The Low-Information Diet and University

March 4th, 2010 . Posted in Psychology | 1 Comment »

In discussing the Low Information Diet, Ferriss says (p.92, revised edition):

“Develop the habit of asking yourself, “Will I definitely use this information for something immediate and important?” It’s not enough to use information for “something” - it needs to be immediate and important. If “no” on either count, don’t consume it. Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.”

What percentage of information learnt in university fits this criterion (in something other than a circular way - using it for a test, for example)?

The whole university, high-school, and so on model of learning is upside down and backwards - you learn naturally in a context where you can use something relatively immediately in a useful way. This makes sense on all sorts of levels.

By separating the two, university creates a) useless top-heavy intellectuals with more opinions than know-how (actually, worse than useless, but that’s another discussion), and b) a sense of nihilism or purposelessness among students.

New Habit Goal: Check E-mail-Internet Once Per Day

March 4th, 2010 . Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

After thinking about what was the biggest productivity drain for me, I realized it was the Internet.

It was taking up my time in several ways:

a) E-mail

b) Blogs

c) News

d) YouTube, Vimeo, and so on videos

After trying various techniques to limit the checking of e-mail or the reading of blogs and news, I realized they all didn’t work for me … except for one:

Literally get rid of the Internet connection.

The way this works is: I take the Internet cord, and put it in my car. I then get the Internet cord once a day, and limit myself to 30 min. on the Internet. (I have a list of ‘Things to do on the Internet’ that I make up as things occur to me.) Then, I return the cord to the car. Since this has worked in trial for several days, I am going to try it out for approx. 30 days to create a habit.

Procrastination tricks

March 2nd, 2010 . Posted in Getting Started, Motivation, Psychology | No Comments »

One trick procrastination uses is to exploit legitimate fears to get you to not do something.

Here’s one I’ve noticed recently: if I just get started on this right now, I’ll (for whatever reason - I’m in a bad state, I’ll be rushed) do it poorly.

At some level, this is a legitimate concern.

Some ways to respond to this:

1. I’ll just get started, and if it goes poorly I can stop part-way through.

2. I’ll just get started, and if it goes poorly I can try it again later.

3. I’ll just get started, and do part of it.

4. It doesn’t matter if I get it right the first time as I can iterate until I get it right, and getting started is more important.

5. Let’s step back and prepare for doing it first, and then go ahead and do it.

Basically, a large part of moving beyond procrastination is re-wiring certain mental habits, but like any good causal trickery, there can be multiple ones you need to deal with before getting the result you want. See here for a more complete list of mental habits you might have to create.

Options are the refuge of scoundrels

March 1st, 2010 . Posted in Complexity, Psychology, Technology | No Comments »

This post reminded me of a conclusion I’m coming to in design: options are the refuge of designer scoundrels.

What this means is: if you’re designing an interface, make a choice on how it works, already! Don’t leave the hard decisions about it to the user, who then can configure the interface in a bazillion different ways.

Find the best, most simple, most elegant way for the interface to work - which usually takes a lot of time and testing to really figure out, which is why software designs are so often cluttered with umpteen different ways to do something. It’s easy to add an option and say “I’ll leave it up to the user.”

Don’t. Bad designer. Now after you’ve spent 15 min. in the design corner thinking about what you’ve done, come back and actually do what you’re supposed to do - make design decisions, instead of off-loading those onto the user.

Gruesome GUIs

March 1st, 2010 . Posted in Psychology, Technology | 2 Comments »

I use Windows xp. I was helping a friend with a problem they were having using it, and I realized just how poor of an interface it is.

Here’s one of the problems they were having: they would open Firefox, and sometimes it would give an error message saying Firefox was already running.

After asking them to go through the steps to do this, I noticed they were double-clicking on their Firefox icon. This is what you’re supposed to do to run a program - if it’s on the desktop. However, sometimes they would click the Firefox icon on the Task Bar (the bar at the bottom of the screen) to run it, and when they did this they would - logically - double-click it. This would launch 2 versions of the program, and sometimes they would interfere with each other, causing an error message.

It’s just poor design. The designers of Windows xp should have decided on a single-click or double-click, regardless of where you are.

More and more, I realize just how clueless most designers of software are.

Constraint and creativity example

March 1st, 2010 . Posted in Problem Solving, Psychology | No Comments »

I talked about how adding a constraint can cause innovation here.

Here is a concrete example:

I want to take a shower in the morning in <= 5 min.

So, constraint: 5 min.

Instead of deciding on a constraint of 5 min. and hopping right into the shower, which could cause stress and perhaps a sub-optimal outcome, I instead lie in bed and think about how I could have a shower in 5 min.

So, innovate with constraint before entering situation. This reduces the 3 problems with time constraints mentioned here: stress, failure, short-term gains but long-term costs.

The first thing that comes to me is to use my cell phone instead of regular kitchen alarm, as I can put it in the bathroom and so hear it better. This reduces the stress of: straining to hear the alarm, and missing hearing the alarm and so failing at the goal.

The second thing is to decide to prioritize what I’m going to do, so if at any point the alarm goes off the chances I’ve done the most important things is higher. This increases the chance that I can step out of the shower whenever the 5 min. is up, and so decreases stress as well as chance of failure or a short-term long-term tradeoff.

The third is to list the things I need to do (prioritized). I make a mental list of 4 things.

I finished with about 5 sec. to spare.

Constraint and creativity

March 1st, 2010 . Posted in Problem Solving, Psychology | 1 Comment »

One question Tim Ferriss asks himself on a regular basis is:

“What is the one constraint, if removed, that would make me 5, 10, or 20 times as productive? Ditto for private life.”

In practical day-to-day innovation (i.e., creativity), I find one of the best ways to come up with an innovation is not to ask how to do something by removing a constraint, but rather how to do something by adding a constraint.

The reason is that, if I add a constraint (say, I’m all out of cups to drink with), I am forced to figure out where I can remove another supposed constraint somewhere else (do I need to drink with a cup? no, I can drink with a bowl).

My guess is that most innovation follows along these lines - introduce one constraint to force you to figure out how to remove another supposed constraint.

So, applying this to Ferriss’ question:

“What is a constraint I can add, that would force me to innovate such as to become 5, 10, or 20 times as productive? Ditto for private life.”

(Goals are basically introducing future constraints, so as to cause innovation. For example, my goal might be to gain 10+ pounds of muscle in a year (that is the future constraint). Okay, what do I need to do (innovation) to gain 10+ pounds of muscle in a year? So, goals work to the extent that they spur innovation.)

Ferriss uses the constraint of limited time repeatedly in 4HWW.

Setting impossibly short deadlines is basically a way to force this innovative thinking process in many contexts. Instead of thrusting yourself into such a situation, however, you can simply ask yourself: “How could I do this in x time?” Then try to figure out an answer. You don’t need to commit yourself to doing it in x time beforehand, which causes problems.

Instead, if you can figure out how to do it in x (i.e., significantly less) time, and and it doesn’t involve deleterious short-term long-term tradeoffs, do it.

The problem with university education

February 24th, 2010 . Posted in Motivation, Psychology, Science | 1 Comment »

Scott discusses the “T” model of learning (where the stem on the T represents learning something in-depth) and self-education:

“In my experience, self-education tends to be very good at high-level ideas. [...] But I’ve noticed that the typical approach to self-education tends to be lousy at the deep, detailed knowledge of a field. [...] Let’s say, for example, you want the major focus of your learning efforts to be computer programming. [...] If [self-learning] is your approach, then the necessity to deeply educate yourself is even greater. Quick overviews of topics without understanding mathematics, operating systems or computer architecture won’t make you an expert.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t a good example. Many, many programmers don’t need much of an understanding of operating systems or computer architecture. I rarely use math beyond about grade 10. 90%+ of what is taught in the course of a typical computer science major (B.Sc.) will not be used after those courses are done. This is a huge waste of time and effort if the point is to make programs.

The best way to learn programming is to start with a simple, useful project. Learn what you need to know for that project. Then move to the next one. And so on. Awareness of coding possibilities for ways to solve a problem is important, but that doesn’t require in-depth learning like Scott is talking about. Rather, it involves cursory learning of large areas, exactly what Scott says is a strength of self-education.

Consider his discussion of the importance of curriculum:

“The reason acquiring deeper knowledge is difficult, is that the further you stare down the microscope, the less relevant it appears to the big picture. This is often why so many students lose motivation at school. Just how is understanding integrals, polymorphism or the ATP-cycle important for my life?”

But that’s just the thing. ATP cycles, polymorphism, and integrals are useless to the larger majority of people. This is one of the major weaknesses of universities - they pile information into people, where 90%+ of the time it will be useless (outside of future courses). They pile it on because, if you want to become a Professor and teach those concepts, you need to know them. This is largely circular. For practical use of knowledge, the university approach is wrongheaded.

Universities are largely a Faustian bargain: give us 4 of the best years of your life and x thousand dollars, and we will give you a degree which confers upon you status (i.e., will help you to get a job).

If you want to create or learn useful things, universities are, by and large, not the place to do that. For computer programming, for example, a diploma from a technical institute is usually going to entail more useful learning than a B.Sc. from a prestigious university. It is only because universities tend to attract smart people that, in this case, go on to be good at coding, that people get the impression that the universities are creating those abilities in people - the reality is almost the opposite.

If you try to ’self-educate’ by importing the university model, then that is the problem, not that self-education requires more discipline and so is more difficult. Once you step outside of something like university education, you can jettison the university learning model and actually focus on learning what makes sense to learn for whatever purpose you have.

Scott comes close to saying as much later on:

“In formal schooling, actually applying the ideas is a far goal. When you first learn statistics, most professors don’t expect you to start doing your own sampling or analysis. The actual use of the knowledge is put in a backseat to passing tests.

But if you’re going to sustain the motivation to complete a deep self-education curriculum, application must be put first. Otherwise, it is too easy to lose sight of the big picture and stop learning.

Effort needs to be made not just to learn the ideas, but to start applying them immediately. When I was previously teaching myself computer programming, I would always have a project I wanted to use the new-found skills on.”

I think Scott is mixing one thing up here. A rational goal isn’t some abstract “education.” What is education for? It is for using the ideas to create things that are useful, fun, or whatever.

Morning exercise

February 23rd, 2010 . Posted in Psychology | 1 Comment »

When listing the things he’d learned in 2008, Ferriss says:

“Eat a high-protein breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and go for a 10-20-minute walk outside afterward, ideally bouncing a handball or tennis ball. This one habit is better than a handful of Prozac in the morning.”

I tried walking, but found it too slow paced, even when I took a ball. Then I forgot about this comment by Ferriss.

Recently, though, I started biking in the morning (and then remembered Ferriss’ comment a few days ago).

I really like biking, but what surprised me was how good I tended to feel the rest of the day after it. It also helped me focus more during the day.

I think there are several reasons for this:

1. Motion. It gets the body going, which causes the body to be more relaxed later on.

2. Light. More light in the morning than I would get inside (especially on sunny days) probably plays a role in setting my internal clock, and tells my body to wake up.

(This could also be related not just to visual but also tactile (such as wind) and olfactory (the sea, trees, flowers, and so on) changes going on.)

3. People. Saying hello to people, throwing a ball for a dog on a beach, and so on. This sort of stuff makes me feel good.

4. Enjoyment. Just doing something fun early in the day probably affects the rest of the day as the experience lingers in my consciousness.

5. Present-focused.

In the comments, Ferriss said:

“[W]hy bounce a tennis ball or handball? — because it’s fun and makes you smile! It’s just enough to make you present-focused and pull you out of your preoccupied head for nice walk.”

One thing about biking is you’re required to be present-focused or you’ll run into a tree or whatever.

(I’ve started to combine this change in my morning routine with another trick: I remove my internet cord and put it in my car before I go to bed. This makes it more difficult to check e-mail first thing in the morning, where reacting to e-mail can easily undermine doing the most important things that day.)

Gentle pressure

February 23rd, 2010 . Posted in Failure, Goals, Motivation, Priorities, Psychology | 1 Comment »

In 4HWW, Ferriss advocates setting incredibly short deadlines to force yourself to focus on the most important and develop ways to do things a lot more quickly.

There are a few problems with this approach:

1. Stress. Setting very short deadlines leads to a lot of stress, whether you succeed or not. Ferriss tries to account for this by calling it ‘eustress’, or good stress, but it’s still stress.

2. Failure. Simply put, often you won’t succeed, even if you do more than you otherwise would have by setting incredibly short deadlines. This doesn’t feel so good. Keep repeating this and you risk ‘goal fatigue’, where your morale is low and your energy exhausted.

3. Short term gains at long term losses. Whether or not you ‘fail’ in the short term, any gains you do get might cause problems later on you would not have if you took more time (i.e., short-cuts used to meet the deadline cause problems with long-term quality or undermine your future growth).

So, I think in many cases Ferriss’ approach is a bad idea. What is an alternative?

I find that deadlines provide useful motivation in most cases. To avoid the problems limned above, though, here are some provisos:

1. The goal’s date should be realistic, but not too easy. This provides enough pressure to get going, get focused, and start asking yourself “what’s important?” and “how can I do this more efficiently?”

2. If you find you’re undermining long-term effectiveness by taking short-cuts to meet the goal’s date, don’t. Instead, reduce the scope of the project. In making games, this translates into: instead of cutting quality of code for a feature, cut optional features or reduce scope of feature.

3. Now that you have a realistic timeline, focus anyway on questions like “What are the few most important parts to focus on here?” or “How can I do this in a dramatically better (quicker, and so on) way?” while implementing the goal. I recommend taking these sorts of questions and putting them up on your wall so you see them regularly while working towards the goal.

Some other points: make the goal’s date public, make progress toward the goal public, and choose a goal that motivates you (practically speaking, this usually translates into feeling excited when thinking about it).

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »