First time trying out Medium

Okay, so far my usage of Notion was a bit filled with frustrations. The biggest problem I had with the Notion app was that it did not support Grammarly’s grammar corrections… which I desperately need from time to time. I have a feeling that using Medium might be a better option than Notion or Velog — the platforms I used for my blogging. I will keep using Notion for keeping my cheat sheets because it has its way of conveniently and neatly organizing code snippets and whatnot.

Time to go on to improve my study habits.

Autodidactic Methods

• Pomodoro Technique
• 80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle)
• Parkinson’s Law
• Test Yourself
• Interleaving

What I learned Past Week

The most important thing is that some things just did not work out well. Below were problematic methods I implemented.

• I was passively crafting blog posts — this is nothing but following along. The thing is, I had some kind of illusion that blogging itself is a good way of active learning, and I would do this rigorously for the first couple of hours. However, I would get so tired of keeping this blogging. This is not good for the long run.
• The curriculums didn’t fit me. It was 28 hours long, which I didn’t even finish half of. I got very tired of just cramming boring details I was not interested in.
• There was not much interleaving. Most of what I studied was Flutter. I barely brushed upon Django and AWS.
• I did not use Pomodoro because I was scared I would get discouraged once I do not have enough tomatoes on the record sheet.
• I did not set any deadlines. There were no realistic daily goals.

What I should do to improve my method

• I must actively write my blog posts in my own words like I am doing right now. My English is not perfect — let’s be honest here. However, having only lame words/expressions in my toolbelt will force me to explain concepts I learned in lame words/expressions. This is known to be good in fact. Also, if I am ever afraid that my expressions would be wrong, I can always trust this Grammarly extension on Chrome, which is why I am switching from Notion to Medium.
• The curriculums are so damn long. So what do I do about it? I must come up with my little toy project and try to think of a way to make it either from nothing, or some parts of the curriculum. Then, only then, will I absorb little details that this curriculum has to offer. Okay, what do I do with the basics that are needed to start the project? I must come up with an exact portion of the time I will invest in. Let’s say that the curriculum is 28 hours long. The most essential foundations of this curriculum should be around 20 percent of these 28 hours. 28*0.2 is 5.6. Thus, I will put around 6 hours into learning the very basics of this skill. Then, I will choose whichever is needed to solve specific problems for my project.
• Deadlines must be implemented on goals. Each project must have deadlines and each skill must have deadlines also.
• Pomodoros should be set for each skill. How many pomodoros do I assign to each daily goal? This way, I can also implement Interleaving by preventing going all in for just one skill/goal.