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PECOS-9 comments on Open thread, July 23-29, 2013 - Less Wrong
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On August 4th, I will be turning 15, and I've decided to initiate a very large project, which for lack of a better name, I will dub "The Plan".
I intend to spend the days leading up to my 15th Birthday by taking information from an enormous variety of sources on what life improvements can be made, what skills are most useful, and what areas should be studied, to reach the ultimate goal of gaining as much benefit possible, as quick as possible.
There's tons of things to consider, even assuming I have a tireless work ethic and can implement this immediately. What types of utility increases are there? Which are more important? Should all time be devoted to the quickest increases in utility, or should energy be set aside for starting some long term goals early? Does it make more sense to improve yourself, so you can make more money? Or to make some money, and use it to improve yourself?
Obviously I'm not going to find a perfect answer, and attempting to plan out my whole life is doomed to fail, but I'd at least like to have a better idea of where to go from here. (Besides, I'll still have learned a lots of useful information.)
So, I pose this question to the LessWrong Community:
If you were me, and turning 15, what would you recommend that I do over the next year, to give me the biggest utility bonus the fastest, both in skill and wealth?
Hopefully, even if it proves an impossible question, we'll see some interesting discussion.
Once a month, set specific goals for that month. Make sure that it's very easy to verify that you achieved the goal ("improve at programming" is not a good goal, "solve every practice problem in the first chapter of SICP" is a good goal. "solve every practice problem in the first chapter of SICP, or spend at least 2 hours thinking about each problem before giving up and looking up a solution" is even better).
After you've decided on your goals for a given month, don't second-guess whether they're actually the best thing you could be doing or whether you're wasting your time -- it's only one month. If it turns out it wasn't the best goal to try, just take note of it and use that knowledge to pick better goals next month. It's more important that you actually follow through than that you follow the optimal path, and if you keep switching goals every week, you're not gonna follow through.
Also, start using either anki or mnemosyne.
Ah, so the confidence spiral approach? I've been getting that recommendation a lot lately, which is a good sign that it's effective. Anki is another good point too, I've started using it for memorizing the LessWrong Sequences, and intend to use as a resource for school when that starts, or anything in general that I'd like to memorize.
I appreciate your input, I'll see about trying SICP as well.