surprisingly high-leverage QoL improvements

January 03, 2026

[YMMV, reverse all advice given, what works for me may not work for thee, caveat emptor, etc.]

• consuming 2-3 servings of fish 5-6 days out of the week. ~essentially stopped major depressive periods c. September 2025. have not extensively tested reducing # of servings/day, but dropping to 3-4 days/wk seems to work about as well
• waking up prior to sunrise. the subjective length of the day increases when I'm awake for mornings! and for some reason or other I can only get serious work done pre-noon or after sunset. i'm also consistently happy every time i see the sunrise
• acquiring an e-bike. SF is ridiculously bikeable, and e-bike rentals are $100-150/wk. almost always deeply enjoyable, esp. when the assist makes climbing hills less painful
• cordless waterflosser. ~substitutes for normal floss (e.g. frequency reduced to <1wk), much more convenient than corded ones,
• learning to be actively intentional about what music I listen to.
• "make anki flashcard" as tool-call; removes anxiety about forgetting. can range from complicated image to quote to fuzzy concept you remind yourself to revisit to remembering the conditions under which certain people act in certain ways (including yourself!) to update your blindspots.
• unlimited zotero storage + daylight computer. high-refresh rate on a yellow-backlit tablet is incredibly soothing & perfect to fall asleep to
• bilevel notebooks. one relatively fancy, moleskin-esque bullet journal for condensing the thoughts of a given day; one spiral-bound, A4 sized to record jottings. this is useful because (1) can be used as reference without forcing something to legibilize too early, and also sometimes you want to vocalize thoughts without necessarily reifying / endorsing them (they can stay in (2)!).

will update as I remember. excluded are unsurprisingly high-leverage QoL improvements