what's worth writing down

#thought #meta

I've gone back and forth a lot on this question of, when should I take the time to write something down?

Writing down things I learn

Usually, this question refers to something I've learned: say from a lecture, or a paper, or just thinking myself.

And I often find it difficult to get myself to write, since it feels much more immediately productive to just keep pushing through--to learn one more thing thing.

However, that strategy runs the risk of leaving me with no new understanding.

Perhaps more broadly, the question is how should I decide how much time it's worth spending on something? The point is, I have a tendency to spend not enough time, because it feels boring to review, to exercise, and much more exciting to tack on that next skill. But then, you might end up like a violinist who realizes that, in order to really play Bach's Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Minor well, she's back to practicing her scales at 60 bpm.

The question then becomes, when self-teaching, how do I decide when it's worth it?

Maybe one answer is: before I learn something, decide if it's worth writing about (or just thinking more about, doing exercises, whatever. Basically, just spending extra time). If the answer's no, maybe it's not worth learning in the first place.

• Pros of writing down:

  • I often find that writing things down (1) reveals things that I didn't know I didn't know (which is the scariest un-knowing) and (2) suggests interesting questions to explore.
  • Practice technical writing. It's hard to communicate complex ideas. Good skill to have.

• related:: write what you learn

Writing down ideas/questions to remember for later

A different application of this question is to ideas and questions that pop in my head. I'm often afraid of forgetting, and let that fear drive my desire to write things down. And at first glance, it doesn't really seem like there's any harm to jotting these things down.

However, as a counterpoint:

• I've observed that this practice often makes it so that I don't actually end up thinking about the question, since I feel some safety/security in the potential that future me will think about it. (This is the potential fallacy)
  • And when, instead of writing it down immediately, I let myself think about it if it keeps my attention, then I'll actually gain something from this question. And if it's worth
• Another observation is that the sheer quantity of questions and ideas that results from a no-filter just add strategy, is that it has the effect of diluting the things that I actually want to do--that are actually interesting.
  • related:: doing what I want (learning what I want)