I’m in school at the undergraduate level, taking 3 difficult classes while working part-time.
For this path to be useful at all, I have to be able to tick the boxes: get good grades, get admitted to grad school, etc. For now, my strategy is to optimize to complete these tasks as efficiently as possible (what Zvi calls “playing on easy mode”), in order to preserve as much time and energy for what I really want: living and learning.
Are there dangers in getting really good at paying your dues?
1) Maybe it distracts you/diminishes the incentive to get good at avoiding dues.
2) Maybe there are two ways to pay dues (within the rules): one that gives you great profit and another that merely satisfies the requirement.
In general, though, I tend to think that efficient accomplishment is about avoiding or compressing work until you get to the “efficiency frontier” in your field. Good work is about one of two things:
Getting really fast/accurate at X because it’s necessary for reason R to do Y.
Getting really fast/accurate at X because it lets you train others to do (or better yet, automate) X.
In my case, X is schoolwork, R is “triangulation of me and graduate-level education,” and Y is “get a research job.”
X is also schoolwork, R is “practice,” and Y is learning. But this is much less clear. It may be that other strategies would be more efficient for learning.
However, since the expected value of my learning is radically diminished if I don’t get into grad school, it makes sense to optimize first for aceing my schoolwork, and then in the time that remains to optimize for learning. Treating these as two separate activities with two separate goals makes sense.
I see my post as less about goal-setting (“succeed, with no wasted motion”) and more about strategy-implementing (“Check the unavoidable boxes first and quickly, to save as much time as possible for meaningful achievement”).
I suspect “dues” are less relevant in today’s world than a few decades ago. It used to be a (partial) defense against being judged harshly for your success, by showing that you’d earned it without special advantage. Nowadays, you’ll be judged regardless, as the assumption is that “the system” is so rigged that anyone who succeeds had a headstart.
To the extent that the dues do no actual good (unlike literal dues, which the recipient can use to buy things, presumably for the good of the group), skipping them seems very reasonable to me. The trick, of course, is that it’s very hard to distinguish unnecessary hurdles (“dues”) from socially-valuable lessons in conformity and behavior (“training”).
Paying your dues
I’m in school at the undergraduate level, taking 3 difficult classes while working part-time.
For this path to be useful at all, I have to be able to tick the boxes: get good grades, get admitted to grad school, etc. For now, my strategy is to optimize to complete these tasks as efficiently as possible (what Zvi calls “playing on easy mode”), in order to preserve as much time and energy for what I really want: living and learning.
Are there dangers in getting really good at paying your dues?
1) Maybe it distracts you/diminishes the incentive to get good at avoiding dues.
2) Maybe there are two ways to pay dues (within the rules): one that gives you great profit and another that merely satisfies the requirement.
In general, though, I tend to think that efficient accomplishment is about avoiding or compressing work until you get to the “efficiency frontier” in your field. Good work is about one of two things:
Getting really fast/accurate at X because it’s necessary for reason R to do Y.
Getting really fast/accurate at X because it lets you train others to do (or better yet, automate) X.
In my case, X is schoolwork, R is “triangulation of me and graduate-level education,” and Y is “get a research job.”
X is also schoolwork, R is “practice,” and Y is learning. But this is much less clear. It may be that other strategies would be more efficient for learning.
However, since the expected value of my learning is radically diminished if I don’t get into grad school, it makes sense to optimize first for aceing my schoolwork, and then in the time that remains to optimize for learning. Treating these as two separate activities with two separate goals makes sense.
This isn’t “playing on easy mode,” so much as purchasing fuzzies (As) and utilons (learning) separately.
If you haven’t seen Half-assing it with everything you’ve got, I’d definitely recommend it as an alternative perspective on this issue.
I see my post as less about goal-setting (“succeed, with no wasted motion”) and more about strategy-implementing (“Check the unavoidable boxes first and quickly, to save as much time as possible for meaningful achievement”).
I suspect “dues” are less relevant in today’s world than a few decades ago. It used to be a (partial) defense against being judged harshly for your success, by showing that you’d earned it without special advantage. Nowadays, you’ll be judged regardless, as the assumption is that “the system” is so rigged that anyone who succeeds had a headstart.
To the extent that the dues do no actual good (unlike literal dues, which the recipient can use to buy things, presumably for the good of the group), skipping them seems very reasonable to me. The trick, of course, is that it’s very hard to distinguish unnecessary hurdles (“dues”) from socially-valuable lessons in conformity and behavior (“training”).
Relevant advice when asked if you’ve paid your dues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG0YKVafAe8