@@ 1,27 1,49 @@
Alisa's learning plan
=====================
-Last updated 2020-10-05. (See also my [Paths Forward doc](pf.md).)
+Last updated 2020-11-12. (See also my [Paths Forward doc](pf.md).)
-Posting daily since 2019-10-12. (~[359](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+days+between+2019-10-12+and+2020-10-05) days without a gap!)
+Posting daily since 2019-10-12. (~[396](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+days+between+2019-10-12+and+2020-11-11) days without a gap!)
Note: By "FI post" I mean a message sent to a private or [public](http://fallibleideas.com/discussion) Fallible Ideas discussion list or a comment posted to [curi.us](http://curi.us).
# Goals
-## Spend enough time on FI
+## Figure out my high-level goals
+
+I want to figure out my high-level/big picture goals in life. I wrote a few FI comments about this:
+
+- http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18268 high-level goals and bottlenecks, examples of high-level goals
+- http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18276 and http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18277 – depravity and "the man without a purpose"
+- http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18305 – trying to reverse-engineer my high-level goals from my low-level goals
+- http://curi.us/2028-writing-tips#18454 impasses, improvement goals vs maintenance goals
+- http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18381 – thinking about trying to do something great with my life
+
+This is an important, interesting problem. I added a column to my spreadsheet for "goals minutes". Until I figure out what my high-level goals are, I intend spend at least 5 minutes of FI posting time per day thinking about or freewriting about this topic.
-I want to spend more time posting to FI.
+## Practice conversational writing
+
+I have a habit of writing in an overly stiff or formal way. I don't write like I talk. I want to try writing more conversationally, but I still want the benefits I get from editing my text. In http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18413 , I suggested:
+
+> Maybe I should try for conversational first drafts and then edit from there.
+
+curi agreed that this sounded like a good idea.
+
+I updated my TTS policy (below) to encourage me to write conversationally. Basically, I don't have to TTS any sentence that I write conversationally, from beginning to end. If I go back to a sentence I already finished and make some edits, then I would still need to TTS the result. I think this makes sense, because my natural process of generating text doesn't create the annoying kinds of errors that I needed TTS to fix.
+
+Another benefit of getting better at writing conversationally is that it may help me get better at thinking out loud. One way it could help me do this is by shortening the amount of time it takes me to write posts. I wrote about this in http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#18275 .
+
+## Spend enough time on FI
From 2020-07-07 through 2020-10-02, I averaged slightly over 30 (estimated) minutes per day writing FI posts (computed with the AVERAGE function in the Google Sheet where I track my time). Since 2020-09-11, I've been using a clock to track my time most days. My average amount of time per day spent writing FI posts as measured by the clock is 22 minutes. I intend to spend at least 30 minutes per day writing FI posts as measured by the clock.
-Note: The total amount of time I spend on FI is more than what's counted above, because I keep up with FI list, the curi.us comments, and the FI newsletter.
+Starting on 2020-10-03, I set myself the goal of spending at least 30 minutes per day posting to FI, as measured by a clock. I succeeded at that, and, even better, since I started doing that, I've actually averaged over an hour per day. It seems like trying for 30 minutes is enough to get me into the flow where I keep going for over an hour. This happens often enough, and the effect is great enough, to average out to over an hour per day. I plan to keep this up. I'm not currently planning to increase the amount of time I spend posting to FI.
+
+Note: The total amount of time I spend on FI is more than what's counted above, because I keep up with FI list, the curi.us comments, and the FI newsletter, and I don't normally count that time.
## Practice free-writing
-Plan for now: Every day, my goal is to free-write for 1 minute.
-
-Plan for later: Every day, with 50% probability, I will start off by free-writing for 5 minutes. At the end of my time, whether I started with free-writing or not, I will evaluate and record how the time went. I will periodically review these records to see if I can come up with any theories about whether free-writing helps my FI sessions.
+My goal is to free-write every day for at least 5 minutes. I've had this goal since 2020-10-05, and as of 2020-11-11, I've made approximately zero progress towards it. To help me remember to do it, I added a column for "freewriting minutes" to my the spreadsheet where I track my daily FI posting time. When I update my learning plan in the future, I will include the minimum amount of time I spent freewriting for any day during the period as well as the average amount of time spent freewriting over the period.
## Post to FI every day
@@ 76,7 98,11 @@ I intend to sanity-check every math calc
## Typos and grammar errors
-I plan to listen to each sentence with text-to-speech (TTS) before sending. Any edits to a clause trigger a new listen to that clause. I started using TTS for all of my FI posts [in 2019-08](http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#c13201).
+### TTS policy
+
+I plan to listen to each sentence with text-to-speech (TTS) before sending, unless I wrote the entire sentence conversationally (i.e., sort of listening to the voice in my head and writing what it says, as if I were speaking by typing, or as if I were typing quickly to a friend over chat.). Any edits to a clause trigger a new listen to that clause. I started following this TTS policy for all of my FI posts [in 2019-08](http://curi.us/2204-alisa-discussion#c13201).
+
+### Unique words policy
I plan to check every post for words that occur exactly once in my post *and* that occur neither in the system dictionary nor in my personal dictionary.
@@ 172,3 198,6 @@ The threads above are older. Here some m
- [Unwelcome Tenant short story](https://groups.google.com/g/fallible-ideas/c/lZKXPRg7h6s/m/s8q04cfqBQAJ): I posted this on 2019-12-31. I meant to reply with some of my comments on it.
- [Discussion w/curi about the space of ideas being initially sparse](http://curi.us/comments/show/16384): On 2020-04-18, curi replied to me.
- [YESNO check your understanding question: "What's wrong with arguments having an amount of strength?"](https://groups.google.com/g/fallible-ideas/c/iSJI00UfYno/m/M8kBEHBqAQAJ): On 2020-06-20, curi replied to me with some criticisms of my answer to this question.
+- [Max's comments on my screencast](http://curi.us/comments/show/18456)
+- [Anon's comment about my use of the phrase "low-level goal"](http://curi.us/comments/show/18499)
+- [curi's idea for solving the elevator puzzle](http://curi.us/comments/show/18504)