Search Results for: abdaal

Spaced Repetition

Posted on 2022-06-12 by jcs

One of the things that I wish I’d known during my school years is the technique of spaced repetition. The TL;DR is that it’s a method for learning and remembering material that’s much more efficient and reliable than other common … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Leave a comment

The Apple Ecosystem

Posted on 2021-05-31 by jcs

Anyone who’s been around Irreal for any length of time knows that I’m an Apple user. I like the build quality of their hardware and macOS/iOS are generally good enough. But the thing that really makes it all work for … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Mechanical Keyboards

Posted on 2021-05-23 by jcs

I’m a huge fan of mechanical keyboards. Back in the old days that meant the IBM Model M and its latter day incarnation from Unicomp. I’ve had both—although I foolishly left my Model M behind at my last job—and there’s … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Note Making

Posted on 2021-01-17 by jcs

Anne-Laure Le Cunff over at Ness Labs has an interesting article on the difference between note taking and note making. One way of thinking of the difference is to consider note making as active note taking. Rather than simply record … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Taking Notes By Hand

Posted on 2020-09-22 by jcs

Longtime readers know that Irreal is, um, skeptical of most studies put out by the psychology community. They are, largely, not reproducible and often just silly. One finding that is popular among psychologists that that note-taking is more effective when … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

How To Increase Your Typing Speed

Posted on 2020-08-20 by jcs

If you’re a developer, Steve Yegge has some advice: learn to type. Yegge’s posts are always amusing and instructive so if you haven’t already seen his rant on developers who don’t touch type, be sure to take a look. But, … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Organizing Workflow with Notion (and Org-mode)

Posted on 2020-07-09 by jcs

Ali Abdaal, whom I’ve written about several times before, is a physician in the UK. Starting back when he was still in medical school, he’s been posting YouTube videos on how he studies and organizes his life. If you’re into … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Using Notion as a Zettelkasten

Posted on 2020-04-01 by jcs

The other day I was checking Ali Abdaal’s You Tube feed for new videos and I happened to see an older video that I’d watched earlier. It was about how Abdaal uses Notion as a resonance calendar. When I first … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Coffee

Posted on 2020-03-23 by jcs

I’m old enough that I been through several cycles of, “Coffee is good for you; no coffee is bad for you.” I stopped paying attention a long time ago because, you know, coffee. Now, brought to you from Irreal’s Department … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | Leave a comment

Org and Anki

Posted on 2020-03-11 by jcs

If you took my advice and checked out Ali Abdaal’s videos on evidence-based study techniques, you know that one of the two guiding principles of effective learning is spaced repetition. An easy way to do that is to start with … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment