But he also quoted a part of the book, which said that only reading hard things will improve your reading—it might be true, but it doesn’t sound intuitive to me (according to my rationalist intuition, obviously :D)
Why? The deliberate practice hypothesis is very popular these days. Takling hard problems is important for building any skill.
Yes, but only doing hard things is different from “push your limits”. It’s like saying if you’re going to do pushups, you should stop carrying groceries, because the latter is a weak exercise and will dilute the impact of your pushups.
There are two ways to interpret: “Only doing hard things produces improvement”.
1) Someone who doesn’t do hard things won’t improve.
2) Someone who does easy things won’t improve.
I haven’t read the book but it would suprise me if the book would claim 2) instead of 1).
You are going to spend a limited amount of time reading. Reading fluff novels has an opportunity cost of reading dense and difficult material.
If eschewing the fluff will reduce your enjoyment of reading and thus reduce the amount of time you spend reading difficult material, you should read some fluff.
On the other hand, if you carry groceries, that’s unlikely to prevent you from doing more pushups.
“Only reading hard things will improve your reading” can mean two things:
1) Someone who doesn’t read hard things won’t improve.
2) Someone who reads easy stuff won’t improve.
It would surprise me if the book would claim 2) instead of claiming 1).
Why? The deliberate practice hypothesis is very popular these days. Takling hard problems is important for building any skill.
Yes, but only doing hard things is different from “push your limits”. It’s like saying if you’re going to do pushups, you should stop carrying groceries, because the latter is a weak exercise and will dilute the impact of your pushups.
There are two ways to interpret: “Only doing hard things produces improvement”. 1) Someone who doesn’t do hard things won’t improve. 2) Someone who does easy things won’t improve.
I haven’t read the book but it would suprise me if the book would claim 2) instead of 1).
You are going to spend a limited amount of time reading. Reading fluff novels has an opportunity cost of reading dense and difficult material.
If eschewing the fluff will reduce your enjoyment of reading and thus reduce the amount of time you spend reading difficult material, you should read some fluff.
On the other hand, if you carry groceries, that’s unlikely to prevent you from doing more pushups.
“Only reading hard things will improve your reading” can mean two things: 1) Someone who doesn’t read hard things won’t improve. 2) Someone who reads easy stuff won’t improve.
It would surprise me if the book would claim 2) instead of claiming 1).