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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
by kungito 6y ago
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 seriously? Can someone read this crap and think "Yeah, I find this guy to be honest and want to take his opinion seriously." I get that he's a Forbes 30 under 30 but personally it all smells way more like hustle than some profound knowledge.
- quickthrower2 6y agoYeah I had a skim of the submitted page only and this stuff is common sense to anyone who has studied to get good grades from age 14 onwards. However this sort of article might be useful to someone who struggled at high school and wants to give learning another shot.
- faceplanted 6y agoHonestly, as one of those people who never studied or even did homework and basically got grades entirely a linear function of my interest in listening to the class without making any notes, I've thought for a while that I should just look up how organized, hard working people actually do anything, because it's predictably come back to bite me in that I now can't really teach myself anything unless it's in lecture format and provides summaries because any notes I take are useless. Also I have like zero time-management ability and I don't even know how people get it.
- jamesholden 6y agoThis ^ Also, as someone else mentioned, use your own brain to think about how this particular method would work for you. Hell try it. Doesn't mean it works for everyone, or that someone else doesn't have another better method. But this is our area of interest as 'hackers' and hacking learning might be the format which better appeals to someone over another.
- conjectures 6y agoI also doubt many of these things are even true. I was always surprised in lectures watching people divide their attention between actually listening and trying to write structured notes. Most of the time there's a book which was structured by a pro. Rather than re-reading your own notes which reify misunderstandings from the 1st encounter.
- maccard 6y agoI don't know what textbooks you had but mine were generally enormous, hugely expensive, with average quality noted and explanations. The one that comes to mind immediately is https://www.pearson.com/uk/educators/higher-education-educators/program/Hass-University-Calculus-Early-Transcendentals-Global-Edition-3rd-Edition/PGM1098533.html https://www.pearson.com/uk/educators/higher-education-educat... Meanwhile, sites like Paul's Math Notes and Khan academy are easier to digest, clearer explained, and much more available.
- harperlee 6y agoI agree with your skepticism, and I think it is healthy, but on the other hand what is being said in the post is sensible. The best way to read this, or most of the internet really, in my opinion, is as if he were a friend, a colleague, family or an acquaintance, not as an authority; you listen politely, nod and smile, and reflect/research on your own on what it seems useful. At the end of the day, the web enabled anyone to write, and this guy should not self censor just because that advice could be given elsewhere by a more authoritative role. It is his personal blog that we are visiting! If you were talking to a friend over coffee/beer about an idea that seems important to you that he hears, wouldn’t you be energetic, perhaps taking an “authoritative” tone? Not far-fetched!
- kungito 6y agoI 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 and fad instead of getting shit done. Just remember that bitconnect guy; people ate that shit like chocolate santas
- pelario 6y agoI'm with you. I mean, already the title perspires arrogance. I'm not going to click on it, even though there might be good advice there. I probably have already heard it and probably will heard it again from someone without that attitude.
- ycosynot 6y agoYou don't have to be so cynical, because some people might have deep-down issues, and the posturing is a way to hide it. They just want to be liked, and so they "cheat", and that's why they are biologically "punchable". Cheating is punished.
- harperlee 6y agoThe reason being people you trust in curating things upvoted it. Not the guy’s fault!
- comprev 6y agoThe fact his blog entry was submitted on here (a curated tech news site) only adds to his "growth hacking", despite what he writes being common sense and easily available information online. I cannot take such people very seriously either and feel all these "life coaching 101" courses/events are no different to new programmers getting stuck in a never ending spiral of tutorials. You're constantly reminded how everything is _just_ out of reach although another course will help get there...
- greenkey 6y agoI felt the same way reading it, but I also admire the ability to self-brand, even though personally I’ve given up on that, having gained weight and worn boxers to work most days recently. I could brand that, but it wouldn’t be original. Organization and motivation are important, though.
- Veen 6y agoYour 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 challenges of their work, but the advice was developed in a context disconnected from those external realities. https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zUMFE66dxeweppDvgbNAb5hukXzXQu8ErVNv https://notes.andymatuschak.org/zUMFE66dxeweppDvgbNAb5hukXzX... Essentially, be wary of taking advice about reading, research, writing, or anything else from people whose primary contribution to the world is telling people how to read, research, and write. Instead, listen to people who have used these techniques to make a substantial contribution to a field of knowledge. The problem is that those people are far more interested in doing research and writing than teaching other people how to do it.
- sean_the_geek 6y agoThis. 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.
- unabst 6y agoErgo, 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.
- jholman 6y agoYeah! The best students learn alone! That's also why the best athletes don't use coaches. Wait, that's not right. Hang on. Even though all real learning is at least 80% internal and must be owned-and-operated by the student... maybe there's a role for spoonfed knowledge. Certainly there's a role for teachers (disagreeing with "good students learn alone"), even if morale-management and goal-setting is a surprisingly large fraction of it. But even spoonfed knowledge is helpful. For example, as far as I can tell, most good mathematicians have a lot of spoonfed knowledge as part of their learning history (but they also have even more self-guided exploration, and even the spoonfed stuff you gotta chew on it and digest it). Agreed, though, that a lot of articles like this are clickbaity and, like sugar, give you a sensation of learning rather than what you really need. This particular article, I think, contains a mish-mash of good advice and, uh, pureed pap. It's certainly not worst-of-breed.
- galoisgirl 6y agoMay I recommend Maria Markstedter? https://azeria-labs.com/the-process-of-mastering-a-skill/ https://azeria-labs.com/the-process-of-mastering-a-skill/ 90% of her content is about ARM exploitation (which I'm personally not interested in). However, she has a couple of posts on how she learns and works, that are believable to me thanks to the rest of her content. She's also not selling coaching, she's selling her technical skills.
- ctvo 6y agoI think this is a common reaction. We're built with fraud detection as social animals. People who talk as experts about areas their experience and accomplishments haven't aligned with always raise this. In this case, don't tell me how to learn when I question how much learning you've done. The opposite of this is Adrian Colyer's the morning paper [1], where I'd love to learn Adrian's process of ingesting so much technical information. As an aside, there are folks with expertise in certain areas that dip into a wide ranging set of topic. I try to remind myself of their expertise and discount heavily their opinion on other things: Elon Musk talking about anything not related to launching a car or space company. Elon's opinions about Covid-19 testing the latest example. Sam Atman talking about anything not related to VC investing. [1] - https://blog.acolyer.org/ https://blog.acolyer.org/
- irfn 6y agoHe has really not completed a single book on that list. I can see a bunch which are "Currently reading" but none are complete. and we are getting advice based on that.Maybe I'll be look to read his blog after some reading has been done.
- Denzhadanov 6y agoIrfn, this is a list of books that I'm going to read (I haven't added books that I read there yet) and haven't made notes. I mentioned that is a new system that I made for myself and will be trying it out, and any feedback on how you learn and read would be great.
- zaptheimpaler 6y agoYep. 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!
- 495636483 6y agoAs 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
- chillwaves 6y agoI'm going to see a psychiatrist for the first time next week because I think I had ADHD. This has helped me think about exactly how I want to state my problem. That I lack executive function, that I can't focus on the things I need to focus on, that I have spent decades trying to create accountability systems that ultimately fail. > help your brain to dopamine with diet, with timing sugar Could you expand? I have been on a strict diet the past few weeks and exercising every day, I do think it's helped but I am still stuck.
- VoodooJuJu 6y agoThat he's a Forbes 30 under 30 is a strong signal to ignore him, rather than ignoring him despite him being on that list: The Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ Hustle | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21082523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21082523 The top comment at the link above says it all.
- Ronsenshi 6y agoYou're my spirit animal sir/madam. Just another blog post telling people how to live by a person whose whole existence revolves around that process. And yet, inexplicably, this drivel is somehow popular. I guess clueless people feel like they could learn something while not realizing that author himself doesn't know what he's talking about.
- comprev 6y agoMotivational seminars are huge business. I was reading an article the other day about the whole "improve your self esteem" market which swept the US in the 80s/90s. It's fascinating to me as a Briton because we don't have such a culture.
- Denzhadanov 6y agoThank you for the feedback. It's actually simple. I realised that I need to create a better system for myself to learn as I read. So I did some research and created a system that I will try myself. In that process, I decided to share because a lot of my friends asked me about this topic. HN picked this up organically. It would be great if you add your feedback and ideas about the topic. I'd be happy to learn from you on how you read books and what works. Have a great day.