Brainiac - Maximum Learning Speed 6G

[Ampersnd]

Within minutes of the PayPal issue being lifted, I subscribed to MLS.
My goals for these next 2-3 months:

1. Main goal: Secure my singing technique and sing the best I ever have. To remove all of my inconsistencies and to give myself the confidence that I can open my mouth (live) and hear/experience a good voice.
   
2. Goals for March and May: Learn every nuance of the two musicals I'll be playing guitar for. Musical #1 is pretty sound, but I want to nail opening night on the 12th.
   
3. Get to B2 level in German: I currently have 5000 known words in my German flashcards, and I've increased that by 1000 every 20 days. But that's passive vocabulary that I'm reading. By the time I reach 8000 known words, I want to transition to active vocabulary, grammar, auditory recognition, and self-expression.
   
4. Refine my learning philosophy: I plan on writing a book on how to leverage the internet to maximize learning for a large number of people. This involves the use of image-based associations - similar to what I do for languages - but applied to science, history, philosophy, etc. I need to build a software that can replicate this philosophy before I'd feel comfortable to write on it.
   
5. Transcend my current tech skills: Similar to point #4; I want to feel inspired to uplevel my skills, whichever would lead to the most lucrative increases.
   
6. Kill my perfectionism: To lower the threshold for when I'm "ready" to progress my skills to the next stage. Examples: For singing: Return to open mics. For German: Progress to conversations with people.
   

Since I track my German metrics, I'll be able to tell whether my "best" is bumping up. This is also true with my singing; I'll be able to notice it.

I'm well aware that 3 months is the recommendation.
Will leave daily posts below

[Have at ye]

Hmm, if I may offer some off-kilter unsolicited advice:

I speak some German. I decided I want to learn it further, and as I learned a lot of my English from vidya games, I decided to play a computer game in German, I settled on the Gothic series (it's interactive and has lots of dialogue with very good voice acting - and I think they're making a new edition). So maybe if you have the time try something like that to bring your knowledge of German alive.

[Ampersnd]

Hmm, if I may offer some off-kilter unsolicited advice:

I speak some German. I decided I want to learn it further, and as I learned a lot of my English from vidya games, I decided to play a computer game in German, I settled on the Gothic series (it's interactive and has lots of dialogue with very good voice acting - and I think they're making a new edition). So maybe if you have the time try something like that to bring your knowledge of German alive.

Good thinking! I run a language app on top of German "Let's Play" playthroughs of games I've already played (Cyberpunk); I come up with flashcards off of the transcripts. And it's 80% automated; I just need to choose the highlighted words that I haven't learned yet and convert them to flashcards one at a time.

And you're right! It does make things come alive much more compared to book learning.

[Ampersnd]

Day 1,

Took me longer to fall asleep; I came to peace about a lot of aspects about my life. One example: I had a realization while awake that I'm very "chill" and accepting because I don't have the inner strength to resist it and demand that it be otherwise. Then again, I have pushed hard in the past to resist it and wasn't able to make it otherwise. Tough pill to swallow when you have to accept varied forms of defeat.

Anyways, I immediately noticed an improvement in my German flashcards. With 45 new words and 255 reviewed words, it took 50 minutes. I've definitely done something similar a couple of weeks ago (Feb 15: 45 new, 339 reviews = 59 minutes), but it's a nice departure from my post-flu slump.

I completed a couple of easy tasks at work, and didn't have to spend too much time on considering my approach.
Singing is a touch better and more predictable. It feels like the high notes are happening with more adduction - and therefore predictability - but I don't have full control of my diction. But it's only been a day!

[Ampersnd]

Day 4,

Brain Optimizer seems to be getting me out of bed at the right time. When it's time to wake up, I get up naturally. It's a nice departure from my daily morning struggle that lasts 20 minutes.

On Days 2 and 3, I wanted to complete my add-on bonus for the course I created and am marketing. Yesterday, I wrapped up my second draft (just need to format the Word document). I also reworked my sales page; it's about 1300 words, which is quite long for a 27-47 USD product. I'm thinking of bumping up the price to attract a better clientele.

I have rehearsals for Act 2 of the musical tonight. I've run through the songs since starting the program. Didn't have any desire to practice yesterday, so we'll see if this come out nicely tonight.

[Ampersnd]

I'm feeling as though UMS has been executing. More than during my run.
My 7-10 day pause might be what allowed it to bloom.
An interest in running my ads again.

[Ampersnd]

Day 5,

I had rehearsal two nights in a row. Boy, is there ever a chasm in people's knowledge of how the musical goes.
Even my bandmates are missing cues. My piano playing shows up and reads the sheet music; doesn't know how the musical goes, etc.
There's nothing "cute" about showing up and not knowing the plot, in both senses.
We open in one week

[Have at ye]

Day 5,

I had rehearsal two nights in a row. Boy, is there ever a chasm in people's knowledge of how the musical goes.
Even my bandmates are missing cues. My piano playing shows up and reads the sheet music; doesn't know how the musical goes, etc.
There's nothing "cute" about showing up and not knowing the plot, in both senses.
We open in one week

Oh boy, do I hate such bozos who come unprepared and then pretend to be some big starlets. 

All the best, try do your thing whatever comes.

[Ampersnd]

A quick word before I head to tech day/rehearsal for my musical.
I feel as though I'm becoming more conversational; perhaps I'm picking up small, numinous skills that had passed me by earlier on.
And the skill of standing up for myself on a small scale.

I've also lost interest in singing practice; that's interesting, since that's my most pressing reason for leaning into MLS.

[Ampersnd]

I should remark that - for the last two days - my German flashcards have hit a point where the last 20% just are not sinking in, and I don't have the brainpower to set up my usual vocab tricks to memorize them.
Not too upset since I added 42 words to my long-term knowledge bank, totaling 5450. I was at 5040 on Feb 28.

Time change might be throwing me off. Two consecutive nights of roughly 6.5 hours sleep might make that difference as well.

[Ampersnd]

Day 8,

Second day of brain feeling slow and sluggish; definitely felt that last night, but it was apparent based on my German flashcards yesterday, in the shape of longer amounts of study time for the same results as for other days, and a percentage of my reviews being wrong (about 20%) half of which just wouldn't sink in, which is very bizarre.
The time change did a number on me. We'll see how German flashcards go today. Still not that interested in singing.

I have tomorrow off of my day job, so we'll see how much a full night of rest will recuperate me. Tonight is also my first day back on the sub run.

[Ampersnd]

Day 9,

Got a full night of sleep and I was still tired.
Flashcards took some time, but it was about 275 reviews. I'm also getting good at clearing out all of easy words - by graduating them to "known" / long term - which take less time to answer. I might be getting an appropriate level of challenge in my cards, while also upgrading my total progress in doing so.

[Ampersnd]

Day 10,

What impresses me the most is how drastically I'm able to wake myself up, even with less sleep.
Even as much as one month ago, I would be so psychically exhausted, and I'd need to spam my snooze.
Now, the alarm hits, and I'm mostly awake and alert, and do an extra 5-8 minutes on my snooze with the lights on as a formality.

I can still be tired later in the day, but I'm switched on when my day starts.

[Ampersnd]

Day 11,

Woke up very easily after 6.5 hours of sleep.
Opening night for our musical tonight; this means that our nights will end at 10 PM instead of 11< and I'll be able to get 7+ hours of sleep tonight.
The sound technician raved yesterday how well I was able to handle modifying my volume, essentially accepting his notes from a couple of days ago.
This technician is a tough cookie to crack, so it was jarring hearing this from him.