2024-06-16 Momentum Mori

What I Did

Pounded my head into a big pile of not-sure-these-piles-are-big-hoo-boy-I-don’t-want-to-do-them elements.

I also grouped the files into 30-file folders.

More marching along, but I’m making headway.

What I Learned

Momentum is difficult to maintain, but even harder to regain.

After my vacation, it’s been absolute torture getting back on track. I’m barely getting my bearings again, and it’s been an exercise in frustration and willpower. Things are finally back to near-normal.

I’ve been spending so much energy on this that I don’t have anything witty to say. It’s somewhat a new low for me because I almost always have something clever-enough to say. Thankfully, I have no shame, so that balances itself out just fine.

What I’m Doing Now

Marching through my Grandiose De-Hoarding Mission, loosely guided by a Johnny.Decimal-like system:

• It consists of 11,242 files, each one containing between 1 and 10 elements.
• As I go, each condensation or output will make fewer files, but each re-categorization will likely make more files.
• The number is moderately arbitrary relative to results, thereby avoiding the risk of Goodhart’s Law while also implying I’ve made some sort of progress.

The project will eventually send everything to 3 possible places:

1. My essays will be updated, most notably NotaGenius and Trendless Tech.
2. My toolbox, if it’s potentially useful.
3. The primitives and templates for future projects.

Throughout the entire system, I maintain a schema that reflects the content I’m building:

The flow of work represents itself through a unique semi-ordered flow of “phases”:

1. Separate out the guides, opinions, and tools for each section (0->a-d): 2,305 left.
2. Send grouped inbox items into their appropriate categories (015-045->050-700): 354 left.
3. Update the old content I’ve already written (050-700).
4. Finish out a few easy pages (50-400).
5. Add ready-to-go content updates (a).
6. Finish the Entrepreneurship pages (460+610).
7. Finish the Management pages (470+620).
8. Finish the Math pages (430+530).
   • I’m aiming for breadth, not depth. I don’t need to perform combinatorics in my head, but I do need to explain in plain English what the heck each math “thing” is, traced along a pseudo-path through the route of standard formalized education:
     • Basic arithmetic
     • Algebra
     • Geometry/trigonometry
     • Statistics
     • Calculus
     • Number theory, with a likely divergence into applied maths and game theory. Along the way, I’ll keep a jargon-resistant dictionary of the big math words.
9. Bounce around Trendless Tech for a while (500-605).