Sorry for the long hiatus everyone. I am refraining from blogging so much while I figure out some infrastructure related details: i.e. how to write inline latex effectively in the blog, how to use pictures, and importantly how to categorize things by date, etc. so that this doesn’t blow up.

(In partciular, you can already see how the number of posts will grow linearly with time: not good).

The paradox of graduate school: learning how to make imperfect decisions

So now I have been in grad school for over a semester. Things are going well, but I am finally able to describe a certain phenomenon that has been bothering me.

Simply put, I have too much time on my hands.

Paradoxically, with too much time on my hands, I find that I don’t have enough of it. Even simple decisions that I should be quickly able to address I find are taking me ages to get over.

This theory explains why I procrastinate: rather than going with an OK solution, I wait to find a great solution (since in fact, the solution quality in general DOES improve with time). This is the same isue with essay writing that I find, spending copious amounts of time to find le mot juste

Unfortunately, while this method can be good, in my opinion in life there are very few things that not time-sensitive. Almost every task that can be done at 110% using 10 units of time, is almost much better done at 80% using 2 units of time.

And importantly, if you take too long to make a decision, it often gets made for you.

The solution: make imperfect decisions

The solution, unsurprisingly, is to make imperfect decisions. Yes, you read it correctly: make provably suboptimal decisions. But make them quickly!

John