Some disclaimers: I only just came up with this idea recently on Sunday (Nov 7 2021), and I’d say it’s not well-tested. Also, this idea probably fails if you’re trying to invest the core of your time on more than 1 project, but I’d say it’s worth trying if your goal is just to focus on one project.

For some context, when I did research in my undergrad, I didn’t really have a structured way of putting in work. I would generally have more incentive to work on it the day before my research meeting, and the process would end up being rushed and rather stressful. I think this has also been the case for many other projects that I have worked on.

So here is my new idea:

Have one single task that you want to focus on (projects, research, etc…). Every half an hour of the time that you’re not doing essential activities (i.e. this doesn’t apply to situations like classes, meetings, and sleep), spend the last 10 minutes working on it. Write some key takeaway or ideas or questions in a notebook and mark that entry of the notebook with a number (so if it’s your 5th 10-minute block, you can number that entry with “5” or something).

Doing this for 20 blocks per day (or even less if you’re looking for a saner work-life balance) will result in working on that task for 100 minutes per day — over 23 hours per week. And this is not just “work” time. This is several 10-minute spurts of productive activity, so this is essentially 23 productive hours per week.

On a tangent, this kind of reminds me of this writeup (written by an American mathematician Sara Billey), about how to do a mathematics PhD in a timely fashion; this mentions trying to reach a 20-hour target of productive research time per week. I believe it’s worth a read if you’re curious about it.

I started trying this 10-minute block thing on Sunday. I have to write a research report for my Machine Learning Theory class, where I am supposed to look at some state of the art research, describe it, and explain things like open problems, shortcomings in existing work, etc… (this is open-ended and can also include new results; not sure if I’ll be able to get new results though by the end of this semester :p ). I am looking into Statistical Learning Theory, which is a field that looks into proving lower bounds for computational complexity of learning problems using oracles.

I don’t think I’ll be able to reach 20 hours this week :( , partially since I’ve been extremely busy for the last two days with other assignments and activities (I had a 5-hour ICPC practice yesterday!), but it’s Wednesday now, and I managed to put in 4 hours of effort. That may or may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that these are 4 productive hours of work. Imagine working for a 4-hour block (i.e. 12-4 pm) and being extremely productive the entire time (I can’t relate to this kind of thing, and I’d imagine it’s also uncommon for others to be able to be productive continuously for 4 hours).

You can see my last few entries here (related to reading this paper)

Maybe 10 minutes is too little for a block? I feel like I’ve been able to boost my productivity significantly, but maybe it’s not great if you want to do deep work? (i.e. work on something open-ended, which might require you to think about it continuously for an hour). I’m not sure about this, but would be happy to discuss it. I personally feel that having a 10 minute block will make me less prone to temptations such as checking my phone, emails, etc… and makes it much easier to put in all of my focus on a task.

I’ve heard of something called the Pomodoro technique ( read this if you’re not familiar), and I remember trying it in high school. I personally find it too tiring, especially since 25 minutes feels like a long time for me to work on a task without getting distracted. But maybe it works for others.

I haven’t fully decided what to put in this blog, but maybe will include a combination about reflections about life and some topics in ML theory / combinatorial optimization. Also, I might add something competitive programming themed (The regional competition for ICPC is this March, and I have been spending >10 hours per week doing training for that!). Either way, stay tuned for more posts!