After running into Forte Lab’s Building a Second Brain online training, dehowell mentioned he had taken it and thought it was good, so I took it and it was amazing. He then mentioned the Complice Goal Crafting Intensive, which I just finished, which was also amazing.
Rather than just ask dehowell I’ll ask everyone! I’m trying to plan my small but non-zero training budget this year. Are there any online or in-person trainings you’ve taken that were amazing? Any that you thought that were going to be amazing that weren’t?
Don’t limit yourself to just productivity or goal type stuff–I love how interesting you all are here!
I’ve taken courses on Lynda.com for Adobe Creative Suite applications and database design, and they were very good. Super thorough. And they have a huge variety of courses.
Two things I want to throw out there. First it’s quite possible, even likely, that you could use lynda for free through your local library system! That’s how I watch Lynda courses. Second for things like this I use toggl and beemind the hours spent. It’s not perfect but it kinda tracks with real progess.
@clarissalittler Good point! I should see if my library has that.
@matti I’ve only used Lynda.com before I was a Beeminder user.
Also, I’ve listened to quite a few of The Great Courses courses through Audible, and they are generally very high quality. They’re in the format of a series of audio lectures given by an expert in whatever topic the course is covering. The courses often come along with a downloadable companion PDF and the courses will sometimes even assign homework at the end of each lecture.
Here are most of the ones I’ve listened to so far, all of which I quite enjoyed:
Could you say more on the building a second brain course? Your experience, the material etc etc? I’ve been eyeing it but it’s hard to know how good it is from the outside.
This turned out to be true! Thanks for the tip. I was a little bit sceptical, because I’m living in Germany, but my Library introduced a partnership with lynda last year.
I’m curious about that too… starting at $593.81 and costing up to $831.81 for the premium version… that seems rather expensive.
Reading them, they’re pretty comprehensive, although paired down from what you get in the class. In the class, you get presentations on all the material, the slide decks with notes, there’s a web forum and assigned activities but you can take it at your own pace. I am not sure I would have followed through had it been for free, rather than $400 (A weird brain thing, I guess?).
Since I have studied history of science (philosophy and sociology also as part of this) through the lens of paper technologies and informational organisation a lot, I am familiar with all of the ideas, that have been so neatly organized here. In fact I have a similar system working for me in my own life, modelled (but heavily altered) after the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s “Zettelkasten” and similar approaches.
Some notes:
The strength of notes or small units of knowledge lies in the possibility to chain them together. Chains of notes can become trees of notes and allow for composability of knowledge, which opens up great avenues for a holistic interconnected system.
Unlimited “branchability” in width as in depth in a notes system ensures that any note in a chain (or network) of notes might become the start of another chain of notes that follow each other, leading to trees of notes. It also makes the “head” of a chain relative, which allows for great flexibility when the context changes in which we view a note.
Transclusion (as used by tiddlywiki for example) is a revolutionary media technique that makes working with notes and composing them even more serendipitous (which is, serendipity that is, what you should optimize your notes system towards).
This leads me to the conclusion that I should start to work on a similar course for a German audience, maybe, since the amount of money people are willing to pay for this knowledge is immense, it seems like.
I was gonna waste a lot of time on two online courses on programming stuff which I only paid half attention to and I’m thankful for this one to save me about 20 hours wasted and instead teaching me a lot of new things about learning.
Here’s the course description:
This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects.
Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for: turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide.
I’ll ask everyone! I’m trying to plan my small but non-zero training budget this year. Are there any online or in-person trainings you’ve taken that were amazing? Any that you thought that were going to be amazing that weren’t?
