Learning things in the just-in-time fashion seems like a good idea (so you can apply what you’ve learned right after learning it). So I agree it makes sense to combine study of meta-skills like “how to learn” with study of some object level skill, like learning some branch of math. Maybe try a different notetaking technique for every chapter in your math book, for instance.
Productivity metrics are hard. Some ideas I’ve had are number of commits (for programmers, assuming you can get yourself to make each commit about the same amount of improvement to your software), using predictionbook.com to make predictions about when you will accomplish goals and learn to have an accurate model, and just keep qualitative observations (write down how much you got done at the end of every day or something).
I recommend keeping an “experiment queue” in a text file, and each evening plan some experiment you will perform on yourself the next day. You can populate your queue by reading stuff written by productivity/learning gurus, or just brainstorm experiments for yourself. Here are some initial experiment ideas: meditation, log your activities every hour, work in a café or library, autofocus. An interesting technique that I used to good effect was to alternate 50 min. of work with 10 min. of relaxation (generally taking a short walk), and listen to white noise during the work period. It was actually pretty easy to condition myself to work when I heard white noise. Actually, I would focus so hard with the white noise that I also had a lower gear (listening to Internet radio station groove salad while chewing a particular flavor of gum) that I used for activities that didn’t require intense concentration.
I was getting deeper and deeper into this sort of radical self-hacking until last august when I got stuck using voice recognition to communicate with my computer, became really depressed, etc. I have a lot of ideas related to it, but it feels dishonest to share them because I’m not putting them into practice much anymore.
Length of time spent in continual focus, or flow. Extra points for activities you normally don’t enjoy and thus are hard to get into flow.
Amount of work done deemed to be of publishable quality where publishable is not necessarily books, but can apply to code, financial reports etc. Anything that achieves a point of quality worthy of showing off to others. The quality bar will no doubt be raised over time so the amount of quality work will fluctuate but some sense of progress can be gained.
The amount of times a habit is attempt before it becomes automatic. How many times have you tried to exercise before it finally stuck? How many times have you decided “I will write for X hours a day” before that became routine? As one becomes better at general improvement the amount of failed attempts will go down.
How many habits do you lose when things become stressed? I know I failed this around finals, my room became messy, my cycling habit fell apart and my general nutrition became chicken-bacon pizza, beer, and Adderall. So for me personally this seems to be a sticking point as I can accrue good habits until a certain level of stress where maintaining them becomes hard.
One idea is to try to become an expert in improving yourself in general. Read up on learning, practicing, getting things done, etc.
What is the feedback for this process? How do you evaluate whether you’re getting better at improvement?
Learning things in the just-in-time fashion seems like a good idea (so you can apply what you’ve learned right after learning it). So I agree it makes sense to combine study of meta-skills like “how to learn” with study of some object level skill, like learning some branch of math. Maybe try a different notetaking technique for every chapter in your math book, for instance.
Productivity metrics are hard. Some ideas I’ve had are number of commits (for programmers, assuming you can get yourself to make each commit about the same amount of improvement to your software), using predictionbook.com to make predictions about when you will accomplish goals and learn to have an accurate model, and just keep qualitative observations (write down how much you got done at the end of every day or something).
I recommend keeping an “experiment queue” in a text file, and each evening plan some experiment you will perform on yourself the next day. You can populate your queue by reading stuff written by productivity/learning gurus, or just brainstorm experiments for yourself. Here are some initial experiment ideas: meditation, log your activities every hour, work in a café or library, autofocus. An interesting technique that I used to good effect was to alternate 50 min. of work with 10 min. of relaxation (generally taking a short walk), and listen to white noise during the work period. It was actually pretty easy to condition myself to work when I heard white noise. Actually, I would focus so hard with the white noise that I also had a lower gear (listening to Internet radio station groove salad while chewing a particular flavor of gum) that I used for activities that didn’t require intense concentration.
I was getting deeper and deeper into this sort of radical self-hacking until last august when I got stuck using voice recognition to communicate with my computer, became really depressed, etc. I have a lot of ideas related to it, but it feels dishonest to share them because I’m not putting them into practice much anymore.
Potential Options for Measurement:
Length of time spent in continual focus, or flow. Extra points for activities you normally don’t enjoy and thus are hard to get into flow.
Amount of work done deemed to be of publishable quality where publishable is not necessarily books, but can apply to code, financial reports etc. Anything that achieves a point of quality worthy of showing off to others. The quality bar will no doubt be raised over time so the amount of quality work will fluctuate but some sense of progress can be gained.
The amount of times a habit is attempt before it becomes automatic. How many times have you tried to exercise before it finally stuck? How many times have you decided “I will write for X hours a day” before that became routine? As one becomes better at general improvement the amount of failed attempts will go down.
How many habits do you lose when things become stressed? I know I failed this around finals, my room became messy, my cycling habit fell apart and my general nutrition became chicken-bacon pizza, beer, and Adderall. So for me personally this seems to be a sticking point as I can accrue good habits until a certain level of stress where maintaining them becomes hard.