[HN Gopher] Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket ___________________________________________________________________ Treat your to-read pile like a river, not a bucket Author : pps Score : 292 points Date : 2023-03-28 12:50 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.oliverburkeman.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.oliverburkeman.com) | acomjean wrote: | In my younger years I subscribed to the New Yorker and the | Economist. Both full of interesting stuff, but a torrent. I had | to unsubscribe as I kept on thinking, I'll finish that one later, | but never did before the next one arrived. Great magazines for a | flight, where time seems boundless, and you were connection-less, | before the internet found its way onto airplanes. | | You have to filter. Music, youtube, book content is created | faster than you can consume in your limited time on this planet. | I read mainly for information, and try spend more time with | friends/ hobbies. Still catch some TV, but I try to limit. | StrangeATractor wrote: | The New Yorker is great when you have the time. It seems like | the Economist has really trimmed the article length over the | years though, probably in response to web analytics. | uoaei wrote: | The best tip I've heard is similar to that in the article, and is | basically a mandate to acknowledge and consciously reject the | sunk cost fallacy. | | In simple words, don't be afraid to put down a book before you've | finished it if it hasn't seized you in the first pages. | alwaysbeconsing wrote: | Very much agree, no shame in dropping a work you started if it | isn't as good as it seemed. Also skipping ahead in books and | skimming articles can help. | stcroixx wrote: | That could never work for me personally. A book isn't something | that's uniform in quality or engagement throughout, in fact | they're often predictably lopsided where the the first few | pages are getting you familiar with the characters and setting. | I also have to know the ending to even begin to think about the | book as a whole. Never not finished a book myself and I read a | lot - can't say I loved every book I've ever read, but I don't | regret the time spent finishing them, even the least enjoyable | ones. | uoaei wrote: | Authors pay a lot of attention to the first few pages of | their books, and try to expose the best aspects of their | writing style there in order to hook you in. I try to remain | conscious of this as I read in order to better anticipate the | style and content curation that follows. | | > I don't regret the time spent finishing them | | I think this is a different take than many others would have | on the topic of reading. I know I regret spending time | reading things that do not "spark joy", to put it pithily. | stcroixx wrote: | There's a wide range of emotions and impact I expect from | good writing - joy is nice, but hardly required for me. A | couple of my favorites I've read several times like East of | Eden or Brothers Karamazov end up being more like | fundamental changes to who I am rather just experiences of | emotion, neither being very joyous. | sfink wrote: | For fiction, I flip a book open to about 1/3 of the way | through and read a paragraph or two, which generally tells | me everything I need to know. That avoids the | unrepresentative intro portion--I appreciate a punchy | and/or gripping opening scene, but it's not very well | correlated to how much I'll enjoy the rest of the text. | | It's weird, there aren't that many ways of choosing a set | of words to convey something, and yet an author's voice and | style comes through roughly the same no matter where I | sample from (except for the overworked parts, which usually | includes the beginning.) And it usually comes through | strong, which is great: sometimes I think my reading diet | is mostly about sampling a variety of good-tasting styles | of mental processing. (Sadly, that does mean that co- | written books hardly ever work for me. The voice is | muddled. It's rare that authors are able to meld their work | truly synergistically.) | nobody9999 wrote: | >Sadly, that does mean that co-written books hardly ever | work for me. The voice is muddled. It's rare that authors | are able to meld their work truly synergistically. | | I thought the authors of the Expanse[0] series did a | pretty good job with that. AFAICT (but I have no way to | confirm this), they split the storytelling so that each | plot arc is consistent and speaks with a single voice. | | I can certainly see how multiple authors _could_ muddle | the "voice", but I think the quality (or otherwise) is | more a function of storyboarding/universe creation and | how well that's done collectively by the authors. | | Please note I'm not really disagreeing with you and, as a | rule, your observation jibes with mine. Although (as I | mentioned) there are some exceptions. | | [0] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series) | nobody9999 wrote: | >Never not finished a book myself and I read a lot - can't | say I loved every book I've ever read, but I don't regret the | time spent finishing them, even the least enjoyable ones. | | I agree. I read a lot of books too, and I've only given up on | a few. Mostly I don't remember what they were (after all, I | disliked them enough not to finish them), but _BattleField | Earth_ [0] comes to mind. Gosh, what an awful read. Never did | finish that one. Ugh. | | Other than those few, I'm not sad I finished any of the books | I wasn't that into.[1] | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_Earth_(novel) | | [1] N.B.: I'm referring to _fiction_ exclusively here. | petarb wrote: | As someone wanting to read lots of books and articles, this | really resonates with me. Not having to read everything but | picking and choosing a few here and there | HPsquared wrote: | My to-do list is not a big truck! It's not something you just | dump something on... It's a series of tubes! | pps wrote: | Interesting, could you tell us more? :) | sacnoradhq wrote: | I need sandbags because the bookshelf dam is bursting through the | overflow gates. | | No, really, I have stopped buying books because I've ran out of | room. | | I guess I'm going to have to sell and give away some to make room | for new ones. )': | Tempest1981 wrote: | For me, it's much more rewarding to find those "needles" and add | them to my reading list -- than to actually read them. I.e. the | dopamine hit of finding something new/interesting -- that's the | thrill. | | I guess I'm ok with that -- it's hard to force myself to process | items from the river. Any tips on that? | petecooper wrote: | I'm mildly disgusted (and entirely unsurprised) with myself that | I just added this to a reading list for later. | imwillofficial wrote: | It's cool man, let it just float on by | petecooper wrote: | ...tell that to my 994 bookmarked 'read later' URLs. Very | much a case of best intentions but woeful discipline. | eimrine wrote: | How many of them has already rot? I've found that 70% of | ten-year-ago bookmarks of mine do not exist anymore, | especially if it was a weblog or a youtube video. | mxuribe wrote: | I enjoyed reading this, but was left with the same feeling that i | had at the end of the 1983 film WarGames, namely: "...the only | winning move is not to play..." I acknowledge this post is not | exactly saying that...but it still feels a little flattening to | arrive at that point. (With all apologies and respect to the | author, i'm referring to my feelings on the suggestions, that's | all.) | alwaysbeconsing wrote: | I agree with your summary but to me it seems like a useful | point of insight. Analogous to the saying "when you find | yourself in a hole that's getting deeper the first thing to do | is stop digging". Something that seems like common sense but is | hard to grasp when you're in the hole, unless someone | explicitly points it out. | | One might also decide that this article is wrong, but it could | still be worth considering the point to reject it. | whateveruserk wrote: | the perspective i take is more like.. "the only winning move is | to play. not analyze how you play or hold yourself to how you | once planned to play." | | here that would mean releasing things, and fully enjoying | whatever it is you are able to read/participate in. mainly not | grasping at everything | nasir wrote: | Just added this to my to read list! | jh00ker wrote: | Bookmarked this for later! The headline looks REALLY interesting! | switowski wrote: | Sounds useful, I will read it later! | martincmartin wrote: | Anyone have a tl;dr for this? | shoy wrote: | Don't sweat it, man. Stay loose. | nobody9999 wrote: | >Anyone have a tl;dr for this? | | Just save the link for later reading[0]. | | [0] And who knows, you might even read it. | longnguyen wrote: | An interesting read! I sorta solved this with my little SaaS[0]. | I send interesting articles and RSS feeds to my Kindle, and I | read some of them every evening before bed time. | | Articles never stayed in a "bucket" but they flow every day. | | Not worth reading, ignore it. And I can always find them later if | needed (hint: it will never be) | | If you read a lot of online content, give it a try | | [0]: https://ktool.io | heyoni wrote: | How is this different than kindles own browser extension? Is it | the conversion quality? What couldn't the extension do that | ktool does? | longnguyen wrote: | Yes to conversion quality. For example, the official | extension has a huge problem with detecting the cover. I | fixed it with KTool. | | I also implemented custom parsers for many sites that use a | "modern" frontend framework (read: SPA) | | And here is the main difference: ability to send RSS feeds | and newsletters to Kindle, combine them into only 1 ebook and | read at a specific time you set. | | I think it's better to compare KTool to other alternatives | like p2k or instapaper. The official extension did an OK job | if you don't need any features above. | dimitrios1 wrote: | I ended up treating my bookcase full of all my unread books I | originally planned to work through like this. In this case my | bookcase is the bucket, and I carve a stream or a river out of | it. It's like a two step filtering process. | | It just probably would have been cheaper for me to just bought | the ones I actually would read. But sometimes you can't escape | the fantasy of you being some higher intellectual who will one | day work through all of these books. I realize now that I | probably will never make it through that Modern Algebra text, | Operating Systems, or the complete collection of William | Shakespear by the Royal Shakespear company -- so I humor myself | while being realistic about the progress I can make. | Hadriel wrote: | tldr: "To return to information overload: this means treating | your "to read" pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, | and from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) | instead of a bucket (which demands that you empty it). After all, | you presumably don't feel overwhelmed by all the unread books in | the British Library - and not because there aren't an | overwhelming number of them, but because it never occurred to you | that it might be your job to get through them all." | 4pkjai wrote: | You the reader, should treat this article like a river and read | only the second last paragraph. | baxtr wrote: | You the reader should only read the second last paragraph, | which I copied here for your convenience: | | _To return to information overload: this means treating your | "to read" pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, and | from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) | instead of a bucket (which demands that you empty it). After | all, you presumably don't feel overwhelmed by all the unread | books in the British Library - and not because there aren't an | overwhelming number of them, but because it never occurred to | you that it might be your job to get through them all._ | stcroixx wrote: | Eliminate the waste in your 'to read' pile by populating it | the same way he suggests selecting from it - pluck a few | choice items here and there from the river that is the | British Library. | [deleted] | dmix wrote: | I asked GPT4 to summarize the article's most important | information into bullet points, which I find more useful than | one paragraph summaries: | | > 1) The initial belief that technology would help filter out | irrelevant information and prevent overload has not come to | fruition; instead, people are overwhelmed by content they | genuinely want to read. | | > 2) The problem lies in the fact that our filters are too | successful, causing us to face a daily influx of interesting | content (referred to as "haystack-sized piles of needles"). | | > 3) Many aspects of life also involve "too many needles," | where we struggle to allocate our limited time and attention | to numerous important tasks or interests. | | > 4) Conventional productivity advice, which emphasizes | efficiency, organization, and prioritization, falls short in | addressing the challenge of having too many significant | priorities. | | > 5) The proposed solution is to treat the to-read pile as a | river, selectively choosing items to engage with while | accepting the inherent impossibility of clearing the entire | backlog, thus leading to a more liberating and realistic | approach to information overload. | | The downside of doing the above is it's more generic and | loses the punch of the prose. Always the main issue with | skipping the reading to get to the meat. Obviously easier for | non-fiction than fiction. | petersellers wrote: | I tried several times and it seemed to miss the point of | the article every time. | haswell wrote: | I understand what you're trying to do with this comment, but | arguably the river in this case is HN. | | The paragraph you mention is the tangible advice, but | articulating the problem is in my mind even more important than | the advice itself. | | Advice is just advice. Maybe it applies to you, maybe it | doesn't. The problem is what remains. The problem if well | articulated either validates the advice, or gives the reader | information to process for themselves and from which personal | insight can be reached. | | The advice without the problem is just some guy on the Internet | telling you what to do, and that, to me, is rather | uninteresting. | uoaei wrote: | I think many people are struggling with the same issues | independently, all across society. This is equally true right | now as it is in other times. | | Perhaps there are many who have identified the problem | without settling on a satisfying solution. In these cases the | context is already (painfully) familiar and the main insight | will be the path forward out of their malaise. | | What you say is true for those who have never even grappled | with the question, but I assume HN harbors folks who like to | analyze inefficiencies in their lives, so I'd expect most of | those here who already have reading lists to have contended | with this problem and at least attempted to search for | solutions in the past. | StrangeATractor wrote: | They could have fit it all in the headline tbh but there'd be | nothing to click past that. | jagged-chisel wrote: | Not sure about the analogy, but definitely appreciate the | advice. | | Edit: I get now. '...a stream that flows past you, and from | which you pluck a choice item...' | Quixotica1 wrote: | Thanks for the tip. | gspencley wrote: | > After all, you presumably don't feel overwhelmed by all the | unread books in the British Library | | This article was clearly NOT written for me :( | candyman wrote: | To give him credit I have to cite Dave Weiner who for me created | the concept of of online information being a "river" which means | you can watch it go by and not feel guilty about it. You pick out | what you find interesting or important and let the rest go. I've | never thought of "zero inbox" as something worth striving for. | Just let it go... | criddell wrote: | I think the new AI tools are going to help me a great deal. There | are books that I know I'm not going to read but I'd still like | the Cliffs Notes distillation. I think an AI that understands my | areas of interest could create personalized summaries of those | books. | | I'm also looking forward to seeing if the new AIs work as better | recommendation engines. Again, once the AI gets to know me, I'd | love to be able to ask "I want to learn how to sew a messenger- | type bag. Where do I start?" Hopefully I'd get back a list of | books, videos, and local craftspeople. (And I actually do want to | learn that...) | luismmolina wrote: | Already possible, this is my workflow: | | Submit you favorite books to ChatGPT, ask for 10 keywords that | describe the book. | | Then ask for the keywords that repeat more than once and put | those keywords into TheStoryGraph. | | With this workflow you avoid "hallucinated" books. And thanks | to this the worst suggestions are 4/5 stars. | andsoitis wrote: | Have you tried https://www.blinkist.com/en | jwr wrote: | I did and haven't found it that useful after all. Turns out | that after you subscribe, it's hard to find the motivation to | get through many of those condensed versions. | criddell wrote: | No. Have you? Would you recommend it? | | I can't help but think their time is running out. AIs are | going to be able to produce the book summary and maybe even | generate the audio version of that too. | andsoitis wrote: | I have not, because I actually prefer to read the full | book, even if my Tsundoku keeps growing. Another way that I | look at it is that even if I compressed my unread books | into summaries, I would then just get more and more | summaries, ending up with the same problem. | | I recommended it to you because it sounds like you really | want to read the books you have or are accumulating, so you | might find it valuable, even if I don't. | criddell wrote: | I prefer to read the full book as well, I just know that | there are certain books for which that will never happen. | For example, I would love to have already read one of | those 4" thick biographies of Winston Churchill but I | have almost no desire to start reading one of them. | edude03 wrote: | I tried blinkist, I liked it in theory but I realized that I | only listened to the summaries while busy with other things | so I wasn't really absorbing the information. | lumb63 wrote: | That was an awful lot of words to say "read what you can". | | I used to worry about adding items to my "want to read" list | faster than I could read them. I realized that this is preferable | to the opposite - having nothing to read. As long as I'm alive | and want to read, I'll be reading something. Having read all the | books I want to is not my objective; enjoying reading books is. | So, no need to worry about not having enough time to read all I | want to. | | I now treat my list as a pre-filtered pool of books that span | various topics. There is no prioritization associated with them. | I find it best to read next whichever book seems most relevant to | my interests at the time, which I can't anticipate in advance. | | The other day my girlfriend sent me an article about microscopic | gears in the legs of an insect and so I decided to read a book | off my list about intelligent design. My prior read was about | cardiovascular disease because I read an article about | cholesterol on the internet. The one prior to that was about | gender disparities, simply because I felt like it fit my frame of | mind at the time. | | There is no need to make the matter complicated: read what you | want to read, when you want to read it. | gopalv wrote: | > an awful lot of words to say "read what you can". | | But it needs to be said and repeated, right? | | Because people feel time-poor when it comes to matching what | they want to do against what they can do. Building up a backlog | is probably the worst way to kill the fun there. | | And if everyone in that scenario feels like they are somewhat | alone in that feeling where the "Books I wish I had time to | read" turns into a prioritization exercise where you end up | reading the "most important book" while thinking of a book you | aren't. | | You and the OP are saying the same thing, but it is worth | repeating. | | The longer you've been out of a structured learning environment | like a school/college the more sense that makes because that is | a constrained environment where optimization actually helps & | the fun reading part isn't. | | As for me, my library holds list is a good way to have a "river | of books" where I can dip out of it and let it pass through my | bookshelf on a schedule whether I read it or not. | FalconSensei wrote: | > That was an awful lot of words to say "read what you can". | | And yet you added even more with your comment :) | Zetice wrote: | Yeah, seems like the real problem is the desire to clear the | backlog. You can have a bucket, just don't expect it to ever | empty. | bluGill wrote: | My todo list is the same way. I expect to finish everything | currently one it somewhere around my 3000th birthday. I just | prioritize what needs to be done now, and then what I can do know | that feels interesting at the moment. The rest I'll do latter | | Note that there is nothing on the list about expanding human | lifespan. There are some things that get priority around exercise | and eating good food, but that is as close as it gets. | toss1 wrote: | Yup. Discovered this in hard data after I built by first | ToDo/Task Managemtn application, then populated with current | projects. I soon discovered that I had 768 hours of Critical | and High importance items that needed to be completed in the | next two weeks. For reference, there are only 168hrs*2=336 | hours in a fortnight. | | Not. Going. To. Happen. | | So, that list gets post-filtered in real time ... | | Seems to be the plague of the ambitious and/or conscientious -- | We should be happy that our reach exceeds our grasp | greenspam wrote: | Nice article. I just put it to my to-read list. | throw0101b wrote: | My local library has a limit of having 100 books on hold (which I | hit during 2020 lockdowns when there were closed for a while). My | current hold list is ~60, and the system allows you to put | 'pause' a hold until a certain day so that they don't all arrive | at once: so I have holds going out to July. | | By the system also has a "saved" books feature where it allows | you to simply bookmark stuff of interest (and categorize/tag | them) but not ask the library to deliver them. My saved list is | ~1200. I don't expect to actually get to them, but I have options | for my next item. | | (I long ago gave up buying books (except in very rare cases) just | because I don't have space.) | khalilravanna wrote: | I had this problem but with videogames. What I ended up doing was | making a giant spreadsheet in Airtable with every game I've ever | played and ever want to play. I have a nice little "What To Play | Next" grid of images that I'm constantly tinkering with the order | of as my fancy gravitates towards one genre or another. E.g. If I | finish a long JRPG I'll probably filter on games of a shorter | length or a Shooter for a palette cleanse and move that higher up | in the list. | | The important parts for me were: | | * Don't assume you'll play everything or stress about "missing" | games | | * Easy visibility into what I'm currently playing, what I liked | in the past, and what I've been thinking about playing next | | * Try not to play more than 2 games concurrently. Then I end up | never finishing anything, I appreciate the games I play less, and | then I have less fun playing games overall. | | Bonus points with this approach: Since I _always_ have something | I 'm excited to play next, I'm never in a rush to buy games new. | I actually save a fair amount of money because I'm almost always | playing games a couple years old and on sale for 50%+ off. | | This approach has been so successful and enjoyable for me I even | thought about spinning this off into a product online but figured | my weird OCD approach maybe isn't that generally applicable to | other. Plus you can just create your own Airtable tailored to | your own needs. | | EDIT | | If anyone wants to make their own list and wants some data to | start, here's ~1000 games to start with my data with some of the | more personal columns pruned out: | https://www.dropbox.com/s/guc3tjefoyeyfvr/Games-Library-2023... | | Most of the columns are self-explanatory. IGDB = is a games | database run by Twitch (https://www.igdb.com/). I use the ID as | basically a foreign key to their table and then I have scripts | that query stuff in there like their critic's rating and release | date programmatically. | | Also if anyone knows of any other public data sets of video games | and video game metadata please let me know! | ptato wrote: | I've thought about setting up something like this before for | myself. You might have given me the motivation I needed... | amerkhalid wrote: | I've got the same issue, particularly with PlayStation Plus, | where there are countless games available at minimal cost. | | My previous strategy was to begin a game, that would be my main | game, while sampling others on the side. If one of the side | games caught my interest more, it would take the main game's | place, and I might return to the original game later. | | This approach was low-pressure, but it often took me years to | complete many games. | | I used to handle my side projects similarly, starting numerous | projects but rarely bringing them to completion. Lately, I've | been making an effort to stick with a side project long enough | to at least show it to friends. | | Now, I'm pushing myself to stay committed to two games at a | time. One game is from top of my list that I really want to | play. The other is a shorter one. This way I can enjoy that | satisfying feeling of accomplishment more frequently. | | I'd never considered making a spreadsheet for this, but now I'm | intrigued by the idea! | ajmurmann wrote: | > I used to handle my side projects similarly, starting | numerous projects but rarely bringing them to completion. | Lately, I've been making an effort to stick with a side | project long enough to at least show it to friends. | | I've been following the same approach, but also noticed that | it's less effective at utilizing my excitement. Every project | hits the point where sooner tedious work must be done and | I've found myself sometimes stay away from it for a few weeks | and not pick up something I'm excited about because I should | really work on the tedious thing, so I work on neither. | seaners wrote: | I would like your wisdom (and Oliver's) but unfortunately I | have added both to a Notion webclipper that I will not see for | 2-3 years. | doubled112 wrote: | I also try not to play more than a handful of games at a time. | The paradox of choice is real. | | I tend to play older games, and games I can pick up and play | for five minutes at a time. Think Game Boy. A level here and a | level there can feel like you've achieved way more than some | longer, more grindy games. | | I keep a couple of lists of games. | | A massive "sounds interesting" list of games that I hear about | along the way. I may never play some of them, but it sounded | good at the time. Title and system is about all I put here. If | I come back and don't remember what it was, it probably wasn't | as interesting as I thought. | | The other is list with WIP, started, and finished games. | | If something slides into the started pile and I forget where I | was, I just remove it. Life is too short to worry about things | that are supposed to be fun. | Arrath wrote: | > I also try not to play more than a handful of games at a | time. The paradox of choice is real. | | In general I'm like this, but I also have games that are | exclusions to the rule that I pop back around to from time to | time, like the save I have in Factorio that I come back to | and tinker with now and then (I keep a text file around with | my general to-do list so I don't spend an hour running around | the base trying to remember what the hell I was doing, while | marveling at various bits of kludged together spaghetti) | | As for books, I'm generally working through at least 3 at a | time: One on audible, for commutes, one on my kindle, and one | in print. I try to keep the kindle/print books varied so I | switch between whichever strikes my fancy at the moment. | khalilravanna wrote: | Yeah I compartmentalize exceptions like these as well. Like | I don't count "ongoing coop games with friends" or "long | term games" (like your Factorio save, or something like | League of Legends) towards my broader "What I'm currently | playing" count. | [deleted] | hyperthesis wrote: | A strength of a product, particularly where emotion and | motivation are concerned, is guidance and encouragement - | making it easy to do. Even if you "could" do it without help. | | Most people aren't autodidacts... even elite atheletes have | coaches. | hyperific wrote: | It hasn't been updated in a while but I have used this games | list before. (https://github.com/Elbriga14/EveryVideoGameEver) | IGDB sounds incredible though, thanks for sharing. I'm curious | if you use How Long to Beat to get the completion time. I've | used completion time to produce some helpful metrics. | cjsawyer wrote: | I made a drastic improvement in my mindset with regards to | media backlogs when I realized that they they exist to | entertain me and that my whims are the only thing that matters. | I don't owe that pile of books anything. Now they're not | allowed to generate stress, only entertainment! | pongo1231 wrote: | I think people feel forced to get the value they put in back | out of every single one of them asap as to not feel like they | wasted their money which is what is causing that stress to | begin with, even though there really isn't any reason for | that urge if you look at it. The backlog is going to be there | practically forever, just waiting - granted it's not tied to | a service which might shut down at any moment. | satvikpendem wrote: | That's why libraries (or, shall we say, digital libraries) | are great, I don't have to worry about running out of media | or feel like I need to get value from them. | vuciv1 wrote: | One way I've been managing this is by reading summaries of | certain books. While it can be difficult to decide which books | deserve a full read, this approach has significantly reduced the | stress I feel about my ever-growing "to-read" pile. By focusing | on the most important ideas and insights, I can still learn and | grow without feeling the pressure to read every single book on my | list. | arbitrage wrote: | > reading summaries of certain books | | Careful with this. You have to trust that the summary is | correct. Which, as it turns out, isn't as foolproof as one | might hope for. | | It turns out that a sizeable percentage of human reviewers and | condensers of information just make stuff up. And if you're | just consuming the summary of a work, how would you know? | [deleted] | CrypticShift wrote: | I think LLMs could definitely help us stop treating large piles | as "lists" (to be completed). You can just "dialogue" with it | through Chat. And if the AI has access to your recent activities | or notes, it can even give you relevant choices. Or you can | "navigate" through it in an interactive 2D/3D map that clusters | the article/books by (semantic) similarity. | | So dialogue and navigation take the place of checking a list. | mlyle wrote: | Though... It just deepens the problems of curation of all the | content everyone consumes through relatively opaque and | unpredictable means. | CrypticShift wrote: | Yes, more opaque and unpredictable for sure, but I don't | think it deepens the problems of curation. I believe it is | solution. : you trade predictability/transparency for smarter | /non-linear curation. You can always choose. | mlyle wrote: | I just worry about the biases in models becoming our | biases, and self-perpetuating. | avg_dev wrote: | Never heard of this person before but was pleasantly surprised by | the content. | | In my own life, I have spent decades plagued by the feeling that | I wasn't doing enough, and I had many varied areas of focus and | felt like I didn't really progress on anything. That in itself | (the feeling of lack of progress) was I think kind of misleading, | as I did progress on some things (though I clearly regressed on | some things as well). | | I don't really know how it happened but I have made some | significant shifts in my life. I started to become physically | active again, I stopped smoking cigarettes and some other | unhealthy habits, I started really developing and digging into | some of my active and creative passions like writing, playing a | musical instrument, and renewing my focus on coding to an end and | with purpose and quality in mind. | | Somehow I started finding that I had much more energy and time | available for everything. And as opportunities arose I began to | seize them. It was a very exciting period for me. Eventually, my | plate really became too full, and things began to suffer (mostly | me) and I started to say no to things, and continue to keep my | focus on what I really think is important. I feel that it has | taught me about the interconnected nature of my life, and about | how to value my time, how to slow down and appreciate something, | how to deal with my emotions head on instead of taking years or | decades to process events in my life (I am sure there have and | will be many exceptions to what I have said), how to actively | take stock of my current situation and change my plans as needed, | how to deal with the fact that my expectations for things very | rarely match up with reality, how to stop being an intellectual | purist and idealist while still deeply valuing a good idea and | pursuing my ideals. I look back at how much I have accomplished | the last year and I can't help thinking everything came from | stopping trying to do everything and accomplishing nothing (or so | it felt), and by embracing what really mattered to me when it was | in front of me. I learned to float down the river, I guess. | Lazily most of the time. But when I feel it is necessary, I can | exert more power in changing my trajectory than ever I could | before. | nell wrote: | His books are enjoyable, I'd recommend his most recent one | "Four thousand weeks" and the previous one "The Antidote" as | well. Especially if you're overwhelmed or gets hit with anxiety | often. | Nezteb wrote: | I came here to say this. The Antidote was the last "self- | help" book I needed, personally. | shever73 wrote: | I agree with the concept, but I tend to view my to-read pile more | like a sushi conveyor than a river. Assuming I'm still interested | later in what I have to read, then it can come round again. | synergy20 wrote: | I have too many good books queued for never-reading-before-i-die, | but it makes me feel good, and feel phony knowledgeable. | pps wrote: | There is this concept of antilibrary | https://nesslabs.com/antilibrary | sakisv wrote: | The lede is buried near the end: | | > To return to information overload: this means treating your "to | read" pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, and from | which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) instead of a | bucket (which demands that you empty it). After all, you | presumably don't feel overwhelmed by all the unread books in the | British Library - and not because there aren't an overwhelming | number of them, but because it never occurred to you that it | might be your job to get through them all. | | I find the analogy with the British library spot on, and very | liberating. | t344344 wrote: | I found most books are just garbage. Take Moby-Dick for example, | interesting story that could be compressed to two pages, but it | is 400 pages of boring stuff, that goes on and on. And it can not | be criticized as it is "fundamental corner stone of American | literature"! | | Watching documentary about original story, and a few pieces about | 19 century whale hunting, is much better use of time! | bueno wrote: | I'm the developer of an iOS and iPadOS app that I think is | relevant here. My app Ephemera is a simple read-later application | that places expiration dates on every link you add. If you don't | read the article in time, it disappears forever. | | The app isn't for everyone, but if you are buried under the | torrent of information you "think" you should read, I have found | that Ephemera helps me focus and actually read more. | | You can find the app here: https://deadpan.io/ephemera/ | | I'd love for Hacker News to check it out! | FireInsight wrote: | Something I stored disappearing feels like a stressful concept | to me, but maybe it works for some. | eitland wrote: | Clearly. Some people enjoy Snapchat even if I find it to be | about as useful - and a lot less entertaining - as Twitter. | brewdad wrote: | As you probably guessed, Snapchat doesn't really get | deleted. I sat as a juror on a case where some of the most | damning evidence was a Snapchat the police obtained from | the company following an armed robbery and car theft. Some | people are really poor at planning and covering their | tracks. | derekisnt wrote: | Looks sick Tim, great idea and great execution! | password1 wrote: | Is there a way to have unread items go in an archive instead of | disappearing? Sometimes I find insightful to re-look at the | titles of things I've saved, even if I don't read them. It | brings me back the why I saved it and it always unlocks some | thought. | saiya-jin wrote: | I'd love something similar with more general aspect, just TODO | list with different priorities, expiration etc. Whether the | content is URL, name of the book or grocery list are just | implementation details. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | I actually solved this without an app. I realized I had around | 10k "read later" items in my bookmarks folder in Chrome, and I | simply deleted all of them. | jacobr1 wrote: | I do this semi-periodically now. At the end of the week I | close all tabs, I archive everything in my inbox, mark all | items in my slack as read ... | eganist wrote: | In fairness, I think the allure of an app is to act as a | forcing function for actually reading the content before it | disappears. | JenrHywy wrote: | I solved this by forcing myself to read my list in | chronological order. After a small period it became very | obvious that most stuff I'd put in my list truly did not | matter. | rcme wrote: | Yes. Most information is truly worthless. | hombre_fatal wrote: | I think it's more that you always have a bunch of other | things competing for your attention on the internet so | there's no incentive to read things you once wanted to | read. | | Even an article you just opened in a tab competes with | scavenging for more info on HN/Reddit/Twitter. I don't | think that's evidence that the articles are just worthless. | | Once, when the internet was out for a few days, I realized | that iOS saves your reading list items for offline reading | and I was glad to have it. All sorts of interesting | articles that I curated. I now work through the reading | queue on flights. | artursapek wrote: | This is the kind of black pill I come to Hacker News for | fruit2020 wrote: | Not worthless, but too much. Life is short, you need focus | samstave wrote: | https://i.imgur.com/NCOBsKv.png | [deleted] | imwillofficial wrote: | This is a super dope idea! Installing now | nighthawk454 wrote: | Awesome! I do this with my YouTube Watch Later playlist and it | really works. I'll get a couple hundred videos I "definitely | want to watch, but not now" and my script will clear them out | after X time. Never once have I missed something it's deleted. | I don't even know _what_ it's deleted, because if it stood out | enough to remember the name and search it up again I'll | probably just watch it. Very few things do. | nighthawk454 wrote: | Got the app, couple notes so far: | | * Somehow, App Store SEO can't find it with "ephemera". | "ephemera deadpan" found it though | | * For me, personally, bookmarking is usually done on the | computer and read elsewhere. Phone-only is restrictive | | * Not a fan of paid unlock for basic features (setting | expiration dates, accessing my own history (?!?)). I almost | understand notifications if server costs are involved, like | Apollo, but. While I understand devs gotta make a buck and | this is both popular and well within your rights, I am not a | fan of this trend | hodgesd wrote: | Do you mind sharing your Watch Later script? | nighthawk454 wrote: | Sure! It's utter garbage but you're welcome to it. I keep | it in a notes file and paste it into the console to run it. | | It sorts by `Date Added (newest)` and truncates the list to | the 150 most recent videos. It also removes anything I've | watched more than ~80% of. (Because the built-in button | removes videos if you've watched _any_ percent, incl long | ones you haven't finished yet) | | Script here: https://pastebin.com/Sfh6a0w1 | crashmat wrote: | sounds cool, but I'd much rather be able to set it to, say, 3 | months rather than a max of 30 days. | bueno wrote: | Understandable! I haven't got tons of feedback thus far. I'll | definitely consider bumping these values up. | 1123581321 wrote: | Nice idea. I use Readwise in the river/shortlist mode and have | a similar filter (not in shortlist, saved > x days ago), but I | have to manually clear it out. | screamingninja wrote: | Love the idea. I use Signal's Note to Self feature with a 4 | week timer. Anything that warrants an extension gets readded to | the queue. A dedicated app with a custom expiration / reminders | / notifications / cross-device syncing would be phenomenal! | Bootvis wrote: | This is pretty cool idea! I like the simplicity of the app. | sva_ wrote: | Interesting. Bookmarked, might look at it later. | par wrote: | I had read some books on kindle here and there over the years,but | recently switched over to full time on the kindle. And I must | say, there is a distinct pleasure in carrying multiple books with | me, and switching between them at will. I have been trying to | replace bouncing around apps on my phone with bouncing around | books on my kindle and it's been very enjoyable. Reduces pressure | to finish any single book, and a lot more freedom to bounce | around! | karaterobot wrote: | I have an English Lit degree, and the following advice from a | professor almost made it worthwhile: "if you're reading for | pleasure, and it's not pleasurable, put the book down. Give the | author 50 pages, and if they haven't made it worth your time, | move on to the next book." | | I share this advice with everybody, but almost nobody takes it as | far as I know. There's way too much guilt and shame surrounding | reading: "if I pick it up, _by GOD I will finish it, even if it | takes a year and I hate every second of it_ ". It shouldn't be | that way. | Waterluvian wrote: | I did this with Snow Crash. | | I'm not a literature expert and I know people generally like | the book. But I got maybe half way through the book and was | wondering, "okay so when is the plot going to advance? Is there | even a plot? Just feels like stuff is happening but I'm not | sure why I should care." | | I spent too long thinking that it must be a good book so maybe | I just have to give it a few more chapters. | m463 wrote: | Took me into middle age to do this. | | Now I don't feel guilty about: | | - books I don't finish | | - movies or tv series I don't finish | | - projects I don't make into a company | | and it doesn't matter if I bought into it hard. If I bought the | "tv series complete collection", or whatever: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect | vlunkr wrote: | I wonder where this guilt comes from. It seems highly | illogical, yet very common. I've had to learn to ignore it with | books and video games. | XCSme wrote: | For me, it's somewhat about thinking "I am not good at | finishing things". I want to be someone who "gets things | done", when I should actually strive to be someone who | "quickly lets go of what is not worth spending time on". | candyman wrote: | It's good advice for multiple reasons. I put books down using | this rule for many years. Sometimes I pick it up again and | absolutely love it but I'm at a different point in my life and | intellectual interests. It's kind of like mushrooms - when I | was a kid I hated them, now I want them on everything. | sacnoradhq wrote: | Absolutely. "I must finish everything on my plate" mentality is | unnecessary masochism. I recall plowing through ~2/3 of "Guns, | Germs, and Steel" and then losing interest. I picked up "In the | Realm of Hungry Ghosts" today to be my new bathroom reader. | randomluck040 wrote: | Sunk cost fallacy is playing its part as well I think. I can't | bring myself to read anything I don't like anymore. I'm a slow | reader so working through a book takes its time and I want to | get the best possible experience out of it. Won't happen if I | don't like the book. It's not only valid for books but | everything else: series, movies, video games. If it doesn't | work, why push it? | Moissanite wrote: | Some of it also comes from prior impressions that a book is | "worth reading". Take Wealth of Nations as an example. It | inspired, arguably, the whole field of economics - and yet | after a hundred or so pages of reading about the worth of the | labour of a man in Glasgow as compared to the labour of a man | in London, I just wanted someone to end my misery. | | Alas, I'm afflicted by the "must finish" disease, so I paused | reading and keep telling myself I'll get back to it. | JenrHywy wrote: | In general this is good advice, but needs a heuristic of when | to apply it. It's a bit like albums: some are hard to get into | but worth the effort in the end. | | So while there are plenty of books I won't finish, I tend to | stick with things if: | | a) I've worked my way through a previous book by the author and | it was worthwhile b) People whose opinions I trust say it's | hard but worthwhile | joatmon-snoo wrote: | I made it through eight books of Wheel of Time before I finally | stopped reading the series. | | ... I don't know how I made it to #8. | allenu wrote: | This is good advice. Similarly, if you're reading a book for | the information, and you find it's way too wordy, there's no | shame in just skimming it. | | I used to feel like it was my duty to read every word written | by an author if I was serious about reading, even for self-help | or pop-psych books. Over time, I realized that there's really a | lot of bad writing out there, but there's still good nuggets of | info if you look. The trick is to just recognize when a book is | just padding itself out and just skim through the boring bits. | No shame in that. And honestly, so many self-help or | productivity books are just padded out to justify selling a | book. | codetrotter wrote: | I tried to read Infinite Jest, and it just pissed me off. It | was such an annoying text to try and read. I think I read at | most 10 pages. | | Likewise, I have "rage quit" reading other books in the past as | well. | | It's solid advice. Don't waste time reading something you are | not enjoying. Same goes for movies. | [deleted] | a_c wrote: | So is your product backlog. Most of them doesn't matter. Throw | them away and rethink what matter most at the very moment. | | It is hard to do if you are continuously "sprinting". Or it | doesn't matter if you outsourced the thinking of "what matters" | to someone else. | jyscao wrote: | I think most people end up doing what he's suggesting anyway, out | of necessity. I suppose his key insight is to just stop feeling | guilty about not being able to get through it all. | npunt wrote: | I organize my Obsidian around this concept, separating out | different streams for different domains of content I'm interested | in. Social, AI, Antilibrary, Wisdom, generic Inbox, and my own | Passing Thoughts and Story Prompts. | | I treat each of these streams as an input to growing my | understanding & thinking in these domains, much like a stream of | water nourishes plants around it. It's a big unlock to do things | this way, because it treats inputs as opportunities not tasks. | Different streams flow at different rates based on where my | initial interests lie and based on interesting things happening | in the world. | | Sort of biomimicry in action in the intellectual realm | lawrenceyan wrote: | I've been using Google Keep mostly, but tried Obsidian for a | bit. Is it worth the transition? | labrador wrote: | Something that helped me was to develop my "discernment" of | "quality" so I could quickly reject material that appeared | interesting but actually was of little use to me. This is going | to be different for each person, but I think it's worth putting | some thought into because I had previously assumed I had | developed a natural talent for it when actually I was consuming | content out of habit. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-29 23:00 UTC)