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.

A Project of One’s Own

TLDR:

The article, titled “Own”, is written by Paul Graham and was published in June 2021. It discusses the concept of working on a project of one’s own and how it differs from ordinary work. Here are the key points:

1. Working on a project of one’s own is compared to skating, which is more fun and productive than ordinary work (walking). This kind of work is often exciting and engaging, even though it may not always lead to happiness due to the challenges and problems encountered.

2. The author argues that a significant proportion of great work has been done by people who were “skating” in this sense. He emphasizes the importance of autonomy and the sense of ownership in work.

3. The article also discusses the disconnect between the work children do (like building a treehouse) and the work adults do. It criticizes the school system for not making it clear to children that their playful projects could lead to serious work in adulthood.

4. The author prefers his children to work on ambitious projects of their own rather than focusing on getting good grades. He argues that such projects have more predictive value for future success.

5. The article also explores the concept of collaboration and how it fits into the idea of owning a project. It suggests that collaboration can either involve sharing a single project or working on separate projects that fit together.

6. The author concludes by encouraging adults to recapture the carefree confidence they had as children when starting new projects. He suggests that adults can have the best of both worlds: being deliberate in choosing to work on projects of their own and carelessly confident in starting new ones.