What time in your life were you the most productive at learning and/or thinking and why?

post by Jack R (Jack Ryan) · 2021-12-22T22:56:20.379Z · LW · GW · 1 comment

This is a question post.

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Example answers include “high school math camp, because we were forced to do X and because there was an atmosphere of amicable competition” or “that day when I locked myself in a room with a textbook” or “the day when I studied X, because I am really fascinated by X and ABC topics were boring to me when I tried to study them” or “the time I hired a tutor” etc

Asking because I’m considering building something that could amplify people’s learning/thinking productivity.

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answer by Alexander · 2021-12-25T01:05:48.181Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

The most productive I have been in my life was probably during my final year at university (2019), completing my CS degree. I scored my best grades during this year. I attribute this increase in productivity to the following reasons:

  • I had signed a graduate job offer, which lowered my stress and made me feel more secure about the future.
  • I was generally feeling secure about my social relations. One of my friends was topping all the classes, and I learnt a lot from her while studying together.
  • I went on daily walks at a beautiful park nearby (averaged 10k+ daily steps for the year) and listened to audiobooks. Audiobooks trained my focus. Whenever I got distracted from the audiobook, I'd rewind and bring my attention back. I also paused and typed notes whenever I came across a fascinating idea.
  • I dramatically reduced social media usage and deleted several accounts.
  • I had a daily routine going on, which was destroyed by the pandemic. It took me a while to re-establish a new routine.
  • I read the book "The Mind Illuminated" and was meditating daily. I'm uncertain how precisely this helped, but the practice felt good. I stopped practising meditation, but maybe I should pick it up again.

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comment by Viliam · 2021-12-25T00:06:17.090Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

In general, reducing interruptions and distractions help. Unfortunately, this includes distractions I impose on myself, such as browsing social networks.

So I guess I might benefit from having some kind of coach/manager that would prevent me from distractions and interruptions, without distracting/interrupting me himself.

I was more productive decades ago, before web forums and social networks were a thing. These days the whole internet seems optimized for distraction, and sadly I often need its help for my work.

I am more productive when I do something that actually feels interesting to me. Sadly, those are often not the things someone would pay me for.