Week 1 automation reflection

• I’ve been putting more focus on having better and more consistent sleep to improve my ability to learn - not only for this course but for the midterm that I had and all the other courses that I’m currently taking (which have a lot of useful information that I’d like to remember).

  • As a result, I feel more mindful of the things that are distracting me and negatively affecting my mental clarity.

• I have finally managed to get myself to implement spaced learning.

  • I have a midterm on Saturday on Haskell. I had so much urge to spend one long session doing a lot of exercises with Haskell But I really wanted to give spaced repetition a try since I am now more confident that it actually helps.
  • So I completed an exercise or two each day before my exam for 5 days. Before I start working on the new exercises, I try to quickly solve the previous day’s problem in my head. I would then review my answer to get instantaneous feedback.
    • In other words, spaced repetition paired up with self-testing worked like a charm for me. Especially for things like learning a new programming language or paradigm (functional)
    • I took these two practices and applied them to my day-to-day life and study plan.
    • Here’s one thing that helped me after implementing these practices in my life: Usually, when I reach a point where I am not sure of something, I would shift my focus to it. I research, and try to figure out an answer for that no matter how long it takes. Unfortunately, this has never benefited me. I’d end up going down rabbit holes of nonsense and having decision fatigue because of my need to figure things out on the spot. I found it hard to just leave problems to marinate for some time. But through applying the philosophy of spaced repetition, I was able to stop myself from this bad habit that wasted so much of my time. The only thing that one should be careful of is to just completely forget about that problem and never go back to deal with it. It’s necessary to have some sort of reminder to get back on that problem when we are working with a fresher mind that might offer us a better solution and perspective on things.
      • The example that I will provide for this is regarding my study plan. On the first day, as I was trying to automate the deployment of my journaling notes, I found myself deep into a random rabbit hole that I didn’t care about. But unfortunately, in the moment it seems so important to get it done.
      • another similar point and example is when I was trying to automate the process of converting audio files to Obsidian notes with the goal being to reduce the friction of reflecting now that I know better I didn’t get straight into implementing it and instead I decided to wait so I can have time to reflect on what I really need to actually solve that problem. do I really need to convert my audio files to Obsidian notes? Does that really solve my problem or should I be automating something else?

• I’ve noticed the importance of putting a limit on how much time can you work on something. I’m generally an ambitious person. So if there’s something that I want to get done, I’m willing to spend days and nights just working on that problem. Here is a list of problems that this causes:

  1. One big thing is neglecting other important aspects of my life, which I have done numerous times. As a result, my sleep and mental health get hit. I’ve also missed out on so many opportunities because I was too focused on getting something done or fixed (e.g., I didn’t go to a job fair or a friend hangout because I was too busy trying to fix something, which turned out to be not very important after looking back and reflecting on it).
  2. That leads me to the next point: not having any time to reflect and ensure that I’m on the right path - that whatever I’m working on right now is what I actually want to work on.
  3. Another big thing is Parkinson’s law which was discussed in previous reflections and group discussions

• I started to challenge myself in the middle of the day. While, for example, taking a shower, I challenge myself to remember things I learned the previous day just to keep that information still active (aka the neural networks still firing).

• At the end of the day as well, I write down and reflect on what were the biggest things I learned in terms of technical things and also soft things

• The thoughts that I shared in this reflection are mainly from after-learning rather than in-learning. I was too busy and stuck to have time to reflect while working, which, as mentioned before, is not very healthy.

• You can see here what I learned from my first week: What I learned using launchd

Study plan

• I intended to work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but I ended up working on Thursday and Friday because I had something very big due on Wednesday.
• I have decided to narrow down my learning plan to automating things that revolve around my journaling. By narrowing my study plan down, I’ll be less prone to distractions and falling into rabbit holes, as I did this week.
• Next week, I’m looking to expand upon what I have already learned. At the same time, I’m still in the process of finding out what I truly need and want to automate to help me in my ability to journal and reflect every day. My ultimate goal is to reduce the friction of learning in my life, so I can learn from every experience that I go through and leave no knowledge behind.
• Regarding scheduling, during the weekend I will try to find exactly what I want to automate, so that on Monday and Tuesday, I will be certain on what I want so I can start learning how to implement that.