I think the productivity tips are good ones. But something must be different about his university than mine. Finishing two difficult degrees (math and CS) in 3 semesters is simply not possible in most if not all US Universities. Perhaps this is somewhere else? He does call them units instead of hours. He even says that the last semester he also worked 40 hours a week and that he ran a club and socialized with friends.

First of all, most universities don't even offer all the courses you need to graduate every semester and when they do, they are often overlapping. You certainly couldn't fit them all in with a full time job as well. Did none of these classes have homework or turn in assignments? He also says he slept 7-8 hrs a day and at least one semester had classes from 9am-10pm. Sorry, but most of those classes must have been a joke. You can't absorb that much information in a day and the 3 remaining waking hours is not enough to study and review the material, prep for tests, and take care of daily life stuff.

The number of credits required for graduation must also be low. Especially for two degrees even considering that they would have a lot of overlap. I tested out of every credit possible at my university and was able to complete 2 degrees in 8 semesters. And I had a full class schedule, around 30 hours a semester and I had to plan very carefully, sometimes 1 or 2 semesters in advance just to make sure my necessary courses would be available and not overlapping.

It does sound crazy and I won't entertain how realistic it is. But I will say and I think this is fairly common, I now look back on my 18 credit hour undergrad semesters, which was considered a moderately heavy load, and I would presently describe it as: I had an abundance of free time. This was pre-med too so not easy courses or anything. College was as much about goofing off with friends and hobbies as it was about coursework.

With my present work ethic I think I could have pretty easily doubled the load, and completed a bit over one year of course work per semester without sacrificing my personal life. Again 4 years in 3 semesters sounds crazy. But 4 years in 4 semesters seems totally plausible, so idk.

People with 99th percentile executive functioning passing this off like anyone could do it with some advice is the base rate fallacy at its finest.

From previous discussion, I think the fantastic claims in this article are highly suspect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3170067

It is so strange that I remember reading ties article and the accompanying discussion on HN a decade ago. Time is a weird thing.

I couldn't finish the entire article. At first I was impressed but soon the article descends into that particular flavor of business oriented self-help that is just repeating clichés.

One thing he suggests that I disagree with is making decisions fast. He suggests one ought not hesitate and to set a timer and to force oneself to make the decision in 60 seconds. My own experience is that making a decision on a deadline is extremely important (agree so far) but I set the deadline as far in the future as possible. That is, I try to identify "when does this decision have to be made" and then I stick to that date. I also ensure than every important decision I have to make is made after I have slept on it.

Stated another way, I don't make decisions hastily and I allow decisions to percolate in my subconscious for as long as possible. But once the deadline arrives, I make the decision without hesitation. I trust that my subconscious will have worked on the problem in the time I have given it. I believe that while I sleep it is able to get the most work done.

This is definitely a blast from the past, I remember reading this within a few years of it having been published in 2007 or so (has it really been that long?!) Re-reading it now I seem to have internalized a lot of the same ideas into my day-to-day work unconsciously or subconsciously, whatever it may be.

Regardless, there are a lot of ideas in there that sort of seem quaint now with the deluge of personal development youtube videos and influencers, but those seemingly now-quaint ideas really are fundamental to doing good work: know what you need to work on, keep a simple list of what needs to be done, only focus on one thing because your multitasking skills aren't, be adaptable when obstacles pop up, "begin, the rest is easy", "do the work or do nothing at all", optimize your diet and exercise which makes things so much easier.

Whoa. I haven’t thought about Steve Pavlina in over a decade. It’s neat seeing him pop up. (He’s the polyphasic sleep guy, right?)

> It is absolutely imperative that you develop the habit of making decisions as soon as possible. I use a 60-second rule for almost every decision I have to make, no matter how big or important. Once I have all the data to make a decision, I start a timer and give myself only 60 seconds to make a firm decision. I’ll even flip a coin if I have to.

This might be a good idea for most decisions, but not big ones. It’s roughly how I lost $11k in Gox. In my case, I was reciting one of my father’s favorite phrases: "he who hesitates is lost." Be sure to think more carefully as the decision gets larger.

This is such a huge blast from the past. Haven’t heard of Steve Pavlina in decades and this was the golden age of Weblogs.

I used to be a fan of him until he went crazy with the lucid dreaming BS. Cal Newport is my new guru now. Let's see how long he will last.

I find that once giving advice on any matter becomes one's job, the quality of advice goes down drastically over time.

Same. I used to enjoy reading his posts, and imagine I got some useful things from them (though I’m unable to recall anything specific). His writing got weirder and weirder over time to the point that none of it was relatable any more.

> "he who hesitates is lost."

This is apt only when lives are on the line.

Could use a "(2005)" at the end of the title.

Part of me is jealous of people who liked school this much.

Or they liked it so little, they optimized their life to get out of it as soon as they could!

You are you, be happy about it, you also wouldn't want that life ;)

I feel like I could do that for a UK undergraduate course without issue but they'd block you doing it because they want the tuition fees for every year.

Don't know how I feel about the article. There's some good advice sprinkled in there, but then there's complete nonsense in the form of "read while shaving". Most of the accomplishments smell like bullshit to me, but I will follow the one good advice the author gave (guard thy time) and won't spend time to find out whether he's an actual crackpot or not :)

Steve Pavlina? Is he still around... oh, it's from 2005.

I believe he is still quite active, though his content has gotten very...niche.

I find these posts infuriating... and given how old this one is, it seems to be the template for all those to follow.

"How did I get to be a world class marathoner? I avoided anything that wasn't running, and then on race day, I went faster than everyone else. It's so simple, you can do it too -- just buy my course."

The advice is reasonable, well-intentioned, and completely unusable for me or anyone else I know.

I'm not turning into a marathoner sitting in my chair either. So there could still be a tiny bit of truth hiding in the article (if you want to become a good runner, start running).

my course, "stop starting and start finishing", will apply to marathons too!

Take off and land that gold medal!