/tech/ - technology

I don't get much done without pomodoro. I've had some success with the Feynman technique. I don't care about speed reading because anything that's not worth reading slowly with careful consideration is only worth skimming.

I also use the Pomodoro timer. At first I only did 25 minute sessions, but now I do various lengths, depending on what I'm studying. Sometimes 25 minutes is just too short. For managing my time in general I use emacs' org-mode to plan and track the tasks I need to do. I even track the time spent on each task using it.

What really helped me, though, was active recall. I used to just reread everything for a thousand times, which was pretty ineffective and mostly a waste of time. With active recall I stop after every topic/section/chunk, close the materials and write down/recall everything I remember. Then I check what I got wrong and what I missed. This is hard and exhausting to do, especially compared to passively rereading stuff you already know, but it's super effective!

Flashcards with Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/) are also cool. It's perfect for learning vocabulary, but for most topics making good cards is hard. I only use it if the materials are easy to chunk into cards.

Hax? I don't know. Here's my favorite: drink plenty of water, eat well, take some snacks to your study session (something not very sugary but nutritious instead, like nuts!), and take rests between study sessions. Take a notebook, that should go without saying.
Also perhaps have a ritual before you study, like brew some tea. Have a nice place where you can study, and if some kind of ambient music is your thing, go for it. Often people concentrate better with some soothing sound.
I can't for the life of me work or study at public places, especially a place like a cafe because as soon as I finish my coffee I feel like the waiters are looking at me as if I just got in to use the internet and asked for an espresso as an excuse. Sucks.
If you have recorded lectures, listen to them while doing origami or something similar that uses your hands. This is the top hack I once discovered, yet I haven't put it to practice. I will start doing it.

Aniracetam 750mg 3 times a day with food. Choline 1200gm 3 times a day with food. Sugar Free Redbull/B Stack with caffine 8.4oz 3 times a day. N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine once every 3 days. Transcrainial Direct Current Stimulation Friday or Saturday night depending on my goals.

Dex, about as much as Case eats.

>>544
This must not be healthy. I don't even recognize half the drugs you put up. What kind of goals require that much I wonder…

Also, does Red bull stimulate you? I don't really feel a difference. Especially the sugar free, I feel like its a bit of a gimmick and the substitutes they use might actually be worse.

I study a lot and I have never learned any technique that would help me and I would employ it regularly. It's way too often pure chaos, a lot of cramming. I am usually curious about the things that I don't have to study at the moment, have troubles with motivation and get down for all nights because I can't procrastinate anymore; I usually use coffee, and sometimes pseudoephedrine in normal doses (not exceeding those appropriate for decreasing mucus excretion). The latter is helpful a lot if I manage to not get manic about things and stay on track, it increases retention.
I use mnemonics a lot for stupid stuff that is not logical; good ones will stick forever, I also make a lot of crappy ones for enumerative details that stay just long enough for an exam. They make me somewhat more familiar and make it easier for me to really remember something once I encounter the subject again.
Reading calmly something that you're interested in in situation when you have an excess of time to learn it, going through it with understanding instead of stressful dwelling on details, makes it so that you don't have to remember mechanically almost anything when you re-read it. To my surprise, other people around me tend to dislike long, verbose texts and prefer more concise forms, do a lot of underlining or notes. That doesn't do much to me. I get books from the library that have most of the text underlined by someone and it's just baffling.
Sometimes further reading is helpful a lot and I just need to associate the theory with something more practical for the theoretical details to stick or get me more curious. It's probably not time efficient, but I really dislike mechanical learning. If I can't be curious about something, then I just do sleepless nights of studying and filling ashtrays interrupted only by walking in circles and saying oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck I won't manage to do all this stuff on time.
So I really have no technique, I either want to learn something so I don't need any protips and just read up, or I don't want to and end up having no other choice than to sit down and learn.

>>571
>might
Anything might or might be, we don't know what we don't know. I don't know the ingredients list of EnergyDrink Sugarfree, but if it comes to sweeteners that I'm familiar with, like aspartame or acesfulame K, nothing suggests that there would be anything wrong with them. HGF, on the other hand, is pure soykaf, so I guess it's better to go with sugar free.

Without a daily schedule I cannot bring myself to study. My schedule changes based on the semester but not by much. On days I don't have class it's:
Wake up
Eat a small breakfast. Usually 4 eggs and a piece of toast
100mg caffeine + 100mg L-Theanine
Study for 1-3 hours
Eat something. Usually a banana or a protein shake
Go to gym
Rest of the day I'm free to do whatever.

On days I have class it's a bit different:
Wake up
Small breakfast
100mg caffeine + 100mg L-Theanine
2 classes
Eat largish meal.
10mg adderall + 100mg L-Theanine
1 class
100mg caffeine + 100mg L-Theanine
2 classes
Dinner, shower, anime, bed, etc.
I have class from 10 to 8:45 twice a week so I require extra stimulants to be able to pay attention past the first 2 classes. Also the adderall helps curb my appetite and last until dinner. The L-Theanine is to help the stimulant induced anxiety which helps me pay attention in class instead of thinking about the girl in my next class, why are my forearms so small, why do the Jews want to annihilate my people, etc.

>>484
Never been a man with a plan. My end-goal for studying is "no stone unturned" and I do everything in my power to reach it. So far it's been ok, not much time lost but this absolutist stance left me with little spare time.

>>585
I like you already. How are gains made on stims tho?

>>574
I fully agree with you, I don't have much of a technique myself. I struggle with finding something that works. I had many downs where I beat myself up for my education but I'm slowly getting there now despite having no real plan. I used to take modafinil but its really hard to get so I stick to Coffee as my stimulant of choice. I wish I read more from the beginning then retaining attention would have been so much easier. I cant get through a piece of text without distractions.

As for the Red bull I guess, the normal is pretty Soykaf but I prefer energy drinks over coffee anyway.

>>589
> I don't have much of a technique myself.
So what do you do when you sit down to study?

>>590
I get distracted almost immediately. Sometimes I just force myself to do work. There is no actual plan I have I just either do nothing or do very little by forcing myself.

>>587
>How are gains made on stims tho?
Pretty well so far. Assuming I get proper rest and keep up with a decent diet my lifts steadily progress in a linear fashion every 1-2 weeks. They only really suffer during heavy test periods like finals where I'm getting 4.5-6 hours of sleep a night. During times like that I only go to the gym to relieve stress and don't worry too much about upping the weight. Trying to make a new PR when you're tired as fuck is only asking for an injury.
Overall I'd say I only go to the gym to stay physically healthy and to relieve some mental stress but I still make good progress slowly and steadily. I also find that sticking to some some sort of exercise regiment helps me focus when I study.

How does one induce hypomania (like people with Bipolar II sometimes get)?

This is probably the fitting thread for my question.

Anyone have experience with this course or the book in pic related (the course is based on the book)
https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

If so what are your thoughts on it?

>>628
I did the course. It was one of the early sessions, maybe even the first, so it might have changed since. It's mostly videos which I strongly dislike. I think it could have been much better as text, but a 300+ pages book seems to be way too long (I've not read it, though). There were some quizzes but they were really easy. The content itself is decent, but it didn't really change the way I studied back then.

It's short so if you don't mind watching videos you could give it a try, maybe you will find it more useful than I did. You don't have to wait until it actually starts, if you enroll now it lets you watch the videos and do the quizzes.

>>601
binge on 3-meo-pcp for a few days that'll do it

>>631
this, make sure to take plenty of b12 or you can develop a terrible deficiency.