Daily Productive Sharing 073 - 少年成才的主管如何提升自己的阅历？

One helpful tip per day:)

(The English version follows)

Shopify 被誉为 Amazon 最大的竞争对手，他们有一套别具一格的人才培养制度，比如他们提供了一个 Dev Degree。这一学位联合了澳大利亚的 Carleton University 和加拿大的 York University，提供了学习和实践的机会。参与的本科学生每学期在学校参加三门课程，每周有 25 小时在 Shopify 实践。

当然今天的分享并不是介绍上面这一学位的，而是来自 Shopify 的 Director of Production Engineering - Simon Eskildsen，他高中毕业后就加入早期的 Shopify，然后一路晋升到现在的位置。他需要管理的同事可能比他大十岁，所以他需要通过大量阅读来补足自己的经验和阅历。

Suddenly, instead of building systems to optimize server performance, he was optimizing his own brain: he was building himself into a learning machine.

But I ended up interviewing again in Ottawa, and then decided to join for a gap year. Things went well and you could say I’m now on my sixth gap year.

I began taking reading seriously when I started at Shopify in 2013. It was primarily driven by the fact that I became a manager very early in my career.

As I started to read more, the question was whether to go deep or wide. I am curious about so many things, so I naturally gravitated to read widely. I strive to be T-shaped: really good at something, but with a wide foundation — and that’s a metaphor we use widely at Shopify.

The one thing I do try to follow is to go on streaks of reading a lot of books on a particular topic around the same time. Doing this is useful because it means I don’t have to just trust one author’s perspective on a particular topic — and helps me connect a lot of facts together, so I can understand things better.

The core of the system is highlighting. Anything that I find that’s important, I’ll highlight on my Kindle. All of those highlights automatically go to my Readwise where I can add them to my learning system. Readwise is fantastic because it automatically scrapes all of my Kindle highlights and puts them into one place for me where I can search, tag, and review them.

I am creeping up on 10,000 cards in Anki, and I’ve been doing this for over 4 years. It’s probably the most impactful habit I have in terms of impact over time invested.

When I highlight something from a book that contains an idea, concept, metaphor, or generally something more abstract, I’ll put it into my Zettelkasten instead of my flashcard system. These highlights aren’t to be remembered, they are to be connected.

You’ll see in my Zettelkasten I put in the original quote, then the source, and then write a small commentary on it.

For example, memorizing all of the U.S. presidents is something that people might think is for show. But to me it’s actually really helpful to know who was president at a certain time because it allows you to connect the president with that time period.

How to Make Yourself Into a Learning Machine

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Shopify is considered Amazon's biggest competitor, and they have a unique talent development system, such as a Dev Degree. The degree is offered in collaboration with Carleton University in Australia and York University in Canada. This degree provides learning and practice opportunities. Participating undergraduate students take three courses per semester at the university and spend 25 hours per week in Shopify practicing.

Of course, today's share is not about the degree above, but about Shopify's Director of Production Engineering - Simon Eskildsen, who joined the early days of Shopify right out of high school and worked his way up to his current position. He has to manage colleagues who are probably ten years older than he is, so he needs to supplement his experience and experience with a lot of reading.

Suddenly, instead of building systems to optimize server performance, he was optimizing his own brain: he was building himself into a learning machine.

But I ended up interviewing again in Ottawa, and then decided to join for a gap year. Things went well and you could say I’m now on my sixth gap year.

I began taking reading seriously when I started at Shopify in 2013. It was primarily driven by the fact that I became a manager very early in my career.

As I started to read more, the question was whether to go deep or wide. I am curious about so many things, so I naturally gravitated to read widely. I strive to be T-shaped: really good at something, but with a wide foundation — and that’s a metaphor we use widely at Shopify.

The one thing I do try to follow is to go on streaks of reading a lot of books on a particular topic around the same time. Doing this is useful because it means I don’t have to just trust one author’s perspective on a particular topic — and helps me connect a lot of facts together, so I can understand things better.

The core of the system is highlighting. Anything that I find that’s important, I’ll highlight on my Kindle. All of those highlights automatically go to my Readwise where I can add them to my learning system. Readwise is fantastic because it automatically scrapes all of my Kindle highlights and puts them into one place for me where I can search, tag, and review them.

I am creeping up on 10,000 cards in Anki, and I’ve been doing this for over 4 years. It’s probably the most impactful habit I have in terms of impact over time invested.

When I highlight something from a book that contains an idea, concept, metaphor, or generally something more abstract, I’ll put it into my Zettelkasten instead of my flashcard system. These highlights aren’t to be remembered, they are to be connected.

You’ll see in my Zettelkasten I put in the original quote, then the source, and then write a small commentary on it.

For example, memorizing all of the U.S. presidents is something that people might think is for show. But to me it’s actually really helpful to know who was president at a certain time because it allows you to connect the president with that time period.

How to Make Yourself Into a Learning Machine

Try our sustainable productivity tool BRNR List