So, I have always believed that variety is the key to learning and retention.  And now there’s some research that backs that up.

[...] there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.

The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

via Mind – Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits – NYTimes.com.

I’ve been using the two techniques in bold above for a a long time in my work and personal life.  By having many diverse projects in the air at once I find it’s easier to both keep interested and see each project through to completion, but also to learn, invent and retain new information, techniques, or ideas.

Finding the right balance of focus vs. multi-tasking vs. relaxing is a science all its own.  But once you find your perfect ratio, your productivity and happiness will skyrocket.

“Life is a marathon, not a sprint,” he read, adding, “A great deal of mischief occurs when people are in a rush.”

To that end, he studied the psychology around changing lanes in traffic. In an article published in Nature in 1999, Dr. Redelmeier and Professor Tibshirani found that while cars in the other lane sometimes appear to be moving faster, they are not.

“Every driver on average thinks he’s in the wrong lane,” Dr. Redelmeier said. “You think more cars are passing you when you’re actually passing them just as quickly. Still, you make a lane change where the benefits are illusory and not real.” Meanwhile, changing lanes increases the chances of collision about threefold.

via Scientist at Work – Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier – Debunking Myths of the Medical World – NYTimes.com.

I’ve been involved in the minor capacity of building the actual player used on the website and for embedded players on partner websites. It’s been a nice refresher of using my javascript skills. And now, I’m expanding my role into building the first mobile Earbits app for the iPhone. Since I’ve been trying to learn Ruby on Rails over the past week or so, I decided that I might as well also try and learn Objective-C and that whole mess too.

Keeps life interesting. But here’s the teaser shot taken right after the first time I actually deployed the radio app to my iPhone.

Hope to have a beta version done in a week or so, depending on API availability, and get it into the App Store sometime in September.

Many people ask me, “How can I get started in web design?” or, “What skills do I need to start making web applications?” While it would be easy to recommend stacks of books, and dozens of articles with 55 tips for being 115% better than the next guy, the truth is that you don’t need learn anything new in order to begin. The most important thing is simply to start.

Start making something. If you want to learn web design, make a website. Want to be an entreprenuer and start a business selling web based products? Make an app. Maybe you don’t have the skills yet, but why worry about that? You probably don’t even know what skills you need.

via The first step is to start – (37signals).

Go read the whole blog post… This doesn’t apply just to building web pages or software. In anything you do, if you spend too much time planning or worrying that things might not work out unless you do it perfectly, you’re only preventing yourself from having a chance at success.

Programming is hard work. It’s an intense mental activity. Good programmers think about their work 24/7. They write their most important code in the shower and in their dreams. Because the most important work is done away from a keyboard, software projects cannot be accelerated by spending more time in the office or adding more people to a project.

via Some lesser-known truths about programming | Dot Mac.

I would also add that good programmers get bored very easily and need constant challenges and mental stimulation to stay interested and keep “in the zone” working.  This is why so many great programmers are working on multiple projects at once, including using their free time to write software, contribute to opensource projects, or the like.

Clipped from RescueTime which is a fantastic freemium app that tracks everything you do on all of your computers and then does analysis of how you spend your time.

Pretty cool, huh?

The problem with unsuccessful stories is usually simple: they are boring, a consequence of the failure of imagination. To vividly imagine and to vividly render extraordinary human events, or sequences of events, is the hard-lifting, heavy-duty, day-by-day, unending labor of a fiction writer.

via Telling Tails – Magazine – The Atlantic.

Replace “stories” with “startups” and “fiction writer” with “entrepreneur” and I think we might have a universal truth here. I know that in my roles as a developer, entrepreneur, and consumer getting bored is the primary reason I don’t do or complete something.

Present me with a great idea or fantastical concept and I’ll work 24×7 to make it into reality. But if you need someone to debug your kernel drivers… I’m not that guy. Don’t get me wrong – I’m super-grateful that those guys exist, it’s just not my brand of work.

Great working music from one of my favorite creative design-oriented blogs:

This late-summer concoction wraps electronica, techno, synth pop, and dash of sultry boogie-woogie into a dreamy, magic carpet ride. We nicked the title from a favorite Chuck Close quote, “Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

via 99% Music Mix I: Inspiration Is For Amateurs :: Articles :: The 99 Percent.

If you picture a cross between Mint.com and Google Analytics, but instead of looking at your bank accounts or your web stats, we’re looking at the motivators and behaviors of the people you work with. TalentScan gives you really interesting information about your employees that you probably didn’t know.  It discusses their dominant workplace motivators, workplace behaviors, ideal workplace and life priorities.  And that’s just for starters.  Plus, it’s totally free to try it out and get quite a lot of useful information without even giving us your credit card info.

Planning to unveil all the details over the next few weeks as we march towards the public launch, but you can get a quick peek and register for notifications over at TalentScanApp.com and we might even squeeze you in to our beta test group!

Update: It’s now a public beta open to the public!

I can’t remember where I saw this, but the truth of it really struck me.