Numbered Life Advice from Some People I Admire

A lot of people I admire have been writing advice in list form recently! Here are some that resonate with me:

John Hodgman:

1. Try to be around people that make you feel genuinely happy

2. Disengage from people who make you feel bad and don’t care about how you feel

3. Do more favors than you ask for

4. Remember it always hurts to ask

5. Let people know when you are genuinely thinking nice things about them and be alert to the more frequent times when you are not thinking about anyone but yourself at all, and remember that we are all like this, and so if someone lets you down, let them off the hook. You are letting plenty of people down all the time in small ways and that’s how it goes being an individual human being.

6. Don’t sit on the same side of a booth in a restaurant even if you are lovers

7. Don’t leave a lot of voicemails

8. Please don’t write lots of long emails

9. Be nice

and that’s all you need to do.

Andrew WK:

To be a real human being, you must try...

1. To care about someone and something more than yourself.

2. To accept help from someone even when you believe you don't need anyone.

3. To cheer people up and bring them simple joy in times when it seems hardest to smile.

4. To bring loving comfort and sincere hugs in the midst of violence, pain, and suffering.

5. To recognize your own shortcomings and failings before lashing out at another's weakness.

6. To have true compassion when someone's in a bad mood, with the understanding that they might be going through a hardship you're not aware of.

7. To constantly remember that life is a fragile and precious miracle which requires all our collective effort to protect.

8. To humbly work to improve our own defects and cut everyone else a little more slack.

9. To remember that being a loving and positive person isn't always easy, but it's always worth it.

10. And lastly, to never give up on the power of humanity and on your own potential to be a caring, loving person.

(something I like is that this was his reaction to a list of "how to be a real man", rejecting all that jazz)

Werner Herzog:

1. Always take the initiative.
2. There is nothing wrong with spending a night in jail if it means getting the shot you need.
3. Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey.
4. Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief.
5. Learn to live with your mistakes.
6. Expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature, old and modern.
7. That roll of unexposed celluloid you have in your hand might be the last in existence, so do something impressive with it.
8. There is never an excuse not to finish a film.
9. Carry bolt cutters everywhere.
10. Thwart institutional cowardice.
11. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
12. Take your fate into your own hands.
13. Learn to read the inner essence of a landscape.
14. Ignite the fire within and explore unknown territory.
15. Walk straight ahead, never detour.
16. Manoeuvre and mislead, but always deliver.
17. Don't be fearful of rejection.
18. Develop your own voice.
19. Day one is the point of no return.
20. A badge of honor is to fail a film theory class.
21. Chance is the lifeblood of cinema.
22. Guerrilla tactics are best.
23. Take revenge if need be.
24. Get used to the bear behind you.

Justin McElroy:

-You can be funny and kind or funny and cruel. The second one is easier, but the first one is worth it.

-Dip the french fry in the Frosty. Go on, try it.

-Habit is a powerful force we forget about until it’s turned against us. Be careful which ones you create.

-You will remember the most embarrassing crap you do in your life forever and in perfect clarity. Everyone else will remember the kindest things you do. It all comes out in the wash.

-If you’re doing a remote podcast, it’s worth it to record audio locally and mix it together. Trust me on this one.

-You’re the only one who can let go of your grudges. It’s worth it, I promise. They’re not doing you any good.

-Doing the good, brave, kind things can feel silly if you let your internal critic get in the way. Reminder: No one else can hear that guy.

-I can count on one hand the number of times putting out negativity has brought me back something worthwhile and even when it works it feels terrible.

-Want to be better-liked immediately? Today? Right now? Use people’s names. Ask more questions. Make the person you’re talking to feel important without empty flattery.

-Don’t correct people. Unless their wrongness will lead to them getting hurt or hurting someone else. You’ll have a fleeting sense of superiority and they’ll resent you. Nothing worthwhile comes of it. This used to be so hard, but now I cringe when someone else does it.

-Cooking a Hot Pocket in the oven may seem counterintuitive, but man, it can really elevate it.

-Learning to appreciate things you don’t initially enjoy is the power to fill the world with stuff you like.

-Empathy is the final step of maturity. It can take some work, but you’ll be shocked how much easier the world is to navigate when you remember to use it.

-You’re probably not drinking enough water.

-There’s no narrative to your life, no arc, no reward for achieving all the things you want. That kind of thinking is a recipe for a you-centric world view and is a very lonely road. Focus instead on the role you play in the stories of others. When I was young, there was an old man named Brady at our church who always had gum. No matter what, Brady always had gum that he offered up freely. When he died, it devastated our youth group and I still remember him two decades later. Brady might have only played a bit role in all our life stories, but by playing it with generosity and kindness he achieved a sort of immortality. Putting others first with a cheerful heart isn’t easy, but because of that, even the smallest acts can leave an incalculable impact.

-Don’t read the comments. And when you do, only reply to the nice ones.

Checklists Will Save Your Butt

One of the things that makes preparing for travel the most stressful for me is worrying about forgetting to pack something. There's too many things to keep track of, and I have in fact forgotten very important things on numerous trips. Including my underpants. (which is why to this day some of them have tags in swedish)

This time I'm using checklists, and it's made all the difference. Whenever I thought of something that I need to remember to take on my trip, I added it to a "to do" list on my phone. Then in the last frantic minutes before I left all, I had to do was to go through the list.

This is an obvious idea, but I think it's more powerful than I realized. I read a whole book about it, called the Checklist Manifesto. It wasn't very good, but I got the main point, which is that you should use checklists. Super highly trained professionals with thousands of hours of experience, like airline pilots and surgeons, use them, so there's no shame in it.

I keep a checklist for things to pack, and one for leaving hotel rooms, and one for before I run a participant on my experiment and one for after they finish. I'm sure I'll find lots more uses for them in the future.

The most important point is that it be a physical list, and that you physically check things off. A "mental checklist" doesn't count. At all!

The whole point is to stop that feeling of constantly rereminding yourself of important things - what David Allen in Getting Things Done calls "open loops". That's stressful, and that takes away from your focus. Also, your brain sucks at it.

But really keeping that list, and really checking it off, always takes willpower for me! There is always a voice in my head that says, "this time, you've got it - you don't need to actually go through the list". And that's when things go south.

Look at it this way: say you have a list of 8 items. Even if you would only forget one item, one time in five (although for me it's more like one time in one) that one item will still be worth the few seconds it takes to check it. Especially if that item is your passport or visa. I'll just keep telling myself that.

More checklist tips:

• Start making it right away. As soon as packing is on your mind. And throw things on there as soon as you think of them, thus closing the "open loop".
• If you use an electronic checklist, like a "to do" app on your phone, then it is easier to always have on hand. I use a nice basic open source one called Simply Do.
• With an electronic one you can also reuse it: simply uncheck all the items.
• Keep it pruned, complete and current. Try to make sure every single thing you need to remember is on there, and don't have a single thing on there you don't need to remember (at least don't leave it unchecked)

Trusting your checklist is hard, and wariness of false security is a good instinct. But I think that's where you should focus your effort, on your checklists, not on constantly mentally scanning for things you've forgotten: even with a simple trip, there are too many things, and stuff will fall out, like a boarding pass from a loosely-held boarding pass envelope. (something else that has happened to me!)