1. Learning Chinese characters with Anki. After a decade out of practice, I realize I would have done a lot better in my college studies if I actually studied. Wild idea, I know.
One thing that prevented me from memorizing characters was the idea that it wasn't worth doing. However, this passage from the Self-Regulated Learning paper [0] that circulated around HN convinced me otherwise:
"We need to understand, too, that our capacity for storing to-be-learned information or procedures is essentially unlimited. In fact, storing information in human memory appears to create capacity — that is, opportunities for additional linkages and storage — rather than use it up."
2. Learning (even very basic) Chess has opened my eyes up to how interesting a "solved" game can be.
One thing that prevented me from memorizing characters was the idea that it wasn't worth doing. However, this passage from the Self-Regulated Learning paper [0] that circulated around HN convinced me otherwise:
"We need to understand, too, that our capacity for storing to-be-learned information or procedures is essentially unlimited. In fact, storing information in human memory appears to create capacity — that is, opportunities for additional linkages and storage — rather than use it up."
2. Learning (even very basic) Chess has opened my eyes up to how interesting a "solved" game can be.
[0]: http://www.excaliburtsa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Se...