Straight A

last update: 2024-11-19

I was casually going through my bookshelf and this caught my eye. I’m generally skeptical of these self-help books because, It is my strong opinion that self-help books are fundamentally flawed. As, any change in habits require extended stretches of time. but, book as a medium is optimal for batch dumping of ideas. And, I found this focus on straight A student a little tiresome. I mean, being straight A is good, neither is it the gold standard for a student nor is it the only standard.

Also, this book is heavily biased towards too well-rounded, smart students and ignores everyone else because right in the introduction Cal says

If the questionnaire revealed the student to be a grind— someone who earns high grades simply by studying an excessive amount—I discarded the responses.

I agree there is some sort of optimality that can be extended by structuring and routinizing work. But, Waving it as a magic solution, while also shitting on other authors and students is just not nice.

That being said, I liked the idea behind pseudo work. As a heavy pseudo-worker, who sits in front of my laptop for extended hours, contemplating life and other such trivia, instead of getting the work at hand done, the words felt very true and as I often do, I painfully rediscovered my abysmal work-efficiency.

The guy who brings three meals, a blanket, and six-pack of Red Bull to the study lounge in preparation for an all-day paper-writing marathon is also pseudo-working. By placing themselves in distracting environments and insisting on working in long tedious stretches, these students are crippling their brain’s ability to think clearly and efficiently accomplish the task at hand.

unless someone is in absolute flow, because the task at hand exactly matches the person’s cognitive capacity. it is impossible to work more than am hour and a half. I concur that you need breaks between work. But, when I take a break, I forget to come back to the problem again or there is extended friction that gets developed and I don’t like coming back to the problem again. This, I call the swimmer’s-first-dip problem. It’s like, the first time you take a dip at the pool, it’s just frustrating because the water is so cold, and you are in a different temperature. Even though you know, you’ll like swimming and get used to it in a second it is very hard to jump right in.

Cal’s solution for task management is obvious in retrospect. But making it a habit is tough, directly. Because, his setup is general-todo -> day-todo -> calendar -> general-todo This process is a bit tedious even in a phone, which I have all the time and typing is easier than writing. Adding, labelling on top of this doesn’t simplify as well.

The battle cry against procrastination is an interesting attitude to take. I generally try to like the work, so that I don’t procrastinate. But, aggressively waging a war against sedentary seclusion is a good strategy.

The insistence on novelty and having 5 - 6 good places to study is good. Because, even though studying should become a habit, by practice. it is important to have new places where the environment is fresh and provokes new thought and change of pace is important.