Lazy Hobo Workout Scheme

Finally, a post that isn't really important to read!

So, I mentioned in The Basics that it's a good idea to stay in decent shape if you want things to be easy for you. The problem with this is that a lot of people don't want to put in the effort to stay in shape, because most fitness systems require a lot of time dedicated solely to staying in shape and exercising specific muscle groups.

If you're just looking to maintain a useful level of fitness, it's not that hard. You really can stay in good shape in ten or fifteen minutes a day, as long as you get in some incidental exercise too.

Incidental Exercise
This falls into two basic categories, transportation and fun stuff.

For transportation, just stop going places in a car, if you can. It's easy to get some cardio in by just walking or cycling (or skateboarding, rollerblading, etc.) to wherever you want to go. Personally, I use a bike for essentially all my transportation. It keeps me in good shape, and as long as I keep the bike in good repair and tuned up well, it doesn't take that much longer. Where I would have spent 30-40 minutes driving, I spend an hour on my bike. I also save all of the money I would have spent on gas, and most of the money I would have spent on repairs (maintaining a bike is generally inexpensive and easier to do yourself than a car, but you will have to accept maintenance costs as a reality of any form of mechanical transportation).

Anything remotely active that you enjoy in a recreational sense counts as fun stuff. Playing any sports, swimming, throwing a frisbee around, and anything similar counts as cardio. If you go to a park and play on the climbers for a bit, you can also help with strength, coordination, and flexibility.

Exercising on Purpose
This is the one that you sort of have to make yourself do. If you enjoy spending an hour a day at the gym doing specific exercises and if you have the time/motivation to do it, then good for you, you don't need to read this.

For the rest of us, we want something relatively quick that we can get done and cross off from our PDA before moving on to something else. A good way to do this is to use compound exercises, that is, exercises that work many muscles at once. All you should need for this type of workout is a chin-up bar, a barbell with collars, and some weights.

My current routine is:

Day 1:
5 supersets of:

• 10x chin-ups (overhand grip)
• 10x push press (moderate weight)

Day 2:
5 supersets of:

• 5x deadlifts (heavy weight) (NOTE: Proper form during deadlifts is ESSENTIAL to prevent injury)
• 25x squats (no weight, done as quickly as possible)

Day 3:
5 supersets of:

• 10x hanging leg raise (keep legs straight)
• 10x hanging knee raise
• 10x chin-ups (underhand grip)

Day 4: Rest.

As you can see, this hits essentially all of the muscle groups, requires little equipment, and can generally be done in 10-15 minutes a day. If you're particularly tired, I'd recommend doing a half-workout (half the reps per set) rather than doing nothing at all.

If motivation is your problem, a fellow by the name of "Corky52" has created an exercise scheme for people who spend too much time on the internet. The initial post is fairly rudimentary, but there's a graduated system of various fitness levels later on in the topic.

The Hipster PDA 2.0

This is another important post (seems like they all are at the moment), because this describes the key tool that bridges the gap between having an idea of what you're supposed to be doing and really having your shit together.

Some of you may be familiar with the original Hipster PDA. Essentially, it's a stack of 3x5 index cards held together with a small binder clip. Despite the name, it's a pretty useful tool, to the point that a bunch of people have adopted it and begun making a whole bunch of modifications ranging from the practical to the useless. It's a fast, easy way to take notes and organize them into any order you want.

(At this point, if you're not interested in design and the process of coming up with the modified version, just skip to "Making the Hipster 2.0")

However, I found that the original stack of 3x5 cue cards had some design problems I was unhappy about. Card stock was a good idea, as it holds up to abuse. The binder clip was also a good idea, as it's secure, relatively indestructible compared to other paper fasteners, doesn't require a hole, lays flat in your pocket, and is easy to remove and replace. Despite this, there were a few things that prevented me from being too enthusiastic about the idea:

• It's huge. 3x5 cards will fit in my pocket, but I also have my wallet in there, and I ride a bike to work/campus. That's just asking to make the cards all bendy-wendy and damaged at the edges.
• The lines go the wrong way. Personal preference on this one, but I just don't like having lines that are wider than my paper is long. I also have a tendency to write concise items, so it wastes a lot of space to write all the way to the end of a card. I also don't like putting two ideas on the same line.
• No metadata. It's just a collection of cards without any indication of what each card will be about before you read it. People have developed organization schemes for the Hipster, which I have adopted and slightly modified.
  
• Index cards are always the wrong size. Again, personal preference, but I find that fifteen square inches is exactly the wrong size. I always need to write less or more than can fit on a standard cue card.

With all that in mind, I went to the office supply store, and when browsing the cue cards (trying to find unruled coloured ones, which weren't available), I realized how to fix the size and orientation problems fairly easily. I'd just buy 4x6 cards and cut them in half. That way, I'd have a pocket-sized stack of 4x3 index cards with lines that go the "right" way. I'd also have the option of keeping a few folded cards for those times that I just have to write down 24 square inches of information.

So, I picked up a rainbow pack of large cue cards, and later that day, got to work.

Making the Hipster 2.0

Things you'll need:

• Multicoloured 4x6 cue cards
• A small binder clip
• A box cutter (or x-acto knife, or paper cutter, or whatever you have lying around. Scissors are a last resort, as they tend to bend your cards.)
• A ruler/straight edge
• A nice pen (You don't technically need this, but you'll use it a lot. Get a good one.)

Now, to construct your Hipster 2.0:

1. Either fold a card in half or use your ruler to measure the middle point and make a line.
2. Lay your straight edge along that line, and use your box cutter to start slicing the cards in half. Hold the ruler firmly, but don't cut yourself or anything.
3. Pile the newly cut cards on top of each other
4. Secure with binder clip
5. Done!

Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of a tasteful arrangement of office supplies. But how to use it?

Organizing the Hipster
The basic setup is to use a colour-coded system to separate and sort your cards. I keep four main sections:

1. Today's tasks. This is a list of short tasks (i.e. no more than say, a half hour each, and as short as you want. Use your discretion here) that you want to get done today. They should all be specific actions. For example "Start fixing up black bicycle" is bad, "Overhaul rear hub of black bicycle" is good.
2. Blank cards. No problems here. They go right behind today's tasks with no divider.
3. Cards to be processed. This includes anything you write that isn't a task for today. This is where I keep a list of larger tasks, or things I hope to accomplish in the future. Therefore, it can include large tasks, such as "Fix up black bike" or "Clean out all the shelves," as well as small but non-urgent tasks such as "Buy shoes" or "Install new case fan." I advise treating all assignments you get as a list of small tasks to be accomplished individually.
   
4. Permanent cards. Here I keep things that I want to hold on to for a long period of time. I keep a list of phone numbers and addresses, a list of articles that I need to write (I'm also a writer), and calendars for the next three months. I also like to keep a divider card at the very back to protect the cards in this section from wear and tear.
   

Tips for Use

• Use your list of larger tasks as a starting point each day for your list of today's tasks. The idea is to break those large tasks into smaller, physically clear, concrete tasks that you can do in a day. This will cause you to finish those larger tasks incrementally.
• Sometimes it's hard to remember all the little parts that make up a larger task. I like to mark these tasks with an arrow, which means that there's another card associated with that task in the "to be processed" section. Those cards are lists of smaller, actionable tasks that comprise the larger task.
  
• Once a card in "to be processed" has run its useful course (i.e. you have entered the information somewhere else or completed whatever it was telling you to do), remove it from the pack and recycle it. Check this section every day or two to make sure there's no cards that are sitting idle and not being processed properly.
• I like to keep a few folded cards in the pack in case I need to write down a lot. This is good for things like grocery lists.
• Calendars aren't necessary, but if you want them, there's monthly index-card-sized calendars available here. Make sure you set up your printer for printing on card stock at 4x6 size. These calendars are great for keeping track of meetings and appointments.
• During the school year, it may be desirable to have a section dedicated to assignments. These cards, as with all other larger tasks, should have the task broken down into small, actionable items.
  

The Lazy Hobo Organizational Scheme

I've been meaning for years to organize all my shit into a comprehensible system. Most of the other times that I've tried to organize things, it's gotten too complicated to bother with and things get less organized than they were before. Keeping different subjects in different binders resulted in cross-contamination of subjects. Filing is absurd and far more effort than I was willing to expend. Furthermore, none of these systems helped me keep on track with regards to what I was actually supposed to be doing.

Fortunately, over the past couple of years, I've gradually hammered out all the details of a system that works quite well for keeping track of all the information and details that are important to a student. The final key, which I just worked out recently, was a portable way to easily make and organize notes, lists, tasks, etc.

The entire system consists of four things: A clipboard, a large binder, a whiteboard, and a Hipster PDA (I use my own version of the Hipster, with details in this post)

The Clipboard
Your clipboard is what you will use for holding and carrying information and materials that are relevant to you during the day. For me, this means a schedule, up to a few days of notes, assignment descriptions, a stack of paper for taking new notes, and a pen.

Your clipboard is what you will use to write all of your notes for all of your classes. This has the advantage of making it the only thing you need to carry around when you're on campus. The disadvantage is that your notes will all go into the same pile.

This problem is easily circumvented with proper labeling. On every page of notes, put the course code (or course name, or whatever you prefer), the date, and next to the date, an index number to say which page of notes from that day for that subject it is. That way, you know the exact location of the note in terms of subject and chronological order. Example: If I find a sheet that says "CHEE 210" in the upper left, and "Feb 21. (3)" in the upper right, I know it's the third page of notes I took on February 21st for thermodynamics. This will come in handy later when putting your notes into the binder.

After each class, I like to take all of the notes from that class, unclip them or tear them from the pad, and put them into the pocket behind any other papers that are there. Every few days, when there gets to be too much paper there, make a note in your Hipster PDA to transfer them to your binder, so you don't forget about it once you're home.

I recommend a clipboard with a folding cover, at least one pocket that holds paper, and a pen loop. Personally, I use this thing called a "padfolio," which holds a pad of paper rather than a clip. If you use one of these, make sure to get pads of paper with holes punched in the side for future storage of notes. Also remember that if you don't have an actual pad, you can put regular paper into the folder using a binder clip.

The Hipster PDA
Despite the unfortunate name, the Hipster PDA is also a good organizational tool for people who are actually trying to accomplish things.

The Hipster is a way to keep and arrange short personal notes and information that was originally made popular by this post from 43 Folders. I found the idea to be pretty good, but I have some issues with the original design, so I came up with my own variation which I (unjustifiably) call the Hipster PDA 2.0.

Basically, you take some index cards and keep them all together with a small binder clip. It's cheap, it's portable, and it's easy to create, reorganize, and get rid of data.

Any time you get an assignment, write it down. Any time you think of something that you need to get done, write it down. Any time you receive some interesting bit of information that you want to hang on to (ex: date of a function where you can get free food, drug dealer's phone number), write it down. Any time you have an idea for anything, write it down.

This was the real missing link from my system. I used to write down these things on the sides of notes or on scraps of paper which I shoved into my pockets, which just wasn't working. It also didn't help to keep me on task.

The second function of the PDA is to keep a running tab of everything you want to accomplish and have accomplished. My front card is always a list of small tasks that I want to get accomplished on that day. I have other cards associated with all tasks to accomplish eventually, and other organizational tricks that I will describe further in my main post about it.

The White Board
Also known as a dry-erase board. These might seem a bit pricey for something that holds so little information at once, but trust me, they're very useful. You also don't need a very big one. Mine is something like 12"x8", and I've never had a problem with it.

The only purpose of the white board is to keep track of what assignments you have and what date they need to be finished by (including any midterms/quizzes that you need to review for). If you wish, you can also include a rough estimate of how much you've done on them. At a given time, I have about five to ten assignments that I need to keep track of, so a running list is very helpful in making sure all of my shit gets done in a reasonable amount of time.

I used to keep a sheet of paper specifically for this purpose, but since the items don't get removed linearly and the sheet needs to be replaced periodically, it's not an ideal system. It's a very transient, ever-changing list of things that take different amounts of time to complete. Therefore, a white board is an ideal way to keep track of that list. Anything new gets written on, anything you've completed gets erased. Simple. The large writing and conspicuous presence

The Binder
This is just a really big binder where you keep all of your non-recent notes, old assignments and tests, whatever you want to hold on to. You should use divider sheets to keep subject separate. Every few days, empty the notes from the pocket in your clipboard and sort your notes into the binder by subject and date.

I recommend a thick (three inches is good), sturdy binder with D-ring clips. If you buy a good binder now, you can keep it all through university with no problems, since this is one you won't toss around a lot. On the other hand, if you buy one with flimsy covers or circular ring clips (which, on larger binders, are prone to failure), you'll just have to replace it.

Incidentally, D-rings also make it easier to open/close the binder, and transfer larger amounts of paper. Just get the damn D-rings.

The Basics

This is probably the most important post I'm going to make. This is a list of all the major things that you should do as soon as you can if you want to work less and do more. This is an ongoing process, and the list will change as more items are added to it, or existing ones are replaced with better explanations.

Learn to Learn
This one comes first because it's the most important. The easiest way to waste time is to use a basic strategy for learning that someone else came up with for you. Everything I post here will help generally, but at the basic level, you know better than anyone else what helps you to understand and remember things.

For me, it's easy enough to listen to someone talk and understand everything they're saying. Unfortunately, when I leave, I'll immediately forget all of it. What works for me is to write things down. Generally, I just summarize the major ideas that are essential to the material, but occasionally I'll go for it and just write down everything. Once I'm done, I put the notes away and generally never look at them again. It's the process of writing that's important to me, not the reference material for the future.

The key here is, do what works for you, and do it well. If you learn by listening to people talk, bring a tape recorder. If you learn by doing problems, you can take minimal notes, work on a few problems from the book, and make a note of good problems for later. If you're like me, stay well stocked on paper products.

Don't Memorize, Understand
This one is obvious. Everyone says this, but it's true, and important, so I'm listing it here. Even if it's more work initially to understand a concept instead of just memorizing what you've been told, in the end, the root concepts will allow you to deduce everything else and you'll only need to remember about 5%-10% as much shit as you would have otherwise.

I find the handiest way to practice this is that if you don't read ahead (who the fuck does?), you can use what you learned one day to deduce what you're going to learn the next day. On one occasion, I realized that an entire course was essentially just a combination of two ideas that we already knew from the previous year. I stopped going to that class, because all of the lectures were just minor, obvious variations on things we already knew.

Go to Your Fucking Classes
Nobody likes this one. It's time consuming and often boring. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you to go to all your classes all the time. Sometimes, as I mentioned above, you'll have a class that isn't really worth attending because there's nothing to learn.

Generally though, lectures are the most efficient way to learn, which is to say, they provide the highest level of understanding and useful information for a given amount of time invested. You may be able to get a passing grade in slightly less time by reading course notes and the textbook, but if you go to your lectures, the most tedious parts are already done for you. Someone has summarized the notes, placed emphasis on the most important parts, and will often even tell you exactly what's going to appear on your exams.

Sit in the Front
Seriously. I know it's scary, but sitting in the front will reduce distraction, keep you awake, and drastically increase your attention span. Even if you don't want to be at the very front (although it's a good idea), one of the first three or four rows should do it.

Get Your Shit in Order
Have a system for keeping your notes in order, as well as one for keeping track of all of your upcoming assignments and what needs to be done for them. I have a system for this which I will describe in a later post.

The goals of the system should be:
Makes notes easy to find should you need themKeeps you aware of what assignments you have and when they're dueKeeps you aware of what has been/needs to be done for a particular assignmentIs easy enough to manage that you won't give up on it.That last point is the real sticking point for a lot of organizational systems. Many will require you to have a whole shitload of folders, boxes and binders to keep things all separate and compartmentalized. While this may make accessing things a bit easier, for the amount of information a student needs to manage, it's too much work to be putting into an organization system. Organization systems often become so bulky and unintuitive that they're just not worth it.

Personally, I find having a binder for every subject to be overly complicated and bulky. It's big, heavy, and sometimes you forget the correct binder and have to write your notes in one for a different subject, which throws everything way the hell off. I did this in high school, and it didn't work.

Fortunately, you can keep track of everything you need for university using just a clipboard, a binder, a whiteboard, and a stack of cue cards held together with a binder clip.

Keep Your Shit Clean
As much as it is reasonably possible, you should keep your desk and your room clean. This helps to reduce distractions when you're working, it makes it easier to find things, and it makes it feel like there's less work to be done.

You don't need to be obsessive, but a good standard is that if there's not enough room on your desk for an open binder, or there's any laundry or garbage on your floor, then you probably need to clean up.

Anything sticky should also be cleaned up, because what the hell.

Develop a Standard Format
Writing your notes all the same way makes them easier to follow, easier to sort, and easier to search should the need arise. Make yourself a standard format and start writing all of your notes the same way.

(Pictures will be added later)
I start all my notes with the course code in the upper left corner and the date in the upper right corner. I don't usually title my pages, because the clip from the clipboard gets in the way.

Writing down explanations is fairly easy, just do it in paragraph form. It stands out fine because it's a block of text. It's good to have a marker between ideas. I use either an indent in the next paragraph or a blank line. I like to use the indent when I can remember because it saves paper.

Lists are where things get trickier. I have three symbols for lists to signify levels of importance. Large, important points/titles are underlined. Points which are associated with the underlined text are marked with a dash. Points that are sub-points to the dashed text are marked with an indent and a right-angle arrow. I have horrible penmanship, so the arrow helps me distinguish between an intentional indent and sloppiness. You may not have this problem.

Sometimes, more levels of priority are needed. In this case, I just alternate between dashes and right-angle arrows for each level.

Stop Lugging So Much Shit Around
There is no possible situation in which you will need three binders and four textbooks with you when you go to class. At best, each one of those will be useful in one class, and be nothing but weight and clutter for the rest.

If you've got your clipboard and stack of cue cards, you've got everything you need to record all the information you get, provided you have a pen loop in your clipboard. Textbooks are often superfluous, even in tutorials, and I bring them only when absolutely necessary (ex: working with others on a group project. Generally speaking, if you have enough things with you that you wouldn't be able to easily carry them with one arm, you're probably carrying too much shit.

It should be possible for you to get through university without a backpack. For the truly adventurous, it should be possible to get through without even wearing pants.

Get Rid of Your Laptop, Get a Second Monitor
Do I really mean you should throw your laptop away? No. If you've already got it, keep it, but leave it at home and don't bring it to class, unless you're really really good at taking notes with it. Generally speaking, pen and paper is the easiest and most intuitive way to take notes, especially when it comes to things like diagrams. A stack of paper is also often easier to manage than a set of files on a computer.

For the most part, a laptop in class is just a distraction for most people, and doesn't improve the learning process. At home, I have a desktop with two monitors. Even if you have a laptop, I highly suggest getting a second monitor and having your desktop span both. When you allocate one monitor for important shit and one for stupid shit, the stupid shit doesn't interrupt your work on the important shit.

Of course, this will make some of you complain about portability issues and not being able to work during breaks, and so on. I've found that I can effectively circumvent all of those issues with a USB storage device, which I keep attached to my key chain so I don't forget it.

Get Eight Hours of Sleep Every Night
Many people will tell you that sleep is for the weak, and that barely getting any sleep is a part of university life. You can always talk to your classmates about how little sleep each of you got last night because you were out partying or knitting or whatever the hell you and your friends do.

Truth is, sleep isn't for the weak, it's for the sleepy. Getting a proper amount of sleep makes it way easier to get up in the morning, and far easier to concentrate throughout the day. This results in work getting done faster. It'll also reduce the amount of time you're likely to sleep in on weekends. The amount of time you spend sleeping will likely balance out the amount of time you used to waste because of a lack of sleep. Of course, this isn't always possible, but do your best to get at least seven, and try not to make it a habit.

With that in mind, invest in a good mattress and some high-quality sheets. It's a third of your life, spend the money.

Eat Right and Stay in OK Shape
Eating properly will really increase your energy and your overall feeling of health. When you're feeling good, you work better, and get shit done faster. It also helps you stay in shape.

Staying in shape does the same stuff, as well as improving things like self-confidence. It also just makes it easier to get around.

In a future update, I'll post workout ideas for people who are too lazy to do a proper workout but want to stay in shape anyway.

A Premonition

So, I assumed I'd never have a blog of any sort because people wouldn't want to read about my stupid shit. This is essentially correct, which is why this one has a functional rather than personal focus.

For the most part, the posts to follow will be about how to become a better student, or at least how to perform better. All of the advice I've seen for students has been "work harder and don't procrastinate," which is a bunch of bullshit. I'm a student, and anyone who's ever been a student knows that a strategy like that is just suggesting an increase in effective output at the expense of leisure activities, which isn't a desirable result.

All students have already reached an equilibrium between how important their grades are and how important their leisure time is. A student's work output is a result of this relationship, not a result of staggering ignorance. Everyone knows that more work can be achieved with more time, they just don't care.

The real solution, then, is to increase output by improving efficiency. I've unwittingly been doing this my entire life as a result of extreme intellectual laziness. I didn't want to spend as much time doing shit, so I expended more effort on figuring out better ways to learn shit, so I wouldn't have to do as much shit to learn the same amount. People often mistook this for intelligence. The truth is, I'm really not much smarter than anyone else around; I just spent more of my time learning about learning than I did learning about whatever it was we were supposed to be learning.

This blog is the next step in the process. I've sort of been stagnating efficiency-wise since I got to university, and I need to pick it up again. I'm trying to graduate with first-class honours standing, and right now it seems like I'm barely managing that goal. I figure I could be doing less work and getting better grades if I put my mind to it, so I decided to take some new initiatives in efficiency this summer, then write everything down in a sort of reference guide to remind myself about it. Doing it in blog form makes it easily accessible, and has the side benefit of allowing other people to read it if they so desire.

Anyway, that's probably enough babbling. All of the useful shit will follow.