What Skills to Acquire in 2020?

Some suggestions:

- Build something. A new workbench for your office. Fix up an old car. Build a pull-up bar in your garage. Use your hands, cut some wood and metal, and treat yourself to a new tool or two. Do this with every project and you will have a nice tool collection before you know it.

- Learn to take pictures on a manual camera. You can do this with a modern automatic camera if it has a manual mode. Learn about ISO, f-stop, and shutter speed and the interplay of those three variables. There's a fantastic multi-part tutorial on Reddit that can help you learn these things. I don't have the link handy but you can Google for it.

- Set a goal of cooking for yourself at least two nights a week and eating leftovers two nights a week. Buy a binder and some clear inserts and start to put together your own book of favorite recipes.

- Take a nightly walk.

- Listen to classical music. This one didn't come to me until my 40s but I finally realized: there's a reason that this music has been popular for 300 years. Opera is great, too. Listen to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". Download the KUSC app and listen to the amazing Metropolitan Opera broadcast every Saturday morning at 10 AM Pacific.

I would say focus on building a solid, functional body vs. say focusing on goals like "how much can I lift?" or "how much do I weigh?" or "how fast can I go?". Those goals, while laudable, can also cause you to break down your body in your quest to achieve them.

An example from literally yesterday. Over the past few months, I struggled with medial knee pain that was limiting my ability to walk up stairs and do other activities (see other list of goals from above). I had a bunch of observations (pain only when going up stairs, pain goes away oddly enough when running up stairs, clicking noise in knee before onset of pain) but I hadn't spent time trying to root cause it.

I had done a bunch of Google searches but to no avail (with scary things like surgery showing up on the list). But then of all things the YouTube algorithm came to the rescue and recommended this: [1]. Turns out it was a weak Gluteus Medius that allowed my femur to rotate medially which in turn caused the kneecap to track in an unnatural way. Once I knew this, I "fixed" it in a day. But it won't stay "fixed" unless I focus on strengthening that muscle.

Figure out what you need to do to provide you with sufficient functional strength, focus on root causing pain and then addressing it. Don't ignore the foundations of your body.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbe_DqMJfzg

Marcus Aurelius' Stoic idea of winning the morning.

This means doing your best to make the most of the first part of the day: arise early and jump into doing the most important tasks of the day. Practice good habits. Then, as the day expands and becomes less in your control, you've 'won' the morning.

I use 'win the morning!' almost as a mantra, and just that single, simple idea been life-changing.

Starting conversations with strangers.

Squat and deadlift.

Eating healthier.

Doing something kind for someone else every day.

Honesty.

Listening to people you disagree with.

Driving safer (this is the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis).

Meditation.

I will share one that has served me well for over 20 years: learn RDBMS and SQL. Learn normal forms, good schema design, and how to write complex queries. NoSQL adopters often avoided schemas like the plague and ended up with unmaintainable messes after a few years. I have seen more than a few NoSQL -> SQL conversions by now. Data is the most important thing in your app. Give it a great design.

Plus databases like Postgres have key/value and JSON data types. Once you are sure that is what you need it’s still there.

Rob Pikes 5th rule of programming: Data dominates.

Learn how to make more friends. Communicate. Learn how to talk with people, how to be adaptive and contextual.

Learn about yourself as much as you can, either via introspection or from other people. Learn what your values are, and what makes them satisfied. "You are your own ally, when you make yourself an enemy even though you should trust yourself, you become the victim hit the hardest".

Learn agency. Remember that you are a person, and you can take initiative.

Learn that another person's behavior toward you is just a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person.

Learn to genuinely tell people that you love them. People are precious.

Last of all, actually learn how to use knowledge of all of the above in your situation.

Some less usual things people do that I think are very high value but boring (hence why they're not usually done):

- Understanding taxes, the importance of savings and baseline personal finance literacy.

- Reading the political programs of a few parties running for elections in you country

- Reading a few yearly report / financial statements for a public company, an NGO/non-profit/state agency/local government and trying to understand them

- Reading a few top research papers in a field you're interested in and work through them

No matter what you choose to learn, it's good to learn how to learn.

You have the free "Learning how to learn" course on coursera : https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

And I'm currently reading a book called "Ultralearning" by a guy called Scott H Young who I imagine is the type of person to be on hacker news and be like "Hey, thanks for recommending my book!"

https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/

The book so far is great, there are certainly some principles which may seem obvious but in reality they need to be acknowledged and used effectively. Overall it's a clear read and gives a pretty clear way to get started on learning a ton of things in a short amount of time.

No shortcuts though, still a ton of effort involved.

- First-principles based reading. I fell into the easy trap of just reading business books that cover tactics. Read biographies of people who've accomplished a lot. Read how computers and electronics work at a more fundamental level, not just how to code. Basically, just apply some conscious thought to the kinds of books you read, and don't think of books as an instruction manual for right now. They're part of your general education.

- If you're a developer, become friends with the sales team at your work. Seeing things through a less technical lens will make you much more effective.

- Learn the mental skill of endurance. If you can walk 2 miles, try 20. Once you can cycle 20, you can do 100. The difference is mental more than physical.

I'm trying to write more! I forget where I originally read it, but I think Ben Horowitz said something to the effect of "Clear thinking is best expressed in writing, so you can refer back to it later and see if your logic was correct." Been blowing up Confluence at work like a fuckin' fiend, and been blogging a lot more on my personal site.

I don't have any objective measures for this, but I think it's helped me a lot - it gets my head straight about the "why" of actions I've taken. That's valuable, if not terribly measureable!

Learn a another human language. You don’t have to be good at it or even able to converse. Languages are systems of thinking as much as they are systems of communication. Some thoughts only make sense in a given language! The process of learning a language builds cognitive skills and perhaps fights cognitive decline. If you have absolutely no “ear” for human language start with Esperanto and work your way to additional languages from there.

1. Lasting mindset.

Recently I've looked around me and realized, everything around me is new. There are no memories around me, I have chased marketed products until my whole apartment is lined up with useful products.

Some of the people I admire the most carried around the same water bottle for more than 10 years, wore the same watch for more than 20 years, used a phone for more than 3 years. They can point to anything they owned and talk about the rich emotional history behind each item.

I think more people should acquire the skill to use a product and maximize its life rather than to throw and buy the next cool thing.

- First Aid - if you don't know it, you should learn it ASAP.

- History and theory of modern and contemporary art - then it's easier to understand everything in the museum and you won't ever say "I don't get modern art" and "Modern art is a shit".

- New language - I believe trying and learning only few words is worth it!

- How to dress (including how to buy clothes).

I still have a lot of misfitting shirts in my wardrobe and this old masculine perfume my grandma gave me when I was 16.

I see why I wasn't comfortable with these. It takes some time, especially if you don't want to spend a lot of cash at once. But when you know how to dress, you feel more confident look good and feel better with yourself.

By "how to dress" I mean finding your style, not having suit 7 days a week.

Here is a nice article about fabrics: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/sustainable...

Watching threads like this makes my anxiety go trough the roof with all the exciting new things I could possibly learn, but probably never will.

So one skill to acquire in 2020 can be let go of FOMO.

In parallel to chrissnell’s suggestion on classical music: read some classical literature. I mean the Greek and Roman greats. As with “classical” music, theres’s a valuable survivorship bias — nobody bothered to preserve the crap.

As with the music, there’s a lot to choose from (I put “classical” in quotes because in both cases the term spans centuries of work and innumerable styles and themes). And don’t worry about what other people like: enjoy what you do. Personally I don’t really listen to Mozart as he mostly wrote pop music and spectacle (were he alive today he’d be onstage with lady Gaga). Some fun to listen to but for me doesn’t “stick to the ribs”. Other’s think he’s fantastic — and we’re both right! (Do love his Requiem, though as my then 17yo said, “should come with a warning label”). In the case of the greats I love Plutarch, don’t care for Thucydides, think Plato is a jerk but do read him, Aristotle was kinda a jerk too, but so was Cicero. Sophocles: fantastic!

Speaking of survivorship bias I read little fiction by living authors. If it’s still in print, or discussed, after a gap it’s more likely to be interesting. As with music, open a book and if you don’t like it read something else! It’s not a duty. But there’s also a lot of meta commentary on the older work and that can change your view and taste for what you read.

Have fun!

Marketing is a big one for me. Building a great product means nothing if you can’t reach your target audience.

And I don’t mean learning how to used Facebook or Google to run ads, I mean the theory behind marketing.

I would like to read more books similar to the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Having less stuff both phisically as in stuff at home and mentally as in single down on fewer things to pursue.

Singing, improv and performing in general. It will pay dividends in everything you do, not only just relationships and holding powerpoint presentations. Once you do it long enough your personality starts to shift more towards your "performer personality" and your manner of speech, way of making up conversations becomes a natural part of you. I recommend this especially to those who suffer from social anxiety. It is the ultimate treatment that no psychologist, no drugs can offer

Prolog. You'll discover what it feels like to have a language that actually does hard work for you (except string manipulation...), instead of having to guide it through every little detail.

Logic programming isn't actually that hard, and more people learning it will help move the state of programming forward.

If you don't already know how to, learn to cook. Start slow with the basics and work your way up. Try new things and combinations. Nothing is quite as satisfying as being able to create something delicious from the remnants in a friend's pantry, or preparing a delicious meal for someone you love, or a date, or just yourself.

Learn how to provide proper customer service. It mostly comes down to having a form of empathy that isn't really empathy: Understanding perspective and motivation. If you understand anyone's perspective and motivation, you're in a much better position to help them.

Also learn who your customer is (It's everyone) and learn how to listen to them. It doesn't matter if you're a dev who spends 2/3 of the day behind 10 screens with earbuds-a-blasting. Whoever is commissioning you or motivating you to sit there and code is your customer. Treat them like it, and do it for them.

On the other hand if you have a job where you deal with the public, it's more direct- but the same principals apply.

With technical skills becoming easier to come by, set yourself apart by being a customer service pro. It makes all the difference in the world.

This one's a bit niche but if you're between the ages of 13-21 and not sure what to specialize in but you care about important issues and like engineering, please consider learning and specializing in an area related to molten salt reactors, chemical separation of fission products, or anything in the intersection of chemical eng, nuclear eng, and electrical.

The world needs clean, reliable, scalable energy more now than ever before, and we have a serious shortage of talented folk who have previous experience in the skills necessary to develop liquid fueled fission reactors.

So, if you're in highschool or entering university soon, consider this. By the latter half of this decade, there's going to be a lot of demand for these skills.

Here are what I am learning in 2020. I try to be a holistic person. So I am learning technical skills, business skills, and social skills.

Technical: Blockchain programming (mostly on Ethereum). I believe Ethereum is the future. Programmable money. How cool is that?

However if you think blockchain is fad, you could replace it with cybersecurity.

Business: Corporate finance (stocks, bonds, future contracts, options, etc). This is related with blockchain because I believe a lot of financial applications will move to blockchain platform.

However if you think blockchain is fad, corporate finance itself is a useful skill for investment and analyzing company's finance. Just now, I learned that you could make two bonds with different risks and yields into one security which you can divide into senior tranches and junior tranches. It's very interesting.

Social: Negotiation. I am reading Chris Voss' book (Never Split The Difference). He has a class in MasterClass as well. Coursera has a couple of negotiation courses. In the past, I received the shorter end of the stick because I'm not good at negotiation. So I'll try to change that.

Happy acquiring skills!

Sleeping. Your health, your immune system, acuity, your very sanity, depend on it. This often means uncomfortable decisions such as saying "No" more often. Deep Sleep of Your Neural Network, not Deep Learning of Artificial Neural Networks, is the new craze, hopefully :-)

Interpersonal skills. Those are usually in very short supply at tech companies.

This wide spectrum with many sweet spots. For example, if you can learn what a developer is doing without pissing them off or boring them out of their minds and translate from techno-babble to humanspeak and back you can quickly make yourself appreciated in many tech companies.

Time management skills. Learn to rest, really rest so that you feel good, curious and re-energized after it (probably means turning your phone off as a first step). My 2c.

Learn an array language like APL, J, or k/q. I’d personally recommend k/q. It’s not as strange as APL or J and pretty easy to learn. Writing in q is the most fun I’ve had in a long-time. And the code and language is beautiful, I love everything about it.

"eBPF is the New Linux"

http://www.brendangregg.com/bpf-performance-tools-book.html

Work on your math skills. Math is at the heart of everything, and the more techniques you know- the more tools you'll have in your arsenal to build and invent cool things.

Practically there are many business reasons why you would want to develop mathematical knowledge, but I'll list only one: most of the ground-breaking research requires high level math knowledge to understand and so much of the knowledge in academic papers would work as a viable startup business.

There is actually a staggering amount of knowledge locked away in papers that is just waiting for entrepreneurs to take the next steps and bring it to industry. But this tends to happen very slowly! Part of the reason is a lack of qualified and motivated people willing to execute. Since the researchers themselves are more focused on research and tend to move on after experiments and PoCs.

It's up to us to take that work and build products that solve real problems!

Kubernetes.. almost all the companies are on it or looking at it in one way or another.

The question is very board and most responses seem overly specific and only useful by chance (not to dig at anyone trying to be helpful).

Spend more time doing what makes you happy. Learn some things that make you useful to others and learn to identify what both of those things are. It is unlikely that global technical trends, fads and HN users preferences will be the answer to your local problems.

If pushed for something specific that is broad enough to apply to most technical people I would say learn how big picture pieces fit together in your niche. I'm a front-end dev so this means for me to learn networking, dns, packets, tcp, etc. Get a broad understanding of the big picture stuff in your niche. It often pays off.

You should invest your time to learn how to invest and trade stocks. I spent 8 months learning trading and it has been a very challenging but rewarding process.

Learning Options trading is another thing you can do once you become more familiar with the stock markets, and hopefully you can start trading options using your profits from your wise investments.

These 2 skills, stock trading and option trading, in my opinion, are the most critical skills for someone, especially software engineers to generate more incomes and become financially independent as an alternative path to founding/working at a startup.

You can start small to learn but invest 1 good year and you'll be amazed at the knowledge and freedom you have gained.

Taking a risk of being boring and staying technical... I would say - cloud, distributed systems, security, security, security and then some more security. Then AI/ML on the "how to use it" level (the math can be fun, but unless you plan to be a data scientist, knowing it from a developer perspective is great too)

In the cloud technologies, I would focus on serverless. I see serverless as basically just another abstraction layer beyond containers. You shift the burden of managing all that to the cloud provider. Even if you are fluent in k8s, using managed services / databases and letting someone else do the heavy lifting while you focus on just code is very rewarding.

Keep a journal.

If you are in a technical role and you lead or design systems consider learning a model checker like TLA+ or Alloy; or a proof checker like Agda, Coq, or Lean. The extra clarity is worth it on its own and you might end up finding and fixing vulnerabilities or performance problems that save people a bunch of money and headaches.

Learn strategies for improving your emotional intelligence.

Be a decent human being. Don’t be an asshole. Make a tiny part of the world a better place than you had found it.

HN specific: How to write a good comment on an internet message board.

https://smartblogger.com/blog-comments/

When I read the latest "who is hiring" post I was overwhelmed by the amount of Python listed; I've always used PERL but I seem to be the only one at the office left who can.

Here is my personal list as an embedded developer:

Embedded Linux: seems to be a growing field in embedded engineering as single board Linux computers are getting smaller and cheeper

Amazon IoT core: there are a lot of capabilities to understand! Luckily Amazon does seem to have some training available.

Advanced C debugging and building: with embedded c it is pretty easy to let the IDE hold your hand when building and debugging, but I would like to learn more about makefiles, linker scripts, and scripting gdb for advanced debugging.

This thread reads like something straight out of a lifestyle magazine, with the first technical advice being on page two.

I miss the days when true hackers were proud to sit in their dark basements and drink Jolt Cola, at most caring about their Unix beards.

One of the goals I've set for myself in 2020 is to adopt a philosophy of minimalism and use budgeting tools (can be as simple as a spreadsheet) to be mindful of where my spending goes and try to rein in the excess spend.

I'm surprised at all these great non-technical suggestions and few coding suggestions. I'll supply some web-focused ones for the next 3 years.

In 2020 learn TypeScript really well. Learn all the ways to compose types. It's earned its popularity.

In 2021 learn deno. It's going to be big.

In 2022 learn the best way to structure a CSS project. I think we will have figured out what it is by then.

Learn to ride a motorcycle. It will change your life and make you happier. It’s not cheaper than therapy but definitely more fun.

Improve your ability to participate in the democratic process!! Our (Americans') democratic "muscles" have atrophied so much in recent decades. People can hardly disagree without thinking the other is evil. I've found that even in small groups (such as school-parent coop), people struggle to do things like negotiate different priorities, listen to one another, and come to a compromise. This is a very dire condition for a democratically-led society, as these skills are essential for such a system to function.

No one is going to fix this for us, but we can all contribute to fixing it together! To quote a recent New Yorker article on democracy in crisis[0], "Don’t ask whether you need an umbrella [if you need to prepare for failure of democracy]. Go outside and stop the rain [fix it!]."

How? Make an effort to reach out to people with different views. Commit to listen to them and be willing to agree to disagree in a friendly manner. You'd be surprised how quickly the name-calling can stop and the shared humanity can be found when you really listen! For inspiration & guidance, read one or more of the following:

    * Don't Label Me by Irshad Manji (lots of practical democratic advice, if you pick only one pick this one)
    * The Coddling of the American Mind by Haidt & Lukianoff
    * How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The second book has an overly-confrontational title–rest assured the book itself is level headed and thoughtful. The third book will help you in business & your personal life, and may improve democracy as well!

Let's (Americans) roll up our sleeves and take on The Big Challenge in 2020: improving our own democratic skills to get our society back on track.

0: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/03/the-last-time-...

Learn how to engage with your local community, especially in a way that you believe improves a "greater good". Tech people are too preoccupied in the global community that they don't think about neighbors and the community around them.

I used to think someone else was thinking in my best interest with local politics, culture, and social issues, but I have recently learned about to be more assertive and engaged. I wish I started a lot sooner, and I wish more Millennials/Gen-Xers (especially those in tech) would push for something they believe in.

Learn to accept death and read the myth of sysphus if you haven't read.

- Learn C

- Learn Reactive Programming

- Learn Linux Kernel https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source

- Learn DevOps

- Learn Distributed systems

I pirated Ableton a while back and turns out after actually learning how to use it through the in software tutorials and a couple YouTube videos, I really enjoy producing music. Starting out can be as simple as laying out beats which is very entertaining.

They do a 30 day trial but I don't think that's enough time to figure out if you wanna drop 800$ on it. They have some 100$ package that in hindsight probably had everything you need if you buy serum as well (another 100$ iirc).

I challenge you to build a model RC airplane. You'll use your intelligence, hands and learn from material resistance to aerodynamics, airfoil design and power management.

Learn to dream again. Nightly dreaming that is, not the wishing-kind. Specifically, lucid dreaming, i.e. being conscious and awake while physically asleep in the REM state.

I think improving communication skills, particularly technical topics to non-technical people will always be advantageous regardless of where your career takes you in tech.

Learn some scheme and go through SICP. Real eye opener!

Hardware. Start playing with hardware and sensors and i2c, spi, uart, etc... because that space is going to rapidly accelerate.

not sure about others but I am looking forward to invest time and energy in video editing

Could people suggest something from technical aspect as well? Something which is a bit more specific than being abstract like the below points:

Picking up somethings from what's the buzzwords these days: 1. Rust (ownership concept and immutability) 2. Haskell Functor, Monads, Monoids and applicatives 3. AI ML (Not sure about this field)

I try to choose activities that also will increase my social circle. So, like, with learning an instrument, avoid piano, which tends to be more solitary, and go with viola, which, if you get decent, will put you in demand. Or if studying a language, pick one that people actually speak (I studied ancient Greek in college).

Professional communication skills are worth a look from time to time. Understanding how to keep your personal fears out of your next message or email, and yet keeping after your concerns with appropriate management of both technology and emotion. Learning how to be assertive without inadvertently raising the stakes. And keeping a project on track without causing a blame-fest.

Another one is learning to set boundaries for your personal growth. Do you have a learning and skills-updating standard which helps prevent FOMO, unfair feedback from your inner critic's voice, and related career anxieties? This is one example of a boundary that can be designed to help you stay on track without becoming bitter about your past experiences and future prospects.

It's impressive that you asked. Best of luck to you.

- Speaking and writing skills

- Listening and soft skills

- how your business operates so you can have a bigger contribution

- learn to get to know your colleagues as people

- learn how to present technical topics to decision makers

- learn to let go (and empathize with the other POV) if a decision doesn’t go your way

Find ways to sustain and improve your mental health. The future will get only more stressful and the thing between your ears will largely determine if your life is well lived or not. So far I have seen three areas that you should really look into. Sleep, meditation and exercise. In that order. They all do one thing well and that is to reduce stress and increase your resistance to stress. All other areas in your life will improve, but it’s a slow process which results are only visible after roughly two months of consistent effort.

Machine learning. I used to think it wasn't worth learning but I was recently convinced otherwise. ML is one of the few skills that can enable an individual to make a 10x change to a business.

Rust. WebGPU (the WGPU implementation is nice https://github.com/gfx-rs/wgpu-rs). Also ECS.

What I would call "quantitative environmental consciousness" - things like estimating energy consumption and carbon footprints.

Topics like energy policy and CO2 emissions will become increasingly critical in our lives, and yet you don't find many people reasoning about them in a lucid and informed way.

A great place to start is the SEWTHA book by MacKay: https://www.withouthotair.com/

Understanding statistics (and how to cheat with them).

Learn how you can lower your CO2 foot print: Get used to using a train instead of a plane. Use public transportation instead of your car. Use a bike more often. Stay in home office and do more remote meetings. Eat less meat. Learn about and use solar and wind power energy generation for your house. Learn about the thermal insulation of your house and how to improve it.

Graph Databases. Most companies have problems where graph DBs are a great solution, but people who have experience with them are rare.

There are more good answers to this question than there is time. Since prophecy doesn't seem to be a skill you can learn you will need to make some educated guesses. Dead skills are still in demand for someone, but if everybody learns them it was a waste of time for most - unless they did it purely from interest in the subject and not usefulness.

Guess this is about non-tech skills :)

I've wanted to learn basic sewing. I even bought a sewing machine from Costco that's gathering dusk. I'm a slender guy and the only thing that fits me well are "slim fit" shirts.

Not everyone sells slim fit shirts or well fitting pants. Knowing basic sewing I can make adjustments and have clothes that fit well.

Learn a foreign language such as Spanish or Mandarin, or whichever language you fancy and stick with it until you're conversational. Learning a new language opens you up to other ideas and cultures. Being bilingual should be a prerequisite -- our culture would be more accepting of other cultures instead of becoming a xenophobe.

Skiing: learn to carve like a racer and ski mogul like a pro.

Technology: build stuff instead of reading about stuff.

Personal: be a better husband and father.

Skills to acquire in 2020, ye Hacker News reader? A wee bit of abstract mathematics knowledge, so that you can better think in abstract terms when solving problems. The hardest of problems require the usage of and familiarity with advanced abstractions. Abstract mathematics knowledge provides that great—and profound!—capability.

Learn to play an instrument and improvise on it if you enjoy it. It's a talent you can share with other people.

Self awareness

- Identify your values

- Measure your behaviors and thoughts against your values

- Build a network of people who will give you genuine feedback

Learn and adopt a flexibility routine, perform all or some of it before doing a workout or just at night before bed... I suggest the Limbar 11 as a starting point https://youtu.be/FSSDLDhbacc

Pick up a non-fiction book on a subject completely unrelated to anything you know but find appealing.

At professional level, liberal arts intros to be able to combine technical proficiency with historical savviness and social awareness; at personal level and if relevant: drop stinginess, the most alienating attitude when dealing with acquaintances and friends in public.

Critical thinking. Media literacy. Healthy skepticism. The ability to admit you were wrong.

Learn some time management, track where you use your time the most.

Learn finance management, track all your finance and learn where your money goes.

Learn to cook a meal that you would always eat and easy to cook.

Learn about How to be a good listener.

But all the above must be done in practice to be learnt

Microcontrollers. Pick an interesting project (google Arduino for beginners) and try making it work on an Arduino Uno. Once you get a full understanding of how hardware works it makes you a much better software engineer by far.

How to build habits. We have a lot of resources today to learn how to create good or remove bad habits in a consistent manner.

If you learn this, you can easily acquire other skills such as reading, exercising, less procrastination, etc.

"Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one."

- Marcus Aurelius

Take a cue from Uncle Bob (Heinlein) and start working on his list:

A human being should be able to:

- change a diaper

- plan an invasion

- butcher a hog

- conn a ship

- design a building

- write a sonnet

- balance accounts

- build a wall

- set a bone

- comfort the dying

- take orders

- give orders

- cooperate

- act alone

- solve equations

- analyze a new problem

- pitch manure

- program a computer

- cook a tasty meal

- fight efficiently

- die gallantly

Specialization is for insects.

Here are my suggestions:

- Learn to fast. I'm not talking about intermittent fasting, one meal a day, or fake fasting like juice fasting. I'm talking not eating for 48 hours, 72 hours, or more. With electrolytes, it becomes a lot easier than you think. Once you can comfortably achieve 72 hours of no eating, it will seriously change your perspective on food. You'll realize that you've been throwing your money away every few hours on food you didn't need to eat, and that everyone around you is wasting resources. You'll lose weight better than any diet there is. Trust me. When you do choose to eat, because you've saved your money, you can eat better food. You will become healthier in general because fasting actually gives your organs a rest and heal. Once you've done a few fasts, you may find that you're able to sleep a lot better. Fasting is a skill because it takes discipline.

- Get to know your neighbors. This is really not that difficult at all, but we avoid it because we see new social connections as "work" to maintain, whereas it's just easier to go home and watch Netflix alone. I've realized that having a small social network wherever you live is nice and makes you feel connected with your community. One of my best friends used to be my neighbor, whom I wouldn't have had lots of great experiences with had I not talked to him, like most people.

- Learn to cook sous vide style. You can do this the poor man's way using hot water and a thermometer, even with your dishwasher. But I suggest just getting an automated sous vide circulator and using that. You can make steak, pork chops, eggs, etc., that taste like they're made at a restaurant, or better! It's clean, which is good if you live in an apartment, and very difficult to screw up. Unlike barbecue, you don't have to pay close attention to it. You can pan sear your meat afterwards, or even sear using a George Foreman grill for even easier cleanup. Because sous vide will help you cook tasty food, you will find yourself cooking at home more. People will be blown away by how good your steaks are.

- Learn about emergency planning. Most people(Americans, anyway) are woefully unprepared for emergencies and disasters, and even a lot of those who think they're prepared are mistaken in thinking that a few granola bars and a flashlight will save them. Learn what it takes to get yourself and your family prepared, and you will feel a sense of security when the day comes that a violent storm comes, or an earthquake hits, or your home is in the way of a wildfire, or there's civil unrest, or worse. This is not a fringe idea or "doomsday prepping". President Obama told everyone to prepare for these possibilities, and the Department of Homeland Security encourages us to prepare. The website ready.gov is a good place to get started. Same with the LDS Preparedness Manual.

Watercolour painting, the paints, brushes, etc can be quite inexpensive, and it is an activity that allows one to get lost in it entirely, that you forget all other things during that time.

Would personally be happy to see more skills of which the importance has rapidly risen in 2020 or expected to rise.

Exercise has always been important. So has connecting with people or marketing.

In the light of this comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGuFdX5guE

DevOps trend is only going up with new tools emerging everyday...

Well cooking and woodworking definitely won. May I suggest: keep a tidy desk, cupboard, storeroom, backyard? I can achieve the first one, definitively not the others.

Learn how to make bread. It was one year of fumbling until I got it right consistently but nowdays I can make better bread than any commercial bakery around me.

Is anyone trying to give skills specific to 2020? This thread so far sounds like standard self-improvement advice (get in shape, eat healthy, manage stress).

My skill to acquire for 2020 is to learn to delegate well. It will free up a lot of time for you and give others a chance to bring up their skill set.

Learn,understand and appreciate Art build something from wood learn a new programming language improve my maths do a backflip a foreign language

Learn to get a decent and consistent amount of sleep.

Learn how to break information addiction. Just because you _can_ Google it, doesn't mean you should. Embracing ignorance is liberating.

Boy, did this conversation veer off-track or what?

Sense-making. Social intelligence. Novel and adaptive thinking. Cross-cultural competency. Design mindset. Virtual collaboration.

Learn molecular biology and how biotech uses it. The 20's are going to be a huge inflection point in biotechnology.

Emotional intelligence. Specifically: self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Introspection, communication, soft skills

If you are a software guy, get a breadboard and a few micro-controllers and start tinkering. So much fun!

Meditation and emotional control

How to cultivate empathy

Here's what I'm considering for the year:

- typing with Colemak (-dh?)

- Statistics 102 (calculating sample sizes, t-tests, etc.)

- Tensorflow

learn that it is OK to ask for help and admit that you have a problem. it doesn't make you weak to admit that need help in what ever area of your life and you will have more support than you will ever know. the first step is on you to ask though.

1. Being a good listener. 2. Patience. 3. Agreeing to disagree, and not taking it personally.

- Japanese (< 15 min Duolingo over morning coffee) - Computer Networking (Bradfield CS)

For non English speakers, English. For English speakers, learn at least a second language.

Using search engines efficiently not just Google.

Tracking your online privacy and personal information.

Become a better communicator: spend time polishing your ability to speak and write.

I am learning Autodesk fusion 360 so that I can create 3d designs for 3d printing

Build your personal brand through blogging (on a domain name you own).

Meditation! So many mental, emotional, and physical health benefits!

I want to build an electric go-cart. Any good books on that? :)

Journaling every night - journal about anything - just write

learn how to use kubernetes :) or get involved in the container orchestration scene to make it better

1. Investing 2. Sales/marketing

Empathy, patience, understanding.

Survival skills. Global warming, unprecedented fires, coronavirus, rise of fascism, and on and on we go.

C++ for quantum computing ;)

Learn to feel your emotions.

Holotropic Breathwork

Learn how to hold space for someone.

Non violent communication

Tribal Leadership

How to grow magic mushrooms

How to have a challenging conversation

- Statistics

- Spiking neural nets

- Convolutional neural nets

- Paragliding

- Mountain biking

Sales and marketing.

play the bagpipe

Category theory

AWS

learn to write poetry

nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills

Learn about intelligent design theory and how it impacts biology and computer science. Google papers by Dembski for the mathematical underpinning. I recommend his papers 'search for a search' and 'specification: the pattern that signifies intelligence'. Read Winston Ewert's paper 'Dependency Graph of Life' for an amazing application of CS to bioinformatics, and 'algorithmic specified complexity in the game of life' for a fun application to artificial life. Read 'Evolutionary Informatics' for a very accessible overview of their work.

The ability to be true to yourself in social situations!

-> https://www.youtube.com/c/socialanimal

We are surrounded by opportunities for real human connections

Every day, we go through dozens of situations that encourage light, authentic interactions with the people around us.

All these moments when someone is next to you, and YOU feel like you want to interact… but you don’t

…you are working at coffee shop and there someone next to you. You share a smile, you look at each other a few times, you want to say something… but instead you convince yourself that you are too busy and leave wondering what if…

…you are standing in line, someone in front of you looks cool, you like their vibe, you could give them a compliment but you are not sure, what are they gonna think, whats the point anyway… whatever…

…you go out to a bar to meet people. They are people all around you, you feel tonight could be fun but instead you order a drink and talk to you friends all night…

Opportunities are all around us, but instead of diving into the moment, we hesitate…

We second guess ourselves and overthink our intentions until before we know it, the moment passes us by.

Maybe we make up an excuse why it didn’t happen, or maybe we just accept the fact that we are just not “that kind of person”

Either way, we censor ourselves, a moment here, a moment there, constantly moving further away from the connections we so desperately crave and building comfort on the sidelines of the life we could have.

These interactions could lead to our next friendship, job or romantic encounter but the most important realization is that its not about the outcome, it’s about you.

The real question is who would you be today if you had gone for it even half the time in the last few years? What you lose is not only the moment and the potential connection, but the personal evolution that this moment would have brought you.

We are so focused on the outcome that we forget the initial intent of expression, the desire to say something, we forget about the process…

I used to judge my interaction on the outcome, I made a friends, I got her number, I went on a date etc… until I realized all this is irrelevant.

The only question that matter is: “Did I express myself or did I censor myself”

Why?

Because overtime, being committed to expressing yourself will simply give you more experience.

You’ll be more comfortable expressing your truth, you’ll meet more people, you’ll just have so much more experience which will impact how you relate to people, how you express yourself… which in turn impact your new interactions.

I realized that I should be able to talk to anyone with the same ease and presence I have when I am with my best friends.

All the frictions you can experience are just opportunities to better understand yourself and your perception.

Interacting with people is first and foremost about you. It’s about expressing yourself, the rest takes care of itself.

The only thing you need is to let your true self shine through. That’s what people want to see, and it’s the only way find real people to share your life with.

-> https://www.youtube.com/c/socialanimal

Attention

Porn

No-Code Automation.

The ability to be true to yourself in social interactions! youtube.com/c/socialanimal