Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I read books: a guide on how to learn

denzhadanov.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 145 posts

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#91

Post by jasonv »

pxtail wrote: post #61
kungito wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'm visiting it because it showed up on HN high enough for some reason. It's not like I reached out to find him. And now he's in my face and I'm annoyed. I guess you could say I have anger management problems but these guys give off such a "punchable" vibe. Big smile, nice suit, lots of self promoting bullshit. And then people start calling it charisma and flock to it and we end up in the realm of populism an…

For some reason all of this induces negative emotions in me as well - it's like everyone and their mother wants to tell you how excellent they are and how you should live. Maybe it's this "write! you need to write! now!" advice which is frequently appearing on HN frontpage, maybe this is the reason why programmers with two years of experience are telling with authoritative tone 'how it should be done' It's annoying t…

Productivity hacks are the new startup hacks.

(Kidding, not kidding... I'm more annoyed by "founder" specialness/pithy comments on Twitter than productivity hacks, though, I haven't seen a Roam submission in a few days; And yes, I know where I am).

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#92

Post by mtalantikite »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #33

>> Instead of reading 100 books, it’s better to find one that really changes your life This is just flat out wrong for non-fiction. This is not a good way to use books or any research material, except perhaps meta-analysis’ but even then with caution. It doesn’t matter how many 5 star reviews it has, or who wrote it. You will be far better served by reading many writers on the topic and using your learning from each…

- "Instead of reading 100 books, it’s better to find one that really changes your life."

Plus the author doesn't even seem to do this himself, his reading list is roughly 30 books on the same topic of pop "productivity" and selling the dream of having a successful business career.

There are certainly singular books that have changed me, but I never went into them knowing the impact they'd have ahead of time -- how could I? In my reading habits I always try to be curious, open, and meandering. "Productivity" is for boring people.

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#93

Post by npsimons »

mtgx wrote: post #49
Veen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of something Andy Matuschak wrote: > But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity. These writers offer advice on note-taking to help scientists and executives with the…

This applies to coaching in general. Don't take coaching advice from someone that is less accomplished than you. He should be as least as accomplished as where you'd like to be in 5-10 years, etc.

Some people who are more accomplished than you are shitty coaches though. Some rock climbers I've known come immediately to mind.

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#94

Post by cambalache »

mtgx wrote: post #49
Veen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of something Andy Matuschak wrote: > But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity. These writers offer advice on note-taking to help scientists and executives with the…

This applies to coaching in general. Don't take coaching advice from someone that is less accomplished than you. He should be as least as accomplished as where you'd like to be in 5-10 years, etc.

That's why Lionel Messi does not need any coaching. It's not like your advice is wrong it's just too simplistic. There are several reasons why a coach could be less accomplished than you and still be a great coach: 1) Provide a third-person , objective perspective on your performance. 2)Be a great motivator.3) Work like a resonance board to your ideas, plans. 4) Helping you to avoid mistakes they made. 5)More time to dedicate to specific pain points in your performance, etc. Grand-masters going to a World Chess championship assemble a team of other GMs, who are usually less (many times, a lot less) accomplished than them, but they bring a lot of good stuff to the table.

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#95

Post by 495636483 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #75
kungito wrote: post #9

Sometimes I wonder how I would turn out if I did organized people stuff like this. What bothers me is these life advices always feel like bullshit. Like, check this guy out. He has his own website with a title "Den Zhadanov\nTechnology. Productivity. Inspiration.". This is life coaching 101. He writes about how burning man didn't change his life and has pictures of books on beaches. How does one take this person seri…

Yep. All these fake people selling productivity bullshit to poor saps are a net negative in the world if you ask me. The entire idea of “optimizing” the way you read or take notes is itself a farce built on the same desperate need for easy life hacks over just doing the damn work. If you enjoy reading, it won’t feel like work either!

As someone with ADHD, I think I got an amplified impression on the issue at hand. These people are selling the fantasy of success/self-efficacy to those vulnerable people lacking executive functioning and prone to daydream their life.

I can't count how many "techniques" I came up with myself over the years. Enthusiastic, convinced and most importantly, of course, not successful. Motivated, getting-things-done people don't have some secret methodology, they have enough dopamine to take a risk in energy expenditure. You know which totally secret behavior will increase productivity? Taking a pill of amphetamine every morning.

Not saying y'all got ADHD, but there is a spectrum and it's not bullshit. If you constantly feel the need to explode tasks and compulsively need to get to the "root" of the problem, thoroughly prepare each new project, but got a hard time actually starting (or finishing) anything... Another guide is not your solution.

You need to learn to endure the unfair pain of extra boredom and the feeling (self)stimulatory deprivation; help your brain to dopamine with diet, with timing sugar and frequently exercise. Or get ADHD diagnostic, if things were like this since childhood and you always struggled. <3

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#97

Post by lappet »

garden_hermit wrote: post #73
Veen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of something Andy Matuschak wrote: > But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity. These writers offer advice on note-taking to help scientists and executives with the…

Building on this advice, I highy recommend the essay titled "How to Read a Book" by Paul Edwards: https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf Edwards is an academic historian of science who write incredibly long and dense books drawing on hundreds of sources. If anyone knows how to read, its him, and his advice was truly useful for my own reading.

Thank you for sharing this. I seem to follow some of his methods and there are some I need to adopt.

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#98

Post by [deleted] »

garden_hermit wrote: post #73
Veen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of something Andy Matuschak wrote: > But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity. These writers offer advice on note-taking to help scientists and executives with the…

Building on this advice, I highy recommend the essay titled "How to Read a Book" by Paul Edwards: https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf Edwards is an academic historian of science who write incredibly long and dense books drawing on hundreds of sources. If anyone knows how to read, its him, and his advice was truly useful for my own reading.

[deleted]

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#99

Post by munificent »

Veen wrote: post #29
kungito wrote: post #9

Sometimes I wonder how I would turn out if I did organized people stuff like this. What bothers me is these life advices always feel like bullshit. Like, check this guy out. He has his own website with a title "Den Zhadanov\nTechnology. Productivity. Inspiration.". This is life coaching 101. He writes about how burning man didn't change his life and has pictures of books on beaches. How does one take this person seri…

Your comment reminds me of something Andy Matuschak wrote: > But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity. These writers offer advice on note-taking to help scientists and executives with the…

There is a fundamental challenge here. If you want to learn X, you look for a teacher that is great at X and teaching. Teaching, writing, and other forms of communication are sort of meta-skills that you need to pair with some domain so that they have something to communicate.

The intersection of "great at X" and "great at explaining" is often very small. In practice, you end up having to make trade-offs like wading through poor exposition because the author is the real deal. Another common failure mode is what we see here: People that are so good at explaining, hustling, and branding, that they become popular despite likely having very little expertise at X.

Re: How I read books: a guide on how to learn

#100

Post by unabst »

sean_the_geek wrote: post #35
Veen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of something Andy Matuschak wrote: > But most people who write about note-taking don’t seem particularly accomplished in their own fields, whatever those may be. In fact, most such writers aren’t applying their notes to some exogenous creative problem: their primary creative work is writing about productivity. These writers offer advice on note-taking to help scientists and executives with the…

This. The best advice I have received is from people who never intended to share it and were almost shy about it. It's only thorough my observation that I learned about their skill.

Ergo, learning is stealing. Good students learn alone, and just need goals. Spoonfed knowledge is like processed food. It's clickbaity and likely spread because it makes you feel good.
Post reply on HN