72 Fast Skills People Swear Made Their Lives Easier

A really stupid one: juggling. It's not about learning to juggle it's about training your subconscious (cerebellum really) to catch things that you're barely aware of. You can drop a glass bottle you're drinking from and your other hand will shoot out and catch it on the way down before you really realize what's going on. It's the kind of quick reaction time that even sports doesn't teach you, but if you do a sport like baseball, it will help make your catches more automatic.

Welding. With the advent of extremely inexpensive machines and youtoob, it’s very accessible to almost anyone. If I couldn’t weld, I’d go INSANE. Almost every personal project I get involved in includes welding, and I frequently collect some handsome paychecks with those skills, too.

Learn to sing healthily, for the health benefits. Popular important songs in different languages. Singing well requires precise coordination of so many muscles you never think about, and striving for that often reveals tensions in your body you don’t realise you have, literally from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Additionally, musicianship (taught properly) requires combining a whole range of cognitive processes that humans don’t do in any other form, musical practice is truly unique in this way. Singing of course can also be a social activity, there is lots of neuroscience to support the benefits of singing together - both the music itself but also with the addition of languages which work in their own way - but it’s enough to know there’s magic and connection. In all, singing is a unique tool for nervous system regulation and overall physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing, there really is nothing like it. It’s something humans have ALWAYS done. It’s just part of being human.

Brushing your teeth for more than 30 seconds, for real it will change your life.

Got my CDL-A in about a month. Changed my career/life for the better.

Planning.

Drawing. the ability to draw anything in detail and accuracy is highly unrated. Hand writing and drawing basically allows you to have a better ability to communicate or just have some mild form of entertainment. Alot of people seriously lack penmanship or just a level of artistic design as an outlet.

Salary negotiation- learn it from YouTube

Interview skills- a. Learn it from YouTube b. Practice with ChatGPT giving you Interview questions c. Film yourself at least 4x with your phone practicing your answers, it will CALM your nerves in the Interview.

Estimating calories/protein. Everyone eats food. Look at the package or use an app and start getting a reference for how much XYZ has. It has literally guilt tripped me into eating healthy. Do something long enough and it becomes routine. Eventually you gravitate to the healthier choices and it becomes a lifestyle, not a fad temporary diet.

How to manage small talk! Learn this now and would prove to be a life-changing skillset. 

Document. Especially anytime anyone verbally asks you to do something you are uncomfortable with, in personal life or work. Even if it's just family or friends borrowing money or a personal item. Unless you are fine with never seeing it again.

I learned that in the military. As one example I had a LT and Chief tell me to do something I knew was against our regs. OK. I drew up a "procedure" which happened to include the section of the electric plant installation manual they were telling me to violate. Had them sign it and stuck a copy in my locker. 7 months later, after an external inspection team found it, they called me into the office. "We found out you splicing that feed pump was a serious violation and now we need to figure out what to do about you." "OK, should I go get my copy of the procedure that you signed where I told you it was a violation of the EPISM and you told me to do it anyway?" Never heard another word about it.

Basic automotive maintenance.

Doing my dishes immediately after I use them.

Speed reading. It only really takes focus to read words on a page without making your internal voice speak them to you as you go. You'd probably be surprised how much you can comprehend accurately by letting your eyes do the work by themselves.

Creativity. Sounds vague, and it could be applied in a countless assortment of hobbies and skills, but the benefits of having a solid level of confidence in a skill that allows you take take creative control has a massive impact on every aspect of your life. Picking a subject and putting 100hours into it will make you hugely competent, and people will notice. Photography, woodwork, painting, writing, whatever.

Basic video editing. Seriously.

I learned the fundamentals in like 3 weeks just messing around with DaVinci Resolve (free version) and suddenly people were asking me to edit their videos for events, social media, etc. It opened up side income possibilities I never expected.

Plus once you can edit, you can create content for yourself - which is a completely different skill that changes how you see storytelling, pacing, and communication. Even if you never make money from it, knowing how to tell a visual story is incredibly useful.

The hardest part honestly is just getting comfortable with the software. After that it's just practice and you get better at it week by week. Totally doable in 4 weeks with an hour or two daily.

Controlling your blood glucose.

So, it's hard to say exactly, but I'll throw out "Sentence Composition." I don't mean grammar or grade school stuff, but the strategies writers employ to extend sentences, the ways extending sentences can change how the words in it read, fast and slow, suspenseful or fluid.

I've been reading some on this and, as someone who hated English class, I'm shocked and annoyed how simple some of these ideas are to pick up on.

Edit: I guess I should've added a bit more for people to go on if curious. Rhetoric and Syntax are the main technical terms, but it doesn't have to be a technical study. Check out the article "A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence" by Francis Christensen (7 pages, free on JSTOR for students or someone with a gmail.).

Lock picking.

SlaughterWare:

I had a bit of free time last summer and thought it might be one of those fantastic 'just in case' skills should the situation arrive where I lock myself out or whatever, and taught myself this from youtube vids. Conclusion? a) it's actually really fun and satisfying as a hobby to pick locks, and b) If people knew how easy it is to do in some cases, they'd freak.

Something that shocked me the other when I rewatched Terminator 2 is that there's a scene in the movie where Sarah Connor breaks out of her cell and she rakes a customized pick exactly like you would in real life, authentically.

Frankly I'm amazed that it was even left in the movie! lol!

Anger management, if you’re prone to rage-outs.🤣.