Printing: Build your own recommendation system

This week, I started printing documents I want to review. It all started after reading Grit and Mindset in paperback.

Paperback

I bought Grit in a train station, on a Sunday evening, when I had gone out and I was walking around as a break.

I started reading Grit every morning right after I woke up before starting work. At some point, I was so interested that I took it with me to the toilet. Then I decided to leave it there to read the next time I’m there, instead of scrolling Instagram and Slack on my phone anxiously and being bomarded by random new interesting content.

The book was having a huge impact on me. It was changing my mindset. Later I learned that what I was doing was spaced learning: learning for short duration with space between each session. With this method, you have to relearn the same material several times, which makes it easier to memorise.

Online courses

Last week, I started studying an online course called How to Learn Online in edX. I decided to take it “seriously”, by which I mean: don’t rush it, read the recommended material, take notes, review the material, etc. Another thing I did was to print at least 1 page for the course that could be used as a physial representation of the course; something that reminds me that I’m doing a course online when the computer is turned off. Why did I do that? Because it felt terribly wrong to have zero physical representation of the last course I completed on Coursera. No notes, no certificate, nothing.

So far, it has been working pretty well for me.

Ebooks

Learning from my experience reading Grit and Mindset in paperback format, and also printing important course material and putting them in binders, I thought it might be a good idea to also have a physical representation of the ebook and audiobooks I read. Just the cover is sufficient. Like a library I could look at without having to open an app filled with advertisements and attractive but irrelevant content.

Save paper

I’m printing several book covers in one piece of paper. I use Google Docs to format articles I want to read to require less space. A lot of times I print 2 or 4 pages on 1 page. Always printing on both sides. Also, I repurpose empty spaces with pen notes, e.g., to track my study sessions.

Result

I’m super happy about this system. I can review important notes. I can write new notes with pen which is another physical and tangible experience and my brain can hang on to. I can browse my digital content that matter to me. Highly recommended.

Conclusion

I believe we don’t learn material by just reading them once. That is a wasted opportunity. We best learn by rereading, flipping through the pages again and again, reviewing, and by putting them in different context. Paper affords that. You cannot do that with apps the way apps are currently built. Every company wants to curate your experience the way they want. You cannot visit Instagram or Youtube and not be surprised by the content promoted by their recommendation system.

Print allows you to build you own recommendation system.