Reading Time: 2 minReadwise has a lot of great tools to help manage the content you’re reading. I’ve mentioned their RSS reader before, and they do a nice job of pulling over highlights from Kindle and other places. Ever since I started using it, they’ve been sending these emails called “Your daily Readwise” that I’ve been ignoring. I […]
Learning
Produce more, because so much of it should be trashed
Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s difficult to create high-quality content. Whether we’re talking about words, art, video or any other medium, there is a lot of scrap that needs to be created before you get to the good stuff. In “Excellent Advice for Living“, author Kevin Kelly shares it like this: The main reason to produce something every day […]
Five years of Anki
Reading Time: 3 minA little over two years ago I hit a streak of 1,000 days in a row of reviewing some flashcards in Anki. Most days I studied a few hundred cards, but all you need to review is one card to continue the streak and there were a few days with low numbers. I first started […]
Experience isn’t practice
Reading Time: < 1 minIf you do something often enough you’re likely to get pretty good at it, but simply doing something over and over isn’t the same as practicing it. In his book “Outsmart Your Brain“, author Daniel Willingham shares his thoughts on this: Aristotle was right in saying that the doing is vital—a lyre player must play […]
What am I missing?
Reading Time: < 1 minI’m constantly on the lookout for what I might be missing. I shared some of these fears a few years ago and how it related to game shows, but I think it’s largely part of being an Enneagram 5 — I feel the need to know all of the answers to all of things, and […]
Be willing to miss your exit
Reading Time: < 1 minThere’s a saying out there that says “bad drivers never miss their exit”, meaning a good driver will take the safe route if they are about to miss their exit, but a bad driver will make poor decisions in order to make their exit at all costs. Here’s a great example, where the white car […]
The truth versus your beliefs
Reading Time: < 1 minStrong beliefs are great things to have, but when they contradict with the truth it can be troublesome. You might change your mind and be glad you’re now less wrong that you were before, but some people will hold their beliefs above the truth. In her book “I Never Thought of It That Way“, author […]
When you shove away the hostile, you push away the curious
Reading Time: 2 minI talk about this a lot, largely because I struggle with it myself — if someone has beliefs that are completely counter to mine, pushing them away is likely a bad idea for a large number of reasons. A few months ago I shared the idea of not “unfollowing if you disagree”, which can be […]
Wanting to remember something doesn’t help
Reading Time: 1 minI talk about memory quite a lot on here, as it’s a concept that is fascinating to me. I frequently talk about using Anki to improve what I remember, but that’s ultimately just brute-force practice. It’s a good thing, and I use it every single day, but understanding more of the science behind memory is […]
Honesty can lead to contradictions
Reading Time: 2 minI write a lot about honesty on here, but being honest doesn’t mean always keeping your beliefs the same. As I wrote more than 10 years ago, it’s a good thing to be willing to change your mind and it’s often the logical thing to do. However, changing your mind can sometimes appear as contradictions […]