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How to do hard things

drmaciver.com

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Re: How to do hard things

#51

Post by onion2k »

gamerDude wrote: post #9
yay_cloud2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! :)

One thing to note about the pot challenge - it works because making a pot is a physical skill that improves with repetition in a situation where mistakes are really obvious. If you were to apply the same principle to something else it might not work at all.

If you just write a huge amount of code rather than examining what's good or bad about code you wrote, you'd probably end up writing the same bad code over and over again. Seeing where improvements can be made is sometimes really not obvious and can feel like you're going backwards. For example, learning where functional programming applies instead of writing a class for everything. You need to be able to understand why something is better for simple repetition to work.

Re: How to do hard things

#52

Post by nitrogen »

bracobama wrote: post #42
MRD85 wrote: post #5

His 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 singl…

For a long time I've had this idea about creating a website where this type of idea is expressed. I envision it to be some large hierarchical tree like structure (not unlike the ones you see in games like FInal Fantasy) where you pick a topic you want to learn and it gives you the basics to learn and then once mastered allows you to goes deeper by diverging into specialised categories.

Sounds great! Something I found lacking in school was that nobody could take "I want to do X" and turn it into "You should learn A, B, D, and R", nor the reverse.

Re: How to do hard things

#53

Post by emily2749 »

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Re: How to do hard things

#54

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #47
jrauser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific anecdote may have been fabricated, but the principle is sound. An example is the marshmallow problem[1], where a group is given some materials and is asked to build, under time pressure, the tallest tower they can with a marshmallow on top. Adults generally fare poorly because they don't experiment enough, building a tall tower and placing a marshmallow on the top as time is running out, only to have the…

I don't know if that is really the same principle as the pottery anecdote however, it's not about experimenting but a narrative enforcing the concept 'practice makes perfect', related I suppose but not the same. And anyway the pottery principle is not really sound either - I can suppose that the group tasked with producing a pot a day produces a better pot at the end than the group that was given a long time, but let…

The pot story is only valid if learning happens.

You can make the same very bad $creative_product every day indefinitely without improving at all.

Which is why there has to be at least some assessment and feedback. That's the big benefit of having a teacher, mentor, and/or the feedback of peers, customers, or an audience.

If you have a mediocre talent they'll steer you towards making the most of it. If you have exceptional talent their feedback may be wrong or misleading, but it should at least make you think more deeply about your relationship with what you're doing.

You can't assess your own work realistically unless you have something to compare it with, and the critical skills to understand which features matter.

Re: How to do hard things

#55

Post by gpvos »

keypusher wrote: post #6

The 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…

This was my problem at university. It was way too easy for me, and I didn't get challenged until the final thesis project, which then took way too long and essentially failed even though I did get a passing grade. Real-life work does present complex problems though, and I am basically not capable of tackling them, even though I am smart enough to solve them once someone else has divided them into smaller problems.

Re: How to do hard things

#56

Post by scirocco »

keypusher wrote: post #6

The 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…

Totally agree. I remember the first days of Algebra at university and you couldn't understand anything what the teacher was saying. Some freaked out as if they didn't know it now, meant they will never understand it (fixed mindset) and some thought "hell, I don't get it but I'll probably understand it once I studied it for a while (growth mindset).

In high school, smart students can often get away with not studying. In university, your attitude and mindset towards failure and learning becomes much more important.

Re: How to do hard things

#57

Post by 2sk21 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #39

I used to make songs, not so much any more. Creating a song is hard you have to come up with both a good melody and good lyrics. What seemed to work great is I tape-recorded myself playing and singing the initial version of the song. Then I played it and sang on top of it, even doing multi-tracking sometimes. I found it was easy to come up with new words and new adjustments to the melody while singing on top of an ex…

I have had similar experiences - I find it easier to edit things than to create them in the first place.

Re: How to do hard things

#58

Post by less_penguiny »

My biggest realization about doing hard things is that I needed to let go of my intellectual entitlement. Just because something is (or seems) effortless to others, doesn't mean it will be the same for me.

Part of this entitlement stemmed from a (now eroded by bitter experience) belief that I'm somehow a faster learner than normal, that _I_ don't have to do the work.

For example, about seven years ago I wanted to learn Calc I-III on my own. I went down the usual, lazy, intellectually-entitled route of watching lectures and YouTube videos online without doing a single exercise.

A year later, guess what? I couldn't remember jack-shit. Moreover, I couldn't solve problems, which is basically the reason I was learning math anyway. Any bystander could have predicted this outcome, but I was blinded by my own entitlement.

Now, after being humbled (here and elsewhere, e.g. in learning to play music by ear), I realize that there's honor, even long-term efficiencies in following every step the great teachers of the past have laid out, in moving slowly albeit with rigor and confidence.

I resumed my math study with Geometry 101, the absolute basics, using a book of 5000 (short) exercises. It probably took me three times as long as Calc I-III lectures combined. But I realized something — I found more joy in doing the exercises, in doing things the _right_ way, than I ever had in watching lectures.

Re: How to do hard things

#59

Post by joantune »

Yes!! I got introduced to the concept of Double loop learning in a management class in College - and was able to apply it successfully after not being able to get the grade I wanted in some courses - then I realized that the issue was with what I was doing - not with how tight or efficient I was at doing it!

Couldn't recommend this more

Re: How to do hard things

#60

Post by cwingrav »

czr wrote: post #26

This more or less matches my own system. Some additional notes: * When creating great work as an expert, you will be working down the ladder of abstraction (e.g. for writing–coming up with a concise high-level vision and then progressively expanding it down to the level of characters on a page)–this is the most efficient way to make anything, since you can sanity check your work at higher levels to avoid expensive re…

Item #2 relates to reflecting on your work, Reflective Practice. Give Donald Schon's book The Reflective Practitioner a read (or heck, the Wiki page). It deals with being able to rise above work and improve how you work.
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