My mom was a fast order cook and when I was a teen she got me to help her run a fast food shop our family ran for a few years. She taught me how to work in a kitchen and how to cook.
Her basic rules were ... if you aren't cooking you're cleaning, if you aren't cleaning you're cooking, and if you aren't cooking or cleaning, get out of the kitchen.
Some cooking is much, much easier than others. Making a pizza isn't as much an issue as, say, preparing an exotic bird. Cooking involves a level of aesthetics and physics that I could never master for the very reason I could never scrape the iceberg of those two skills.
For me there are few feelings better in the world than having an entire meal not only cooked by yourself, but grown too! I love grabbing veggies from the garden and making dinner. Something so cool about being almost entirely self sufficient.
Critical thinking. Not enough people stop and think openly about a given problem, situation, or interaction. If everyone took just a moment or two to take into consideration someone else's perspective, circumstances, or goals, the world would be a lot less divisive.
Empathy is about understanding the other person's feelings or experience, usually by being able to share in those things, or experience them vicariously. Empathy can even be used negatively. I believe Donald Trump has at least some empathy. He knows damn fucking well what his stupid words and actions are doing to some people.
I'm talking about objectively taking into consideration the other person's views, beliefs, and/or desired outcomes and adjusting actions or words based on that.
For example, I don't have to have empathy for someone who is non-binary to be respectful of their situation. I can't really know or understand their feelings, because I'm a heterosexual male. I can't possibly share in their experiences of being confused about gender identity and being ostracised for it. I have no reference point for those feelings.
But I can certainly be objective about their situation and remember that their gender identity and desired pronouns have literally no impact on me. So, rather than be a divisive prick about it and insisting on referring to them in binary gender terms, I can respect those things about them and act accordingly.
Everyone should learn the basics of troubleshooting!
When trying to resolve a problem it's really important to keep as many variables under control as possible so that you can find the root cause and fix it.
I see lots of people who try a bunch of things without isolating the issue first but can't figure out what is wrong. Then because they messed with it so much it's almost impossible to figure out.
This is important for car maintenance, home maintenance, electronics, computers. Just about everything that can break or stop working right in your life.
Your troubleshooting skills are above average, tbh.
You've identified that there's an issue. You tried something simple to remedy. You even tried it again to make sure.
You didn't make a bunch of crazy assumptions about what the problem was. You didn't do a bunch of weird shit all at once to try to fix it. You didn't do something to make the problem worse.
My dad can't do this. I've tried to teach him but it's like, a piece of equipment breaks and I'm like "What have you tried so far?" the answer is always nothing because he doesn't know cars/computers/watches/lights, etc etc.
I don't know half of those things either but I'll go over and press all the buttons, if that doesn't work I google it. I've showed him this so many times but it's like it doesn't go in and he's like "But you're good with these things!" Nope, I'm just hitting it until it works.
A lot of the issues learning to troubleshoot are surrounded around not understanding the problem/not understanding the system enough to determine where the problem is. Generally, if you have no idea what the issues could be, you end up trying a bunch of stuff and messing everything up more and people get frustrated you didn't ask for help sooner, or you do nothing and people get frustrated you haven't tried anything before asking for help. This may be a perpetuated problem if someone doesn't have the foundational knowledge to understand the type of system, or if it's just totally out of their wheelhouse and they don't have them mental capacity to try and understand any aspect. This can be seen when people have little to no understanding of: cooking and/or baking, car repair, computer repair, fruit and vegetable farming, sewing clothes or clothes mending, etc. we can pay people to do these things for us because there is so much complication in modern life most don't know how to do everything.
Learn where all the shut off valves for your waterlines are at your house or apartment. When you have a leak is not the time to find out or rather figure out where your shut off valves are at. if you don’t know where your shut off valves are at, what could’ve been a minor water mess could turn into a major bill.
I wish I’d learned a few useful knots earlier in life. Saves so much time when you know how and which one to use.
The ones I use the most are the square knot, taut line hitch and once a year the truckers hitch for tying down the Christmas tree to the top of the car.
Video guides are nice, but I prefer Grog's Knots. He even has an app for offline knot learning, say, when you're deep in the woods and it's raining hard and your tent's rain cover blows off into the lake and you thankfully brought a tarp and rope but don't know how to make one of those adjustable knots that you can just slip-tighten. You know, theoretically speaking.
On a side note and completely unrelated, bring one of those big grout sponges when you go camping. In addition to mopping up all the water in your tent, it makes a nice pillow if your inflatable pillow decides to run away in the night in a storm and go swimming in the lake.
For me, it's sheet bend, bowline, and round turn and two half hitches. I also tuck a lot of eye splices, but that's more just for fun; a bowline will work fine most of the time instead.
Man I'm an Eagle Scout and I forgot how to tie the basic knots already. It takes repetition and practice, I mostly use the square knot so that's the only one I probably remember.
CPR. You may not think about it in your day to day life, but in an emergency it's a very low hanging fruit to save someone's life. If someone is not breathing, chest compressions baby... go to town.
And FYI for anyone reading this, mouth to mouth isn't really recommended anymore.
First call 911 or have someone else do it. Then start chest compressions for as long as you can. Switch off with another person if you need to. But keep going until paramedics arrive.
First aid! I did a four day course many years ago and I still use the training in so many things. The final day we had to navigate a bus crash scenario and the part that stuck with me was the taking ownership and delegating roles when other people might be scared to act. I think it really instilled in me an ability to turn panic into action, and you can use the triage playbook in so many ways.
Thought, "Figure this out or die. This very second."
Remembered my lessons on floating, got my lips above water and took a sip of air. Stopped fighting, floated back up, did it again. After 3 or 4 tries, I had enough air to calm down, lay on my back and breathe. Just dandy after that. Went home, got laid, and here I am typing this dumb comment 30+ years later.
When I was a pre-teen I was trying out a Boogie Board and a wierd current pulled me much further out into the ocean with much more force than any of the other waves, but years of swim lessons had me more focused on finding upward and trying to stay in place than panicking so I got dumped back onto the beach conscious instead of needing the lifeguard to drag me out
Active listening and validating someone's emotions. Relationship skills in general honestly! Like how to adress the core attachment need in a disagreement instead of just the surface issue.
For those in the US: Learn how to file your own taxes. It's really simple for the large majority of people, and usually just consists of copying numbers into boxes off a sheet your employer made for you. After you've done it once, subsequent times you'll probably have it done yourself in less than half an hour.
You can do it for free on a ton of sites unless you make significant income, freetaxusa is typically the most highly recommended one.
Intuit and H&R Block are the reason we have this depraved, inhumane, anti-consumer tax system. They've created the laws that make it necessary to use tax prep software. They should not be rewarded for this by getting business for that very tax prep software. Everyone should say no to TurboTax.
A better tip is to just maintain and monitor your finances on a regular basis. At least once a month sit down and quickly review all your income and expenses. Then at least two or three times a year do full detailed review just so you know where your money came from and went and when it all happened.
I wish I knew this earlier in life.
Think about it, what did you spend your money on two weeks ago? A month? How much did you make in the past month? What did you spend your money on?
Sure many people can give an estimate off the top of their head but it makes a big difference if you can see it all written out and documented in front of you.
Pollution from "fast fashion" is one of the most insidious types of pollution and one of the highest source of microplastics.
Knowing how to sew has allowed me to keep some garments looking new for over 15 years.
I still have a "snakes on a plane" themed hoodie from 2007 that is still going strong, thanks to sewing and proper washing/drying.
Knowing how to separate your clothing for washing is also helpful in this regard, because it also can make clothes last longer. T-shirts can last a decade if they're washed on a delicates cycle and hung out to dry.
I honestly could give a flying fuck if everything I own is out of style, I'm fucking old anyway.
Oh man I tried meditation with Headspace too and I couldn't hack it. For some reason meditation made me so angry! Like this weird rage would come out of nowhere.
I did find it frustrating that the narrator would give a prompt for what to do, then just enough quiet time to begin, and then interrupt my effort with his talking. Aggravating! But the anger was a separate thing.
I always thought meditation was supposed to help you feel calm and grounded but all it did was frustrate me. :(
I've had good experience with the Waking Up app, which is primarily Insight Meditation. If you can, a multi-day silent retreat allows you to be truly immersed in the practice of just watching your mind and all of its silliness.
For this topic, it's far from what I would call an easy skill; I'm going on six years and it still feels like a weak muscle. But it can be really helpful.
When I was little, meditation was the buzz. I've tried it many times and I just found myself "sitting in style". Meditation is described as inspired by hypnosis but they never tell you what to do when you're from the small percentage of people immune to hypnosis.
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
Baking bread. At first, your results will be uneven. (brick like, over baked, underbaked, too much yeast, not enough kneading, etc.) Just don't give up, the first time you get it close to "right", you'll be addicted to home made bread. It's about training your hands and other senses until you don't need a recipe any more.
The one thing that got me into home made bread was getting a bread machine and using it exclusively for kneading. Machine made bread is weird and uneven to me, but taking the dough and baking it the traditional way makes brilliant bread and saves a lot of time.
Years ago, I learned to shave with just about any sharp, straight edge (yes, I even practiced with a razor sharp axe). It’s interesting how the ‘fine edge control’ transfers to other activities; using a kitchen knife, swinging an axe, cutting with a Xacto, etc.
In the apocalypse, I will be the clean-shaven villain, who is surrounded by all the hot mutant ladies who adore my pretty jowls!
Edit: I use cannabis daily. I found I can shave quickly with a straight razor (after years if practice), or I can shave high. But not both. FTR: cutting yourself a bit here and there simply isn’t as bad as it sounds.
Shamelessly plugging You Need A Budget. Best app I've ever used. My SO and I have been using it for about 3 years now, and the app has been instrumental in us becoming mostly debt-free.
Buckets is a free alternative that I switched to when ynab massively increased the price and dropped their grandfathering agreement. Same principals as ynab, but suited me a lot better and is much much cheaper.
Even a quick YouTube session on some common cases should help. If you want, getting certified is pretty easy and it looks good on resumes (or at work, you could be the designated person in emergencies)
If someone close to you has an emergency, it's nice to have an idea of what to do while you wait.
On the flip side, I had someone open up about regret from not learning; it was heartbreaking hearing it. Their family member may have died anyways, but they felt like a few extra minutes could have helped the odds, and regretted not knowing what to do
It's shocking to me the number of people I've come across who've no idea how to cook or find it to be too troublesome to do. Moreover, feeding yourself should be the single most primal skill for anyone to have.
I realize there's a lot to unpack here. Some people are taught / learn to cook at a young age while some people have parents who've never cooked for themselves. Personal preference, finances, and scheduling play a huge part. The definitions of "cooking" and "feeding yourself" can vary widely. So, I'm not claiming everyone should know how to make a roast chicken dinner for four with sides and dessert. Although, I do think people should be at a level above boxed mac and cheese and microwaved air-fried chicken nuggets.
Cooking is, in my opinion, shopping for fresh foods and turning them into a meal. It's about your health, your pleasure, and your finances.
When my best friend first moved in with me I had to teach her how to cook lol. When I was a teen my mom forced my brothers and me to cook dinner a few times a week which I'm really thankful for
This is probably the best answer here. Everyone should know at least the basics. Cooking can also be really enjoyable and rewarding. I love to try new things and get a lot of joy when they come out well. My son is 11 and I'm always teaching him how to cook different things. We're involved in Boy Scouts and Cooking is an Eagle Scout required merit badge for good reason.
Effective planning. It's very easy to say " I'm doing this today and that tomorrow" but how realistic is that? Know how to break something down into its component pieces and be able complete them along a schedule. It's basically project management, but for everyday stuff. It helps immensely to be able to tackle big projects and recognize that things are progressing even though the project still isn't done. Hugely helpful for stress management.
So project management on a personal scale is really varied based on what level of detail you need. I've worked with people who have ADHD traits and they worked best with a very micromanaged day, like there is a reminder every 15 minutes to keep them on track (that's a generalization, but not far off).
But if you're just looking for some broader structure to help organize projects you have to do, you can look at AI assisted planners to remove some of the basic breakdown work. You can ask ChatGPT to create a rough outline for some major projects, give it a time frame, and mention any other circumstances (work, childcare, only work 1 hour at a time, etc.), it will give you a decent outline to start with. You can then break it down further if you need to and refine the time line to best fit your own needs
There are lots of 'personal project management' books that can help to break it down, also good youtube videos on the subject. There are 3 primary things to remember though:
create manageable goals, this might take some trial and error to figure out timing.
stick to your plan. Putting off a task because you don't feel like it defeats the purpose of making a plan.
if you stuck to the plan the best you could and it didn't work out, don't beat yourself up. Use it as a learning experience for next time you need to plan stuff out. Figure out why it didn't work and fix it.
Quick note: reading/other resources won't hand you the answers, they will only help to provide and explain the tools you would need to be successful. Good luck!
Good advice. And one of the keys is to focus on accomplishing the parts of the project you took care of today, not obsessing about working ahead or what’s on your plate tomorrow. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
As someone whose workplace refuses to schedule anything properly, and refuses to respect to any attempts to schedule anything or anyone, I feel this so much.
Taking regular breaks. Whether it's a quick hourly stretch or a longer weekly break, stepping away from your activities can help you avoid burnout and stay on top of your game.
Surprisingly this improved my overall gameplay in competitive games. And I am not exhausted from work anymore.
Wire stripping and crimping. Especially if you plan to do offgriding homesteading with solar but occasionally comes up in home applications when you want to revive a mangled extension cord or install a fixture. Specialized cables start to add up very quickly its much more cost effective to buy a big bag of connectors, a big roll of decent gauge wire, dig out an old set of wire cutters+needlenose and fire up a 2 minute instructions yt video. Like all other skills it takes time and error to get good at it but its not too terribly difficult as wel as very cool to essentially build your own electrical grid from the ground up with wires and connectors you made yourself..
About a year back I stumbled across these cool products that are a heatshrink sheath with a metal ring coated in low temp solder inside. They made all of my wire joining a million times easier. Just strip the end of two wires, push them into the sheath and blast them with a heat gun for 20 seconds until the ring contracts into a crimp and the solder flows onto the wires. Better physical and electrical connection than a crimp, with none of the futzing that comes with soldering and sheathing.
I'd add simple soldering. It's amazing how many little gadgets go bad because a little wire inside broke loose when it was dropped. I've fixed headphones, a temperature sensor, and even done things with the vehicles.
Change a tire on your vehicle. Sure beats waiting for AAA or whatever. (Although some newer cars don't come with spare tires).
Jumpstart a car. With jumper cables or one of those battery jumpstart boxes.
Changing your oil can save some money. Add chassis lubrication too while you're at it. Can save quite a bit on service costs. (Just don't skip other regular services, lest your car fail you which will be expensive in the long run)
Repair a toilet by replacing internal parts such as: valve, flapper, float, flush lever.
Tow companies aren't paid enough by AAA for them to prioritize you in any way. You will get lesser quality service from people who are frustrated their workplace contracts with AAA.
As much as it sucks, try to save money for vehicle emergencies and/or be able to fix minor vehicle issues yourself.
More importantly, learn your vehicles maintenance schedule and follow it religiously. If you are only maintaining it when something goes wrong, you are missing the forest for the trees.
If you are only maintaining it when something goes wrong, you are missing the forest for the trees.
On the coast we have a ferry system, a public-private partnership - aw fuck, right? - that "runs to failure" and only maintains when things are actually broken.
It's become such an unreliable mess, now. But the CEO gets a bonus.
Basic home maintenance or at the very least troubleshooting and diagnostics when something breaks so you can give the repair tech better info when they arrive.
Basic home cleaning. This one might sound obvious but the number of people I've worked with who've never held a mop before astounds me. Learn to do your own laundry and clean your bathroom and kitchen well and efficiently. Learn what it takes to do a quick clean and a deep clean and do them on a schedule.
Very basic tools, very easy techniques, yet mind blowing how many people don’t know how to do these things.
To be fair, most millennials aren't and haven't been homeowners. It took until 2022 for just over half of millennials to become homeowners.
If you have lived in apartments your whole life, you're most likely disallowed from doing anything of the sort.
When you're pushing 40 and you finally own a house, and for the first time in you're life you're allowed to modify the place you live, this is the first time you've had an opportunity to learn and practice such a skill.
I kind of don't really blame millennials for this one, although it is arguably an important skillset. Most of us haven't had living situations where we could do this, it's as simple as that.
I've never lived in an apartment where I was able to hang shelves, let alone paint the walls.
I was a lucky one, bought my house 12 years ago and went to town doing whatever I wanted, holes, paint, ripping up old carpet, etc... then 1 month ago found out my work wants to me move half way across the country in 3 months. Now I've got to fix 12 years worth of fucking with my home in a month so I can sell this shit and move lol. Luckily I was a carpenter back in the day (family business) so I know how to fix it all but it's still shitty. I would suggest not moving forward on projects you can't quickly finish when you own a home as my thing for this thread lol.
This is so absurd to me how can anyone disallow painting and drilling into walls of an apartment, I'm very glad that tenancy laws here basically say that if you rent a place you can do whatever you want with it, as long as reasonably it's restore-able.
For a lot of the younger folks in the EU if your rental contract tells you you can't do something it's probably bullshit. And even if it isn't at worst you'll lose your deposit.
If you have lived in apartments your whole life, you’re most likely disallowed from doing anything of the sort.
This. I've had a mortgage for exactly 4 years in my life, and when we panic-sold to move across the country for work we got nothing back for the investment (less, if you count renos we had done on move-in). And there's nothing I want to do as an amateur in a 50-year-old house that involves opening a wall.
Good thing is there’s a video tutorial for almost anything like that on the internet at least. One of the more essential, helpful things this age of information sharing has contributed to.
Have you tried a clear practice lock to pick? You can watch the pins as you get the feel for it. Once you can pick it easily, cover it with painter's tape so you can't see the pins, and try again.
I got a cheap set of picks off amazon just to learn. They came with a transparent lock that really helps understand the process. I might get something better one day but they work just fine.
Formal Logic. Please, can this be a full k-12 course like English and Math? Just learn to think, analyse, and correlate ideas in ways that are communicable. Learn what the logical fallacies are and how to avoid them. Train a functional bullshit detector. This world would be so much better off if the bulk of the population could understand what a confirmation bias was. As much as I hate to link to a Grammarly blog post, it gives good examples. Obviously all of it needs to be made age appropriate, but we never bother to actually teach people how to think, we just expect them to know and that has not been working out too well.
You are correct, I have studied both (math degree). Both need to be trained though. Informal logic helps a lot to notice the nonsensical statements that can be made that satisfy the rules of formal logic, but still don't operate in reality.
Sewing. I've saved a lot of shirts putting buttons back on and fixing holes. You can also do your own alterations on clothes but I'm not brave enough to try that yet.
Yeah but I feel at least at weddings circle dancing is more common and that requires going in the middle and showing your moves not really partner dancing. I haven't been to a wedding where there's partner dancing with enough room to do a waltz.
sewing with a needle and thread. nothing complicated, the bare minimum is useful in a lot of ways.
i keep a small kit in my car because my pants waistlines keep shrinking mysteriously and i'm starting to randomly lose buttons and getting blowouts in the crotch. [likely due to far-reaching, nefarious, conspiracies and not b/c of the other kit in my car that's full of snacks].
what used to be my crippling, irrational fear of inadvertently exposing myself at like a job interview or in an uber with a cute driver, is now an easy fix i can do in a minute AND it's certain to make an impression.
old winter jackets with a lot of zippered pockets are especially great practice. try unstitching and removing a few of the pockets, then add them to other jackets or whatever you can think of.
For some people it's easy, for others it isn't, and/or they're afraid of messing it up.
This is the secondary reason why I created SwapMyOS, a GrapheneOS installation service that kicks back a percentage of every order to the GrapheneOS nonprofit to keep it funded.
Primary reason was to keep GrapheneOS alive and funded.
Someone blow my mind with it and since then my life wasn't colplete without it... just listen me out .... You are in a rush maybe your train is leaving or something like that ... So you run right ... Yeah and if u encounter a pair of stairs climbing up you still rush by skipping steps right ... And if the stairs are going down ? Yeah you might jump the last steps but you ain't gonna gain much especially if the stairs are long or wiredly segmented ... And if I told you it's possible to descend 2 steps with a single step ? You climb stairs in a pair why not descend them in a pair too ...
It isn't that hard to learn you might slip some time while learning but I have never fell ... It's all a game of weight transfer ... Just move your weight a little back and move the leg a bit forward... Btw I found it easier with a heavy backpack too...
I was in Milan rushing for the underground train and a man in a blue suit passed me whit ease on the stairs ... Now I'm ready ... I'm waiting for you I'm waiting for revenge !!!
Hey man, when you're lost on the savannah and a pack of lions or hyena could descend upon you at any minute, you'll need to have that guitar strung and ready. Use the Lion Guitar and hope you didn't pack the Shark Guitar instead.
(I kid. My favourite uncle helped end the Sierra Leonean rebellion in 2005 with a beat up guitar ... maybe he had the Unity Guitar that day?)