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How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

swanson.github.com

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Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#51

Post by itmag »

nyellin wrote: post #32
TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use deft-mode along with org-mode, or as an alternative? Could you share some thoughts and experiences? I'm a happy user of org-mode and I'd like to know more :).

Call me old fashioned, but I think notes of different topics shouldn't mingle with one another, and dumping all your notes in one file is a recipe for creeping disorder. I use Deft for listing note files and performing full-text searches to find the right one. Deft is buggy and I would like something better, so most of the time I fallback to using Ido. I fuzzy-match filenames in the minibuffer and only open Deft when…

Call me old fashioned, but I think notes of different topics shouldn't mingle with one another, and dumping all your notes in one file is a recipe for creeping disorder.

Depends on the volume of notes. Trying to do any kind of manual sorting on my notes is a full time job at this point.

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#52

Post by itmag »

nyellin wrote: post #45
itmag wrote: post #39

I have an elaborate system using text-files and tags/subtags, evolved over the last 5-6 years. I keep track of a lot of things: -expenses -gym sessions -leads for my magazine -startup ideas -personal development insights -diary entries -brainstorms -quotes (see this: http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-for-some-tiny-web-softw... ) -stuff I should read later (but almost never get around to) -ideas for lyrics -fragmen…

That software already exists and is called org-mode :) Some reasons to use org-mode: * Org-mode is part of Emacs, so you can extend it in Lisp. If you so desired, you could record your weight each morning by sending yourself an email and scheduling an Emacs function... But someone has probably already done that in the 35 years of Emacs' existence. If not, Emacs macros are very easy to write, because they emulate the…

Org mode looks very tempting.

Main problem: I'll have to learn emacs :)

But, I've been meaning to learn a serious editor (ie vim or emacs) for a long time now so might as well bite the bullet and do it.

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#53

Post by billswift »

swanson wrote: post #3
billswift wrote: post #2

>Instead of trying to do Deliberate Practice, I’d fool myself into thinking I was investing my time wisely by reading blog posts and examples but not actually doing much of anything. That is one reason for serious learning I use textbooks. The book itself helps structure your learning, it is easy to keep track of how much you have covered, and commitment is simpler, since you can just commit to finishing the book. It…

That's a good point about textbooks. Do you find that if a book includes Exercises at the end of each chapter that you actually do them? That's been a big challenge for me - so many great books have 'Action' sections but I rarely find myself putting down the book and doing them.

That depends on whether I am reading for information or actually trying to learn technique. If you are trying to learn to actually do something, you need to get practice somehow. My list of things I want to learn eventually is divided into two parts - things I want to learn about and things I want to learn to do.

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#54

Post by gurkendoktor »

Inspirational articles go into either Instapaper (URLs) or iBooks (PDFs), I read through these when I'm offline. If they sound interesting, I make a note in OmniFocus' inbox. (The new 'Share' button in Instapaper can do this automatically.)

When processing OF, I turn those things into a task in "Weekend Projects" - a list of things I want to toy around with for a weekend (or any other two free days).

When I hve started said projects, I flesh them out to be normal GTD projects and see where they go from there.

If something gets stuck and obsoleted before I have a chance to work on it again, I kill it in my Weekly Review.

GTD. \o/

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#55

Post by personlurking »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #50
Marwy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny and sad when you realize that you care more about knowledge, learning etc. when you're out of school. Or maybe I was just not mature enough to appreciate it.

I think it's not about maturity, it's about having reasons to know. School can kill ones's interest in pretty much everything, as soon as your curiosity gets replaced by tests, grades, homeworks, rote, memorizing etc. But it's a long topic, covered on HN many times. For me, most of the school subjects were utterly meaningless. I didn't understand then why could I care about how we produce electricity, where are the r…

I recently made my own list

    Linguistics (psychological, pragmatics)
    Anthropology (social, cultural)
    History (Colonial, Victorian, social)
    Psychology (social)
    Etymology
    Humanism (Renaissance)
    Philosophy (Epistemology)
    Libertarianism
    Barter Economies

    Generalism
    Miscegenation
    Languages (Romance)
    Entrepreneurship
    Technology Startups
    Film (foreign, documentary)
    Music (folk, world, classical)
    Literature (fiction, creative nonfiction)

    Coffee Houses
    Salons
    WWOOF
    Wordplay
    Photography
    Curation
I used to study them all quite frequently but have stopped in the last few years without knowing why. Now I realize it's because I'm trying to justify knowledge vs. usefulness. Trying to get back to some of them now, though.

It's interesting that I have yet to find others who also like to learn about varied topics, outside of those who enjoy learning about technical topics. I guess that's why I'm a generalist (and why generalists are usually INTPs).

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#56

Post by marchdown »

nyellin wrote: post #26

If anyone is struggling to stay on top of notetaking or organizing their life digitally, I highly recommend org-mode and deft-mode. One day I will blog about what org-mode has done for my life, but for now just accept my word: I have typed tens of thousands of words into each of EverNote, Tomboy, and TiddlyWiki. I attempted to use Remember the Milk, Google Tasks, and other todo apps for years. I also unsuccessfully s…

> Org mode can do absolutely everything. Ask and you shall learn.

How do you capture different kinds of information — ideas, references to books or websites, events, addresses?

What do you do more often — review agenda or search for specific keywords?

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#57

Post by personlurking »

personlurking wrote: post #55
TeMPOraL wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not about maturity, it's about having reasons to know. School can kill ones's interest in pretty much everything, as soon as your curiosity gets replaced by tests, grades, homeworks, rote, memorizing etc. But it's a long topic, covered on HN many times. For me, most of the school subjects were utterly meaningless. I didn't understand then why could I care about how we produce electricity, where are the r…

I recently made my own list Linguistics (psychological, pragmatics) Anthropology (social, cultural) History (Colonial, Victorian, social) Psychology (social) Etymology Humanism (Renaissance) Philosophy (Epistemology) Libertarianism Barter Economies Generalism Miscegenation Languages (Romance) Entrepreneurship Technology Startups Film (foreign, documentary) Music (folk, world, classical) Literature (fiction, creative…

I should add cultures and languages, too.

CULTURES

    Brazil (10 years)
    Spain (5 years)
    Colombia (5 years)
    Argentina (3 years)
    Portugal (1 year)

    Cuba (months)
    Italy (months)
    Germany (months)
    Australia (months)
LANGUAGES

    Brazilian Portuguese (fluent, self-taught)
    Spanish (semi-fluent, self-taught)
    Italian (intermediate, self-taught)
    French (basic, self-taught)

    German (attempted)
    Swedish (attempted)
    Russian (attempted)
    Catalan (attempted)

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#58

Post by roel_v »

I order all my 'stuff to learn' under a category in my Getting Things Done (GTD) workflow. I use Due Today for Android and Toodledo online (they sync automatically), and a bunch of paper scraps to transfer from whereever it is that I want to record things until I can enter them into the One True repository.

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#59

Post by davedx »

I don't really focus on "topics", I pick something I really want to build then try and work out what the best suited tools and technologies are for that objective, then take it from there.

For my web startup idea this was Grails, because I work with Java in my day job and like the Rails convention over configuration philosophy. This leads to other areas like modern JavaScript frameworks.

For my video game idea it's Unity, for mostly productivity related reasons. This leads to JavaScript again (doesn't everything these days), C# and programmable shaders.

I don't want to spend my valuable time learning the latest new thing just for the sake of it. (I see loads of 'weekend projects' on here using Node/Backbone/Redis that seem to be this kind of thing). I want an immediate real-world application. I want something that will help me solve problems and smash my personal deadlines down like a pile driver. :)

Re: How do you track and decide what topics you want to spend time learning?

#60

Post by ryanklee »

djhworld wrote: post #31
nyellin wrote: post #26

If anyone is struggling to stay on top of notetaking or organizing their life digitally, I highly recommend org-mode and deft-mode. One day I will blog about what org-mode has done for my life, but for now just accept my word: I have typed tens of thousands of words into each of EverNote, Tomboy, and TiddlyWiki. I attempted to use Remember the Milk, Google Tasks, and other todo apps for years. I also unsuccessfully s…

http://orgmode.org/ for those unfortunate Vim souls (like me) who had to google that!

For the interested, here's the best non-brief intro/tutorial to Org-mode that I was able to find: http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

It helped me immensely when I was just getting my feet wet with org-mode.

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