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72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
CuriositiesJAN 19, 2026

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier

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Learning new skills is fun and exciting, but it can also be incredibly challenging and daunting. Most people don’t enjoy being bad at something and failing over and over again. And yet, you’ll have a tough time learning anything new if you don’t see your mistakes as opportunities for growth, instead of as failure. Meanwhile, some skills are actually fairly easy to learn and can have a massive impact on your life.
Some helpful internet users spilled the tea about what they see as top-tier, life-changing skills that you can learn in just a few short weeks. Keep scrolling to read their suggestions. We know what we’ll be focusing on in the new year. What about you?

#1

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Reading books. I’ve just gotten back into it and I feel with every book I read, I learn something new, either about myself or about life or I just feel a sense of accomplishment!
26points

#2

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Researching information and sources.

So much [nonsense] is fed to society that knowing what is a good source and good information is critical to making good decisions.

People make decisions every day so this is huge in the long run.
23points

#3

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Self Control. It's way easier than you think. You start with delayed gratification. You can have the things you desire, but when you want them you have to set an arbitrary time frame that you have to wait to get them. Start with absurdly easy time frames, like 5 minutes. Keep extending the delayed gratification until you feel like you have better control over your impulses. It happens surprisingly fast and will start bleeding into everything you do. Suddenly, you will find yourself rationally navigating even the most impulsive situations.
22points

How long it’ll take you to master a skill will depend on, well, the skill itself, how much effort you put in, and how you apply yourself. However, you don’t necessarily need to perfectly master a skill or spend 10,000 hours honing it, to get use out of it.

Josh Kaufman, the author of ‘The First 20 Hours: How To Learn Anything… Fast!’ explained to Forbes that most people are “deeply disturbed” by the idea of being bad at something, even if it’s temporary.

“When you try something new, you’re usually very bad, and you know it. The easiest way to eliminate that feeling of angst is to quit practicing and go do something else, so that’s what most of us do.”

#4

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
First Aid.

It would change someone elses life far more compared to your own. But that someone could be a friend or relative making it life-changing for yourself as well.
21points

#5

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Emotional regulation.
Most adults are toddlers with bills.
Learning to pause before reacting is life-changing.
19points

#6

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Sewing.

ghostwillows:

This! Mending clothes is the most useful for everyday and it costs almost nothing to start and modern clothes are constructed terribly.
18points

The optimistic thing is that, even though you’ll probably be awful at something in the early hours of doing it, you can quickly improve your skill with even a little bit of persistence and intelligent practice.

According to Kaufman, you could try learning a new skill by first precommitting to putting in at least 20 hours of practice. That way, you’ll find it easier to keep going even if things seem overwhelmingly difficult.

Next, learn just enough about the core concepts of the skill to apply it. And you can always break your learning program up into smaller, more manageable parts. Realistically, after those 20 hours, you’ll become reasonably competent in that particular skill.

#7

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Saying “no” without over-explaining or feeling guilty.
18points

#8

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
I estimate most people could become financially literate in 100 hours of efficient study: understand the basics of budgeting, saving/investing, banking, insurance, taxation...with potential cost savings of many thousands of dollars in the course of their lives.
17points

#9

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Practicing not eating mindlessly+snacking unhealthily. It [is a pain] for the first few days due to carb + sugar withdrawal, but your body adapts quickly and will feel much better.
15points

Kaufman stressed to Forbes that the idea of mastering a skill can be counterproductive because it might stop you from exploring it in the first place. Instead, you could focus on having fun if it’s a personal hobby or on performing well enough to get meaningful results if it’s a career skill.

On top of that, you don’t even have to master every skill that you learn.

“I believe that developing new skills in a way that allows you to perform well enough for your own purposes is – by far – the most common and valuable purpose of skill acquisition. Based on my research, reaching that level doesn’t take anywhere close to 10,000 hours – you can usually achieve the goals you set yourself in around 20 hours of deliberate practice,” he told Forbes.

#10

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
You could become decently skilled at cooking in a month if you tunnel focus. From there you can take control of your health,
finances and if you get really good, it can help your dating and [intimate] life. 
14points

#11

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Correctly brushing and flossing your teeth. Remember kids, only floss the teeth you want to keep.
14points

#12

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Stretching every day. Spend 10-30 minutes a day stretching and some basic yoga moves, your flexibility will improve so much. Also get yourself a foam roller, my back and legs has never felt so good.
14points

Which of these life-changing skills do you think you’d like to prioritize? Do you think you’ll pick any of these up in the near future? What new things do you think you’d like to learn this year? What are the most essential skills that you’ve learned that you think absolutely everyone should know? Let us know!

#13

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Swimming. Pretty much the number 1 skill to prevent an accident.
12points

#14

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Working out regularly.

It's a lifetime journey of learning, but it only takes a few weeks to start feeling comfortable in the gym & get over the worst soreness from starting weight lifting.

Someday, if you're *lucky*, you will be old. Working out regularly can be the difference between being in an assisted living or living independently. (Also being strong is ridiculously fun).
11points

#15

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Managing suffering (anxiety/depression, otherwise)

I know it takes a lifetime to feel better, recover from trauma, etc...but learning the skills to deal with these feelings and then implement them doesn't take long to accomplish...the fruits of the labor itself tho takes years, but is something life-changing (speaking from personal experience, as a trauma survivor myself).
11points

#16

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Socratic journaling. Took me about a month to learn how to regulate my thoughts when dealing with anxiety. The best thing I could do for my mental health and it’s free.
11points

#17

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Learning how to communicate clearly and confidently.
In just a few weeks, you can improve how you explain ideas, set boundaries, and express yourself. It helps in interviews, relationships, negotiations, and even daily conversations. People often underestimate how powerful good communication really is.
11points

#18

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
If you work in a large company - Excel. Or some sort of data Visualization software.

People will think you’re a genius.
10points

#19

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Strategic thinking, i.e. prioritizing the right thing. It changed my life. I used to be busy but doing the wrong things. Now I am pickier on what to invest my time in.
10points

#20

72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier
Heimlich manoeuver. I saved a kid in class one day. He was turning purple. It was so surprising how hard I had to do it to make the piece of candy come flying out of his mouth.
10points
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