What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and Advice

What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and Advice

TLDR:

The article “What Should You Do with Your Life? Directions and Advice” by Alexey Guzey provides guidance for people who are unsure about their life plans. Here’s a summary:

1. What to work on: Guzey suggests several resources for finding interesting problems to work on, including Y Combinator’s Requests for Startups, OpenAI’s Requests for Research, and various lists of research ideas and project ideas.

2. How to work on the problem you like: Guzey advises writing down a shortlist of exciting problems, selecting the most exciting and tractable ones, and then learning everything you need to start working on the problem. This could involve taking MOOCs, auditing classes at a local university, or finding a tutor. Once you’ve gained sufficient knowledge, start working on a project related to the problem, produce a minimal public impressive result, and share it with people working in your area.

3. Cold emails and Twitter: Guzey emphasizes the effectiveness of cold emails and Twitter for connecting with people who can help you. He shares examples of his own successful cold emails and provides tips for writing them.

4. Finding funding: For projects that require funding, Guzey lists several resources, including Nadia Eghbal’s list of microgrants, the Thiel Fellowship, and Emergent Ventures.

5. General advice: Guzey shares advice from various sources, such as Paul Graham’s essay “How to Do What You Love”, Patrick Collison’s advice for ages 10-20, and Patrick McKenzie’s “Don’t End The Week With Nothing”. The common theme is to be proactive, produce tangible work, and take advantage of opportunities.

6. More projects to work on: Guzey ends the article by suggesting more projects to work on, like Jacob Trefethen’s Vigilante accountability project.