As I mentioned on the homepage I have set a goal of reading 52 books this year, averaging out to a book a week. I currently behind the pace I should be at to reach the goal, but I have still made some decent progress. Here are some of the titles I've read so far:
There are some other books that I have not listed but a common thread of advice I have noticed from the various 'self help' and 'personal improvement' books is just start. This advice goes in the face of the majority of the way I have learned up to this point. In high school and university it was always theory first followed by attempting to apply it, rather than running into a wall repeatedly when trying to accomplish a task and then being introduced to the theory that helps you solve it. Admittedly I think this method of learning is applied far more easily to software development rather than topics like math but Ultralearning attempts to make the case for all subjects.
In any case I am trying to apply this to some of the topics I want to learn more about. The first area I'm trying to learn by doing rather than by theory is improving my programming ability. The first step I've taken into this approach is by having at least one daily github contribution. I have not missed a day from November 16 2023, to the date of writing. This hasn't always been actual code being pushed but in most cases it has been. My main thinking behind this is doing my best to escape the so called 'tutorial hell' where the only projects one starts and ends are those that have step by step tutorials rather than through the ability to mix and match the knowledge I have to make new things that I want to do.