/edu/ - Education

I've read and enjoyed the third one but the avoided the other books like the plague since they sound like the standard gag-worthy "self-help" garbage. Can you write a bit to explain what you like about them? The second one especially looks like the standard "Here's the FIVE HABITS that made ELON MUSK RICH" articles that made me wanna throw myself off a bridge. Greene's books also look to me like just straight up plagiarism of far better, classic writers, marketed as "sigma tips to be a gigachads who don't give a d*mn" to appeal to edgy teens and the types to read "seduction" books
Anyway, here's my suggestions. Of all the shit in this genre of books that I've read, these are the only ones to skip over all the typical self-help bullshit and neolib indoctrination to actually give you a plan of action for getting shit done. They vary a bit in topic, like the War of Art is about… art and AMFN about maths and science, but the general concepts are pretty universal and I would recommend them to anybody.

>>11562 (me)
>third one
fourth one*

>>11562
>How to Read a Book

I literally need this. So. Much. Theory. fml

>>11562
>Greene's books also look to me like just straight up plagiarism of far better, classic writers, marketed as "sigma tips to be a gigachads who don't give a d*mn" to appeal to edgy teens and the types to read "seduction" books
So? What is standing on the shoulders of giants?

>>11628
You see seem to think my problem is with the first part of that sentence rather than the latter half. And even then, do his books provide anything that you wouldn't get from actually reading Machiavelli and the other dudes he rips off? Is the fact that they're mainly popular with retards and dudebros just a coincidence and there's actually some meaningful content in these books? I'm genuinely asking

"Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" is a book by Oliver Burkeman that explores the concept of time and how to make the most of it. The title refers to the approximate number of weeks in an average human lifespan, and the book encourages readers to consider how they want to spend that time.

Burkeman challenges the traditional approach to time management, arguing that the focus should be on prioritizing what truly matters in life rather than simply maximizing productivity. He suggests strategies for identifying one's values and goals, avoiding distraction and procrastination, and embracing the inevitability of imperfection and failure.

Overall, "Four Thousand Weeks" offers a thought-provoking and practical approach to time management that emphasizes the importance of living a meaningful and fulfilling life.

>>11629
Dictatorship of the proletariat is the oppression of the bourgeoisie class.

>>12505
thanks :)

>>11630
Isn't that what most academics do? Just compile a bunch of information with sources?

>>12505
Thanks for the rec, just read it and got a lot out of it

>>12788
What did you get out of it?

>>12505
This is a very good book. The only "realistic" management self-help work I've ever read, since Burkeman's solution to being incapable of getting everything done is that it is simply impossible to do everything you want. It's best to be sober about the matter, focus on only a few things, and do them without expecting results. This, of course, can be applied to anything, be it personal projects (learning a skill such as a language) or relationships, or even just living in general.

It should be noted that Burkeman clearly seems to be a fellow traveler, taking notice of the role of capitalism in fucking us over an making us become paranoid trying to cram as much shit we can into every single day until we burnout.

>>12789
Not that comrade, but I found it to be a very comforting book. Accepting we're limited and that we'll die some day we can't control, that in fact we can control so very little of our lives, is a bit humbling and made me appreciate the things I can actually choose to do and focus on, knowing that any choice I make is necessarily replacing all other possible choices, and that thus we are always living, every single moment, and never in a sort of "dress rehersal" or in a state when "after x happens, I'll finally be able to do what I want". That day will never come, since it is structurally made to forever be in the future. Anything you want to do, therefore, msut be done today, as in the perpetual today which is all we have for the entirety of our lives.

Which is one of the reasons I decided to stop mucking about in these forums, what a goddamn waste of time

>>11562
Atomic Habits is good, very practical; War of Art is a bit of a weird book, the author's ideology is a strange mix of reactionary optimism, but it does have some good bits; haven't finished A Mind for Numbers but it seems to be a very good book, and not only for math; just for learning in general (essentially, shit takes time, and not-studying is a part of studying). The other two I haven't read.

>>12841
>spoiler
good choice, did the same thing a while back and it improved my life immensely lmao. i feel like /edu/ is still worth checking out from time to time though

>>12505
>>11562
I think these are basically all a communist needs to get started

>>12849
Any time I can post the one /lit/ chart I made, I'm gonna do it.

>>12862
This one is much better than all of those combined.

>>12863
How so? It'd be nice if you argued about its merits or something. This is /edu/ after all.

>>12874
It's not like anyone made the case for those books either. I liked "Understanding How We Learn" because it has a nice structure to it, it goes from science to model to practice, and it is relatively short and easy to read. I did not read "make it stick" but I assume they give roughly the same advice, but that one has twice the length. "Deep Work" is 99% filler, it could have been a blog post. It was really disappointing, a bunch of scattered ideas, maybe the author could have done some more deep focused work to figure out what actually matters. "How to Read a Book" was enjoyable but you won't need to do that synoptic reading stuff unless you are a humanities professor, and the rest is not that useful. If you need to do research, "How to Read a Paper" has all the useful bits in two pages. The parts about reading different genres is fun but not really related to learning. I did not read Atomic Habits but I assume it is the same cue-action-reward Skinner box garbage that every other book about habits parrot, I doubt anyone actually does that in real life.

>>12875
I made that chart for Luddites who don’t read at all on /lit/. Getting them to open a book at all is difficult. Out of those four Make it Stick really is the best one for all the reasons you mentioned. But I also think your reviews of the others are a little harsh. For the retarded 18 year old kid who never thought about anything and is raised in a world with screens, getting even a few kernels of knowledge from a few hours of reading is probably better for them than most anything else when it comes to developing critical thinking and good habits.

>>12876
You are recommending more than 1200 pages to read to people "who don't read at all". They are not going to read all that shit. They probably won't even read a single page, just looking at the page count will overwhelm them.

>>12875
Atomic Habits is skinner box stuff, but it's the best skinner-box ideology pusher that i've read, because it just decides to focus on the idea that if you do a little bit every day it'll show results, so long as you're consistent. Now, does someone need reading a book to know that? Probably not, but sometimes it's helpful to remember that shit takes time to produce results, especially in a society with technological means that produce instantaneous responses. The author is a bit of an interesting figure, since he got hurt pretty bad and had to relearn how to do basic shit, so it's in a sense also a bit of a sum-up of his experiences.

I personally found it a bit useful, and I even got to write a bit of a critique about it that the author was in fact writing about a dialectical process, but since his brain was too lib-pilled he couldn't see it.

>>12877
Good point. There are audiobooks, though, especially in this genre. They might be helpful for people who got too socialmedia-brained and can't focus on anything for more than a couple seconds.

Though if any comrades feel like that I can say that at least on a personal level I've kinda started regaining my attention span, which has been a very enjoyable sensation, after a while of being quite literally incapable of focusing on anything much.

>>12505
I can vouch for this being good