[CBLT]

100% agree. I went through a similar phase of being infatuated with work ethic, and all I got were the following three lessons learned:

1. Trying to "put more effort" into artifacts (e.g. note taking) while learning something the first time is counterproductive. Write something lightweight and put your focus on paying attention.

2. Do one intensive review session while you still remember the content. Either teach someone else or write a document that could teach someone else. It's an ineffective use of time to do that more than once, for later review of the material just skim what you wrote on your first review.

3. Everyone who offers advice is just telling you their life story, dressed up as a simple directive. "Work harder" often means they wished they worked harder in some part of their life. Treat it like any other life story: learn the lessons they did, but don't let it become baggage that you irrationally follow.

Back on topic of Polya's How to Solve It, I took a no-credit uni course where the professor taught in Socratic style that expected us to (loosely) follow Polya's process. It was a great experience, and I've always been fond of Polya's steps because of it.

[mathisfun123]

> Everyone who offers advice is just telling you their life story, dressed up as a simple directive. "Work harder" often means they wished they worked harder in some part of their life. Treat it like any other life story: learn the lessons they did, but don't let it become baggage that you irrationally follow.

I don't know how old you are but bravo - it took me a very very very long time to realize this. The converse to this is to always be very transparent and very careful when giving novices advice - when junior PhD students ask me about some kind success I've had I always make sure to emphasize the ways in which I got lucky first and only after talk about how I applied myself.

Edit: and in full transparency, I believe i had this epiphany after at some point listening to the funny poem/song/thing (from the 90s):

Everybody’s Free (to Wear SUNSCREEN): THE SUNSCREEN SONG (Class of ’99)

https://youtu.be/sTJ7AzBIJoI

which has a lyric

>Be careful whose advice you buy but be patient with those who supply it

>Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past

>From the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts

>And recycling it for more than it's worth

I'm not one for sentimentality but that nicely captures it.

[brightlancer]

> Everyone who offers advice is just telling you their life story, dressed up as a simple directive. "Work harder" often means they wished they worked harder in some part of their life.

I think both parts of these are wrong.

There are a lot of times that folks who will advise others to do the thing(s) they wished they'd done themselves, but it's definitely not everyone all the time, and I'm not even sure if it's most people most of the time.

As often, probably more often, folks advise others to do the thing(s) that they _did_ do.

Occasionally, folks are able to give advice that is specific to the recipient. It's definitely not the norm, but I've run into it often enough.

tl;dr Don't dismiss someone's advice because you think it's all about them, particularly because you think it's all about their mistakes.

[mathisfun123]

> it's most people most of the time

it absolutely is most people most of the time. just ponder how many advice columns and platitudinous commencement speeches and gurus and old cranky uncles and pretentious 8th grade teachers (and etc etc etc) there are. hell think of the likelihood of getting XYed in our very own industry.

> folks advise others to do the thing(s) that they _did_ do.

the meat of the point isn't that people exaggerate. even giving people the benefit of the doubt, that they don't exaggerate, they're giving you advice that's 99% of the time non-transferrable, i.e., completely useless for you and serving only the purpose of enabling them to take a nice trip down memory lane. if i'm asking someone for advice, that's an expert, i'm not asking them what worked for them in the instance of the problem they face; i'm asking them about my instance. and it is a very rare person that knows you well enough and takes the time and care and effort to advise someone individually and/or germainely.