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Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#201

Post by raibosome »

You need a way to organise and prioritise these. Use a Trello board.

Because you're self-studying, you're sort of going to a self-study university taking different modules from different faculties. This Trello board spells out your self-study university curriculum and you're in charge of it.

Here is a 5-step process to build this curriculum.

Firstly, create say 3 lists on the Trello board: ML, CS and Math. Each list represents a 'faculty'.

Then, for every list, create Trello cards where each card is a 'module'. For example, you would create 'Data structures & algorithms' in the CS list and 'Decision trees' under ML.

The next step is to figure out for each module if it's something you either (i) wish to know or (ii) must know. You can use Trello labels or even use the Trello separators for this.

This following step requires a bit of work and it's the fun part, only because it's self-study. For each module, list down (you can list things in a card) the resources you have for that module. For this there are various resources you can get from the comments, search engines, and your peers. Consider the different modes of instruction: books, e-books, videos, lecture notes, slides, articles, blog posts, online learning platforms and so on. Choose what's best for you. If you can't decide just pick something first and find another time to source for another material.

Lastly, prioritise the modules. This can be done by easily dragging the modules which you want to do first on top of the list (having considered what you wish to know and what you must know). Set, say, top 3 modules for each list then you'd like to do for the next 2 weeks.

This is the high-level curriculum planning. If you plan on a micro-level planning like what modules to do for this week or for today, that I leave it to you.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#202

Post by rajlego »

I have the perfect tool for you if you're willing to suffer through getting used to it: SuperMemo [1]. The basic feature it starts with is spaced repetition [2]. Spaced repetition is good. But terribly boring if you're making cards by hand. Because of that, SuperMemo has a feature that imo is just as important as SRS but much less known: incremental reading [3].

tl;dr of incremental reading: process hundreds of articles in a time efficient manner and enjoyably convert them to active recall items.

For a video on it in action check this [4]

More detail: incremental reading has a lot of parts but probably the most important is the priority queue and the concept of incrementally.

Priority Queue: imagine you had 100 articles to go through. How would you process them efficiently? What if you have 10,000? You can't go through that reasonably. SuperMemo helps you manage that with a priority system which lets you choose what's actually important and what you'll end up seeing more and less often. I can't express just how much this helps. This means I can import as much shiny stuff as I want and be confident I'm not gonna lose out on stuff I actually care about. If you just used priority queue and manually made cards while going through things SM would be a big improvement over standard SRS.

But it has another cool concept: incrementalism. With SuperMemo you don't read through an entire piece of content at once. You read it over time, and make extracts that you break down till you have facts you can memorize with SRS. You might be wondering: if you don't read it all at once won't you forget it? It's the opposite that occurs. By separating reading of an article over time (separated by days) your brain has time to do a bit of memory consolidation and move some of what you read to long-term memory. That means next reread, you can process the article a bit better since you're not taxing WM as much. This might seem minor but it makes a huge difference for comprehension and long-term efficiency. Processing things in bits means when you get board with one article you can go to the next one. I have ADHD which makes this really awesome, it's like Instagram but with text and real learning.

If you're interested in trying it out, let me know. If you have questions about it ask away, this explanation has plenty of gaps. If you have criticisms I'd hold them because imagining SM is nothing like actually trying it.

[1] For a very long, cool introduction you can use this wired article: https://www.wired.com/2008/04/ff-wozniak/

[2] https://ncase.me/

[3] https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Incremental_reading

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoQoeK53bP8

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#203

Post by wool_gather »

adamcharnock wrote: post #92
cortesoft wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think enjoyment is the guide we should always use for deciding what to do. That is one aspect of our lives that is important to maintain, but a lot of satisfaction in life comes from things that aren't 'enjoyable' in the strictest sense, especially not in the moment that you are doing the action. Hard work, selflessness, and sacrifice doesn't usually feel enjoyable in the moment, but can lead to a more satisf…

From the other comments here this seems like a common sentiment. I do indeed do things which are not enjoyable in the strictest sense, as you phrase it. However I do still think my original comment is true, so perhaps there is some finessing to be done here. I'm not sure I have the answer though. Perhaps there are different kinds of 'enjoyment'. And perhaps I'm personally willing to accept some immediate suffering be…

Your Type 1 and Type 2 sound somewhat related to Daniel Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 from Thinking Fast and Slow. The 1's are reactive, shallow, and (to anthromorphize a bit) "lazy". The 2's are more strategic, looking past the moment and integrating a broader set of information.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#204

Post by chke »

rajlego wrote: post #202

I have the perfect tool for you if you're willing to suffer through getting used to it: SuperMemo [1]. The basic feature it starts with is spaced repetition [2]. Spaced repetition is good. But terribly boring if you're making cards by hand. Because of that, SuperMemo has a feature that imo is just as important as SRS but much less known: incremental reading [3]. tl;dr of incremental reading: process hundreds of artic…

/thread

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#205

Post by RyanOD »

Is one of the challenges the fact that you have too many options at your disposal? I've found when I want to learn something I frequently go collect 5-10 books/videos on the subject, but I have a theory that this is opposite of what I should be doing. Instead of collecting lots of different choices (which motivates inefficient switching), I theorize it is more beneficial to choose one path and work on it until it is completed. Then, move on to another.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#207

Post by saeranv »

tejohnso wrote: post #186
cousin_it wrote: post #59

If you have an extremely good textbook with exercises: 1) Every weekday 30min uninterrupted study at a specific time, preferably in the morning. Don't miss, rain or shine. Take weekends off, though. 2) Work in a strict linear fashion: read a chapter, then solve all of that chapter's exercises in order without skipping any, and only then allow yourself to peek at the next chapter. Don't "take a first pass through the…

> If you're having trouble with some exercise, you can look up the answer key for that specific exercise, but only after you've spent 5 minutes of effort on that specific exercise without making progress. I've wondered what the ideal time of effort is on several occasions. Sometimes I'll get stuck on an algorithm problem and no matter what technique I try I can't make progress. Sometimes I'll try for days, until I ev…

This is a good point, and is one of the biggest pain points in self-study vs being taught by in school/expert, or having access to the collective intelligence of fellow students.

The best way to combat this is to be smart about using whatever resources available to get an expert to help you. Post questions on sites like mathoverflow/stackoverflow, and be persistent. You could waste time spending weeks on a single problem that someone with experience can solve in seconds.

Personally, this is why I don't like self-study on it's own. If you can form a study group, do a part-time degree or find some other method to ensure that you don't go down costly rabbit-holes, you should. The gains in efficiency will be worth it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#208

Post by [deleted] »

arbifol wrote: post #198
alexashka wrote: post #163

You're asking the wrong question and you'll get 1001 shitty opinions for it. There is no methodology for how to waste your life better - you haven't mentioned your goal a single time. Learning without a goal is for idiots and public education, created by idiots for idiots. Figure out what problem you want to solve in this world, in this short lifetime you have. Specializing in a field and doing something worthwhile w…

Couldn't disagree with this more strongly. You can have a goal. It's good to think about them. But some of the most innovative theorizing in history was done by people with no thought about the practical goal in mind. Studying something simply because it's interesting to you is a valid choice. But you do need to be aware that that's what you're doing, and not expect some reward to materialize other than the knowledge…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#209

Post by tejohnso »

saeranv wrote: post #207
tejohnso wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're having trouble with some exercise, you can look up the answer key for that specific exercise, but only after you've spent 5 minutes of effort on that specific exercise without making progress. I've wondered what the ideal time of effort is on several occasions. Sometimes I'll get stuck on an algorithm problem and no matter what technique I try I can't make progress. Sometimes I'll try for days, until I ev…

This is a good point, and is one of the biggest pain points in self-study vs being taught by in school/expert, or having access to the collective intelligence of fellow students. The best way to combat this is to be smart about using whatever resources available to get an expert to help you. Post questions on sites like mathoverflow/stackoverflow, and be persistent. You could waste time spending weeks on a single pro…

Well, getting an expert to help isn't much different than looking up the answer. My particular struggle isn't about not knowing where to find the answer, it's about when to give up trying to figure it out on my own.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage self-study?

#210

Post by srfa »

mertnesvat wrote: post #174
srfa wrote: post #27

I've been in a similar boat - wanted to share what I found worked for me, perhaps it helps. I constantly found myself in the following loop: 1) Motivated to study, study productively 2) Several days / weeks later productivity stops (for any number of reasons) 3) Quickly forget everything I learnt over the next month or so 4) Back at stage 1, feeling I have 'wasted' the last few months. My big problem was the _forgett…

Looks really cool I downloaded thanks a lot for sharing. How long are you using? And are you using for programming if so how does it look like your cards?

Been using for around 2 years, not that long compared to some others.

I mainly study maths and also find Anki useful for learning things like vim shortcuts (Q: Move the cursor to the middle of the screen, A: 'M').

Getting the right level of depth in a maths card is tricky and I don't think I've completely figured it out yet. Too much information in a question or answer and it becomes a 1+ minute problem every time the card appears; but not enough information and it's hard to learn the hard stuff.

So I try and break the problem down into chunks to learn the detail, and also have cards for the higher-level intuition.

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