I tend to make a certain amount of time for something consistent every day (like, usually about 30 min on Khan for the last 6 months trying to level up my math skills) and then a certain amount of time for random playtime (like my safari books only subscription) where I just do whatever I feel like doing for that time.

My life got a lot better when I just committed to doing certain things every day (yoga and making my bed, for instance). So I just added "study" to those things.

Another pro tip-- have kids when you're 23... I'm 40 and now they are mostly grown so I have a lot of free time LOL An hour of yoga a day is a lot less of a commitment than it would have been when I was 28, had two small kids, and was in grad school.

That's a joke, but the kernel of truth in it is: you don't have to learn everything now. With luck you will live to be 70+ years old and so the benefit of even 15-20 a day of study really adds up over several decades.

What strategy are you using to "level up" with Khan? I'm curious because I'd like to do this as well but am not sure where to focus.

Well, I just started with the Algebra II classes cause that's about where my math skills were at... I've had calc I and discrete math in college, plus a lot of formal logic training but that was a long time ago.

I was doing the "mission" style where they give you almost random tasks, and then you do mastery challenges... I feel like that got me a good into understanding a bunch of trig, matrix, and vector things that I hadn't understood before.

However, I just wrapped up my precalc with that and decided to move on because the last couple of topics were boring and they kept sending me mastery challenges of tedious stuff.

So for the calc I switched from the missions style to the lesson style because it feels more directed and "completist", and I've just been doing lectures and exercises. In the last couple of days I've gotten about half way through the material on limits.

When I finish the calc, then I will do the statistics, and the multivariate calculus. At that point, I think that I will be ready to move into college level classes online for linear and whatever else I think I want.

My larger interests are on one hand machine learning and AI and on the other hand, audio electronics for music... my math skills have held me back in electronics and I feel like if I am going to find anything useful in applying

You forgot to add that you also have a level or discipline and you have built the ability to focus on long term goals:-)

Simple but powerful response, btw.

I think the key thing for me is something my dad told me when I was griping about school as a kid: "It's about having options."

Ever since then, I've targeted my educational investments in a way that points me towards the sorts of options that I want to have.

This "gimme options" perspective also helps keep you going when learning sucks, because not having the kinds of options you want sucks more. Having some experience living with limited options can really drive home the fear that serves to get you into the mood to keep learning.

>can really drive home the fear

Instead of coming from a place of scarcity I'd view it from a place of plenty.

"gimmie options" -> Talent Stack

The more wide and experienced your Talent Stack is, the 'luckier' you'll become in life.

Simple advice but difficult to execute: make a plan, follow the plan, only adjust when absolutely neccessary.

I'm in the middle of completely reviewing some fundamental math concepts: linear algebra, calculus, etc. Once I found the resources that I wanted to use I set out an order of execution and use a Podomoro to track my time. I'm doing everything I can to get at least one full Podomoro (1hr 40m) of study per day. I don't have kids or much responsibilities outside of work so I'm able to find the time, but still find it difficult to not get caught up by everything around me.

At the end of the day it's a matter of imposing your will and intent on a specific goal.

To echo some parts of your points:

- logging the things you do that matter to you (via a time tracker) is one thing I've found super useful

- committing to do the thing every day is much easier rather than once a week

Nice!! Thank you, and to 49acres.

Finish one thing before you start the next.

If you cannot do that, have, at most 3 projects at a time.

No matter how small, finish first.

That is the whole secret. If you force yourself to do this, you might even start thinking ahead before you start new stuff. Or you might finish stuff faster because you want to get to the thing you really want and realize how rewarding it was to finish.

Recently I've been trying to "systemize" my learning a bit. In general, my high-level plan is to learn the all major branches of science to a roughly undergrad level (go deeper or shallower selectively), focusing on the fundamental, core stuff.

This probably sounds ambitious, but you can use the Pareto principle (get 80% of the value by spending 20% of the time) and do various optimizations such as taking care to choose the best learning resources.

I have a learn.md file in Dropbox. It contains several sections: math, statistics, machine learning, physics, chemistry, biology, economics, programming. Each section has a list of subfields, for example biology has "molecular biology of the cell" (that's a book) and "brain". Each section also has a "resources" list and a "topics" list, which contains little topics I'm curious about, for example the math sections has svd and wavelets. And there's also a "next" section containing the list of things I plan to learn next.

Having an overview/roadmap like this really helps with the anxiety about what to focus on next, it makes me feel organized.

I use "the 30 hour method"[0].

I think carefully about what is worth working on, then write it at the top of a sticky note. A few words will do, something like "Create X MVP" for example. Also write down the start date. As you put in time, write it down in pen on the sticky note. Once you've written down a time don't adjust it later, don't worry about it, the goal isn't to have a 100% accurate time log.

Now that it's written down, you can't get out of it. The only way out is through. Work on it for 30 hours of dedicated work. It's long enough that you can get something done, but not so long that you'll waste your life if you choose the wrong thing.

I used to work on too many different projects, and I think it was because I would switch projects once I hit a small difficulty. It wasn't a conscious thing; your subconscious can come up with plenty of valid reasons you should switch to something that seems easier. That 30 hour timebox will force you to overcome some difficulties, no more running away to another project to avoid doing something hard. But, if you choose something that really is too hard, try for 30 hours, it's long enough, but not too long.

At the end, record what you worked on during that time. You might say "from October 1st to October 15th, I worked on X MVP, I struggled with Y, I learned Z". Think carefully about what is worth working on and choose the next thing. Maybe spend another 30 hours on the same thing. Maybe go back to something you were working on awhile ago.

[0] https://azeria-labs.com/the-importance-of-deep-work-the-30-h...

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274

Also if your hypothesis is that there are too many free resources, then you could try discrediting that by seeing if you focus better when you pay for learning some curiosity instead of trying to bootstrap the learning for free.

Wow. You expressed everything I thought of in a very minimal words. It would have taken taken atleast 3x times to express the same idea. What was your thought process when you wrote the above post. Did you thought in a single pass or did you revise it multiple times. Do you have any techniques to express so concisely. Are you a native English speaker. I don't think that might matter much because even in native language I cannot express conscisely and clearly the same time. I am asking this because I have observed though I am technically (coding) well above average I have found when I want to express an idea I keep rewording(correcting) to express the idea. This increases the cognitive load of the listener and makes both of us uncomfortable. While writing i can do multiple pass to correct and that helps. Any suggestions would help. Thanks

I have on the order of 400 unread kindle books and probably 3x the number of pdfs downloaded I have intended to read along with an f ton of physical books. I'd love some tips on making headway as well.

The big issue for me is most of these courses aren't even full courses in the sense of a college course. Your typical college course will be 16 weeks and cover maybe 15-20 chapters (400-600 pages of textbook material) during the course.

Most MOOCs I see are basically the equivalent of 2-4 textbook chapters worth of material and even that materials is watered down greatly.

If I am going to spend the time learning something, I want to learn it at a high-quality level, not at a basic introductory level.

One trick I use is to not be a completionist. If a course seems to have low information density or contains some modules I don't feel the need to learn about, I'll skip or skim. It makes it easier to get into a course when I have some interest and easier to get out when the interest has run dry. This is counter to how we've been forced to treat education, so it feels wrong, but is actually a powerful self-learning technique.

Any further reading on this? My brain forces me to start every book on the 1st chapter, and read every single word, and chapter in order, otherwise I don't feel like I've completed it.

You're going to have to give it priority over other interests .