Terry Tao (Fields medalist) on time management | Hacker News Reader

Terry Tao (Fields medalist) on time management

terrytao.wordpress.com

43 pointshhm19 comments

It's almost 1900 words for an article about time management. But being that my time is worth zero now I read through it all.

I liked his honesty here:

"my ability to do any serious mathematics fluctuates greatly from day to day; sometimes I can think hard on a problem for an hour, other times I feel ready to type up the full details of a sketch that I or my coauthors already wrote, and other times I only feel qualified to respond to email and do errands, or just to take a walk or even a nap."

What struck me is how great is is that his career allows him to do that. Most people have to sit and work at a slow pace instead of just relaxing for a bit and getting back into things when they are ready.

Terry Tao's blog and wiki also has a lot of useful articles about productivity, professional and personal growth, vocational matters related to maths, etc. Worth visiting it.

Fun fact, Terry Tao is an alum of this program: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=269717

Can someone summarize this for me? I don't have time to read that much text.

It would be good to change the title to "On Time Management". It shouldn't matter that Terry Tao wrote it, or that he won a Fields Medal.

I'm not so sure about that. Most literature about time management is terrible, so, you tend to ignore it unless the one writing seems to have something to say. And Terry Tao is a great achiever, and also somebody who seems to be doing many useful things at once all the time. Certainly I do care that he's the one that wrote the article... otherwise probably I wouldn't have even read it.

If the writing is good, it will stand on its own. All I'm saying is that the difference between "Tarry Tao (Fields medalist) on time management" and "Terry Tao (don't click this link) on time management" is pretty small. They both make you want to click on the link to see what it's about, and they are both totally irrelevant to the actual content of the article.

If the writing is good, it will stand on its own.

Indeed -- and if this were, say, a fiction contest, it would be a great way to do things. But when someone is giving advice, the identity of the advisor (and the success they've had by following the advice) is important.

You're correct.

"Joe Idiot Teaches Quantum Physics"

This made me check - apparently there really isn't an "Idiot's guide to quantum physics" yet. I wonder why? I bought an "Idiot's guide to economics" the other day... So Quantum physics is more complicated than economics?

Edit: put "Write Idiot's Guide TO Quantum Physics" on my TODO-list...

I just checked and there is a "Quantum Physics for Dummies" on Amazon for preorder. It's due to come out early next year.

Ah OK, maybe I just confused the title of the series, I thought it was "Idiot's guide to...", not "... for dummies".

Both are real series. Considering that the Dummies haven't published yet, the Idiots appear to be ahead:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-String-Theory/dp...

"An Intuitive Explanation of Quantum Mechanics":

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/an-intuitive-ex.html

It was nice to read that his system is not perfect or he doesn't follow it in a perfect way, yet he still managed to win a fields medal. So I feel the "fields medal winner" was an interesting aspect.

Nice pov, I hadn't think on that.

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