akprasad

20 ms·

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by akprasad 5y ago
OP here. I agree, and I hope your take-away from my post is that extremely successful people do use to-do lists. To quote myself, "People are different enough that there is no universal system." What works for you is what works
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by akprasad 5y ago
Thanks for the reminder. I thought the juxtaposition of those links with people like Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Graham would be enough to make the sarcasm clear. But alas.
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by akprasad 5y ago
I completely agree (I'm the post author). I found a simple text file works well for me. I think what's most important is that I can get in the habit of using it every day. Most else is just window-dressing.
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by akprasad 5y ago
> The take presented in the first articles are a joke right? Yes, very much so. This is my first time writing for a large audience and I’m still learning how to balance the tone. My true views are at the bottom of the post and are aligne
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by akprasad 5y ago
If you're sincerely confused, here are some reasons people avoid them: - https://blog.codinghorror.com/todont/ - https://hbr.org/2012/01/to-do-lists-dont-work - https://blog.f
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by akprasad 5y ago
Echoes of the same principle in a different domain [1]: > You cause him to be tested: this is the kind of person you are, you are good at this but not that. This other person is better than you at this, but not better than you at that.
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by akprasad 5y ago
Sorry, I don't know how to help with your inner confusion. But I think I can help with the messaging, if you do decide to leave. I think a healthy professional workplace will understand that we're all human beings with different d
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Who Uses To-Do Lists?(arunkprasad.com)
217 points by akprasad 5y ago|200 comments
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by akprasad 5y ago
One of the great joys of my freshman-year humanities sequence was reading the Zhuangzi, and I still have the book we used on my shelf. I'm not an expert of the Chinese of that era, but I've heard the original is extremely vibrant
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by akprasad 5y ago
Two quotes from my favorite go (board game) player that seem appropriate: For writing without thinking: > You have to soak up the fundamentals as you practice on your own, studying them until they become a part of your very being. If the
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by akprasad 5y ago
Perhaps a counterpoint to this post [1] yesterday? I sympathize, but I'm not sure I buy it. > There are no dates Perhaps not here, but the author's Current Projects page [2] certainly has one. Anyone who's worked at a la
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by akprasad 5y ago
Thank you! And I hear you on the perfectionism -- another reason I held off for so long, and something I'll write about in the future. Unweaving it has been so freeing, and at the same time I'm doing better work than ever before.
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by akprasad 5y ago
Another way of putting it is that for me, blogging is giving me some structure right now that I find useful. Blogging daily enforces some measure of discipline on my time. Then I build the habit of putting serious effort into something ever
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by akprasad 5y ago
> I’m confused, is this not a blog post? It is, but AFAICT the entire blog is just this post. > I also find it’s a lot of work to do the research and all, time I maybe rather spend on building things I found it useful to set a timer a
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by akprasad 5y ago
I completely empathize, and it's why I held off on it for so long. But recently I quit my job and decided to start in order to keep myself accountable. I've been pleasantly surprised by what I've gotten out of it so far and w
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by akprasad 9y ago
Ditto for both books, though I prefer The Effective Engineer to The Pragmatic Programmer . I found that quite a bit of the tactical advice in TPP is already standard practice (e.g. "always use source control"). Comparatively,
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by akprasad 9y ago
I went through the course on your recommendation. Thanks, it was great! Apparently much of it based on Oakley's book A Mind For Numbers , which I'll try to read soon. Much of the content also reminded me of Josh Waitzkin's
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by akprasad 10y ago
Another great book is The Mind Illuminated , which IMO is as comprehensive and detailed a meditation book as you're likely to find. Plus it's written for a pragmatic Western audience and doesn't feature the sorts of spiritua
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by akprasad 10y ago
There was recently a lovely interview with Leonard Cohen on Fresh Air [1], from which I learned that he had also spent some time a Zen monk. The article mentions this in passing, but there's more detail in the interview. > While nev
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by akprasad 10y ago
This is part of an encouraging larger trend of using tech to make food production both cheaper and more humane. A choice quote from the end of the article: > According to Chad Gregory, from the United Egg Producers, there's huge dem
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Technology May Rescue Male Baby Chicks from the Grinder(npr.org)
2 points by akprasad 10y ago|2 comments
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by akprasad 13y ago
Oh, hey, I'm on Hacker News. I'm surprised and a little embarrassed to see my site here, but I'll take the opportunity to address some of the things y'all have mentioned. To people proposing language alternatives: a tota