[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?
I often feel overwhelmed by the amount of things I either wish to
know or that I should know already. Be it theoretical knowledge
about ML, CS, mechanics, math topics. Or lack of experience e.g in
some algorithms I need to understand, control problems, programming
lanuages. And I really struggle to organize a propper study
schedule. What should I do next? Should I continue learning this
one programming language? Continue reading this ML book? Try to set
up and solve some control problems? For each topic I would like to
learn, I already have the right material (books, problems to solve,
etc.), so at least this is not a problem. Often I am so
overwhelmed that I just watch stuff on youtube. I wish I had a
tool or found a methodology to a) stay focused on the things I want
to learn and b) to somehow track my progress. Are there any tools
or methodologies that you can recommend? Please don't tell me "just
use pen & paper", I tried and I would like something more
interactive.
Author : ruph123
Score : 214 points
Date : 2020-05-03 07:14 UTC (15 hours ago)
| darrelld wrote:
| I've been trying to figure this out for decades now. From my
| teens, I realized that the internet was limitless in how much
| info it had, but that I was limited in how much I could pack into
| my brain.
|
| Here are some things I try to keep in mind as I try to learn new
| things:
|
| * Get enough sleep and nutrition. If you're tired/hungry you're
| going to feel overwhelmed faster
|
| * Don't rely on motivation, instead rely on discipline.
| Motivation is great for a burst of energy, but it will eventually
| leave you. Discipline, on the other hand, is what will make you
| start and finish that book / online course, etc.
|
| * Track your progress in whatever way is best suited to you. This
| could be as simple as a check on a calendar or using an app.
| Personally I like the Jiffy and Habits app on the Android store.
| Seeing progress helps with both motivation and discipline.
|
| * Learn one thing at a time. It's tempting to spread yourself
| thin, but sticking to one thing is best.
|
| * Give yourself more time than you think you'll need to learn. In
| a classroom setting you can raise your hand and ask an expert a
| question which they can quickly clear up for you. When you're
| doing self-study you'll find that you may ask the wrong question,
| interpret things wrong, go down a Google rabbit hole trying to
| understand related topics, dig through forum answers which may
| not quite answer your question, and leave you with even more
| questions.
|
| * Figure out your learning method. Maybe it's video, maybe it's a
| book. Your preferred learning method may change over time and it
| may change by topic. Don't be afraid to stop one method and pick
| up with a new one, or change midway through. For example, when
| I'm learning a new language I find video courses helpful to get
| me started, but then once I'm running and past the basics, I find
| text content easier to digest.
|
| * Personally I get frustrated when learning new things when
| someone decides to coin a new jargon term. For example a little
| while back I ran into the term "upsert" to refer to an "update or
| insert" process. The text I was reading used it like I was
| supposed to know what it was, but I had never run into it before.
| These things frustrate me and usually make me feel like I'm way
| behind in basic knowledge and tend to kill both motivation and
| discipline. Why not just the extended-term, especially in a
| course designed for beginners? It causes a weird mental block for
| me. My solution is to just say "Fuck you, but fine. I accept this
| as it is". It's a little mental prayer than helps me move past
| the feeling.
| gas9S9zw3P9c wrote:
| I think you are describing "how to learn effectively, manage
| time, and stay motivated [once you've picked a topic]" - which
| is important and useful, but IMO slightly different from what
| the OP is describing (and a problem I have), which is "how to
| pick what to learn next when there are 1,000 interesting
| choices with uncertain payoffs"
|
| For example, you say "Learn one thing at a time" - Sure, but
| how do you pick that one thing when there are 1,000 things on
| your list that all seem equally useful and interesting? What I
| am looking for is a proper system for picking that one thing,
| not using my gut feeling.
| rwnspace wrote:
| Here's a simple system: find out what resources you
| absolutely cannot bear to delete. If it's all of them, then
| your problem lies elsewhere.
| notechback wrote:
| I disagree. Don't need to force yourself to stick to one
| specific material if you don't like it. All my life I've
| benefitted from being a horizontal person - having always
| dabbled in everything I found interesting at the time.
|
| Yes to get into a job you'll need specific skills and
| certificates and there you quickly deepen your knowledge as
| needed on the topic(s) you neer. But once you're in it you'll
| shine by having many varied skills. Being the one office worker
| with excel skills, or the one programmer able to tell a nice
| narrative, or the one c programmer that understands web apps,
| or... - you'll stand out.
|
| So my suggestion would be to let your passion drive you. Pick
| up any topic that seems interesting right now and throw
| yourself into it. And then the next the next day.
| playing_colours wrote:
| I think there can a few sides in the problem of prioritising and
| sticking to things.
|
| 1. maybe, you push yourself too hard to self-improve and learn.
| You "should" or "must" learn ML, maths. Such forcing can lead to
| frustration, low self-esteem, procrastination. Reflect, if it is
| the case and you can address by being more relaxed, CBT
| techniques like saying to yourself "I absolutely do not have to
| work through this maths topic today, but I choose to do it,
| because I want to be able to ..."
|
| 2. You cannot decide what to focus on, everything is cool and
| important, and you do not want to be wrong in your choice. You
| can address this problem with a short week long dives into
| different topics, and collecting more personal experience to make
| decision. Or just accept the fact of uncertainty, just pick with
| your heart, and enjoy the ride. Your current struggles to choose
| may be of zero importance to yourself in five years.
|
| 3. You cannot stick to a single topic. It might be ADHD, or you
| are passionate about the result, think mostly about how great it
| will be to work as a top ML researcher, instead of focusing on
| the process. Make your study engaging - emotionally and mentally.
| In my case, I become sleepy in 15 minutes when reading some maths
| textbook, but I feel much more alive and engaged when I solve
| problems in the book, or when I read a book with a practical goal
| in mind. Invest in loving the process of study.
| adamcharnock wrote:
| I'm hoping my reply is more helpful than it sounds at first
| glance... This is one of those questions where I read and then
| exclaim (rhetorically), "what's wrong with people?!"
|
| Don't take this the wrong way, I often exclaim this. You are
| quite possibly in the majority and I'm the odd one.
|
| To me it has always seemed inherently clear that the way to
| approach life is to do something if you enjoy it. If you stop
| enjoying it then do something else. I will naturally need a break
| from doing something after a while (hours, days, weeks), and so
| I'll put it down and pickup something else.
|
| As a recent article on HN mentioned, "enthusiasm is worth 25 IQ
| points."
|
| When it comes to self-guided activities such as this, there has
| never been a "should" or "best" for me. I just follow what I
| enjoy, perhaps guided secondarily by what may be useful.
| (Actually, I enjoy things that are useful, so perhaps that
| intertwines these concepts for me). I suspect I didn't thrive at
| university for this reason, while in the real world I know a
| number of people who would call me an overachiever.
|
| PS. I have a few friends with some degree of ADHD. These friends
| may often feel overwhelmed by a large number of choices or tasks,
| to the point of inaction. I'm not saying this applies to you, but
| I just thought it was worth mentioning.
| stevewodil wrote:
| Ok I enjoy watching YouTube, so I will do that
| crispyporkbites wrote:
| Do you really enjoy watching YouTube, or is it just easy to
| fire up their home page and click on recommended videos with
| promising titles that ultimately leave you unfulfilled,
| lonely and disillusioned?
|
| Are you wondering how to break this cycle of content
| consumption? Do you need a break from the hedonistic
| treadmill of social media?
| gerdesj wrote:
| Quite a few leading questions there! I'm sure you have
| probably touched a nerve for us all at one point or another
| but why not go easy on the attack and dive in with some
| empathy? Or why not play silly buggers with randomish
| thoughts:
|
| Perhaps we could come up with a trail of breadcrumbs that
| touches on decent YT vids. By leaving carefully coded
| comments. _warms to idea_ That would leave the trail in YT
| itself which would self heal if multiply pointered
| properly, ie each point has a link forwards, backwards and
| to, perhaps a hub to use in the event of a bigger outage.
|
| The above might be far more fun to deploy than a search
| engine or an old school WAIS/Gopher. After a while the host
| would cotton on and decide to either encourage or thwart.
| Game on!
|
| _sips more wine_ OK so who fancies playing stenography
| style games with YT comments to generate guided courses
| using YT vids?
| ryeights wrote:
| I don't think it was intended as an attack, but rather
| the GP's own experience with YouTube time-wasting. It's
| certainly mine.
| londt8 wrote:
| What kind of videos you watch? Maybe that could guide you to
| find something which interests you.
| andai wrote:
| I recently heard the advice to do some forensics on
| yourself -- bookmarks, search history, youtube history, to
| figure out what kind of person you are (in the context of
| what work would suit you best).
| krallja wrote:
| Andrew Ng. Machine Thinking. 8-Bit Guy. Ben Eater. Jeri
| Ellsworth. I do some of my best learning with YouTube.
| krallja wrote:
| Yep. Also, see if there's a game that teaches you the thing you
| want to learn.
|
| I learned orbital mechanics from Kerbal Space Program.
|
| Assembly programming from TIS-100 and Microcorruption.
|
| And ... whatever the heck I learned from Factorio. Logistics?
| Abstraction?
|
| If there isn't a game, you might try and make it a game. See
| how fast you can solve the example problems in the textbook.
| Get the high score on your flashcards. (This doesn't work for
| me, I get more interested in designing and building the game
| than playing it.)
| kbutler wrote:
| Most things that are fun, and almost everything that is
| amazing, require periods of not-fun to get there.
|
| Practicing a musical instrument, falling while snowboarding,
| getting up early to be on the mountain for the sunrise.
|
| The original poster is asking for ideas to help build enough
| discipline to power through the tough spots of a learning curve
| to get to where the proficiency pays off in enjoyment or other
| benefits.
|
| We have so many easy diversions, that it's easy to train one's
| self to not do hard things.
|
| I can study/practice/work for a future benefit, or I can play a
| video game (or browse hn) for fun now!
|
| Training yourself to do hard things is harder. Maintaining a
| vision of the goal, getting satisfaction from expending effort,
| having empathy for your future self, denying yourself of
| immediate distractions/pleasures can each play a role.
| Jenz wrote:
| > Practicing a musical instrument
|
| This is not fun?
| krallja wrote:
| STE-PING-UP. STE-PING-DOWN. THEN. A. SKIP
|
| C D E E D C D E C
|
| Practicing a musical instrument is not fun. Playing a
| musical instrument is fun. Practicing is mostly repeating
| scales and other patterns.
| Sevaris wrote:
| When you know a piece and play it, it can be fun. But the
| way there can be frustrating and tedious. You'll make
| mistakes. You'll learn slower than you'd like. You might
| repeat the same section a hundred times before you feel
| satisfied. Some days you'll even feel like you've forgotten
| how to play certain parts properly. But you do it anyways
| because you know it's rewarding and satisfying at the end
| of the day (and with a certain level of discipline), not
| because it's fun moment-to-moment.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I don't think enjoyment is the guide we should always use for
| deciding what to do. That is one aspect of our lives that is
| important to maintain, but a lot of satisfaction in life comes
| from things that aren't 'enjoyable' in the strictest sense,
| especially not in the moment that you are doing the action.
| Hard work, selflessness, and sacrifice doesn't usually feel
| enjoyable in the moment, but can lead to a more satisfying
| life.
| adamcharnock wrote:
| From the other comments here this seems like a common
| sentiment. I do indeed do things which are not enjoyable in
| the strictest sense, as you phrase it. However I do still
| think my original comment is true, so perhaps there is some
| finessing to be done here. I'm not sure I have the answer
| though.
|
| Perhaps there are different kinds of 'enjoyment'. And perhaps
| I'm personally willing to accept some immediate suffering
| because I know I'm pursuing a greater enjoyment.
|
| I'm certainly not advocating for (constantly) pursuing in-
| the-moment unbridled hedonism.
|
| Something which may be related to this is the idea of type 1
| fun and type 2 fun. I'm not sure where I heard this, but few
| people I talk to have heard of it.
|
| Type 1 fun is the kind of fun which is enjoyable in the
| moment. For example, computer games and watching youtube
| videos.
|
| Type 2 fun is the kind of fun which is enjoyable upon
| reflection but not necessarily in the moment. For example,
| running a marathon, certain moments of trial/despair when
| working on a big project.
|
| When I first played Factorio I played it for about a week
| solid. I loved it. After that I could put it down and do
| other things. I now play it for a couple of days every couple
| of months when the mood takes me. This is type 1 fun for me.
|
| I'm certainly glad a ran a marathon, and it is a very happy
| memory, but no way in hell am I going to do that again. Very
| much type 2 fun.
|
| Some comments (not necessarily the one I'm replying to) seem
| to inversely correlate enjoyment with how hard a task is. The
| harder a task is the less likely it is to be enjoyable. Is
| this true? It certainly isn't my experience, but maybe I'm
| odd as I originally suggested.
|
| Something which has also driven me is boredom. Being a
| freelance developer has given me a _lot_ of free time.
| Certainly for me, type 1 fun only goes so far in conquering
| that boredom. Sure, play computer games for 6 months, but
| then that gets boring too. At least it did for me. Then what?
|
| Then, for me, type 2 fun starts to look more appealing.
| Perhaps I should build a house? Sure its going to be hard,
| but I'm practical and I like leaning new stuff. Plus I'll be
| outdoors, and at the end of it I'll have a house. (FWIW, I
| actually did this)
|
| Perhaps that's just being an "up" kind of person. I think it
| is also believing in one's abilities.
|
| I don't think this is a cohesive point with a strong
| conclusion, but perhaps this series of paragraphs is useful
| in furthering a discussion.
| jedberg wrote:
| I've found that all of my self directed learning was because of a
| project. I picked a project I wanted to do and then taught myself
| the skill to do it.
|
| When I wanted to be a better sysadmin, I forced myself to use
| desktop Linux back in 1997 when it wasn't nearly as easy as it is
| now. I had to learn how to compile and configure kernels, how to
| manage drivers and displays, how to write scrips, a bunch of
| hardware internals so I could configure them correctly, etc.
|
| But I was driven by the overarching goal of having a usable
| desktop machine.
|
| You can do the same here. Pick a larger project that accomplishes
| something you really want to do, and then learn what you need to
| learn.
|
| You said you have an interest in ML -- build an image classifier
| off of a camera feed at your front door. Make it identify the
| mail carrier and your neighbors' cars. Write it in a language you
| don't know but want to learn. And so on.
|
| Your progress will be tracked by how satisfied you are with the
| project and if it meets your needs.
| wpietri wrote:
| Same. Small practical projects are great for that. I wrote my
| own home lighting system as a way to learn Scala. [1] Getting
| curious about the big ships going by San Francisco's Fort Mason
| led to a Twitter bot [2] and a custom protocol parser that
| drove me to learn all sorts of stuff. [3] Buying a cheap robot
| vacuum led to me learning man-in-the-middle attacks and IoT
| protocols. [4] Today I'm busy learning Terraform and Prometheus
| so I can get my various projects off a single hand-maintained
| server and into the cloud.
|
| My big tip to people is to pick something that's big enough to
| be interesting but that you can initially cut back to something
| pretty small and deployable, then iterate. The ship stuff
| started out as a visual art piece for a robot chalkboard, but I
| fell back to the Twitter bot because I had bitten off too much.
| Having a series of near-term goals makes it very clear which
| specific thing I need to learn next; otherwise it's easy to
| drown.
|
| [1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
|
| [2] https://twitter.com/sfships
|
| [3] https://pypi.org/project/simpleais/
|
| [4] https://github.com/wpietri/sucks
| tstrul wrote:
| I'm managing a personal backlog of things I want to learn. I'm
| using notion but Trello or every scrum board model should do the
| job. Every cared has details and related links
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| - do a course on Udemy or similar instead of Youtube videos for
| course quality, structure and accountability
|
| - have good reasons why you study a particular topic and find a
| way to apply the knowledge as soon as possible
|
| - have particularly good reasons if you want to study
| foundational, abstract or huge topics. As noble as maths,
| category theory and machine learning are, maybe there is a reason
| why you and I haven't really picked it up that well in university
| despite graduating. Chances are we have enough tools to
| contribute meaningfully and to be employed gainfully, and
| settling the score with the old curriculum may not be the best
| use of our time.
| mkchoi212 wrote:
| I feel like the best way to learn new things is to actually build
| something? Want to learn a new language? Build something with the
| language? Want to learn a new algorithm? Try to incorporate that
| algorithm into the project you are currently working on. Trying
| to study boring non-real life examples get boring real fast.
| Applying them into real life is a good way to help you keep
| "studying".
| JamesBarney wrote:
| First of all accept that there is 100x time more useful knowledge
| to learn than you have time.
|
| Next prioritize the things that will be the most relevant to your
| career or or side projects. Specifically focus on the concrete
| and relevant over the abstract and esoteric. The most useful
| topics are going to be applied an relevant to your goals. Think
| how do I use css over theory of design.
|
| It's much easier for your brain to stay focused on items that are
| immediately relevant. Also focus on marketable projects over
| knowledge. I took an open source CMS and made the queries 2x as
| fast is a way better use of time than I red a bunch about
| Postgres tuning.
| dorchadas wrote:
| I'm self-learning math and, honestly, it's come down to finding
| someone to help keep me accountable. In this case, I got lucky
| enough to find a guy with a PhD who suggests books to work from,
| as well as which problems for each chapter/section, and then
| checks my proofs and discusses things with me. It was super
| lucky, but if you can find something like that, or even just
| someone to do the material with you, it could be much better.
|
| Another thing I do is schedule time. Especially since I've been
| off work, I've scheduled specific times where I do nothing else.
| I go there, log on my computer (I work out my solutions in
| Overleaf), turn off email notifications, mute my phone and place
| it elsewhere and just work. I've found that having a scheduled
| time makes things 100 times easier, as it mentally prepares me to
| just keep doing this. Other than that, it's don't doubt your
| resources; resource paralysis is a real thing (you see it a lot
| of the time in language learning too), they're all basically the
| same if you're working from a published textbook. Just pick one
| and stick with it.
| rwnspace wrote:
| It took me years of this cycle before I turned a corner a few
| weeks ago - the phrase 'necessity is the mother of invention'
| became viscerally meaningful, and not just an empty platitude. In
| the past year or so I would instantly burn out as soon as I tried
| to push myself for longer than a day or two, because I was right
| at the edge of overwhelm before I even began.
|
| I realised that it was on me to find the world where I had a
| forceful, motivating necessity behind me, and the right task in
| front of me... Otherwise I would simply not do anything at all.
| And that's a relieving truth, honestly. Be thankful that your
| brain budgets for you. It's probably a fundamental guard against
| extremely costly psychological conditions. You can't just induce
| mania every time you open one of those tutorial bookmarks.
|
| Historically you'd have a child to look after by the age you had
| both energy and experience, and the ordeal would soak up both and
| (hopefully) give you a bit of wisdom in return... Millenials and
| younger are having to shortcut this step to wisdom in a world
| with incredible uncertainty. The infotainment hurricane
| inculcates us with FOMO. It's just not the kind of environment
| that rewards slow, deep, considered, enjoyable, reflective,
| /focused/ learning. And lets be real, we're in the middle a
| blooming pandemic.
|
| Accept there are things which are not right for you, and that you
| might not ever get round to. Realise that your laziness and
| intuitive preferences keep the world of 'shoulds and oughts' a
| manageable size. They're also the levers to make it right again,
| if that world is growing out of control (I analogise them as
| natural defences against 'cognitive carcinogens').
|
| Imho you don't need any more tools or methodologies, or
| resources/pdfs/tutorials - you need fewer. Same goes for
| entertainment. I resolved to stop my obsessive resource
| hoarding/kleptomania, and to stop spending my life force on
| stupid smoke and mirrors for my own motivational systems.
| Seriously, consider reducing your possibilities and spending some
| time without the Internet every day. It turns out that turning
| off the info pipes and going to town on deleting most of your
| local resources/bookmarks is highly relieving, once you're past
| the initial pain barrier.
|
| All that said, Joplin is really good for notes and tasks - just
| whatever you do, don't get into Emacs+Org if you have trouble
| with procrastination (I recommend Doom Emacs + org-roam).
|
| [0] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dalio
| someguy101010 wrote:
| Have you thought about hiring a tutor?
| jimmysong wrote:
| My main advice
|
| 1. Start easy.
|
| It's tempting to grab a textbook or video series because it gets
| good reviews on Amazon or likes on YouTube. That's all good and
| fine, but it's more important to get a good introduction to the
| topic. The key here is to get a rhythm going and it's very easy
| to disrupt your study rhythm if you start too hard. So, much like
| working out, start out easy, with something you can easily grasp.
| Moreover, do less than you can. As they say in weightlifting,
| leave a couple of reps in the tank. Don't go all out as you're
| running a marathon, not a sprint.
|
| 2. Be consistent
|
| The key to finishing something is to do be consistent. Intense
| 5-day seminars can work, but you're going to need a very good
| teacher and have a lot of motivation to get through it. For self-
| study, consistency is much more important. I would recommend
| somewhere between 4-10 hours a week. Anything more than that is
| going to burn you out and anything less and you'll forget
| previous lessons. 1 hour a day for me on a given subject and
| taking weekends off works for me. The key is to build up momentum
| and keep it going.
|
| 3. Power through by stepping back.
|
| There will be sections where you're going to feel lost. You're
| going to feel frustrated or not know what the text or video is
| talking about. This is where you need to "deload" a bit. Take a
| week to review all the material you've learned so far and redo
| some of the exercises. Everyone has these and the key is to _not_
| lose momentum. Many a study has stopped due to one obstacle. The
| key is to step back for a bit and try again without losing the
| momentum you 've built.
|
| 4. Remove distractions.
|
| Not everyone has the discipline to follow these, and most of the
| time your brain will try very hard to distract you when you
| encounter a hard problem. The key is to minimize all your
| distractions during your study time. This means no email, social
| media, walks to the fridge or anything else. You start and don't
| stop until you've finished your hour (or 30 minutes or whatever
| you committed to). It's okay if you only got through 2 pages
| during that time as long as you didn't get distracted. Give
| yourself permission to stall a bit. And if this happens a few
| times in a row, step back and try again (see 3)
|
| 5. Get a buddy
|
| The best way to study is with someone or some group that's
| studying the same thing. There are lots of forums for all of
| those topics that you can engage in to answer some of your
| questions and possibly find someone to study with. Getting some
| accountability is an excellent way to keep up your momentum.
| srfa wrote:
| I've been in a similar boat - wanted to share what I found worked
| for me, perhaps it helps.
|
| I constantly found myself in the following loop:
|
| 1) Motivated to study, study productively
|
| 2) Several days / weeks later productivity stops (for any number
| of reasons)
|
| 3) Quickly forget everything I learnt over the next month or so
|
| 4) Back at stage 1, feeling I have 'wasted' the last few months.
|
| My big problem was the _forgetting_. Life is always going to get
| in the way, and I needed to 'drop anchor' when this happened, so
| I could resume where I left off, not start over.
|
| I use Anki [1] to do this. I learn things, make flashcards, and
| spend dead time on public transport keeping up with them. As Anki
| uses spaced repetition, you can input a LOT of cards without this
| becoming overwhelming.
|
| This gave me a sense of progress _even when I did not study for a
| month_ , and massivly increased my motivation.
|
| [1] https://apps.ankiweb.net/
| duxup wrote:
| My thing is similar, there is a lot I want to learn.
|
| My problem is a little different that even when I do it... it's
| on my own, late at night, I'm tired and frustrated that I'm not
| learning at the pace I want to.
|
| I've sort of settled that self learning for me is just going to
| be a mix of hacking things out clumsily and watching some videos
| before bed, and maybe maybe some lucky times where I have free
| time (rare with a family with kids) and some bits of it will
| stick, others won't, and I'll probably watch it again later and
| that's ok.
|
| In short rather than sweat the outcomes too much and get
| frustrated and not do the thing, I just do the things and frankly
| that usually results in better outcomes long term.
|
| Granted... I'm still working on all of this ;)
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Build things and document everything you do.
|
| Then you know, that the theories you learned about, where not
| just information adding to a (useful?) pile of information in
| your head.
| mosselman wrote:
| I started reading a very relevant book on getting out of your own
| way today:
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1936891026?linkCode=osi&th=1
|
| In general however, my advice is to relax. There is more to life
| than knowing little bits of many things. Try to learn something
| outside of computers. I find building things with my hands that
| aren't on a screen a lot more gratifying generally. Also, those
| kinds of skills come in a lot more handy in a zombie apocalypse.
| So there is that.
| afroisalreadyin wrote:
| Hi Raph, what's up? When it comes to improving yourself and
| learning new things, I think attitude is more important than
| tools. There is only so much you can get out of organizing your
| goals, resources and time if you overstretch yourself. I have
| found two techniques useful in terms of focusing my time and
| energy: Extrapolating from future achievements and elimination.
|
| What I mean with "extrapolating from future achievements" is
| setting concrete goals in terms of where I want to be in five
| years, or what I would like to be able to say I achieved, and
| working backwards from there. I feel that the main reason many
| people engage with new ideas, technologies, tools etc. is the
| infamous FOMO, fear of missing out. We fear that we will be left
| out, worth less if we don't read this article or learn that
| programming language. If there is no actual driving force behind
| an approach to a topic, learning it will cost you a lot of
| energy. You will need to remind yourself again and again why you
| are putting in the time and effort, and even worse, the next
| shiny thing will be extremely distracting. If you start with the
| knowledge that it's taking you somewhere, however, you will have
| much more internal drive.
|
| Elimination is just not doing things. You have three languages
| you want to learn? Drop two. Two books on algorithms? Drop one,
| or maybe even drop both and do some sports instead. I know this
| sounds silly; you are asking how you can get better at learning
| things, and I'm telling you not to learn them in the first place.
| But I think this is a key talent; dropping things and not looking
| back, not feeling bad about it, not losing any sleep over a
| missed opportunity. Everyone knows deep down that there is enough
| time only to concentrate on a couple of topics and areas in one
| lifetime; you can be a novice at many topics, but being an expert
| requires huge amounts of time and dedication. And the only way to
| bring these is by eliminating other topics. The previous
| technique of extrapolating from the future is useful here. Do you
| want to be called a great roboticist in 5 years? Then you will
| have to drop the ML. You want to be a great Rust programmer? You
| will have to let Clojure go.
|
| I hope this is useful. What you have to keep in mind is that
| deep, multi-faceted expertise in a single area is very valuable,
| both as a trade and for you individually, to feel great about
| what you do. Acquiring this expertise is very difficult. You will
| need to put in a lot of honest work, will have a lot of dead ends
| and frustrations, and frequent doubts regarding your choice.
| Nevertheless, you should try to pick one area of expertise and
| eliminate all other efforts that don't contribute to your prowess
| at it.
| cousin_it wrote:
| If you have an extremely good textbook with exercises:
|
| 1) Every weekday 30min uninterrupted study at a specific time,
| preferably in the morning. Don't miss, rain or shine. Take
| weekends off, though.
|
| 2) Work in a strict linear fashion: read a chapter, then solve
| all of that chapter's exercises in order without skipping any,
| and only then allow yourself to peek at the next chapter. Don't
| "take a first pass through the book", none of that. To remember
| where you are, use a bookmark.
|
| 3) If you're having trouble with some exercise, you can look up
| the answer key _for that specific exercise_ , but only after
| you've spent 5 minutes of effort _on that specific exercise_
| without making progress. After that, the same rule applies to the
| next exercise.
|
| 4) You've got to get to the end of the book. Matter of pride.
|
| For me this approach has worked well for established topics in
| math, physics, econ. Haven't tried it for CS or ML.
| pooktrain wrote:
| What was your strategy when a textbook didn't have answers to
| all of the exercises?
| weaksauce wrote:
| personally I bought solved problems in a step by step form in
| a separate book to supplement.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Even if you are self-studying, you can and should
| occasionally go talk to someone who knows the subject well to
| help you with the question. If you don't know anyone, post
| the question online.
| bobbyz wrote:
| It seems like you are anxious about a few things, and this
| anxiety causes you to procrastinate. I don't know a quick fix but
| at least you know what's happening.
| eswat wrote:
| These are the big hindsight takeways I've seen as I've pivoted
| from web design/development towards information security.
|
| 1. For me it's hard to stay motivated learning a new technical
| topic if I can't connect it to some plausible future where my
| life would benefit from the knowledge. If I'm not addressing any
| pain points then the drive to study just won't be there.
|
| 2. Realize that there's going to be an overwhelming amount of
| resources and tactics you can use to learn the topic. But they're
| all not created equal and some may get you to your desired
| destination faster than others. This is highly personal; not
| every method of learning works for everyone (ie: I dislike
| learning theory through videos and lectures, highly prefering
| technical books instead).
|
| 3. Find a group of people that's at least slightly above your
| knowledge level in the topic and learn through osmosis. While I
| was able to pick up the foundations of infosec on my own it
| wasn't until I was learning with others, especially while
| preparing for certification exams, that I got to learn more of
| the intricacies of the topic. Learn with others that have a
| similar drive as you.
|
| 4. Set weekly goals and dates in the future that you really need
| to test your knowledge to see if you understand the material.
| Security certifications, while I was a bit rebelious against at
| first, served this purpose for me perfectly. I'd set weekly goals
| to learn material based on a courses' syllabus and every few
| months there was the ultimate test to show I actually grokked the
| topic, which huge burst of hedons along with it (if I passed,
| which has been a 3-exam streak for me so far).
| the_burning_one wrote:
| Coursera dude. If you can't find something on there you don't
| know already you know enough already.
| darksaints wrote:
| I don't. I let my path in front of me determine what I learn.
|
| One of the biggest practical lessons I learned after leaving
| college is that most of the things I learned in college are
| useless to me now. The philosophical lesson was that study plans
| and syllabi are useful, but only as a list of things you might
| need to know...a way of knowing what you don't know (which is
| very important!). But as a way of determining what you learn,
| you're just going to waste your time. Let your path in front of
| you determine which of those things you don't know is the thing
| you need to learn.
|
| My educational background is Supply Chain Management. My career
| path forked within my first professional job as a supply chain
| analyst due to the simple constraint that Excel at the time
| wouldn't let me systematically manage inventory settings for more
| than 65k unique inventory SKUs. That is how I ended up learning R
| and SQL...my first programming languages in a long list to come.
| Now I manage radiofrequency sprectrum analytics for a major
| cellular network provider, and I algotrade commodity futures on
| the side. Getting from there to here was a long path of letting
| my current needs determine what I needed to learn.
|
| Additionally, perhaps anecdotally, concepts that you learn have
| much better staying power in your memory when you have an actual
| need to learn them.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| > Getting from there to here was a long path of letting my
| current needs determine what I needed to learn.
|
| Or you could have followed the syllabus and worked there
| immediately after finishing university?
| darksaints wrote:
| I _did_ follow the syllabus. Almost everything I learned is
| useless to me. I don 't even work in the field I graduated in
| anymore.
|
| If what you want to be narrowly fits into a single
| definition, and that syllabus is precisely formulated to get
| you there, and you are 100% certain that you will never
| change paths in life, then sure, maybe following the syllabus
| is the right way for you to self study. My experience,
| however, is that people that like learning things rarely
| stick to the straight line.
| poletopole wrote:
| This may sound strange but I would recommend practicing lucid
| dreaming. If you can manage to stay focused and awake in a dream
| on a regular basis, you'll find that staying focused and awake
| while not dreaming to be trivial. I was surprised to discover
| this at first, but it makes sense because it's extremely
| rewarding to have a good dream. After a while, the line will blur
| between what is real and not and it won't matter to you if you
| don't know ML or not because you'll be in control of your inner
| narrative.
| miccah wrote:
| One technique that keeps me motivated is thinking from the point
| of view of the future. I ask myself how much further along will I
| be if I start now?
| [deleted]
| daxfohl wrote:
| You need an objective goal. In school you have a nice objective
| goal of acing a test or whatever. I've found learning stuff just
| because you want to know it is challenging, and you usually end
| up with a superficial understanding. Figure out what you want to
| do with it, then it becomes easier to motivate yourself and gauge
| your progress.
| k__ wrote:
| For me, practical problems always help to study.
|
| For example, right now I'm learning Rust and it's just too much
| all in all.
|
| But when I try to implement something specific it removes much of
| the cruft and I can focus on a handful of things.
| submeta wrote:
| Check these books:
|
| - Ultralearning by Scott Young
|
| - Deep Work by Cal Newport
|
| - Atomic Habits by James Clear
|
| - How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
|
| - Mindfulness Meditation (many books by Jon Kabat-Zinn
|
| ,,Ultralearning" has lots of valuable ideas. For instance:
| Directly attacking the skill you want to learn. If you want to
| learn Git versioning, practice doing it.
|
| ,,Deep Work" convinced me that I need to spend focused and
| uninterrupted (large) chunks of time doing the things that I want
| to make progress with.
|
| Learn Mindfulness Meditation to be able to focus, to deal with
| inner distractions and a wandering mind.
|
| ,,How to read a book" showed me that I was only reading for
| information at best, but mostly for entertainment. And it taught
| me how to read for understanding. Reading-ability at this level
| is one of the most under-valued skills today (in a world full of
| tutorial videos).
|
| And finally: Make a schedule, block out chunks of time, stick to
| the plan. Track your progress in an app or on paper. Repeatedly
| doing something will give you tremendous amounts of progress in
| that area. (see ,,Atomic Habits")
| atemerev wrote:
| Have a particular project in mind. It doesn't have to be serious,
| but it can cover a lot of ground.
|
| I have learned more about physics than in my whole life before,
| when I took the hobby project of recreating the numerical
| simulation of a nuclear explosion. It was immensely satisfying.
| joipel wrote:
| Your problem sounds like some combination of "I don't know what
| to work on" and "I wish I already knew X."
|
| For the latter problem, unfortunately, there's no royal road to
| mathematics, as they say. If you want to learn something, you're
| going to have to put in the time. My biggest advice here is to
| make sure you're applying the knowledge somehow. If you're
| studying something but never putting it into practice (and the
| study is not its own reward), then you're going to be frustrated
| later when you try to use all of these skills you think you
| understand. Kent Beck has a good quote about technique and
| discipline. He says, essentially, no book about gardening, __no
| matter how good it is, __will make you a gardener. You have to
| pull some weeds and trim some hedges. Maybe join a community of
| gardeners and learn about the practice of others. That 's what
| makes you a gardener. This doesn't apply if you're just learning
| for the sake of learning, of course, but it sounded to me like
| you actually wanted to master a technique.
|
| For the latter problem, it sounds like you're finally running
| into the reality that your time on this earth is a scarce
| resource. I don't mean that to be condescending; it didn't sink
| in for me until I was about 30. But the reality is that you won't
| be able to do everything, and tracking your progress really isn't
| the problem. You're going to have to choose precisely the things
| you want to do. But here's the thing: that choice __is not
| permanent __and almost certainly will not hold over your entire
| life. I like two quotes by Seneca and Thoreau (respectively)
| here. Thoreau says that a wise man remembers that the sun rose
| clear, and Seneca said that each day is a stage upon life 's
| journey. Those may sound like cliches, but you need to really
| understand them. Every day you get a fresh start and you get to
| choose what matters to you. If every day you wake up and decide
| "I want to know ML mathematics," then by all means do that.
| Figure out what you already know and what you need to know next.
| But it's OK if these things change from one day to the next.
| That's part of the journey of life.
|
| Last but not least, I got some good advice from the books "How to
| Get Lucky" and "Refuse to Choose." The latter was about imposing
| some structure on yourself if you truly get stuck deciding in the
| moment. I don't give myself a hard schedule, but I pick 6-12
| things I want to work on (because I'm a person with a lot of
| natural interests) and I stick to what I'm doing for about 30
| minutes. That gives me enough structure to force myself to follow
| through and not feel like I'm missing out on my other passions.
| And lastly when I'm really stuck about which thing to do next, I
| list my options and flip a coin. If you have problems with
| decisiveness like I do, this sounds stupid but it will move you
| out of your head and into action. It's a meaningless superstition
| but it works.
|
| Good luck!
| bigmit37 wrote:
| This is a great post. Time is limited and you have to make
| sacrifices somewhere.
| gas9S9zw3P9c wrote:
| I have exact same problem. But for me it's not just about
| learning. It extends to other aspects of my life - side projects,
| health, work, travel, etc. I have huge lists of things I want to
| do, but no real way to manage them. I'm having an especially hard
| time balancing them.
|
| I've been through various apps and approaches, and even tried to
| write some tools myself. So far I have been unsuccessful in
| finding the right abstractions and solution to solve the problem.
| Everything I've tried ran into edge cases it couldn't handle. I
| always came back to listing goals and daily schedules in raw text
| files, sometimes using org-mode.
|
| One approach that has worked okay-ish for me is to have a
| hierarchy of personal OKRs. Quarterly -> Monthly -> Weekly. I
| found anything longer than quarterly to not be very useful - life
| changes too quickly. Even quarterly may be too much. You create
| these as-you-go, e.g. each Sunday you review your past week and
| create OKRs for the next week, possibly adjusting some of your
| monthly goals. Each day is then managed with a simple TODO list
| and you count tasks towards your weekly OKRs. At the end of each
| period (day, week, month) you have a review.
|
| This approach still has a lot of shortcomings (not being flexible
| enough, not incorporating habits, some things are difficult to
| measure and can't be expressed as OKRs, etc) and I've tried
| several other things I could talk about, but the time period in
| which I used this approach was one of the more productive ones.
|
| Regardless of the technique, one thing I've come to realize is
| that people tend to spend not enough time on "meta" - figuring
| out what to spend time on. If you think about it, spending 1-2
| full days a month making sure that you are working on the _right_
| things aligned with your long-term goals is reasonable, but very
| few people spend this amount of time (me included). Instead, we
| tend to keep ourselves busy with the micro - tasks right in front
| of us.
| rotterdamdev wrote:
| This writing gets asked every 3 weeks. Use the search function.
| dorkwood wrote:
| I used to be in the same boat. I wanted desperately to have a
| process to follow that would help me prioritise what I should be
| working on. Now, looking back, I feel like I was over-thinking
| things. Like, a lot.
|
| It sounds like you already have a list of things you want to work
| on, which is fantastic. Most people don't have that at all. The
| next step, in my opinion, is to pick the item that you're most
| curious about, and do that. If you're still having a hard time
| deciding which one to go with, it's probably one of the ones you
| keep thinking about. Maybe you shelved it at one point, but it
| keeps bubbling up in your brain while you're falling asleep or
| going for a walk. Do that one for now, and look forward to the
| second item on your list while you're working on it. If there are
| several that give you this feeling, just pick one of them. It
| doesn't matter all that much, as long as you find it interesting.
|
| Your list will keep growing, and you'll never make it all the way
| through, but if you let your curiosity guide you rather than some
| sort of logic-based methodology, you'll always enjoy what you're
| working on, and you'll find yourself looking forward to
| discovering where your curiosity takes you next.
| cyberprunes wrote:
| Man, you just summed up my exact struggle as well.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| I recommend the book "Ultralearning"^1 for its well-researched
| insights.
|
| 1.
| https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07K6MF8MD/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t...
| smusamashah wrote:
| Read "Eat that Frog" by Brian Tracy. And as John Sonmez says, you
| don't even need to learn everything. Go straight towards exactly
| what you want to make, nothing more. E.g. instead of going throuz
| a to z of Rust, decide what you want to build with it and learn
| only what's necessary for it.
| cyberprunes wrote:
| That's great advice.
| pksebben wrote:
| I have the same issue, and being a self-taught SWE, it's a real
| problem.
|
| There are a few different methods I've implemented to manage my
| time (daily journals, project-specific tracking documents, rabid
| control over my work environment) and they deal with different
| aspects of the more general problem of "stay focused and track
| progress", but the thing I use that seems to fit your case most
| specifically is the pomodoro technique (https://pomodoro-
| tracker.com/). It helps in four very specific ways:
|
| 1. Motivating to sit down and work on a task: work is divided
| into 20 minute chunks, so it doesn't feel emotionally expensive
|
| 2. Staying focused on the task at hand: you have a named timer
| maintaining your focus on the goal of that block
|
| 3. Planning a route: being forced to regularly and intentionally
| state what a block of time is meant to accomplish helps breaking
| down large and complex problems
|
| 4. Self assessment: you end up with a list of twenty minutes
| blocks that you either had to repeat or got finished with early.
| For me, this revealed a lot about where my time was going that I
| didn't realize at first.
|
| As a bonus, there is zero learning curve, and nearly no added
| overhead. Hit the link, type in the goal for the next 20 minutes,
| and go.
|
| Hope this helps. Best of luck!
|
| Edit: formatting and a link
| _hardwaregeek wrote:
| Get good sleep. Eat well. Don't drink and expect to be
| productive. See a therapist. Exercise. Get fresh air. Take
| allergy medication if you need it.
|
| There's a lot of wonderful techniques and software out there but
| the most important optimization is the foundation of good health,
| mental and physical. My memory has improved so much with
| consistent sleep. A plant based carb light diet helps so much
| with energy and focus.
|
| Then take some time to consistently study a little. I've started
| setting a daily calendar event to read a book.
|
| Don't worry too much if you're not focused these days. It's a
| pretty stressful moment in time.
| Ologn wrote:
| For self-study, or study in general, I am kind of surprised how
| many people don't _implement_ what they learned after they study.
| In school I learned Java, computer graphics, ML /AI and other
| things, and during or after school I implemented all of these
| things in personal projects I wanted. I don't know what my
| understanding or retention of Java would be without having had to
| use it to write a program doing something I wanted to do.
| iblaine wrote:
| I keep a running categorized list in Apple Notes. Several times a
| week I will add new items to it. Typically they're links to blogs
| or YouTube, categorized by tech, leadership, coding, productivity
| & misc. When I find quiet time, on vacation or during a slow
| weekend, I'll chip away at the list. It grows faster than I can
| keep up with...probably not a good sign but beats no list at all.
| tel wrote:
| Learning is just like any other project. Admit that it's tough
| and that you need a plan. Build process to accomplish that. Aim
| for consistency over accomplishment. Bird by bird.
|
| One issue with learning things is that as you learn, you often
| discover new things to learn. It's critical to know how to file
| these: (1) they're true dependencies, (2) they're interesting
| follow-ups for later, (3) they're not relevant in the near or
| medium term.
|
| File things aggressively. Try to identify as many things as you
| can to _not_ read. For this you need two things: (a) a clear
| understanding of where you 're going, based on a plan working
| backward from some achievable thing you want to learn and (b)
| safety knowing that when you file something away, you won't lose
| it. It's interesting, and exciting, so you should return.
|
| Do this well and (a) and (b) reinforce one another. You can look
| through your "set aside" list to build out a strategy for your
| next achievable task and your achievable tasks can give structure
| to the things you've set aside.
|
| File things aggressively. This often feels bad. You feel like you
| "ought" to know something or you get carried away following a
| thread. That's not bad! Do it sometimes, learning playfully is
| fun! On the other hand, you'll be more satisfied 3 months from
| know if you learn aggressively and directedly. You'll have worked
| through a greater amount of material at greater depth.
|
| Finally, it's often hard to get started. Don't overthink it. Just
| set a small achieveable project, maybe give yourself a tight
| deadline. Once you're through that project you will, without a
| doubt, have a much clearer idea of what comes next.
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| > _I either wish to know or that I should know already._
|
| So let's back up. What's your motivation here? Why do you want to
| know stuff? Is it to excel at your job? Is it to just be a well
| rounded individual? Is it just because you love learning? Your
| goals should dictate your focus - figure out what you're trying
| to do and focus on that. There's only so much making time -
| optimize for maximizing it with a narrow focus on valuable
| subjects.
|
| If you want to make more money in your career, focus on things
| that will do that. If you want to be respected at your job,
| that's probably a different skillset you need to focus on.
| Understand what you're after; it's much easier to learn if you
| have a goal in mind, and it's much easier to set a goal when you
| know your motivations.
|
| Second, what is this about what you _should_ know? In what
| context? According to whom? Is your knowledge deficient at work?
| Do you not know how to act around people you want to be romantic
| with? Are you making mistakes at work? What external force is
| determining what you _should_ know? Is it imposter syndrome?
|
| I think getting to the bottom of your motivations and this
| feeling of not knowing enough or not knowing the right thing
| might be more beneficial than learning tactics for studying
| things. If you use good study techniques on the wrong thing,
| what's the point?
| chrisbennet wrote:
| I prefer "pull" learning instead of "push" learning. By that I
| mean having something interesting to "pull" me to learning
| something vs. having the discipline to make myself study (push)
| the subject.
|
| Example: I need to learn HTML, JavaScript and maybe Node.js for
| upcoming project. I couldn't make myself open the books for more
| than 15 minutes but the other day I came up with a fun project
| that requires these and now I can't wait to learn this stuff.
| d33lio wrote:
| About as well as I managed "self-study" in college. Poorly.
|
| However, if covid has done anything it's broken me enough by
| spending enough time at home to break my bad ADHD fueled habits.
|
| If anyone else has a rigid discipline or advice for how to keep
| up a streak of improvement I'm all ears!
| dorchadas wrote:
| Schedule it, regularly. And actually write it down and mark it
| on a piece of paper or in your calendar. Then make a check on a
| whiteboard, or on a desk calendar each day you do it, building
| a streak you don't want to break.
|
| This has really helped me rein in my focus, at least partially.
| SarikayaKomzin wrote:
| This is more advice than a technique, so take it for what it's
| worth. Show some self-compassion and don't be too hard on
| yourself. The fact that you're actively pursuing knowledge puts
| you ahead of a lot of other people.
|
| Also, take time to consider that the things you know you don't
| know are often more valuable than what you do actually know. By
| that I mean that your awareness of your limitations will broaden
| your critical thinking skills. Nassim Taleb's concept of an anti
| library is tangentially related: https://fs.blog/2013/06/the-
| antilibrary/
|
| The goal post will always be moving. You'll never be finished,
| and trying to create a complete body of knowledge will only
| deepen your anxiety.
| s1t5 wrote:
| I have a learning Trello board with categories "Maybe", "To Do",
| "In Progress" and "Done". When I come across something new it
| goes in the maybe category. I also make sure to only work on
| something if it's "in progress" and keep the in-progress list
| limited to 2-3 items at any time.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| As a high school student now studying at home, I also use a
| similar system :)
| OJFord wrote:
| How do you decide when to call something 'Done'?
|
| Or perhaps (anticipating a possible answer) How do you
| apportion tickets such that they represent things that can be
| called 'Done'?
| s1t5 wrote:
| Each ticket is a specific course/book/tutorial so it's easy
| to know if I've completed it or not.
| danj wrote:
| I was having very similar thoughts to you about a month ago. For
| me I decided to take a bit more of a "holistic" approach in the
| sense that I wanted to learn backend development, architecture
| etc so decided to create a website and set everything up by
| scratch.
|
| I over engineered everything - I have a CI/CD pipeline for a
| wordpress website that I really do not need but it meant that I
| now know how to do it.
|
| Not only that I force myself once a week to write about what I've
| learned that week for my development for my blog that nobody
| really know exists. But it keeps me accountable for having to
| continuously learn and improve.
|
| I'm currently setting up my website in various regions then
| knocking them out to see how I can make sure everything stays
| online whilst also piping all my server logs to a logging
| platform.
| manic85 wrote:
| I've found a combination of keeping a journal, having self-
| compassion, and having something to prove to be the key to
| sticking with a self-study regimen.
|
| Journaling helps document progress and provides notes that you
| can transcribe to a spaced repetition system (i.e. flashcards)
| for long term retention.
|
| Self-compassion is key for picking yourself up after you feel
| overwhelmed by a topic and quit for the day, which will happen.
| You have to not be so hard on yourself and understand that there
| will be good days and bad so that you can build the long term
| stamina needed to see the project through.
|
| Having something to prove (i.e. I'm a business guy but I can
| learn coding too; I know I'm smart enough to score high on the
| GMAT/LSAT whatever and get into the school of my dreams, etc etc)
| is often what motivates me the most. It gives you that "why" that
| you need to keep yourself focused on finishing in the face of so
| many distractions until the project is done.
| kart23 wrote:
| Yes! I found that once I started putting my achievements and
| goals on paper, it really motivated me to achieve my goals, and
| be proud of what I had done so far. Just write down what you
| did everyday, and what you hope to accomplish tomorrow. It's
| kinda stupid, but was scary effective for me.
| gas9S9zw3P9c wrote:
| That's an interesting approach, but I feel like you are
| describing a slightly different problem than the op is talking
| about, or at least I have.
|
| Once I pick something to work on I have no problem staying
| motivated or sticking with it. I've also never felt bad about
| myself running into roadblocks. My problem is that there are
| too many interesting things to work on, I have a hard time
| picking from them, leading to FOMA for all the other things I
| can't pick. What I'm looking for is not so much a way to stick
| with a task, but rather a system to help me "manage" my life,
| deciding which of 1,000 potential thing has the highest payoff,
| and how to balance them.
| comvidyarthi wrote:
| I dont think there is a way to know which one thing in the
| list of potential 1000 things, will be the one that has
| highest payoff. And the definition of payoff also depends on
| what your goals are. For examples, learning computer
| networking concepts will have different payoff for someone
| who wants to get a PhD in Machine Learning (it will help
| him/her write better software maybe, or add to his/her list
| of employable skills), vs someone who is building distributed
| systems. So you have to take some bets. Think about stuff
| like what one or two things you can learn in next 6 months
| that will get you closer to your most coveted goals. And just
| try to focus on them. If there are more than 1/2 things,
| filter them out based on what gets you excited more. At the
| end, its all about your perspective.
| Imanari wrote:
| have you tried the regret-minimzation angle?
| franl wrote:
| Check this post out:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22792829. Some relevant
| tips in there to what you describe. The book in the top
| comment wasn't a panacea for me but it was helpful in working
| through some of the issues you describe (or my personal
| version of them at least).
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Google Keep... put them in order.
| anon9001 wrote:
| > Often I am so overwhelmed that I just watch stuff on youtube.
|
| Use this to turn your problem around. Try making a video for
| someone just like you. You already know what a good video looks
| like because you've watched a ton of them.
|
| If your goal is to make a good tutorial video, you can take those
| play problems without any real world application and turn them
| into content. That way your problem becomes "teach xyz in 15 min
| on youtube" instead of "master xyz by myself".
|
| Teaching others is often said to be the best way to learn
| something yourself.
|
| As you publish and get feedback, you can lean on your viewers to
| figure out what to build next. Eventually you'll be an expert in
| your chosen domain _and_ have a following of people _and_ have
| great SEO if you want to start looking for work.
|
| Note: I haven't done this myself, but I wish I had, and obviously
| youtube is filled with people who are doing this about every
| topic under the sun. This is my plan for when I'm done with
| "work".
| cyberprunes wrote:
| I want to agree with this because teaching IS a great learning
| tool but one needs to have some idea of what they are doing.
| Teaching helps to identify the problem areas we fool ourselves
| into believing we understand well.
|
| Youtube is an amazing resource but it's also an ocean of
| incompetence and phony expertise by people doing exactly what
| you prescribe. Just be careful not to contribute to the ever
| expanding circle jerk of self congratulatory mediocrity. No one
| wants that.
| anon9001 wrote:
| Others will make content whether you do or not. Chances are
| that if you're sensitive to the ocean of incompetence, you
| would be a positive contributor.
|
| I don't know if there's a name for this phenomenon, but lots
| of qualified and talented will refrain from showing off their
| less-than-perfect work, because they know it's not perfect. I
| understand the impulse, and it's why I haven't published over
| the years. Only recently have I realized that publishing
| imperfect things is way better than not publishing anything
| at all, both for yourself and for the community as a whole.
|
| Even if you can only raise the bar a little bit from what
| currently exists, that's a worthwhile effort.
| drchewbacca wrote:
| Personally I like project based learning. Just try to make
| something cool, maybe a game, a robot, a hydroponic grow station
| or whatever and then learn what you need to learn as you go
| along.
|
| If you gave me a book of inverse kinematics I'd go to sleep in 10
| minutes. If I get frustrated that my robot keeps falling over I
| could read about it for days.
| Arie_Prins wrote:
| I am 77 year now and all I did was reading as much as possible.
| Learning C# an C++ at my age of 75 and still building hard an
| software for pleasure. In my Opinion, as long you are interesting
| in some kind of things, everything is possible. Off course
| sometimes it can be difficult, but NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP !!!
| That's my advise. Arie, mail4aph@chello.nl and.... sorry for
| mistakes I made as my normall language is Dutch.
| rasta78 wrote:
| "Often I am so overwhelmed that I just watch stuff on youtube."
| That's was funny )) I would recommend reading some books on this
| topic for ex: Essentialism, The power of habit. In general, this
| comes from a lack of priority so use the Eisenhower Matrix to
| establish that priority and make the conscious decision to do the
| one thing which is most important.
| MoCodes wrote:
| This is a really interesting topic. I am in the same boat. With
| so much information and a desire to learn, how do you organize it
| all. In terms of math, Amazon may be a great resource. I
| purchased a math refresher workbook today actually. It's a
| refresher for adults. Kahn Academy is another option and they
| have an app that you can follow along with. I find it better to
| put the pencil to the paper. That works for me.
|
| I'm about 3 months into my web development studies and I think
| brushing up on math will benefit greatly for deeper learning.
|
| I've taken courses through Udemy, Coursera, apps, and
| freecodecamp. It's very overwhelming and you can find any rabbit
| whole you want. I would say find a course and stick with it until
| it's completed. Then move on to the next. If you still feel like
| your missing valuable info, find another program. YouTube is
| great but in my opinion, there are multiple opinions and methods
| that you may find yourself getting lost a little.
| yumaikas wrote:
| So, it sounds like you're facing is one of prioritization.
|
| Remember that you can't learn _everything_ at once. You have to
| choose a focus. That could be a tool you want to exist, a hero
| you want to emulate, or a problem you want to solve. There's a
| section in Mastering Software Technique that discusses this:
| https://software-technique.com/ (it is a book, but one that I
| highly recommend for people wanting to learn software development
| better). Ultimately, that focus can shift over time as needed,
| and the most important thing about it is that it motivates you.
|
| For me, I mostly manage self-study via projects. There are
| various things I'd like to build. Lately, I've been using Nim to
| build various tools I'd like to have, which has involved learning
| about different facets of Nim, and it's libraries.
|
| For me, if what I want to learn is less concrete, having a
| personal wiki also helps. I currently use VimWiki at work to
| track what I need to write down, but anything that makes it easy
| to link between articles, and doesn't put too much of an editing
| barrier up is good.
| wannabebarista wrote:
| > I really struggle to organize a proper study schedule.
|
| I've found that being able to visualize tasks I want to complete
| and breaking them into small chunks so that I can see progress is
| what's been helpful. I use a personal Trello board to keep track
| of reading/studying and notes. Even if it's watching a series of
| videos on youtube, having them in a checklist and have a clear
| place to keep notes has keep me more focused and organized over
| the past few years.
| yumaikas wrote:
| Also, I think it's highly worth reading
| https://chelseatroy.com/2018/04/20/leveling-up-a-guide-for-p...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-05-03 23:00 UTC)