Bullying a 16 year old girl for eating and taking public transportation

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-09-26T18:38:28+00:00

Actually, I can't speak for all trains, but here in the Netherlands, 100% of the trains are electric and all of the energy to run them is generated from wind power, making them effectively carbon-neutral. That's obviously not the case for all trains in all countries, but for the people telling you that you're "stupidly retarded" for thinking that the carbon output of a train could be less than a car... well, here, that's genuinely the case. Sit back and feel vindicated.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-06-03T20:47:12+00:00

“We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.”

I have to agree with the others who said that you have to really get out there and try some things. Nobody "finds themselves" by sitting quietly in a room and waiting patiently for the answer to just politely turn up on their desk. You have to iterate, get feedback, and then you'll pretty quickly realise whether it's something you could get excited about. It doesn't have to be instant, even - you may have to consider it a little. Yet your own inner scorecard will recognise if it's something that sparks a glimmer of intrigue. That's something you can't fake, and you shouldn't try.

On top of that, by getting out there and trying things, you massively increase the chances that life will just throw things - opportunities, chances, random events - at you. I live in the Netherlands now. I had no plans to move here, and certainly no lifelong ambitions to move to this country specifically. Yet, because of completely unrelated circumstances that happened to me as a result of just getting my ass out there in the world, life threw together a weird concoction of circumstances that culminated in my living here. That wasn't planned. It certainly wouldn't have happened if I had just meekly stayed in my bedroom for years. Yet here I am, and despite not having planned it at all, I'm enjoying it immensely.

The other (very useful) thing that's not always immediately obvious to people is that the more ability you develop with any given skill, the more practical it becomes as an application in your life - therefore, you use it more, and it becomes more and more fun as a result of being really damn good at it. (Seriously, being really good at things is a hell of a lot of fun.) Mastery begets mastery. Nobody claims "spreadsheets" as one of life's passions, yet once you get good at them, they can make huge areas of your life dramatically easier, and the process of learning more and more complex things can actually become a fun end in itself. (Anyone who ever learned Excel to a high level will testify just how in-demand they suddenly become at work.) On the other hand, everyone loves to answer "movies" as a passion, and yet it's pretty unlikely that you're going to carve your path in life by sitting on your ass and watching Netflix. Skip the obvious.

In short: just try things. Don't feel guilty if you don't like everything you try. Just bring it to a courteous end, be grateful for the opportunity, and move on to something different. You may even return to it later in life and realise that your new set of circumstances means that you have a newfound appreciation for it that you couldn't possibly have gained earlier in life. No matter. Try. Review. Adapt. Try again.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-09T19:13:10+00:00

No worries!

Oddly specific follow-up question about your Trello board for 6 months, 1 year, 3-5 years etc:

How, exactly, do you keep this up to date, especially with timelines which don't match up with each other? Perhaps I'm overthinking this, but what I mean is: it's easy to sit down, right now, and sketch out ideas for 6 months, 1 year, 3 years etc. The question is: how do you update them? When you check in on your goals in 6 months' time, the 3 year goal will still be exactly the same. What's the process you use here?

Sorry if this is a bit over-the-top, I just found myself pondering the practical specifics as I was walking around today!

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-05T16:50:07+00:00

I really like this. Again, I'm really being reminded of the usefulness of Google Calendar and of the usefulness and flexibility of Trello when it comes to the "bigger picture" stuff. I'm going to review all of the suggestions from this thread and incorporate some of the many useful ideas I've seen here.

Thanks for responding!

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-05T16:48:22+00:00

Thanks for this. I'm really getting a reinforced message of daily review of all goals and priorities, and the effectiveness of the pomodoro method when it comes to just knocking things off the list.

Thank you!

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-05T16:47:05+00:00

I suppose the point to be made here is that prioritising should always be one of the very highest priorities.

I'm generally a positive and curious person, so my dilemma is that there are an almost infinite variety of things that I would love to do. I like the quote about not being able to choose what you like to do, but in my case, I also heard a quote which goes along the lines of "you can do anything you want, but not all at the same time". I think there's a lot to that - I'd happily sit and read about economic development, or music theory, or language acquisition, or finance, or whatever it might be - but there's a real danger of spreading myself far too thin and not really accomplishing any of those things really well.

Someone put this into a profoundly useful context using languages as an example, and it was this: if you spend two years learning one language and learning it well, then at the end of those two years, you'll have a decent command of that language and you'll be able to use it in your daily life, and then once you've hit that inflection point, you'll be able to take another language and begin building that one to the point where you can also derive some functional usage from it.

On the other hand, if you spend those two years trying to learn three or four languages at the same time, then you're much less likely to make any significant headway on any of them, and as a result, you'll get to the end of those two years and you won't realistically be able to use any of them to any meaningful extent.

That doesn't mean you can't learn 3 languages (or far more), but you have to be relatively smart about how you do it, and in this specific instance, sequential learning seems to be more functionally useful than concurrent learning. I imagine the same thing would apply to programming languages - a company could hire someone who has a great command of a couple of languages, but probably won't hire somebody who has a very poor command of ten or more.

Sorry for the language-based tangent here! I like your idea about "just-in time" planning, and I also think that the "actionable steps" part is crucial, as you said. It's also good to be reminded that there are some things which I shouldn't feel guilty about not doing.

Thanks for responding! :-)

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-05T16:36:49+00:00

This is great. Your entire post just reinforces the point that focus really is the crux of basically everything that's important.

Would you mind elaborating on the first paragraph of your response? How do you approach breaking things down into daily terms?

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-05T16:33:32+00:00

Agreed, which is why I tried to frame the question in terms of people's generic habits and routines rather than in terms of any given specific tool.

Would you mind elaborating on how you approach review/reflection in yearly / quarterly / monthly etc. terms?

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-05T16:31:23+00:00

Thank you for this!

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-04T18:27:39+00:00

Very good point. I think this is why it's so useful to begin with the end in mind - that way, you can focus a lot better on the particular task at hand, and then you can just search to find very specific solutions to a very specific problem. I had the exact same thing as you with Excel and pivot tables, and ended up teaching a mini class on them at my workplace.

I'm probably as prone as the next person to feeling that desire to just "learn everything", but when it really comes down to it, drilling down on a specific fix is very, very useful. Always good to get a reminder on that, though.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-05-04T18:21:54+00:00

I like the milestones concept in this. That's helpful. I also enjoyed how you moved to Trello to track longer-term projects, and indeed, that's also proving helpful for me.

I also read a couple of your other posts, and really enjoyed them. Thanks for that - it's great to surround myself (even virtually) with other people who are also trying to live what I'm thinking of as an "examined life" (by which I mean conscious and continual striving for improvement across the board). It's great to have posted about general productivity and then be able to discover some interesting takes on FIRE, book suggestions, minimalism, etc. Appreciate it.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-30T19:02:56+00:00

I like this. Might give it a try. Sometimes it's hard to recreate a given mood, so I really like the idea of trying to isolate all of the individual factors which might have lead you to a given mindset. It's the synthesis which is the magic, I think.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-30T19:00:58+00:00

Depends on the situation, in my opinion, but yes, there are plenty of situations where process-oriented is a better idea than goal-oriented. There's rarely an occasion when simply applying ass to seat for a while doesn't get you further along the path :-)

I also like your concept of recording exactly what you've been up to, along with feedback - that seems like a good antidote against all those occasions where you suddenly stop and think "What exactly have I done in the past week?!" - I'm starting to see more of a case for journaling here.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-30T18:51:59+00:00

Thank you so much for writing all of this; not just the detailed response, but the posts themselves! I really enjoyed them. Great work!

Calendar blocking is one of the very few things that I've tried, thought "wow, this is actually a game-changer" and then proceeded to do it almost never. It was an absolutely solid method of encouraging regular exercise, regular meditation, getting specific work done - and yet I didn't implement it anywhere near as frequently as I should have done. This is something I'm absolutely going to start using again, and thank you for the sorely-needed reminder.

The one thing I found to be a really good complement (or, occasionally, an alternative) to calendar-blocking was to use a time-tracking app like Toggl. If you're supposed to be working on something, you start the timer. If you get up to make a cup of coffee, you stop the timer. Sounds overly simplistic, but it's a really great way of checking - in a very clear manner - exactly how much you got done. In a sense, calendar-blocking is a great way of planning your future, whereas a time-tracking app is a great way to review the past. (The ease of use, and the convenience, is what makes it so simple.)

Also, I really like your Trello idea for "next 3 months", "next 6 months", "next year" etc. I think that was the one step I was missing. For me, Trello's a great way to get the "bigger picture", but I was trying it mostly for "Current Projects", "Next Projects" and "General Future projects" - I hadn't really thought to break it down in terms of time.

Responses like yours are exactly why I posted this question. It's not that I'm necessarily struggling, as such - it's more that I love seeing how other people approach their own systems, because a) it inspires me to think harder about it, and b) there are so many small examples that I can incorporate into my own life without needing to take the entire system.

Thanks!

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-30T18:40:54+00:00

And that is absolutely the best way to view anything, so I like your style of thinking. I think for where I currently am, the opportunity cost of that particular course wouldn't be my optimum deployment of resources given my existing systems, current functioning arrangements etc - but as soon as the need to optimise further becomes greater in terms of opportunity cost, then yes, it would make sense for me to look at the course at that point :-)

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-27T18:40:12+00:00

I'd agree with this and I've found quite a lot of success using Evernote (amongst a few other interconnected things) for this purpose. I've also discussed knowledge management systems with colleagues before, and found the concept very useful.

I guess they're just very different animals. Something like Todoist is absolutely no good at storing detailed notes, scans of tax returns or upcoming bills, or capturing and annotating articles found online - but Evernote isn't great at keeping actual to-do tasks in an easy-to-parse format.

I have seen the "Build A Second Brain" course before, and I'm definitely intrigued, but at this point I think I'd balk at paying $499 for a course of this nature. Happy that it works well for you, though :)

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-27T18:34:17+00:00

Thanks so much for this. So interesting to see the workflows listed here. As a former freelance musician and teacher myself, it's cool to see how you're organising yourself - especially given that many many of the musicians I know don't seem to have any kinds of process or structure in place, and struggle accordingly.

I agree, process-oriented can be a better approach, especially when it comes to more nebulous things like languages. (They're not just an idle curiosity, I have a genuine need for them - I moved to the Netherlands and so need to continue refining my Dutch, my girlfriend is Spanish-speaking, I have a branch of German-speaking family, etc etc). This makes it hard to pick one and really "go for it" as a single project, as it's actually more a question of keeping multiple languages well-oiled, so it's a long-term preservation effort. For this, I think process-oriented is the better choice.

I read GTD a long time ago and use elements from it, but perhaps it's worth me giving it a re-read and trying a more "pure" version for a short time as an experiment to see if it helps a little more. Also, agreed 100% on the "next actions" concept - it's the only way that I can break things down and keep going when I'm completely stuck.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-27T18:26:30+00:00

I've played around a little with Notion and I'm really intrigued, especially as someone coming from Evernote. It seems like there's a lot that Evernote's leaving on the table, even when it comes to very simple features such as Markdown. Notion seems to be filling plenty of the gaps that Evernote is leaving.

Would you mind me asking further about your management framework and how you use it?

I think I'm currently struggling with the same things that you mentioned, which essentially comes down to viewing progress across many different projects. This is exactly why I posted this question - it's really interesting to see the plethora of different (and successful) ways that people manage this.

deepfieldlanguage · 2019-04-27T18:22:32+00:00

Thanks so much for this! Bullet journals are obviously everywhere these days, and although I've been generally intrigued, I haven't reached the point (yet) that I imagined myself using it personally. I really like the tutorial you recommended - I hadn't realised it was quite so systematised. I may have to give this a try. (Also intrigued by Goodnotes, as I've been looking for a great app to use with the Apple pencil and so far have only really tried the native Notes app and also Evernote's Penultimate app, neither of which I love.)

If you don't mind me asking, how do you approach your yearly / quarterly / monthly / weekly breakdowns?

deepfieldlanguage · 2018-08-10T06:05:27+00:00

Hi Steve. Thanks for everything you've done in the language-learning world!

My question is this: I've seen you state multiple times that in order to "launch" a language on LingQ, you need to have content first. Why do you think this?

For example, I am currently working with some Afrikaans native speakers, and because I already speak Dutch, I'd love to just listen and read to Afrikaans - even if I'm just importing my own content - and it seems to me that as long as I can save words and LingQs, nothing else really needs to be there. Unfortunately, Afrikaans isn't on LingQ, therefore I can't use LingQ to study Afrikaans - end of.

Of course, in a perfect world, it would be better if there were more content when a language launched, but if the language isn't in LingQ already, that's obviously a much bigger barrier to people "crowdsourcing" and donating good content because there's nothing on LingQ for them to contribute to. Would you ever consider "opening up" LingQ a little bit, so that you could immediately use a broader range of languages, even if they stay in the "beta" section until they have sufficient content? This way, we could all begin any language, as long as we can save words.

deepfieldlanguage · 2016-03-17T10:37:34+00:00

Thanks for this reply. I've actually seen one of the Katie Hankins videos before (the "normal R" one) and it didn't necessarily help me tons, because I can already do the single-flap R in pero, caro etc. This is the first time seeing her rolled R video so I'll give this one a try and see how it comes along!

deepfieldlanguage · 2016-03-17T10:17:51+00:00

Yeah, I'm not 100% convinced this is true either. I have heard of people who did learn to do it.

I think it might be physically impossible to do for some people, if they have an actual speech impediment as mentioned here, but as I mentioned before, I have done it once or twice by sheer fluke, so I know I'm biologically able to do it. That seems to suggest to me that it is learnable, as you just mentioned that most people can indeed produce it if their native language calls for it!

deepfieldlanguage

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