Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

With Anki retaining what you’ve learned becomes a choice. If you put it in Anki, you _will_ retain it. The challenge then becomes, What to put in Anki? I’ve memorized loads of history, often down to the birth years of notable historical figures. This doesn’t seems very useful but it has changed my appreciation of history. Every historical fact I hear now drops neatly into context. I did the same with geology, Ankifying much of the New History of Life course. I think the amount of trivia I’ve loaded into Anki is excessive, but because I have this amazing new superpower, it’s hard to stop using it. And once I have a fact in Anki and in memory, there’s just no point in removing it. That would be a choice to forget something I already know. Why do that?

I’m now using Anki to learn Vietnamese and to work through Linear Algebra Done Right. It is such a pleasure because I know what I learn won’t evaporate. It’ll be right there, instantly accessible decades from now.

Anki is an incredibly useful tool. I can’t recommend enough.

I did not write it but I keep this in my notes when I have such doubts ->

Circle of competence (read about it on wiki as well):

Short-term

What job can you be hired for an hold for a year and make the most money? If you forced yourself to make money doing one job and holding onto that job for at least one year, what would you do? What skills does that entail? If you're not sure, go network and interview. What gigs can you get right now and get folks to pay you - whether you advertise on Quora, Facebook, call your friends, family, neighbors, etc.? What skills does that entail? What do people ask you to do more than they ask others to do? That's what they think your circle of competence is. They're part of the market. The market will value your competence whether you like it or not.

Long-term

What do you like doing that is a marketable skill? What do you spend your time doing? You'll get better at something you like doing and keep doing, especially if that skill is in demand and others are not as devoted to it or as interested in it. The things you do which you like doing and spend a lot of time doing - as long as you make sure you keep improving - will become part of your circle of competence.

I am doing something similar, it's not easy.

I am late to the party, but in case this helps, this is what works for me:

First, the most important thing is that you must really, really want it. I don't think that anyone ever got good at something hard that they didn't find interesting, or, if they did, it must have been sheer torture. If this is not the case, the sooner you accept it and move on, the better, to avoid needless suffering and wasting time.

There is no royal road to geometry.

You need a realistic plan, based on what you want when, and then list the prerequisites. Don't forget that you also need breaks and to do other things.

I prefer depth over breadth.

I stick to one course at a time, full inmersion. In my case the best learning happens when meditating for a long time over tricky concepts. This requires focus.

If you find yourself strugling that's ok. Take a step back, take your time, look for alternative material that explains the same concept more slowly, review the prereqs. It is often a sign that you hit something important but difficult. If you clear this hurdle, you will already have an advantage over those that gave up, if it is hard for you the odds are that it is hard for the rest too.

If possible, I try to learn from complete online courses from top universities, with outstanding and charismatic professors giving video lectures and well designed psets, explaining the core concepts extremely well. For instance: 6.042 discrete math with Tom Leighton, 6.006 algorithms with Eric Demaine, 18.06 linear algebra with Gilbert Strang, Machine Learning with Yasser Moustaffa, William Cohen on machine learning from large data sets, systematic program design from Kitzales, etc etc. No videos, but I can't have enough of Stonebraker's readings on databases.

For me learning from such professors makes the whole thing much more enjoyable, an experience to savour, on top of learning loads.

If you want advice on material, tell me what you want to learn, I have surveyed tons of freely available courses.

Which is why the ultimate move is to teach yourself to enjoy the things you know you need to do.

Having kids helps with enjoying chores. "No babe, it's OK, I'll take the dishes and listen to my podcast. You just watch the kids."

Yeah, running isn’t my natural sport. I did it with some friends because someone dropped out, and it actually sounded pretty fun. It wasn’t a hardcore marathon in very many ways. It was the Medoc marathon in France, in which each stop is a vineyard where you drink some of their wine before running another 2km. At the 40km mark there are oysters, and then at 42km there is ice cream (!). I think my time was 7h30 (certainly nothing to brag about), but I did drink about three bottles of wine on the way around. It was actually a lot of fun mixed in with a lot of suffering. Glad I did it, I wouldn’t do it again.