Just finished chapter 2 in my Objective-C book

And so far, so good. I’m really liking Steve Kochan’s book. It’s pretty well written so far, and the exercises are pretty good. Very easy to follow.

I bought a hardcover notebook to write down everything I learned, but decided that it was really inefficient trying to find anything I needed. Instead, I’m going to use Evernote for now to see if that will work better for me. So far, so good I guess.

Chapter 3, here we come!

Waiting for my new Objective-C book

I’m starting to get really excited now. I’ve been playing around with my Mac in the past couple of days since I got it, to familiarize myself with the OS. It’s been pretty easy and intuitive so far. I’m still a hardened PC user though, so there were definitely some things I wasn’t used to.

I’m now gearing up to learn Objective-C. At first, I thought I had to learn C first, but then I found a book by Steve Kochan that was recommended to me both by a friend and a fellow Twitterer. I’m really stoked about this book, because according to the author, this was written so that you didn’t actually need to learn C first! In fact, the author argues that it’s best to not get too deep into C before you learn Objective-C. I love the fact that the author also has a forum for learners at http://classroomm.com/objective-c. This guy is awesome. Steve, if you’re reading this and are ever in Vancouver, msg me and I’ll buy you a drink!

I also found a free book online at http://www.cocoalab.com/?q=becomeanxcoder. However, I think I’m going to use the Steve Kochan book first so that I can focus my efforts. I’m also viewing some videos that I downloaded from the ADC on iTunes. Wish me luck people!

GTD has really improved my life. No, it’s not paid advertising.

In continuation with my latest theme about information overload:

I used to feel really bogged down with way too many things on the go, it felt like I was constantly bombarded with a million new tasks, people to talk to, things to buy, and far too many things to read. I started to put things directly on my calendar in an attempt to force myself to do things at a certain time. But three things frequently happened: (1) I always underestimated the amount of time I needed, (2) often I was in the wrong place — sometimes still in transit, sometimes without a computer, and (3) seeing the task on my calendar was sufficiently depressing and demotivating that I never ended up doing the task I wanted.

Then, I would reschedule the task. And then the nasty cycle would begin again. Someone at work recommended I read David Allen’s book called “Getting Things Done”. I can’t say I had the patience to read through the entire book line by line, but I got the gist of it and started to reorder my mountain of tasks, bit by bit. I ended up with something like 150 tasks, and within a few weeks got it down to around 25. These days, I average between 20 to 25 tasks on my list, but it is far more manageable, and I don’t get nearly as stressed out about it anymore.

I thought it was interesting how this student applied GTD to his school work: http://macsamurai.blogspot.com/2009/05/going-from-failing-to-straight-with.html

I want to avoid having to work in a vacuum

Here’s an interesting article about the “benefits of distraction”: http://nymag.com/news/features/56793/.

It is very long though, I found I didn’t have the patience to read more than a paragraph on a page before I started scanning the rest. Hah…wasn’t I talking about information overload earlier? Still, it made some good points. I’m pretty conflicted about the issue — are all our distractions these days (twitter, blogs, rss feeds, emails, etc) truly destroying our synaptic pathways (I’m joking, but not quite), or are they simply keeping us from being more productive in our lives without the major side effects?

The whole multitasking thing probably is a myth, but then again I have faith in my brain’s ability to adapt at least a little. If you watch kids IM multiple people and play video games at the same time, I am not only amazed at how they can simultaneously juggle these activities, but how they don’t seem to suffer a great loss of concentration in any one ‘channel’. That said, I’m really curious to see how they fare in the workplace when they get older.

Perhaps the price you pay for the ability to multitask is the increasing inability to focus for long periods of time on a SINGLE task when it’s actually needed. Have you ever spent time talking to a teenager, one on one? And noticed that they can’t seem to look at you in the eyes for more than a split second before they start looking around? And not be able to follow what you’re saying? You might tell me that it’s because what I’m saying to them is typical adult stuff and they’re just not interested in the discussion (I usually try to talk about topics that are more relevant to them), but something tells me that’s not the only reason. And another thing — ask a kid these days if they like reading books. Some actually do, for those who are snickering as they read this. But they can’t seem to finish what they’re reading, and they certainly seem to be avoiding the longer titles. In fact, most of them seem to gravitate towards graphic novels. God I hate that term, ‘graphic novels’. It’s a bloody comic book, ok?

Trying to find ways to manage information overload

I am an intensely curious person, with a strong, bordering-on-obsessive need to learn as much as I can on any topic that piques my interest. It’s actually not enough for me to just get a surface-level look at something, unless I decide it’s boring or of no use to me. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Annoying, really. I’m aware of this and I can’t help myself, and the only thing that stops me from trying to soak up everything is the limited time that I have in my day to attend to, oh, LIVING.

I have a feeling I’m not alone, and in fact it’s probably a very common affliction. So, what can I do about this?

Lately I’ve started working on a presentation for my team about how we can extend our reach into the internal and external communities with the education we currently produce, and encourage the use of social learning tools that are currently available in the environment. Seems like learning 2.0 is a big buzz word for progressive companies these days, and it’s only going to get bigger. As employees who need to actually WORK and PRODUCE during our 8 hours at the office each day, how do we keep up with learning? More importantly, how can we retain and apply this new knowledge?

It all boils down to time and efficiency. I should list out all of the tools I’ve used in the past for learning, to help me get a better sense of the big picture. Maybe I can learn a little about my own fact-finding, knowledge-seeking habits.