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It's important to measure progress

In school, we know how we're supposed to progress: we finish one year and move onto the next. If you unexpectedly fail an exam, you know you need to revaluate your priorities. I sometimes have this fear that I might make bad life choices and have no way to find out until it's too late.

To avoid it, I decided that I needed three things:

  • well-defined goals
  • a way to evaluate whether I've met those goals
  • an early warning system to let me know when I veer off track

My specific goals and metrics are too personal to share, but my goals are along three main axes: become a better engineer, become a better writer, and maximize my future career options.

Takeways

  1. Have well-defined goals.
  2. Talk to your peers and elders about how long it usually takes for someone to move to the next level, and what they need to see from you to move you to the next level
  3. Have an accountability friend. Schedule to check in with them once or twice a month

Structure is good

In my early days in school, I hated how structure my time was. My weekly schedule was always the same. My quarters were planned around exams and deadlines. I couldn't wait to not have classes anymore so I could sleep whenever I wanted.

As typical teeneger in high school where you have a lot of freedom in scheduling my days. Most of people at school don't care where and when you do your job, as long as you get it done. When I started, I took full advantage of it. If I wanted to sleep in, I'd sleep in and add a few extra work hours to the end of my day.

I liked it, but I couldn't get anything done. The more options I have, the more time I spend on evaluating them. It took me forever to schedule anything. I kept switching from one task to another whenever I was bored, wasting time on context switching. My sleep schedule was so erratic I had a hard time falling asleep and was always tired.

I decided to subject myself to something I never thought I would: daily routines. I go to study, leave work and sleep at the same time every day. Scheduling meetings becomes much easier. My sleep improves. I became more displined and more productive. I even managed to out 40 minutes each day - to read books. No email, no social media, no reviewing code. The whole world with all its problems ceases to exist. The only thing that matters in those precious minutes is my own life.

Takeways

  1. Sleep at the same time
  2. Carve out time for things you enjoy doing, so that you have something to look forward to everyday
  3. Don't forget to exercise

What did I consume this week?

This is was intersting and a bit challenging as well. I learned some new things though...

  1. "A Bunch of programming Advice I'd give to myself 15 years age" by mbuffett. If you can't easily explain why something is difficult, then it's incidental complexity, which is probably worth addressing.

  2. "Understanding AI" - A good in depth explaination of different concepts such as Deep Learning, Neural networks, and Transformers.

  3. "Startup Ideas" - “We bet on five megatrends that would shift the power to cloud… faster internet, cheaper compute and storage, mobile, and better browsers. Even so, we underestimated the scale of each tailwind. Always bet on the megatrends.”

  4. "Building a Profitable, Bootstrapped AI App to over 50,000 Users" - All software on the internet lives and dies by two variables: how much you listen to users and how fast you ship