Captured Thoughts

At the end of the day, it took me ~15 minutes to transcribe my phone capture to my laptop, and this was on a "slow" day. Ideally, this would not happen or only take me 5 minutes to capture my remaining thoughts of the day.
1) To do this faster, I can have more AI suggested features and better shortcuts
2) "Native" text to speech + "cleanup" prompts
3) Mobile application to mirror the real capture.

I’m thinking about CS598JH, and it’s a phenomenal class. I’ve learned quite a bit about LLMs and text mining with LLMs, and I’ve learned about different techniques that I think are interesting. I think the reason the class was so good wasn’t because of some inherent property of the course, but because I paused and took breaks when I was watching the lecture and I also did free recall on what was talked about. I wrote smart notes and tied them to other things, so I’ve learned more, and I’m probably only at 25% of my maximal learning capability. There’s some things I did not do like I did not tie as well with things that I’m interested in right now; it was more passive, and I was interrupted.

If you cannot answer why you are doing something, then you need to identify why you’re doing it, and if you don’t like that reason, then stop doing it.

Most people don’t have mission statements; they don’t know where they want to be in a few years, and that is a problem. Many companies have vague mission statements, and that doesn’t help them make decisions or inspire the people working there. Likewise, people do not have mission statements that inspire them or help them make decisions. I don’t have a mission statement that I think about, and I think that’s one reason why I feel like I don’t have a purpose or am not focused.

Everyone needs to have an aim; those who don't have one and just hop from job to job without a larger plan or picture won’t be able to achieve the highest level of contribution or specialize, and that’s important.

The purpose of a vision is to help you eliminate options and make decisions. it is not some wishy-washy manifestation thing. I think this is how manifestation "works'.

A lack of purpose leads to caring about non essential things, things that most people care about like social status, money, Twitter followers, instead of things that actually are valuable.

A core skill to have in life is prioritization

for essentialism system, consistently identify activities I do and rate them on extreme criteria. anything that's below a 9 fails. I can do this with all types of decision making.

This technique called SARG, and the purpose of SARG is to allow LLMs to do better reasoning. I wanted to extract a principle of how LLMs can be used from this paper. The idea is that you have this corpus of documents, and then you extract triples of cause, relation, and effect to construct a causal graph. From this causal graph, you can then use an LLM to learn why XYZ happened, by querying it with a question. I think this is a powerful principle that can lead to other interesting research topics and results.
## Screenshot

Principle: let all work that you do be good enough to show others.
All these assignments, essays, homework, they are for learning, but you spend so much time, why not spend 10% more effort to make it good enough to be shown to others? Why not be strategic and align your assignments with what you want? I have identified the teams i want to work on, my best choices of projects, now i am thinking how can i work on this homework assignment, and have it be evidence.

I've taken so many courses, yet there are no visible fruits. You have to just "trust me" that I have learned the skills. Turn homework assignments into course projects.

So the whole idea of text mining with LM is shown very well in this example. It’s called RolePred: argument role prediction. The goal is to extract a predefined schema of different arguments from a document, like magnitude, location, or date. You don’t want to use a large language model for efficiency. So you extract numbers, dates, and other phrases like names. Then you have a template, and you say, “According to this, the blank of this event is this entity.” When I say blank, I mean these are the different arguments you have. The value that has the highest congruence is the correct value for that argument. You’re not just asking, “Oh, what is the location of this earthquake?” You’re doing this in a smarter way, and you could use a smaller language model and get better accuracy.
## Screenshot

An interesting idea is that this LLM is very general, but you are defining a structure to the LLM's output, and because you're giving more structure to the LLM's output, and you're doing more discrete searching, you get more power out of it.

I do think that this method is very interesting. It's called ontotype, ontology-guided entity typing. The goal is to identify what an entity is. I thought it was interesting because it uses a small language model and it shows the efficiency in understanding and extracting the knowledge of a very small language model. How it works is that you have an entity that you want to identify its type. Then you prompt an LLM with a statement about what that entity is. So in this example, it is Wrigley Field. So you ask Wrigley Field the location. Is it a person? Is it an organization? And then you get some sort of confidence score from that statement. You get that from the small LLM. And then once you’ve identified what class of entities it is, you can go down the street. So you know it’s a location. Is it a country? Is it a city? Is it a building? You get the highest score from the confidence. So then you go down again. I think this is interesting because I can directly apply it to my note system. Instead of prompting an LLM, I can do it more efficiently. Instead of asking an LLM, what is this type, I can have this action. And I think a cool idea is that you progressively refine the type so you can stop at any time if you want a higher level idea of what an entity is.

## Screenshot

Hypercube Rag is a technique for doing retrieval where you enumerate the different possibilities for different semantic types and then you essentially do a union on all the different semantic types to get documents. For example, if you want to do retrieval related to tropical storm disasters, there are different semantic types for disaster, like location, event, and theme. A tropical storm has a location where it happened, it has a theme which could be the name of the tropical storm, and it also has the event of the tropical storm, like Hurricane Katrina. And there could be themes for the documents, maybe it's about how there was so much rain and it flooded, or it could be that there was a lot of wind. And these are semantic themes that could just segment the documents. And then from that you have a query. It's very easy to find the documents related to the theme if they're indexed in this way. I don't understand what is so special about this technique though.
## Screenshot

So this one training method they use is called SearchR1. Essentially, you train an LLM while using the search algorithm instead of adding it post-hoc, and this leads to better performance, specifically for searching, which is unsurprising to me. And then there’s also this other algorithm that I mentioned, where you train an LLM to improve the search query before passing it into a search engine, and then the LLM can augment the search query. The LLM is essentially trained to have a search query that maximizes the F1 score. This allows it to have better retrieval, and then better retrieval leads to much better performance, which is shown by one of the graphs where they have DeepSeek, a 3-billion-parameter DeepSeek, outperform GPT-4.0 and Cloud Sonnet when it comes to information retrieval.

For information retrieval, understanding the intent and context of the user is important for good retrieval.

There is a real difference between theme-based and QA retrieval. Theme-based requires documents that might not have the specific keywords you're looking for. You need to do reasoning on a query to know what is relevant, some things that you might think would be relevant aren't and vice versa. For the example with the trump rally shooting, the political landscape at the time would be relevant, knowing about the shooters friends might be relevant or might not be. That is why this is a hard problem.

Retrieval is an important topic for an LLM because information not in it's training data exists. Better retrieval means better results for LLM.

When you make a change in an open-source program, one way to increase the odds of acceptance is if you cite that the current change is similar to another change that was accepted.

Time block: 14:30-15:30
Activity: Eating and reading Essentialism

Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
During this time, my plan was to eat and read. nothing more specific
Observations:

- What happened during the activity?
I ate a pre-packaged meal my parents made for me. That was not filling enough, so I also ate a protein shake and some Huel. I was reading Essentialism. I was voice recording my thoughts. Afterwards, I was not ready to work so I went on another walk.

- How did I feel before, during, and after the activity?
Before I had quite high energy, a little frusturation because I didn't work on the most important task, I worked on an extension for Neovim instead of working on what is essential.
During the activity, I felt that I had clarity.
Afterwards, I feel a little sluggish.

Evaluation:

- What went well and didn't? How did things not go as expected?
I won't comment on the food consumption because I was listening to my body. I was reading while I was eating, so I definitely ate faster and more than I wanted to (which is probably why I feel sluggish and tired now). I read my book well and I'm happy I did it instead of bingeing on my phone or working on my laptop. I used my lunch as a way to get space. I want

- What surprised me or did I find challenging?

Analysis:

- Why do I think things went well or poorly?
- What underlying factors or assumptions influenced the outcome?
- What skills or knowledge did I use effectively? What was lacking?

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
I was eating and reading. Wasting time by writing down by hand.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
If I was reading digitally, then I wouldn't need to manually flip pages, I could just process the information like a computer. Actually, that would be quite helpful. There is a pain in flipping pages.

- Did I leave anything half-finished?
I didn't finish my chapter

Action:

- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?
I want to ensure that when I am reading, the notes I am taking are effectively captured.

- If I did this again, what would I do differently?
I would like to eat outside, there is higher ROI for eating outside and reading. I get fresher air, sunlight.

- What is the next concrete step I will take?
Schedule my next lunch so it is outside.

Questions:
I wonder if it's better to eat and be bored instead of eating and reading?

I want to think about my learning system and what's the best way to learn from my books, process it, etc. I want to read "Building a Second Brain"

It would be very nice if I could just free speak, then my zettlekaasten notes get automatically segmented and captured.

I was working on my plugin to do system iteration for >1 hour and it doesn't work. I was working on it instead of doing the actual value add--my systems iteration.

Principle: When improving, ensure you're getting better in a way you want, if not, course correct.

When programming with Windsurf, something I realized is I am using it to do things that I do not know how to do. I am getting better at prompting Windsurf and using it, sure, this is applicable to other LLMs, but I am not getting better at things that matter (better system design.)

When I have principles, they should be explicit, specific, and not vague.

There is someone at Grainger that is taking their meeting on the second floor, the quiet floor. I was sitting next to him and he was annoying me, so I just moved. I feel bad, because I wanted to tell him to not take his meeting at grainger and for him to move, but I didn't have the self confidence to o so. I was rationalizing why I shouldn't tell him to move, I didn't want to feel like an asshole, I thought he was going to stop soon, I didn't want to build bad blood. I want to think of a better way of confronting people and build up the ability to do so.

So part of it was initial fear and discomfort. I think that came from me being inauthentic because Siri told me that I should just go up to her, but there’s no reason for me to go up to her. Then Siri suggested that I should tell her that I want to walk in with her instead of just talk with Siri and her friends, and this was a very good reason, and it is true, so I felt much more confident about that. In my mind, I was envisioning a playfulness of me going up to her table, sitting down, and just like teasing my friends that I actually have to do work and kind of smiling at her and letting her know that I’m just interested. That’s a version of myself that I envision, and that’s how I will be in the future, and that’s a version of myself that I want to be. So I think the reason why I did not initially do it was because of a lack of authenticity, and then once I had an authentic reason for going to her to do it and actually I think the main reason maybe was not part of it was definitely the authenticity, but another reason is probably the playfulness. I did not have a playful reason to go up to her and talk with her, but once I had a playful reason, I was in a much better mindset. So I think that in these types of cases, I should try to think of a playful way to approach people. People vary like the playfulness, and I’ve seen this in my own life when I’ve approached girls in the past. So in the future, the next time I am in a position where I will actually want to approach a girl, I will identify what’s an authentic reason I want to go up to her and talk to her, and I will try to think of how I can make it playful.

I realization I had was that questions are extremely useful because they prompt your brain to think in a way, therefore, by systematically asking yourself good questions, you can get good answers. The answers are latent inside of you, and you need questions to fish them out.
## File
[Attachment](media/audiomicrophone175747596936720250909224610_029.wav)

Here is a resource for identify popular causes of flaky tests https://mir.cs.illinois.edu/lamyaa/publications/fse14.pdf

Time Block: 16:00-18:00
Activity: At home, eating, working very passively
Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
The problem was during this time block, I explicitly did not make any plans. I was just at my apartment doing whatever work felt productive. That was mostly learning more about Anthropic, consuming content.

Observations:
I realized that I don't like the feeling of passively consuming content. This is what causes a mind fog for me.
I was at my apartment, eating throughout the time period.
Feedback:
A problem identified is I ate at 15:00 and at around 17:30. By not having set times to eat, I ate more than I wanted to, now I feel bloated and that I overeat. A positive is that I haven't felt this way in 3 days, so I am definitely improving!

Not only does having a defined time to eat improve my eating, how I feel when I am done, but it also improves my output because I can spent less total time eating, cleaning, etc.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?

If I were to plan my meals out before hand I bet that would improve this activity. This is because I'm more likely to stick to a plan if it exists. Also, I could add my meals to my calendar and try to be more "strict" about those eating times so I know when it is time to eat or not. I think I was eating out of boredom.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?
- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
- Should I experiment with a small change or a larger redesign?
- Did I leave anything half-finished?

Time Block: 16:00-18:00
Activity: At home, eating, working very passively
Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
The problem was during this time block, I explicitly did not make any plans. I was just at my apartment doing whatever work felt productive. That was mostly learning more about Anthropic, consuming content.

Observations:
I realized that I don't like the feeling of passively consuming content. This is what causes a mind fog for me.
I was at my apartment, eating throughout the time period.
Feedback:
A problem identified is I ate at 15:00 and at around 17:30. By not having set times to eat, I ate more than I wanted to, now I feel bloated and that I overeat. A positive is that I haven't felt this way in 3 days, so I am definitely improving!

Not only does having a defined time to eat improve my eating, how I feel when I am done, but it also improves my output because I can spent less total time eating, cleaning, etc.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?

If I were to plan my meals out before hand I bet that would improve this activity. This is because I'm more likely to stick to a plan if it exists. Also, I could add my meals to my calendar and try to be more "strict" about those eating times so I know when it is time to eat or not. I think I was eating out of boredom.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
Going to work at Siebel, outside somewhere, not forcing myself to work if I do not feel capable of working, I can just read.

- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
Add lunch and dinner times to my system.

Time Block: 16:00-18:00
Activity: At home, eating, working very passively
Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
The problem was during this time block, I explicitly did not make any plans. I was just at my apartment doing whatever work felt productive. That was mostly learning more about Anthropic, consuming content.

Observations:
I realized that I don't like the feeling of passively consuming content. This is what causes a mind fog for me.
I was at my apartment, eating throughout the time period.
Feedback:
A problem identified is I ate at 15:00 and at around 17:30. By not having set times to eat, I ate more than I wanted to, now I feel bloated and that I overeat. A positive is that I haven't felt this way in 3 days, so I am definitely improving!

Not only does having a defined time to eat improve my eating, how I feel when I am done, but it also improves my output because I can spent less total time eating, cleaning, etc.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?

If I were to plan my meals out before hand I bet that would improve this activity. This is because I'm more likely to stick to a plan if it exists. Also, I could add my meals to my calendar and try to be more "strict" about those eating times so I know when it is time to eat or not. I think I was eating out of boredom.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
Going to work at Siebel, outside somewhere, not forcing myself to work if I do not feel capable of working, I can just read.

- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
Add lunch and dinner times to my system.

Time Block: 16:00-18:00
Activity: At home, eating, working very passively
Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
The problem was during this time block, I explicitly did not make any plans. I was just at my apartment doing whatever work felt productive. That was mostly learning more about Anthropic, consuming content.

Observations:
I realized that I don't like the feeling of passively consuming content. This is what causes a mind fog for me.
I was at my apartment, eating throughout the time period.
Feedback:
A problem identified is I ate at 15:00 and at around 17:30. By not having set times to eat, I ate more than I wanted to, now I feel bloated and that I overeat. A positive is that I haven't felt this way in 3 days, so I am definitely improving!

Not only does having a defined time to eat improve my eating, how I feel when I am done, but it also improves my output because I can spent less total time eating, cleaning, etc.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?

If I were to plan my meals out before hand I bet that would improve this activity. This is because I'm more likely to stick to a plan if it exists. Also, I could add my meals to my calendar and try to be more "strict" about those eating times so I know when it is time to eat or not. I think I was eating out of boredom.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
Going to work at Siebel, outside somewhere, not forcing myself to work if I do not feel capable of working, I can just read.

- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
Add lunch and dinner times to my system.

Time Block: 16:00-18:00
Activity: At home, eating, working very passively
Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
The problem was during this time block, I explicitly did not make any plans. I was just at my apartment doing whatever work felt productive. That was mostly learning more about Anthropic, consuming content.

Observations:
I realized that I don't like the feeling of passively consuming content. This is what causes a mind fog for me.
I was at my apartment, eating throughout the time period.
Feedback:
A problem identified is I ate at 15:00 and at around 17:30. By not having set times to eat, I ate more than I wanted to, now I feel bloated and that I overeat. A positive is that I haven't felt this way in 3 days, so I am definitely improving!

Not only does having a defined time to eat improve my eating, how I feel when I am done, but it also improves my output because I can spent less total time eating, cleaning, etc.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?

If I were to plan my meals out before hand I bet that would improve this activity. This is because I'm more likely to stick to a plan if it exists. Also, I could add my meals to my calendar and try to be more "strict" about those eating times so I know when it is time to eat or not. I think I was eating out of boredom.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
Going to work at Siebel, outside somewhere, not forcing myself to work if I do not feel capable of working, I can just read.

- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
Add lunch and dinner times to my system.

Time Block: 16:00-18:00
Activity: At home, eating, working very passively
Log:

- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? ([[estimate-energy-mood]])
5
- How much did I enjoy this activity?
5
Plan:
The problem was during this time block, I explicitly did not make any plans. I was just at my apartment doing whatever work felt productive. That was mostly learning more about Anthropic, consuming content.

Observations:
I realized that I don't like the feeling of passively consuming content. This is what causes a mind fog for me.
I was at my apartment, eating throughout the time period.
Feedback:
A problem identified is I ate at 15:00 and at around 17:30. By not having set times to eat, I ate more than I wanted to, now I feel bloated and that I overeat. A positive is that I haven't felt this way in 3 days, so I am definitely improving!

Not only does having a defined time to eat improve my eating, how I feel when I am done, but it also improves my output because I can spent less total time eating, cleaning, etc.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?

If I were to plan my meals out before hand I bet that would improve this activity. This is because I'm more likely to stick to a plan if it exists. Also, I could add my meals to my calendar and try to be more "strict" about those eating times so I know when it is time to eat or not. I think I was eating out of boredom.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
Going to work at Siebel, outside somewhere, not forcing myself to work if I do not feel capable of working, I can just read.

- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
Add lunch and dinner times to my system.

What claude code is good at:

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

What claude code is good at:
## Stages

1. Discover
2. Design
3. Build
4. Deploy
5. Support & Scale

### Activities

* Explore codebase
* SR Plan project
* Implement code
* Automate CI/CD
* Debug errors
* Search .
* Develop tech specs
* LU CTR G L Configure
* Large-scale refactor
* documentation
* tests
* environments
* Onboard & learn
* Define architecture
* Clegte coMis
* Manage deployments
* MCIiEorRage &
* performance

Participatory design includes users directly on the design team - participating in needfinding, proposing design ideas, helping with evaluation. This is particularly vital when the target users have much deeper domain knowledge than the design team. It would be unwise to build an interface for stock trading without an expert in stock trading on the team, for example.

Contextual inquiry is a technique that combines interviewing and observation, in the user’s actual work environment, discussing actual work products. Contextual inquiry fosters strong collaboration between the designers and the users.

When developing products for users, iterate and iterate cheaply. This is also a core principle of Scrum.

I'm contemplating the finitness of my life using this visualization and I am looking at other accomplishments that people have made at various ages. I was surprised to see that a lot of others have made major accomplishments much later than I thought. For example, Steve Jobs was 21 when he started his company, Bill Gates, 28. This makes me feel a lot better. It also makes me come to the thought of how every week of my life is permanently fixed. This last 2 weeks will stained by my bike accident, in 2 weeks, I will remember that time as my trip to Spain. These are periods in time I will be able to vividly see on a map. I still have ~3-4k weeks left of my life, and I can choose what those weeks look like. This is a powerful realization.

Last night, I spent ~30 minutes watching YouTube videos on death. I am happy that I was thinking about death, but I was on the border of the point of binge watching again. I am reflecting on how I spend my time last night, and I am reminded that my time is less valuable at night time compared to in the morning. Because of this, I want to make more of an effort to move my sleep schedule backwards. (side note, I think this reveals something about how I perceive time)

I woke up this morning feeling hungrier than yesterday. My weight is still 183, which is quite a significant drop compared to what is was a couple days ago. I am happy my weight is lower but I don't want to lose too much weight and feel too out of control.

I went to bed hungry last night and I had a very good sleep because of it! I am happy my sleep is solidifying to be consistent and high quality.

I would live differently if I completely internalized my own death. I am not aware of my own death enough. There's a popular thought that "would you live your life differently if you were aware that this is your only chance at living, would you be afraid if you knew life was a suicide mission".

From this video, I consciously know that I will never experience my own death. I will only be mortal.

I am trying to become more aware of death by watching this youtube video. There are many regrets of the dying, they want to tell a friend they forgive them for their transgressions, or they say sorry to someone they've greatly harmed. A goal in my life is to have no regrets when I am dying.

[talking about my cellulitus, Maks putting honey on my open wound claiming it would be healed]
Maks: "You will see you will be healed because of the honey"
Me: "I will be healed because I've been on rounds of antibiotics"
Maks: "You didn't even need antibiotics, you could've eaten garlic and honey and you will be healed"
Me: [laughter]
Me: "Can I quote you on that?"
Maks: "You can quote me on anything, Plato didn't write a word"

For my CS527 MP. The skill that I was trying to develop was debugging. I spent ~15 hours on the MP. If I would have spent 1 hour learning how to debug better, I would have finished quicker. This is a general principle I can apply to future assignments--to spend more time up front learning instead of just doing.

For my getting-things-done system what if I were to add a task to do in todoist, then I plug in the effort, then it automatically schedules time for me to do the task in my calendar so I don't forget to do the task + save time in scheduling

Islam Shehata gave me the nickname of "150 grams" in reference of me eating 150 grams of protein powder in a day. But he says if I become a rapper and use that nickname then I owe him 5% royalty

What if I build a company around personal growth tools, optimized for myself – personal optimization.

An idea I have is that I should envision my life in the future and how it would be if I were to gain specific attributes such as high confidence and reflection, and also envision how my life would be without that feature so that I am motivated to change that part of myself.

The book recommends these books to read: Zen: The Reason of Unreason; the wisdom of Confucius; the holy Bible; Tau, to know and not be knowing; the meaning of the glorious Quran, and an explanatory translation; The Book of Mormon; the meditations on Marcus Aurelius; and The Up and the Shades.

A theme of this book is explicitly making space in your schedule.

Humans need a lot of time to think about big decisions or big projects, and only through a lot of thinking can we come to the best solution.

The author of Essentialism has a practice where he blocks off 8 hours a day to write for this book. I think this is a good idea; it might help me to adopt this idea.

There's a connection between deep work and this book, and that idea of having space to think about your problem, like in solitary. An example is Isaac Newton: he became a recluse for two years to think about his problem, and then he came out with Principia Mathematica.

There's a course at Stanford called Designing Life, Essentially. The purpose of this course is for people to have a block of time where they're forced to think about their lives. That seems like a good idea. I should tell Natalia about this.

In whatever company organization I have, I need to ensure that I have time to take a step back and not be too busy. I need time to think and be strategic.

In the essentialism system, there's an explicit time and period to explore the possible space. In that time, it's essential to have spaces to think. I’ve had my own realizations myself when I realized that if I'm too busy to reflect on things, then I'm just too busy. They have a meeting a month where everyone is just in a room and they do nothing. If people can't make it to that meeting, then it means that they’re too busy or there aren’t enough people. So, because it’s too busy, it gives the founder a good signal as to if people are working on things that are unessential or not, because it is essential to have time to think.

A good indicator of if your actions and habits are good is if you were to think about. if you were to repeat those actions for the rest of your life, where would it leave you. you have to think more than just the present moment and think about the future, understand where your future self will be continuing those actions

For my weight loss system, I eat smaller bites and drink smaller amounts of food at a time. I've realized that I take large bites and eat quickly.

by eating slower, I can sense what I'm actually full

After falling off my bike, I have chest pain when I breathe in deeply. It's not a lung or chest pain; it feels like a bone and chest pain. The pain seems to be located in the front of my chest, around my rib cages.

My ideal job would be spending the day thinking and improving my thoughts.

It's interesting how social media applications can capture your attention so quickly and entirely when you start using them. Their UIs are designed to achieve this. I find it disgusting.

These are the root causes of flaky tests, I am surprised that so many happen because of async wait.
## Screenshot

We tend to hallucinate when we are sensory deprived because the environment doesn't give us information. This is a difference compared to ANN where that cannot hallucinate. There is a benefit to hallucination. There is a connection with this a dreaming.

There are biological equivalences of factors of artificial neurons. For example, the "weight" can be thought of how much myelination there is.

The system that prunes neurons is the brains immune system. I wonder if there is a connection to sleep here.

What "plasticity" looks like in brains is that neurons are just wiggling around and looking for more connections.

In each section of the brain, the neurons evolved to communicate "optimally" for that region. That means, I would expect to see different neuron structures in different regions of the brain. I wonder what are the structural differences between neurons that process different pieces of information.

Neurons are cells, there are many many complex pathways that happen within a cell. I am amazed at how good the brain is at computation. How is it possible that computers are not as good as brains at computing. This is surprising for me.

Differences between artificial neural network and real neural networks:

Real neural networks have temporal dynamics, neurons have impact on their environments. There are also different neurotransmitters that impact neurons at different times.

In real neural networks, they are adaptive, so the structure can be constantly changing. There are also other "data processing units" in the brain.

I realize that a lot of the time I am not really propelled by wants, I am just "floating around". What I mean by this, is I take a class initially because the topics sound very interesting, but after a few lectures, I get into a passive state where I am not motivated to do well. I don't feel "active" in my classes.

I've noticed many people at UIUC find jobs by waiting "for jobs to find them" instead of actively finding jobs they actually want. This includes things like waiting for notifications from job boards, Handshake, etc. it is a very passive way of finding a job and it leads to mediocre results.

I am working on my getting things done system and I am tagging things. I am learning that with all of my tagging, I can "batch" similar tasks together.. this is powerful

Time block: 9:00am–9:30am
Activity: Worked on my productivity tool
Log:
- Cognitively, how much energy did I have doing this activity? (5)
- How much did I enjoy this activity? (Yes, I enjoyed it; skipped one question)

Plan: Improve performance by testing and fixing the behavior of the model that formatted output weirdly.

Observations:
- I occasionally checked emails instead of focusing.
- I felt sharper and smarter during this session.
- Completed changes and refactored the script effectively, reducing it from two scripts to one Python script.

Feedback:

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
Managing focus due to email distractions.

- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?
Use a timer during active blocks to prevent email checking.

- Could I automate, delegate, or simplify any part of this process?
Yes, simplify by keeping the script’s responsibilities minimal: just take input, call Ollama, and return output. Avoid clipboard operations.

- If I could do this activity again, what would I do differently?
Maintain tighter focus and avoid context-switching into email.

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
Address Thunderbird Calendar’s notification bug (report to developers, test fixes).

- What is the next concrete action to improve this system?
Learn to use Copilot in the terminal and experiment with Gemini to reduce manual copy-paste.

- Should I experiment with a small change or a larger redesign?
Start with a small change (use a focus timer, simplify script responsibilities).

- Did I leave anything half-finished?
No, I completed refactoring into one script.

I just figured out to add a VPN connection, I used ChatGPT, gave it more context, and was successful. If I want to do something that is a standard procedure, I can give ChatGPT the documents for that procedure and ask for help.

Reflection is necessary for mastery; self reflection is necessary for self-mastery. I bet I can apply the principles of Mastery to self mastery.

it's 2025-08-29 at 18:32 right after me doing a little bit of work at Granger and let me do some reflection. I'm definitely doing a better job in terms of my productivity because I recognize that I need to take a break and let myself take a break. I also was about to buy the reclaim application which is good cuz I think that it would save me more than 30 minutes per month of time and it only cost $8. but then I remembered from the last time I tried to buy something that I could look for student discounts and there is a 50% soon discount that I'm trying again. so that is also on the up and up by me doing this recording right now after the event has happened. I'm also doing a very good job. I am building a habit of taking breaks when I'm doing things and during those breaks me reflecting. so I think that if I just add more structured brakes into my day, I will have the opportunity to do more reflections.

it's 2025-08-29 at 18:26 right now and I feel I have a little bit of a feeling of being tired like in my head. I feel like it's hard to focus. I have a very, very mild headache. it's not that it's difficult to focus because there's so many other things that are distracting me, but it's difficult to focus because of like feels like a lack of energy in my head and that there's a little bit of a pain of my forehead. I feel a little bit more conscious than I typically would be on these walks, so I'm feeling more clarity but I'm definitely not feeling my best. when I turn my head I feel a little bit of pain and I have like some tiredness around my eyes

Time block: 14:00-15:00
Activity: improve reflection system
Observations:

- What were my intentions with the activity?
My goal for this activity was to improve my reflection system. I didn't really come in with any specific intention besides the vague notion of what "improve" is.

- What happened during the activity?
During the activity, I wrote in my [[reflection-system]] markdown document, writing up the procedure, I didn't use the template, I also was thinking about how I could improve my processes like my knowledge management system.

Feedback:
I didn't specifically come in with any intention for this time block which might explain why I am typically distracted. If I knew what I wanted to do (at least, what my next action would be) then it would be easier for me to get started and stay on task.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
People were coming into the ACM room (where I am currently staying at) and they were soft interrupting me. I wasted time by not using the template I wrote for myself.
I lost a lot of focus because I kept on switching tasks. I would be working on my system, then an idea would pop up and I wanted to capture/store it. It is a good thing that so many ideas are coming through my head, but I am not focusing enough on the system so it took longer than it needed to. I think this might solve itself once my systems are better in place, but I am in a creative mode right now.

- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?
If I had an interface that I could just speak all of my thoughts and ideas and it would format it nicely on markdown then that would save me quite a bit of typing. Also, if I could have in my editor some AI that automatically gives me suggestions on what I am writing that are helpful (instead of needing to go to ChatGPT.com) that would be nice.

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
If my template is very high quality, then I can start out with a template for an LLM to generate. There might be some cons with this.

Time block: 14:00-15:00
Activity: improve reflection system
Observations:

- What were my intentions with the activity?
My goal for this activity was to improve my reflection system. I didn't really come in with any specific intention besides the vague notion of what "improve" is.

- What happened during the activity?
During the activity, I wrote in my [[reflection-system]] markdown document, writing up the procedure, I didn't use the template, I also was thinking about how I could improve my processes like my knowledge management system.

Feedback:
I didn't specifically come in with any intention for this time block which might explain why I am typically distracted. If I knew what I wanted to do (at least, what my next action would be) then it would be easier for me to get started and stay on task.

- Where did I waste time, energy, or focus?
People were coming into the ACM room (where I am currently staying at) and they were soft interrupting me. I wasted time by not using the template I wrote for myself.
I lost a lot of focus because I kept on switching tasks. I would be working on my system, then an idea would pop up and I wanted to capture/store it. It is a good thing that so many ideas are coming through my head, but I am not focusing enough on the system so it took longer than it needed to. I think this might solve itself once my systems are better in place, but I am in a creative mode right now.

- What is the single most impactful change I could make to improve this activity/system?
If I had an interface that I could just speak all of my thoughts and ideas and it would format it nicely on markdown then that would save me quite a bit of typing. Also, if I could have in my editor some AI that automatically gives me suggestions on what I am writing that are helpful (instead of needing to go to ChatGPT.com) that would be nice.

- Are there alternative approaches or methods that might yield better results?
If my template is very high quality, then I can start out with a template for an LLM to generate. There might be some cons with this.

A principle I want to have is to never be too busy for me to reflect. Because another principle I have is to always grow, if I don't have time to reflect, I don't have the ability to improve. If I'm getting so busy I find it difficult to reflect, then I must decrease my obligations.

I'm working on implementing my [[reflection-system]], this will have me reflect after I do an activity. I'm seeing a lot of power in it already, it is giving me a feeling of control over my life. I feel like I'm at the cusp of about to blast off in terms of performance-productivity. I see myself growing literally every single day

I have a project idea/improvement for my workflow. So I really want to have speech-to-text, and I'm almost getting there. But I also want to have improved speech-to-text. So I have an idea of after I do speech-to-text, I have maybe a program that can look at what is in my clipboard. And I can select what processing that I want to have on that text. So I imagine this looking like I press a shortcut, for example, mod p. And then when I press mod p, it will open up a menu for me to select. And then, for example, the first option can be post-process voice note into markdown document. Or another option could be take OCR screenshot and format it better.

Coming back to UIUC, I noticed I have reverted to my previous ways of interacting with people. At SF or at Epic, I would be very open to talking to people, making small talk, making friendships and relationships, but I do not do that here at UIUC--why?
This is how I used to be and the environment is conforming me to how I used to think, I feel more social pressure here to "act normal" (not make small talk) because I care about the opinions the public here holds more.

I wonder if there's additional punctuation that should exist? I see the purpose of a lot of punctuation. question marks for questions, quotes if there's text that comes from an external source, is there other punctuation that could exist that don't exist?

I imagine a program that takes a given program/function and then gives all assumptions made by the program and then can be checked by a human or another LLM to improve program quality.

The reason why users are not oracles is that users do a poor job or predicting what they want. If users had perfect knowledge and understanding about how they work, their preferences, and all of the new information about the new change, then they would be oracles. I wonder if there is a way, when asking users what they want, to prompt users to give better responses--is this what the field of studying user interviews is about?

`
Another example: Google has discovered that when they survey users about how many search results they want per page (10, 20, 30), users overwhelmingly say “30 results”. But when Google actually deploys 30-result search pages (as part of an “A/B test”, which we’ll talk about in a later reading), usage drops by 20% relative to the conventional 10-result page. Why? Probably because the 30-result page takes a half second longer to load (The Cost of Latency).
`

Right now, I am performing my semesterly dance to decide on courses I want to take. I want to reflect on the topic of others giving advice for courses. I think most people give the opinions by others too much weight relative to their importance when it comes to deciding for courses. Right now, I am trying to decide on what courses to take. Past me would have solicited advice from other students whom have taken this class, and if he was extremely diligent, weight all of their advice against each other. I think this is fundamentally flawed, when they say "x is a good class" that doesn't give you that much information. It misses out the nuance about why they think it is a good class. Is the advicer aligned in your goals, knows your particular situation? Most likely not. When listening to advice it should decrease your "error bars" along the estimate, but you need to be particular about biases. For this reason, I think I need to apply the ideas of thinking for yourself to actually come to a good decision myself. I need to come up with my own searching strategy, my own criteria for what a good class is, with this method, I think I can make decisions much better.

A principle I have is to actively find places for you to "double-dip". For example, can you do a course project, put it on your resume, as well as solve a personal problem you have? See how you make it so something you already were planning on doing can get you more value without doing more.

A funny example is this whole capturing project + my personal website. I've been capturing my thoughts since Summer of 2024, but I haven't done it in a systematic, formatized way until now. Now, whenever I generate a thought, it also has the potential to be content for my personal website!

I had this idea, which I'm sure other people have had before, which is that I want to make decisions that are aligned with what my future self wants out of me. This is a good heuristic to make changes, and is related to the chapter in [[how-to-live|How to Live]] on "Thinking Super Long Term"

I want to upload my health data to my personal website, I think that would be cool. I think I am going to use Tasker and make an automation to export my data every day, then I will use syncthing to sync that to my desktop PC. Then, every night my desktop PC will rebuild my website with the new data. I think daily refreshes are cool & worth doing.

Something that I would like is if my entire filesystem had a nice integration with the LLMs I use for questions and answering, in addition to searching the internet. I think this would be powerful because it would give it more context. For example, I could do something like "Find me professors that would be interested in collaborating on @KnowledgeManagementSystem" and it would look into the project, create a description of the project, and and then search the web for UIUC professors that would like to work with me on that project"

I want to make a system so I can learn better while in classes. I am trying to research and understand what is the best way to learn. I have some content that I am consuming that I want to take notes on, is there a good system for me to be able to "extract" notes and put them into my second brain? I'm thinking about something similar to Windows recall that records my system audio as well as the slides (potentially) and then extracts concepts and ideas, allows me to select notes, and then stores them in my obsidian vault.

It's estimated that 50% of usage with computers is wasted

I'm debating whether or not this course is correct for me. I need to actually think if this course is right for me. Right now, I am not sure if this course is right for me, it seems like this would be a course that past Matt would have wanted to take. I should actually sit down and think what I want

I should ask this professor for connections related to my goal of making my productivity system or my growth system. I want to do this for independent research or ask him if he knows anyone that would want to collaborate on this.

This professor is a good public speaker

I wanted to lifelog for my class this morning, but I felt a social pressure that didn't exist. What was going through my head was other people would think I am weird. I also didn't want to do it because it also was filled with storage and I don't want it to delete my other things.

At UIUC, I do not think the classes offered interest me that much. I believe I would gain high value of doing an independent study researching and developing systems my knowledge capture system or other such productivity tools. I think this would be valuable because I would be killing "two birds with one stone" as I already intend on doing this. With the support of a professor + me being academically required to do this would be beneficial for me

I have this behavior where I try and "brute force" some problem I am trying to solve. For homework problems, I tend to "do them" instead of thinking about them. I try one solution, and then instead of re-evaluating why it didn't work and what could work, I just try the next thing that comes to my head. This is especially a problem when it comes to developing and debugging. I want to fix this, I think by starting a timer when I start to do a solution, then when the timer goes off I evaluate myself, if I have started this habit of going down a rabbit hole, then I take a step back.

This tweet states there are these three discrete levels, but I believe everyone is a mix of the three different levels.
I think I have parts of me on all three levels. I was definitely at level 1 freshmen year of college, and it was only until Fall semester of Sophomore year (when I decided not to try and go to a prestigious graduate school) that I achieved level 2.
I love the idea of our life as an art project.

Free recall for this article. The goal is to do homework assignments before the following lecture's material is covered. This is especially true if the lecture builds on the previous material (which it almost always does). Doing this strategy means it will be easy for you to follow on the next classes lecture material.

Moreover, you don't need to complete the whole homework, doing just part of it is worthwhile for studying.

In my email, it is distracting to have so many emails from places or people I don't want. I want them to not enter my inbox.

I want to reflect on everything I do. I want this to be automated somewhat because it is cumbersome to have to reflect on everything I do. This is a project I think I could discuss with Cheng or another HCI expert.

I'm very happy that I am continuing the practice that I have said that I would do--reflecting on the activity after I do it. Thinking about this, and the topic of growth, I had the idea that I should be doing activities that would give me the most learning per activity. When I was in San Francisco, I had a lot of these opportunities for me to learn a lot from these events. But, at UIUC, this is not as easy. I think I should be choosing set of activities to do that are different than normal so I can improve my learning and maybe go towards a different direction.

I really want to read the book "Think for yourself" and "Scout Mindset"

Here is an idea I have is regarding the divination. It is related to horoscopes and how reading these are giving you "seeds" for your mind to think different things. These spirtuality things might have some merit because they asks your subconscious about what you want from yourself.