Alternative: commute effectively. Taking a train to NYC from Long Island I get almost 2 hours to read/watch lectures or entertainment. Some days these are 2 best hours of the day.
A few months ago I got a new job that required me to commute for two hours each day. I tried doing many different productive things while sitting on the bus (the means of transportation I used), including reading, listening to audiobooks, watching videos, and even meditating. Eventually, however, I reached the conclusion that doing Anki reviews (using the AnkiDroid app) was, by a wide margin, superior to all these other activities. If you own a smartphone, you might want to give it a try. (And if you don’t own a smartphone, you might want to consider obtaining one.)
Good advice, I think a lot here depends on the quality of the commute. Big heavy trains are the most comfortable and lent to most potential productive activities. Anki-on-smartphone you can do while standing up in a subway.
Not all people can read on trains comfortably. (Likewise, some but not all people can sleep on trains comfortably.) Therefore, Beware of Other-Optimizing is particularly relevant.
I don’t know, but I suspect this might be trainable. As a young child I used to get very nauseous reading in the back seat of cars. But since I would get bored with nothing to do, I would read until I was to nauseous to continue, and then try again once I felt better. At some point I stopped getting carsick from reading. I don’t Know that I trained this though, it’s possible I just grew out of getting carsick, all sorts of stuff changes as you get older.
I suspect it’s fairly common to become less carsick with age (it happened to me as well, and it’s not like I trained—I hadn’t read in a car for years before trying to do that again and noticed that it bothered me much less). Anyway, in my case the problem is not sickness (I don’t get sick at all when on rails), but just that I can’t concentrate very well when on a train. So I can read short stories or poetry no problem, but I usually don’t even try to read textbooks or papers.
I still get carsick when reading on buses or cars. I no longer get sick when reading on trains. I used to be truly awful to take in a car (every single car-ride I got sick).
Even now, when i do get sick… I don’t recover. I have to stop the car, wait half an hour (at least) before moving on (or eating, or anything apart from sitting on the ground feeling miserable).
I don’t know if it’s trainable… it has gotten better in the past 30-odd years… but not gone away totally.When i learned to drive—I learned how to avoid as much of the g-force-inducing movements as possible.
I always choose train-transport over other transport.
Alternative: commute effectively. Taking a train to NYC from Long Island I get almost 2 hours to read/watch lectures or entertainment. Some days these are 2 best hours of the day.
A few months ago I got a new job that required me to commute for two hours each day. I tried doing many different productive things while sitting on the bus (the means of transportation I used), including reading, listening to audiobooks, watching videos, and even meditating. Eventually, however, I reached the conclusion that doing Anki reviews (using the AnkiDroid app) was, by a wide margin, superior to all these other activities. If you own a smartphone, you might want to give it a try. (And if you don’t own a smartphone, you might want to consider obtaining one.)
Good advice, I think a lot here depends on the quality of the commute. Big heavy trains are the most comfortable and lent to most potential productive activities. Anki-on-smartphone you can do while standing up in a subway.
What do you use Anki to review? I see that lots of people use it so it seems valuable, but I don’t know what I would use it for.
See here.
I use it for all sorts of things. I even listen to music on Anki. :-)
In addition to arundelo’s link, you may want to check out this list of Anki decks by LW users.
Here are a few things I use it for.
Not all people can read on trains comfortably. (Likewise, some but not all people can sleep on trains comfortably.) Therefore, Beware of Other-Optimizing is particularly relevant.
I don’t know, but I suspect this might be trainable. As a young child I used to get very nauseous reading in the back seat of cars. But since I would get bored with nothing to do, I would read until I was to nauseous to continue, and then try again once I felt better. At some point I stopped getting carsick from reading. I don’t Know that I trained this though, it’s possible I just grew out of getting carsick, all sorts of stuff changes as you get older.
I suspect it’s fairly common to become less carsick with age (it happened to me as well, and it’s not like I trained—I hadn’t read in a car for years before trying to do that again and noticed that it bothered me much less). Anyway, in my case the problem is not sickness (I don’t get sick at all when on rails), but just that I can’t concentrate very well when on a train. So I can read short stories or poetry no problem, but I usually don’t even try to read textbooks or papers.
I still get carsick when reading on buses or cars. I no longer get sick when reading on trains. I used to be truly awful to take in a car (every single car-ride I got sick).
Even now, when i do get sick… I don’t recover. I have to stop the car, wait half an hour (at least) before moving on (or eating, or anything apart from sitting on the ground feeling miserable).
I don’t know if it’s trainable… it has gotten better in the past 30-odd years… but not gone away totally.When i learned to drive—I learned how to avoid as much of the g-force-inducing movements as possible. I always choose train-transport over other transport.
but I am just one data-point.