How to do hard things
drmaciver.com
How to do hard things
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Re: How to do hard things
#2Doing hard things 'isn't impossible'.
Doing hard things is time consuming and/or expensive.
As a side note, I find it interesting how non-engineers describe the reverse engineering process. I thought this was hard to understand.
Re: How to do hard things
#3Instagram
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Re: How to do hard things
#4Doing hard things 'isn't impossible'. Doing hard things is time consuming and/or expensive. As a side note, I find it interesting how non-engineers describe the reverse engineering process. I thought this was hard to understand.
did you just describe the OP as a non-engineer? https://www.drmaciver.com/
Re: How to do hard things
#5His use of loops just seems like an implementation of breaking a problem down into smaller components. If I wanted to learn to learn a difficult skill, such as writing a decent novel, I'd break it down as follows:
1) Research what skills I'll need to develop. At my current stage of learning I don't know what I don't know.
2) Figure out a path to start developing skills. This might be writing a small story every single day while also reading books/guides on how to develop as a writer. I'm still writing daily.
3) As I'm becoming mor comfortable writing anything I now need to develop skills on writing specific things. How do I flesh out a character, how do I describe settings, etc. I'm still writing daily.
4) Once I've figured out individual building blocks I'd then teach myself how to construct them together. What elements do stories contain? How do I flow between small sections to weave a larger tale? I'm still writing daily.
I'm sure as I become a more knowledgeable and skilled writer I'd identify other areas I need to work on, skills to develop, etc. It all comes down to identify small blocks and build from there.
Re: How to do hard things
#6The most valuable thing I learned at university was how to tackle difficult problems. Taking advanced math and science courses where I had to really study, and still struggled, and having to write essays so frequently that I could no longer procrastinate or wait for the spark to hit me, was more valuable in the long run than any of the actual knowledge I gained.
The advice to break a hard problem down into simpler pieces good, but I feel like that is often difficult without proper domain knowledge. In many cases, knowing how to break apart a problem like that is how you become an expert in the first place. If you want to learn a musical instrument, there are plenty of good simple excercises to start with, but only an expert can tell you what they are, you can’t easily intuit them from scratch. An experienced programmer will know how to break down a difficult project into small and simpler pieces, that ability is part of what makes them an expert. “Find a good teacher” and “put in the work” seem like rather banal pieces of advice, but it’s a system that has consistently worked throughout the ages. If you are truly breaking new ground then you should already have a framework and significant experience to guide your exploration.
Re: How to do hard things
#7The most valuable thing I learned at university was how to tackle difficult problems. Taking advanced math and science courses where I had to really study, and still struggled, and having to write essays so frequently that I could no longer procrastinate or wait for the spark to hit me, was more valuable in the long run than any of the actual knowledge I gained. The advice to break a hard problem down into simpler pi…
Your comment reminds me of the exercise where a class was split into two cohorts, one was tasked with producing just one clay pot (I can't remember the thing now), while the other cohort was tasked with making one per day or something similar.
Put simply, one group put all of its energy into producing just one, and the other group just turned out pot after pot after pot.
At the end, so the story goes, the group that cranked out pots like crazy ended up producing pots of higher quality.
In my own life, I can often find out the thing that I'm afraid of learning because I've set it up like that first cohort: making the one perfect thing, instead of putting it out there and iterating on it or making another based on what I learned. Goes with learning languages (I'd do way better if I simply tried speaking every day, but I wait for perfect opportunities).
Re: How to do hard things
#8It sounds like great advice, I just wish I had some properly hard things I needed to apply it to, rather than the multitude of what ought to be simple things of which a few unexpectedly and inexplicably turn out to be grossly disproportionately difficult to do for no very good reason.
Re: How to do hard things
#9The most valuable thing I learned at university was how to tackle difficult problems. Taking advanced math and science courses where I had to really study, and still struggled, and having to write essays so frequently that I could no longer procrastinate or wait for the spark to hit me, was more valuable in the long run than any of the actual knowledge I gained. The advice to break a hard problem down into simpler pi…
Your comment reminds me of the exercise where a class was split into two cohorts, one was tasked with producing just one clay pot (I can't remember the thing now), while the other cohort was tasked with making one per day or something similar. Put simply, one group put all of its energy into producing just one, and the other group just turned out pot after pot after pot. At the end, so the story goes, the group that…
The pot challenge is one group is they get graded just on number of pots made vs. the other on a single pot they can submit. The group trying to perfect one pot ends up making worse quality pots than the quantity group because the quantity group ends up getting way more practice.
That anecdote gives me lots of hope. I hope it's accurate! :)
Re: How to do hard things
#10This is a very interesting philosophy. A few years ago, a former coworker and good friend of mine introduced me to an algorithm for solving problems. This is a slightly different purpose than doing something hard, but there are some interesting similarities. In my experience as an engineer in software and operations, this algorithm has never come in reach of failing me, and until I was introduced to it, my own system was seriously lacking even though I didn’t know it! You can be successful without it. But you can be so confident and efficient with it! The algorithm and it’s philosophy are described in none other than Zen and the Art of Motorcyle maintenance. I think there’s also an XKCD of it, Flowchart maybe is the name.