Efficiencies

Hey all,

I don't have much time, so I'm hoping to keep this one short. I've been thinking a lot about how efficient my work balance is between school and personal projects. I've decided it's pretty poor: I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time overstudying and worrying about grades for classes I'm doing well in.

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You see, my mindset with school or work has always been "How little work can I get away with?" never "How can I attain perfection up to my boss or teacher's expectations?"

And there's an implicit assumption there that I think is pretty instructive. The assumption is that work or school will only be valuable up to a point. School or work is only worth it until you can get that paycheck/promotion, learn a concept, or get that grade. Past that, working any harder doesn't give you tangible or mental benefits worth the time you spend.

At some point, you're working on a topic you already understand or working harder for a boss who already will promote you.

At that point, personal projects become the best option. I assure you that taking that risk to start that YouTube channel, researching that topic, making that engineering project, or even just reading an extra 30 minutes will pay you higher dividends than struggling for extra points on those weekly assignments or gaining that small amount of extra favorability with your boss.

So, in the future, I'm hoping to stop worrying about classes so much because I feel like I'm probably getting most of the learning I need out of them. Plus, I know that meeting people and professors, working on projects, or pursuing my passions will make me a better engineer than spending extra time studying will.

And likely, that's the same for some of you too.

So remember, your time has a price, so don’t waste it on useless work. Get the grades, learning, or money you want, and spend the rest of the time doing other things that will help you grow.

Anyway, that's all for today. If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and have a great week!

-Ethan

Things I'm Enjoying:

📚 Books - I just started reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, and even this early on, I'm struck by just how good this book is. There are super valuable lessons here about the common pitfalls humans have been falling into for millennia, and it's incredibly intriguing to see how patterns of human existence repeat themselves over and over again. So, even if you're not a history nerd, I recommend you pick this up.

👨‍💻 Tech - This is kind of an expensive pick, but my university has a 3D printer, and it's amazing how many random products you can create that would cost $5-20 on Amazon. So, if you have the means, I'd pick one up ($300-500) for like a decent printer.

💻 Website - neetcode.io - Recently, I was thinking about how to learn computer science along with my engineering education, and I found this site called neetcode.io. It's pretty similar to Leetcode, but it helps you progress through the different practice problems on Leetcode and learn in the order you're "supposed to." I'm trying it out for the next couple of months, and I encourage you to join me.