January 30, 2011

Focusing Attention: Programming

These last two weeks have been a small attempt at clearing up my head a bit. I have far too many things I'd like to do and even if it's not possible to do them all at once it didn't stop me from thinking of them. One minute it's that and the other it's something completely different. This is really not good as it messes with the top idea a lot so I decided to do something about it. By focusing on one single thing each week I've been trying to remedy the situation.

Now I haven't really spent a lot of time with the things I've been focusing on, but I've been a whole lot calmer and not as stressed up as before. So I think it's good for me.

This week I'm gonna focus on something I haven't really done so much, namely programming. The little I've done is some stuff for school and it's fun and all, but it's not really the same as working on your own project. Now I think I'll try to complete the assignments for the course, but that's not really a priority and if it's even a little bit stressful then I'll cut back on it. We've got plenty of time left and it's not worth it to get stressed by something like that.

No I'll focus on Perl (my new Perl book should arrive this week) and making something fun: an IRC-bot. A simple bot isn't much of a challange so I need to add some cool functions to it. I'm really annoyed that a friend of mine is always ahead of the latest manga releases so I think I'll automate that one. I've actually already made one in both Perl and lua, but they're pretty damn bad so this time I'll make it right. Naturally I've got a ton of other stuff to add but we'll see where we end up.

The point isn't to make a bot with a million features, but to start hacking on something fun. Hell I'd be happy if I just stick to the new book and learn Perl a bit.

January 26, 2011

Focusing Attention: Study Hacking

A week of drawing is over, but I didn't draw that much. It was a little bit of a fail from my part.

But the past is the past and this week I'm going to be study focused. Not that I need to study, but I really need to rework my study technique. I've been going on like a classical student, in the bad sense, by skipping class and getting super stressed when the tests and deadlines are over me. Somehow you manage with some last-minute studying and all is well.

Well not really. I already have a bad stomach and stress makes it a lot worse. Even if I didn't have this problem stress is never good, especially not when you need to take this test or finish this assignment for tomorrow. It screws with my health, my study results and it intrudes on my free time far too much I'd say.

This is when I dusted an old bookmark I found a long time ago: Study Hacks. It's some guy who writes about studying and study technique and he's got some pretty good ideas. This is what I'll focus on this week: to change my routines and take control over my studies and don't let them control me.

Here's a little rundown of the main principles from Study Hacks as I understand them;

Do fewer things
Sure it makes sense. When I signed up for an extra course last year I felt pretty damn stressed and I couldn't really focus on my other courses knowing I had this extra class I missed to catch up with. It was even on my mind when I tried to do other things and when I got my stumach problems I decided to drop it. That was seriously a pretty damn good decision: I felt a lot better with it gone.

Do them better
Also what are good grades? They should show your skill but if they're good they should also impress. And what are you most impressed by? Someone with straight-A or someone who's read 40 points more but with slightly worse grades? I think we're more impressed by deep knowledge in a smaller area (better grades in fewer courses) than by someone who's a know-it-all but specialist-in-nothing. Maybe it's a good idea to focus on getting really good grades instead of trying to do too much at once and risk to spread out too much?

Know why you're doing them
Lastly it makes sense why you should know why your study technique works (or doesn't). So we can change and adapt. After all what is the definition of Insanity?

"Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results" - Albert Einstein

January 17, 2011

Focusing Attention: Drawing

In my last post I wrote about some ideas and projects I have and how it's a little bit too much at a time, so now I'm going to try something new here. In the beginning of every week I'll declare something I'll be focusing on and then that's the only thing I should focus on on my free time. Just so I don't drift off from irc bots in haskell to opening a new Erlang book or starting a game and then move on with another.

Not really so I don't work on several things at once but so I don't think about the other things too much.

This week I think I'll be focusing on drawing. I kinda like to draw and I drew a lot when I was little but then it wore off a bit, I dunno why. I think I was pretty good too, well I didn't think so then but when I look back at the drawings I'm sure I at least had something going for me.

Recently I bought the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - I'm not really sure why but so far it's been pretty darn good. Hopefully I'll have some progress, but I'm sure I'll have fun whether it's a success or not.

Of course there are some amazing stuff around and if I could get a tenth or even one percentage of his skill it'd be cool has hell!