Resting well.<p>Babies will usually cry because they're too tired to sleep and can't sleep because they're too tired from crying all night. Adults sort of fall into this pattern too, especially when they feel like they need to sleep more, and get too stressed out to sleep. Some of the most productive people and fastest learners know how to fall asleep as soon as they want to, and how to get enough rest.<p>Siestas too.<p>Besides sleep, there's relaxation in general. Social media is probably the worst - it floods the brain with things, that aren't all that relaxing, but some mistake it for relaxation because it's mildly entertaining and unproductive. Everyone has a form of relaxation that's refreshing for them, and a form that's unhealthy and addictive. I relax well with Netflix, but many feel stressed out with it and binge on bad shows.<p>The better you rest, the more you enjoy life, reduce depression, and the harder you can push yourself.
Exercising. Can't stress on this enough! It's known to improve mood, lend a hand in fighting depression and helps your brain health and memory[1] so that you can find other compounding habits<p>[1] <a href="https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-benefits-of-exercise" rel="nofollow">https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-benefits-of-exercise</a> - this article has citations embedded.
I think it was Shannon, or Knuth, or someone of that stature in a lecture, where he said the following (paraphrased from memory, I'm sorry for butchering this whole quote, I hope the idea gets across):<p>At Bell Labs, I figured out that the best researchers worked 9 hours instead of 8. I wondered why that was and realized that the final 9th hour compounds over time. In the beginning, you won't produce more research output, but 10 years from now, you will.
Lift weights (plus some cardio). Start your day happy with what's looking back in the mirror.<p>It's become a foundation habit (a habit that is the basis for other habits), leading to healthy eating, a positive attitude, and stronger discipline.<p>I bought 5-50 bar bells (core home fitness) and a folding bench early this year and use FitBod for customized workouts and tracking streaks.<p>I used to be focused on cardio only (running and rowing) and adding weights was a game changer for me.
Continually making some progress on areas of your life that are important but not urgent.<p>Actively learning from your mistakes and successes.<p>Orienting your life towards having the most energy available. Although time is the ultimate resource, the lack of energy will always be the first limiting factor. Therefore prioritizing health, sleep, exercise, and other such aspects will always pay off far more than what you sacrifice on them.
Interesting question these aren’t in any particular order, just wanted to see how many I could think of...<p>1. Technical Education / Skills<p>2. Core soft skills (for eg. Negotiation, selling, connection, etc.)<p>3. Developing Classic virtues (patience, focus, determination)<p>4. Long term relationships with solid people<p>5. Healthy habits and knowledge (exercise, diet, skincare, stretching)<p>6. Investing your money wisely / using debt wisely<p>7. Getting Adequate Sleep<p>8. Going on an “information diet”<p>9. Releasing past emotional trauma<p>10. Assessing your own strengths and weaknesses accurately<p>11. Hacking your mind’s experience reality to see through the subject / object duality<p>12. Avoiding addiction to stuff that doesn’t add value to your life<p>13. Thinking bigger<p>14. Regular and thorough Hand washing<p>15. Practicing gratitude
Learning how to cook. Its a great hobby and you get better every time you do it. Its a creative process and nothing is more relaxing for me after a long day spent staring at screens than cooking a nice meal.
Investing is one that is pretty easy to visualize/quantify. You could also say reducing unnecessary expenses and using that money to invest could be good too.<p>I'm not sure that there are many other things in life that truly compound. Pretty much any skill gets easier to do after you gain basic knowledge/practice of it (your knowledge seems to compound), but eventually it starts to plateau as you reach your knowledge/skill limit.<p>I guess you could view it from an overall process efficiency prospective and find the longest poll that could be reduced. Sleep is a huge one, but it's also important. You might be able to reduce this one by getting higher quality sleep but for a slightly shorter duration (better sleep habits, the right mattress, etc). That time (30-60 mins maybe) could be spent on productive things, like a new hobby or devoting more time to exercise and health. Exercise and health could be another overall efficiency factor (hence the 'compounding') - extending your useful years by staying in shape potentially gives you more overall time to devote to other activities.
Pain tolerance.
You can increase your pain tolerance by pushing yourself physically and by doing martial arts. This decreases your aversion to pain and your risk tolerance increases. I find this compounds over time, and even if you take long breaks the pain tolerance is still there on some level. At least it is for me.
Saving (and passively investing) money<p>Working out<p>Proper sleep (should probably make your days more enjoyable and productive)<p>Spending money on experiences and memories (preferably with loved ones)<p>Reading books<p>Nutrition?
Social distancing can have a compounding effect for people that are bad at managing relationships. If you just maintain space, most of your relationships can remain in neutral status for a long period of time. This is good for long term networking professionally.<p>Lately I’ve being doing worse because I compounded all these healthy (as healthy as can be) connections at work but fell into the trap of talking too much with them. Need to scale back and stick to the process.<p>I know this sounds sociopathic, but the amount of problems you can avoid by just shutting the fuck up and maintaining space (against all of our instincts to socialize) can be healthy for everyone.<p>This thing pays dividends in the long run since neither party will feel any which way about the other. If it wasn’t for HN, god knows how much of my bullshit I’d be dumping onto others.