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I think consistent focus might be a bit overrated, and bouncing between topics can be a nice way to learn for some people. For example, yesterday I looked at the type signature of runST in Haskell and it was completely obvious how it works and how to implement my own. I had stumbled on that weird type signature a few times before, filed it away as incomprehensible and moved on to other things. But I guess my mind was processing it in the background somehow.

That happens to me a lot with other topics as well. I get intrigued by something, play with it enough to memorize a few details without really understanding them, then forget about the whole thing for awhile, and then come back to find a deeper understanding without apparent effort. Does anyone else feel that way?

> Does anyone else feel that way?

Absolutely. I notice it most with math. I try to reconstruct my intuition by sheer force of will, then give up in frustration because my mind will not move. When I wake up, the intuition is just there, as if something was updated or placed. It's not always overnight. Sometimes it's days or weeks, and some things I'm still working on after many years.

Actually yes. This is exactly what happens to me. Even after months, I come back and have an easier time. I think this touched on in Barbara Oakley's stuff though she seemed to criticise the extreme lengths between my learning.

My other problem is I spent tonnes of time learning and then never do anything with it. A lot of the stuff I learn often becomes useful mental models - calculus and the idea of continuity and change did this. It felt like a new way to look at the world.

The problem is you can have infinitely many ways of looking at the world but it means nothing if you don't do anything with it!

When you learn something, you can try using your newfound skills to answer questions on subreddits, mathoverflow, etc. It feels great to satisfy other people's interest and get feedback on it.

I have done that before. I just have a long list of things I want to do, not necessarily learn, but don't end up doing them.

Yes, all the time. I read a book called refactor your wetware, and despite the patronizing title, it's about how our brain processes things in 'real time' but also in a sort of longer term, background data crunching sort of way and we should take advantage of this.

Have you ever you've ever had a problem you just couldn't solve, that was really hairy and beat you up all night that was suddenly trivial and obvious when you woke up the next morning? Same process, apparently. Basically your background subconscious or a lower level part of your brain goes and picks through all your knowledge that isn't readily available to your consciousness.

I feel like I'm similar. In the past couple of years, I've tackled most of the stuff on your list (I didn't touch compiler construction, sound synthesis and writing). My problem is that I pursue these as an alternative career to being a regular dev, and am pretty quickly being dissuaded by the vision that, in the end, my work life will not improve that much.

For example, artists and gamedevs go through tons of anxiety and (usually) ultimately fail and need to find an alternative career. Or, even if they succeed in some manner (i.e. an artist getting a AAA concept artist position), they may become so overworked that they reach burn out pretty fast. Another alternative career I have in mind: being a developer/researcher in an area that's a blend between programming and maths (signal processing, CAD, computer vision etc.) looks interesting on the surface (i.e. I love to study the concepts, implement them in matlab etc.) but I'm afraid that I would end up in some company as an overworked and unhappy faceless cog. That's partly because I feel there's only so much truly interesting work available in this field, and it will most likely go to extremely talented people who have PhDs from MIT in this field - leaving "normies" like me to just do the mundane implementation, bug fixing etc.

I feel like I'm chained by the proverbial golden handcuffs. I can make six figures working on boring and tedious code remotely from my home in a very cheap country (I'm easily in the top 1% of income here). Doing the researcher/developer route would probably require moving to some other country, and thus trading some possible increase in job satisfaction for loneliness and alienation.

Life is hard.

Do the boring work, save the money and retire early and work on whatever you want.

I've tried that a couple times (and my saving are growing, I'm at 30-50% of early retirement goal already). I just find it super-hard to hold on a boring job for longer than 6-12 months, and I convince myself that I should quit and do something else (my CV is pretty spotty because of that).

If I had a guy that comes and whacks me in the head every time I think about quitting a job, I'd probably already be retired.

How much time have you devoted to learning these? I felt like I was in the same boat until I was able to fully devote myself to learning things at my pace. The worst part about the structured environment is that you go through things only once.

Absolutely, I think that the failure to exploit spaced repetition is perhaps the most obvious and easily correctable flaw of most formal education.

I strongly suspect that even just mixing questions from previous parts of the course into the homework would be enough to make a substantial difference; grinding through a sequence of problems that all make use of essentially the same techniques before moving on to another set is a completely brain-dead way of trying to learn.

Funnily enough the pattern goes like this:

1. Read into something for a while 2. Realise I'm deficient in X 3. Repeat 1 with X until I get into a state where I feel "blah I can't focus on anything long enough to get ahead" by which point I either:

A. Indulge in a stimulating video game (complex ones from paradox are best but I enjoy Civ too).

B. Explore my spiritual side and try to get a grip on whovi really am and why I am this way until...

I span out of my rut and get back on the mouse wheel.

#1 and #3 could also mean that you need more "junior games" right away that kind of sort of simulate the entire experience instead of learning from elements. I suggest picking up a copy of "Making Learning Whole" by David Perkins. I personally don't quite like the writing style but the content is pretty interesting and important. Super Cliffnotes version: try to frame everything you learn in some sort of mini-version that is kind of sort of like the whole...yes it's hard for some (especially intellectual) domains but there's usually ways to do it.

I'm going to look into this. Thank you so much, you might have spared me many painful experiences in the future.

It seems most people who are curious experience the same thing.

I'm interested in all those things even though I wouldn't want to pursue a career in most of them. But I realize I spend X hours a day doing nothing, and I could spend those hours learning all kind of stuff, including for a career, even if I didn't to do it.

Instead of meaningless TV shows and movies I'll forget, and infinite amounts of Internet distractions, I could be an expert in Python or welding, for that matter. I could be making 5 times my income and change my life dramatically within 2-years, guaranteed. No more hoping, wishing, wanting, dreaming.

But I won't. I can't. I'm not.

Do I have ADHD? Do I need an amphetamine to focus me? If it doesn't work for you that well, what's the cure?

I don't believe in ADHD but I don't know anything for sure anymore. I am a pragmatist and open-minded. I'd gladly do anything to just focus on one thing.

ADHD is a real thing. Maybe not the same as procrastination and lack of self-managment.

I've known ADHD people with extreme self-control (amazing time planning), persistence and will to learn but when they tried concentrating it wouldn't happen. Either something in their brain can't click to grok the subject or they get constantly distracted by their thoughts. The time they put into the subject is huge but they get so little from it.

I've tutored several and am amazed at how well they try to avoid the problem by being better organized but their brain sometimes just can't focus on the important stuff which limits their ability to learn stuff that requires serious attention as quickly as others.

It is because of ADHD that I pursue these. It's a constant stream of stimulation. If my gut says no, it's impossible to focus on it no matter how hard I try.

But I do spend time on them. People think I'm a weirdo for even reading a math textbook outside of uni. I don't care: I am who I am.

Maybe for her it's a linear progress down one path, but maybe for you it's more of a spiral across many topics.

That certainly sounds right! I documented my general process above and it pretty much makes a spiral pattern of filling deficiencies as they arise.

> I just wish I wrote more code

I once read that reading code is a lot more important to learn coding.

I guess in the sense that a great writer must read lots too but first and foremost they must write a lot.

No absolutely not. To learn something, you learn by doing. Writing code is doing, reading code is like learning math by reading how others have solved math problems rather than work on math problems yourself.