Memory Repository 🧠

Reading time: 1 min I was watching a recording of a lecture which I chose to not attend. The video progress bar happened to be broken. The bar doesn't move towards completion even though I was playing and digesting a good chunk of the lecture recording. Earlier on in the video, I got a wave of discouragement thinking that I spent so much time for so little progress, not noticing this issue. Just past halfway through the video, I finally noticed that the progress bar was broken, indicating th...

Reading time: 1-2 min To some extent, we can control the rate in which lucky events occur to us. Getting a particular job, position, award, relationship and other opportunities can be considered 'luck' based. However, we are able to maximise the chance for a good outcome by going for as many opportunities as possible, so that we maximise our surface area for catching what we consider 'lucky' events. By taking more opportunities, participating in events, getting to know people, taking a risk an...

Reading time: 1-2 min I encountered the problem today of not wanting to work on something assigned to me with a deadline imposed. Yet, I wanted to instead write on my blog. I think this is a good illustration of 'intrinsic' vs 'extrinsic' motivation. I write the blog with 'intrinsic motivation', doing it for the satisfaction of doing it rather than an external reward. I do this to share knowledge I think should be shared, and to build my own written knowledge database. In comparison, tasks a...

Reading time: 1 min We might fall into the pit of trying to figure out a perfect system for our productivity and workflows and the perfect app for each aspect of our life e.g. note taking apps, to-do list apps, calendars, time schedulers... And we end up putting time into experimenting, planning and designing a perfect system. But that misses the point. The most important thing is the consistent practice of using it and its accessibility to you at any point at your day. e.g. to simply write...

Reading time: 1 min Single-task, don’t multitask. Multitasking actually decreases productivity while giving the perception of increased productivity. Multitasking by itself is not literal 'multitasking', but rather rapid switching of our attention between active tasks. To do so, we have to 'switch context'. context switching generates wasted time e.g. via finding the right tools and materials, app opening time, attention switching, deciding what to do next etc. Your brain also pays the toll:...

Reading time: 1 min Choosing between products, such as choosing clothing and what to wear is exhausting because of 'ego depletion', or 'decision fatigue'. You are making an active choice and that choice temporarily decreases your ability and willingness to exert your active choice again too soon. Your ability to make choices is decreased. This is why shopping can be exhausting even if you did nothing particularly physically demanding. Interesting side notes: supermarkets find that having to...

Reading time: 2 min Getting started with doing something is always the hardest. Getting off your bed to do some exercise. Switching from watching videos to work or study... These are things I definitely struggle with. The 'activation energy', the motivation required to start on them is tremendously high. A strategy I have of beating this is to tell myself to spend 25 minutes, or even 2 minutes on something. An amount of time that is completely insignificant and very easy to do. Or, to do a v...

Reading time: 1 min How do you empty your email inbox? I used to click through my email categories and choose the most important email based on my skimming of the topic. I found this to be detrimental to productivity. By wasting time on prioritising and choosing, less time is spent on actually on reading the email (or skimming and pressing next if it's not useful). Our ability to make decisions is limited and takes time to recuperate. By prioritising emails, I chip away at my decision making...

Reading time: 1-2 min In economics, there’s something known as opportunity cost. It’s what you could have done with the time and resources you spent to do something else. For example, you could either: purchase an item at a nearby shop for a hefty price or purchase the same item at half the price at a shop that takes an hour to travel to. Which would you choose? Purely based on the monetary cost of the item, it would make sense to go to the shop further away. After all, you save on half o...

Reading time: 1 min We should weigh the cost of a purchase with our time, not money. We tend to trade our time to acquire money. As we are unable to acquire more time, is arguably a more limited and valuable resource than money. Given that for many of us, time is the source of our money, we should weigh the cost and worthiness of a purchase with the hours we have to spend to acquire that amount of money to make the purchase. This practice can give you a better idea of how much you actually ha...

Reading time: 1-2 min By writing, you build your database of written memories. This is knowledge in written form you can retrieve and reuse in the future for future projects. In the process of preparing this blog, I dug into my database and surprised myself with the amount of thinking and creativity I demonstrated, the resource base I built up from prior reading and viewing, and the many useful thoughts and scattered pieces of writing that can be reused. Before I integrated my combined notes ...

Reading time: 1-2 min Forgetting things and allowing yourself to rediscover them in the future is essential to generating inspiration, processing ideas and distilling the essence of information you are taking in. There are case studies on people who have perfect memory, to the point of being able to recite books they read many years ago. This is not the solution to better thinking (as much as I want easily memorise the massive volume of information from studying pharmacy). The drawback of per...

Reading time: 1 min By writing things down, you empty your mind of unnecessary information and rely on your notes and writing for storage of knowledge and information. Then, your attention and decision making ability (which is finite and takes time to restore) can be more efficiently applied to actually generating valuable thoughts and ideas. Rather than mentally choosing what information to remember, mentally choosing what to do next, mentally choosing what you will have to do, write things d...

Reading time: 1 min Your digital notes database cannot think, but will never forget. Your brain can think and connect, but readily forgets. Combine the two and you have a system with thinking (processing and connecting power), along with memory and retrieval (via search and links). Apply the idea of 'emergent properties' and magic happens. With it, your ability to think and make connections between thoughts and ideas is enhanced. Laying everything down in front of you allows you to view wri...

Reading time: 1-2 min Just over a year ago, I started the habit of writing down my life happenings. From activities, major tasks that day, achievements, thoughts, emotions, relationship developments, noteworthy things I read... I'd throw them all into my note taking system, consisting primarily of Standard Notes in conjunction with Obsidian. Standard Notes acts as my daily journal and my daily thought and memory dumping ground. Obsidian is where I expand on some of my notes and thoughts afte...