-up that doesn't want to pay full price :).

cvaidya1986 9y ago

Work on what’s interesting to me regardless of what’s cool or perceived as valuable

cvaidya1986 9y ago

Just ship and iterate

KGIII 9y ago

Hmm... I don't really have one. Oh, I've made lots of mistakes and done lots of things at the wrong times, but that is what has made me who I am. I kind of like who I am, so I wouldn't want to change that.

nhayfield 9y ago

Wish I bought bitcoin when it was $12.

AznHisoka 9y ago
Everyone I know who bought it at $10 sold it when it was $20, thinking they had the steal of the century.
tabeth 9y ago
Why don't you buy now? If may be worth $10,000 in the future. Though, it may also be worthless, too.
rabidrat 9y ago
I bought BTC around that price. But I lost my wallet key. :(
- naveen99 9y ago
  Give hashcat a shot
- celticninja 9y ago
  Do you still have the wallet?

fairpx 9y ago

For our company (http://fairpixels.pro http://fairpixels.pro) it was productisation. We used to operate like any other UI design agency, prospecting, talking to potential clients, going to networking events etc. But by productising our service, building a sales funnel and treating the entire flow as that of a SaaS. It enabled us to: * Lower prices (Since we didn't have to spend time networking, prospecting etc.) * Create predictable sales funnels * Spend more time working on the stuff we love, instead of wasting time with prospects that weren't interested in the first place.

chollida1 9y ago

I think I've said this before but its 3 things that all end up having the same effect. 1) Meditation to get my mind in check 2) Fitness/Diet, making sure I'm at an appropriate weight and fitness level 3) Sleep, shouldn't require any explanation. Having these 3 things in check is the equivalent of 10+ IQ points. The last two items shouldn't require any explanation but Meditation is one that people often have issues seeing the value of. For me meditation does 2 things, 1) it allows you to master the art of "staying in the zone". Lots of meditation is just accepting that you mind has many thoughts at once, acknowledging them and continuing on with what you are doing. Once you can master the art of acknowledging your thoughts but not letting them disturb you, it lets you maintain a flow state in the real world. I can now get interrupted and almost without fail immediately get back into a productive work state. 2) I've noticed that as I get older that most of what makes a person look smart in a conversation is that they've already had the same conversation and thought through their opinions. When mediating on an idea, its very similar to having these conversations about ideas. You get to flesh out your ideas by having this conversation with yourself. It's an invaluable took to have.

mrks_ 9y ago
Do you have any advice on how to build the meditation habit? I tried reading and following Search Inside Yourself, but it didn't stick.
- cw_ds 9y ago
  There are apps that will count your streak. Some paid, some free. I've seen that help lots of people get consistent with it. My own is to pick an easy time and duration to meditate for, such as every night before you get into bed for 5 minutes. I think for folks on the lazier side (like me) the habit for something like meditation should start with as much convenience as possible. That's how I started flossing every night (and started having good visits to the dentist for once).
- chollida1 9y ago
  Nothing that I'm sure would "Just work" for everyone. For me a few things I do when I'm trying to build a habit, this is general to building habits and not specific to meditation. 1) Like going to the gym you need to do it on a schedule. Even if you don't feel like going to the gym just go for 5 minutes, if you don't feel it then leave. Meditation is the same. Just do it for 5 minutes, if you aren't feeling it then stop. 2) do it every day, even if its not the same time each day, even if you get interrupted, even if you aren't feeling it, just do it. 5 minutes each day is better than not trying because you believe you are too busy. I do it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 3) Track it to make sure you are making progress. Something about what gets measured gets done. Truer words have never been spoken. 4) Give it time, again using the gym analogy, expect it to be a good month before you start to see results. I mean you might see results earlier, but doing it for a week and getting frustrated that you aren't seeing any results is, well, silly. But I think alot of people actually make this very mistake. You wouldn't expect to run 3 times and then run a marathon on your next outing. Meditation follows the "before you are good, you'll be very bad at it" law that most things follow.

Schizotypy 9y ago

Fucking bitcoin. I should have invested when I first learned about it, it was $4 per btc

charlesdm 9y ago
Wanted to put in $7k, at $7, so 1,000 coins. But I didn't want to send a copy of my passport to some shady (Magic the Gathering) exchange in Japan. And it would take 3+ weeks before I could get my coins. What an idiot I was.
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  I could have bought 10000 btc for 50usd. I’m still crying myself to sleep some nights. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=92.0 The reason I didn’t was because back then that was like half iirc of all btc and I was suspicious.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Horrible thing to say, but at least I feel a bit better now! Too bad I didn't hear about Bitcoin in 2010. I hadn't heard about it until like 2012.
    - redmaple 9y ago
      I mined and threw away ~400 btc around 2010-2011 :(( ... twice
limeblack 9y ago
Having friends that did this you would be surprised how much of it was mined away. My friend bought some early and lost it all do to mining.
- odonnellryan 9y ago
  What do you mean?

methodover 9y ago

Joined an ultimate frisbee rec league, a year ago. And I'd never played a team sport before, unless you count middle school basketball. It's turned out to be a great community. Plus it's great exercise, of course. And it encouraged me to improve my cardiovascular system, so I wouldn't poop out so quickly on the field. The community is the big thing though.

andrei_says_ 9y ago

Stop eating processed sugar(s), white flower and meat. Learn to let go of opinions I am attached to and become open to alternatives faster (it is actually a body trick). Embrace myself fully with all my “defects”.

kostarelo 9y ago
What's the body trick?
lastofus 9y ago
For the last week I've been making a conscious effort to only eat foods with no sugar. It turns out, this is way easier said than done. It seems like this limits your diet only to vegetables and meats (or meat substitutes). Things I would've never expected with sugar nutritional facts. Things like whole wheat loaf bread, plain unflavored yogurt, and cottage cheese. One would think they would have sugar-free options if you look hard enough, I can't seem to find any.
- ohyes 9y ago
  Sugar is in bread and yogurt and cheese naturally. It's required for the fermentation process to happen. The real concern IMO is sugar added. This should be pretty easy to find for cheese and yogurt, for bread you might have to get into homemade / high quality sourdough (real sourdough) to not have sugar added.
- thisacctforreal 9y ago
  The natural sugars found in dairy and fruits are much different for your body than refined sugars. I avoid refined sugars, but my diet contains a lot of sugar from (plain, with cut up bananas) greek yogurt, milk and kefir.
sethjgore 9y ago
What is white flower? Carbs?
- 9y ago

cvaidya1986 9y ago

Stopped explaining myself

kentt 9y ago

i3wm. I thought it couldn't be that much better, it just a window manager. Now it's hard to imagine using anything else. If you want to get started the long exhaustive way, start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1I63wGcvU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1I63wGcvU4.

iopuy 9y ago
Definitely a technical thing... but I agree using a tiling windows manager has brought new and improved changes to my work flow as a developer. The thing no one ever talks about is you must also have a standard (gnome, kde, etc) windows manager handy to use at a moments notice because there are things that will be hidden in a tiling manager and you won't know they are gone if it is the first time running a program. Setting up a VPN, doing heavy duty network config, and system administration I would advocate are better suited trying for the first time without a tiling manager. After the steps have been mastered and the command are known is when i3wm really shines. I'm sure there are many counterpoints speaking to how easy it is to use i3wm to configure XYZ but after years of using it I am drawn to launching new programs without it to get a feel for them until I learn the requisite commands and switch over to i3wm.
bananicorn 9y ago
Same, but with st[0] - besides being one of the few git repos I downloaded which compiled on the first try. (I actually had the luck to hear about i3 when setting up my arch install for the first time, but hell yeah I agree on that). [0]st.suckless.org

pasbesoin 9y ago

Stopped believing authority figures. Listened to myself and my own intuition -- both informed and "gut reactions". Acted on same. Learned to defend myself. Mentally, physically, emotionally.

flashman 9y ago

This isn't happening for a month or two yet, but I hope moving out of an expensive city to work remotely will be my moment.

PascLeRasc 9y ago

For me it's been to stop trying to learn software development just because it's hip and there are a lot of jobs in it. I just really could not care less about it. It's let me spend more time on things I do care about like hardware development and industrial design. If I can't physically touch something I don't care about working on it. Oh, and meditation, L-Theanine, and taking walks outside during work breaks.

Arete3141 9y ago

I wish I had known when I was younger that a lot of the people who shoot down ideas, minimize your creativity, and say "that's impossible" aren't smarter than you. They're just more insecure. It's easier to say no to everything and look like a genius, then to say "I wonder...", and try, and fail, and try some more -- and perhaps (who knows?) actually be a genius. With all of the concomitant messiness and failures and actual real life kept in the mix.

zootam 9y ago
>Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. ― Steve Jobs

blawson 9y ago

The day after I figure out how to navigate modern life without a smartphone.

k4ch0w 9y ago

Realizing that other people aren't way more intelligent than me and i'm stupid. It's just a perception based on nothing more then them acting more confidently, because they had an upbringing that gave them more self esteem. When the time came to perform I always exceeded the expectations of those around me because I always beat myself up and told myself I was stupid and not good enough. The insecurity pushed me to always try harder but in the end I was better than I realized. I just one day had to let it go and realize those thoughts of not being good enough weren't real. Another thing is stopping relationships with people that would belittle, insult or use me. I instead paid close attention to who was there for me and built me up. I gave those people 5x the attention and built a stronger relationship with them because thats who you want in your life. Quality friends > Quantity. If someone keeps blowing you off you aren't a priority in their life, and you should treat them the same. Oo last one. Ask that cute girl out, if you're reading this, I know you are more than good enough.

taway_1212 9y ago

I (at least partially) wish I didn’t spend so much time looking for my „true calling” (which I didn’t find), and just ground my way to early retirement in high paying jobs. The search made me a more interesting person, but without it, I could be retired already.

anotheryou 9y ago
I decided quite early to separate calling and job, but tried to keep a balance between both. A part-time career is difficult too :) I'm currently grinding an a 40h-week. My plan is to do it for a year for money and reputation and than find something part time, which sadly is quite difficult as a product owner/project manager. Maaaybe some start-up that doesn't want to pay full price :).