Some Ideas for Self-Improvement

29 Dec 2018

• personal

The week after Christmas is a great time to think about the coming year, and how to make it better than the last. I am not the kind of guy to make resolutions, but recently I have had a few ideas on how to improve myself, so I’ll try these out and see if anything sticks.

Bitrex

To fix my nail-biting habit, on Christmas I bought a small bottle of nail polish laced with denatonium benzoate, the most bitter substance known to humanity, to coat my nails in. This solution has been very effective — the first taste of it was enough to put me off biting until now. The problem is that the taste gets everywhere: on my face, on my lips, on my food… I guess I’ll monitor my progress, and reapply as needed.

Time log

As part of a more deliberate strategy for time management, I have started tracking how I spend my time throughout the day, in 15-minute increments. The idea is to collect enough data on my behavioural patterns, so that I can plan my time more consciously later on.

More facetiously, I seem to be doing more useful work and wasting less time when these activities are being recorded on a spreadsheet. This sounds like a petty psychological trick, and there is probably something to be said about the gamification of real life, but going by my experience in the past 36 hours, it seems to be working…

Math reading

My reading for the coming semester includes:

• Marcus, Number Fields, for a course on algebraic number theory;
• Matsumara, Commutative Ring Theory, for a course on commutative and homological algebra; and
• Hartshorne, Algebraic Geometry, for a self-directed reading group with two (very capable) friends, Jit and Jeck.

Jit has seen much of the material for both courses, so he’s not too concerned about next semester. On the other hand, I can say that I am more intimidated. Usually, I can learn new content from math courses through lectures and assignments alone, but this time I have started on my readings two weeks in advance. I will be trying to stay ahead on my readings for as long as I can. Wish me luck!