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No need for the (2008) thing in the title. This is actually a new article from February 2018. I had an old post there, but completely re-wrote it last week, k
by sivers 9y ago
No need for the (2008) thing in the title. This is actually a new article from February 2018. I had an old post there, but completely re-wrote it last week, keeping only the title and URL.
Thought you guys might like a programming example that I edited out of the article:
Back in 2004, I wanted to be a great Ruby programmer. I had dabbled, but wanted to accelerate my learning to the expert level.
So I called Tony Robbins' company, and signed up for a personal coach. We had a phone call once per week, to help me stay on track achieve my goals.
On the very first call, when I said I wanted to be a great Ruby programmer, he asked, “What does that look like? How will you know you're great?”
Whoa. Hmm. I had never actually defined it. He was waiting for an answer, so I picked something. I said, “If I have read all of these six Ruby books, completed all of the exercises in them, and memorized what I've learned.”
He said, “How many chapters in all?” So he had me go add up the total numbers of chapters across all six books.
Then he had me predict how many chapters I could do per week. I said 6.
Then he said, “OK so now you've got your plan. One chapter per day, six days per week, including doing the exercises, saving what you've learned in flash cards and quizzing yourself later, and in 12 weeks you'll be a great Ruby programmer, by this definition. If by then you don't feel great, we'll pick a new goal.”
And just like that - a year of vague procrastination was now a specific list of goals to be achieved each day. It helped me more than anything.
It's tough to talk about because it sounds so simple, but man, it's effective!
- duck 9y agoLoved this advise and thanks for the example! And I'm guessing a mod added that year as I didn't when I posted it... but it is too late for me to edit it.
- ronilan 9y agoI like the premise but... Football analogy: run your playbook, keep moving the chains. This works for most games, but sometimes QB needs a read option. Music analogy: if you got all the notes down how will you play the jazz? ;) Ps - thanks for writing through the years and especially for this: https://sivers.org/kimo https://sivers.org/kimo
- sivers 9y agoThanks Ron!
- arry 9y agoDid you feel great? Did you become a great Ruby programmer?
- devgutt 9y agoI did this when I set myself to learn cell structure. It was years since high scholl biology, but I was motivated to study. I planned my studies with a textbook, chapters, sections, days, etc. I started and 2 weeks in I realized that I would need a better chemistry foundation. My whole plan was broken and I needed to start another one with the new information. The thing is, it is good to have goals, but it is almost impossible to foresee what you actually need to do in order to accomplish what you want early on. And I think that this is true for anything.
- bringtheaction 9y ago> I had an old post there, but completely re-wrote it last week, keeping only the title and URL. Shouldn’t you remove the old comments? I’d not like it if I commented on something and the thing that I commented on was changed completely but my comment was kept.