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How to do hard things

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Re: How to do hard things

#111

Post by bionoid »

feviskus wrote: post #61

I am a 4th semester CS student from Germany and still don't grasp recursion, even though I already took the data structures & algorithms courses. If you did have something like a magic moment where it made sense to you, please enlighten me as I would really like to truly gain an intuition (and implement a parallelized msd-radixsort for learning-purposes because I failed to do this assignment yesterday).

I suggest studying "A Regular Expression Matcher" by Rob Pike:

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr09/cos333/be...

Re: How to do hard things

#112

Post by jrauser »

dhimes wrote: post #78
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There have also been discussion about the same thing happening in music and science. That is, the people who produce the best work also produce the most work, and a lot of that work is bad. But some of it is very, very good.

Perhaps related to Sturgeon's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

Re: How to do hard things

#113

Post by joncrane »

edoo wrote: post #38

I conquered my own process by eventually realizing I could approach it exactly like a computer program. I architect how I am about to work. Now instead of just nebulously working I always know exactly what I'm working on. This frees my mind to focus on the task at hand and if I get sidetracked I can just look at my current goal and process list I setup before I started working, that I thought out rather well, and it…

How often do you get interrupted at work?

Re: How to do hard things

#114

Post by edoo »

joncrane wrote: post #113
edoo wrote: post #38

I conquered my own process by eventually realizing I could approach it exactly like a computer program. I architect how I am about to work. Now instead of just nebulously working I always know exactly what I'm working on. This frees my mind to focus on the task at hand and if I get sidetracked I can just look at my current goal and process list I setup before I started working, that I thought out rather well, and it…

How often do you get interrupted at work?

It used to be just awful, at least 2-3 major focus shifts per day which I got used to. Now rarely, as I realized I am at least 2-3x more effective if I work on the same task for at least a few days at a time. I can ramp up to an amazing level of momentum if I am not being randomized.

Re: How to do hard things

#115

Post by bePoliteAlways »

This is what I have concluded for learning: 1) Figure out a way to have feedback on what you are doing and improve on that. Basically training the neural networks in the brain. Of course the feedback you choose matters like "inner game of tennis" or "drawing from the right side of the brain" talks about using non-judgemental feedback and trusting your capability. 2)Choosing the difficulty of the task to train yourself. If too hard you will give up, if too easy no good or get bored, so always keep it at a point where it is somewhat hard.

Also thought people may find this article from andrew ng interesting: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140320175655-176238488-lear...

Re: How to do hard things

#116

Post by raguinb4u »

feviskus wrote: post #61

I am a 4th semester CS student from Germany and still don't grasp recursion, even though I already took the data structures & algorithms courses. If you did have something like a magic moment where it made sense to you, please enlighten me as I would really like to truly gain an intuition (and implement a parallelized msd-radixsort for learning-purposes because I failed to do this assignment yesterday).

Try the "Recurrence Relation" chapter of https://larc.unt.edu/ian/books/free/poa.pdf

Re: How to do hard things

#117

Post by lb1lf »

michrassena wrote: post #105
frogpelt wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story is somewhat true actually if you correct for the literary license taken. James Clear reached out to the authors of Art& Fear and this is his footnote: (Link: https://jamesclear.com/repetitions ) This story comes from page 29 of Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. In an email conversation with Orland on October 18, 2016, he explained the origins of the story. “Yes, the ‘ceramics story’ in ‘Art & Fear…

It's a ironic to me that the original inspiration for the story was not ceramics, but photography. My main pastime is photography, and I took this advice to heart and started being as prolific as possible, which is something that digital photography has made easy and compared to film, inexpensive. It was a great relief to just accept that the first attempts at anything are going to be terrible and that failure was a…

I believe it was Henri Cartier-Bresson who quipped (or at least has had it attributed to him) that "Your first ten thousand photos are your worst."

I've found that using digital to gather new skills is terrific, but yet I find some of the work I am most satisfied with is analog; I believe it is mostly down to my own lack of self discipline - when shooting digital, exposures are free and hence I shoot lots and lots.

When out with my Texas Leica (A Fuji G690BL, a 6*9 rangefinder), getting eight exposures to the roll, I take those extra couple of moments to ensure I get it all right.

Re: How to do hard things

#120

Post by 00117 »

hinkley wrote: post #30
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…

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

~ T. S. Eliot
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