Conversation

Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
A typical daily video has 150k+ views! There is *fan art*! There’s an encouraging chat full of other students. Other students’ video streams are picture-in-picture on the wall. There’s something very powerful about watching someone exhibit intensely focused behavior.
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Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
That is: it’s one thing to read a self-help book on Deep Work or Atomic Habits, full of deeply-considered models and techniques; it’s another thing—maybe an emotionally more powerful thing!—to internalize those practices implicitly by watching them in action.
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Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
In a typical session, he’s: * reviewing Anki cards for a couple hours (!!!) * doing written exercises (from textbooks?) * writing notes / Anki cards about class materials he’s reading * doing programming projects (for classes, I think) It’s interesting to see all this modeled.
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Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
I’m hesitant about this kind of media. It can shade into willpower / motivation porn, particularly when centered on externally-provided curricula. James disavows this ("I don’t believe in motivation. It’s volatile.”), but it’s still there, in part at least.
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Andy Matuschak
@andy_matuschak
It’s hard to say. It’s very alien to me. I never did any explicit “studying” of any kind in undergrad. No memory work, no textbook exercises, no written notes, no summaries. Only problem sets, 30+ hours per week. But I suspect more explicit learning would’ve been helpful too.
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