joseph zhong

The "Unthrottle-able" week

work

I started my internship wanting to push myself like nothing else mattered:

“Get seven days of work done in one and you’ll be good”

Not counting weekend time (which I spent on stuff other than work!?), I came close clinching the finish of my first assignment plus its projected stretch goals at the end of Day 8 (or beginning of Day 9 ~12:30am?)

Interestingly, I noticed a trend in many of the workdays, where between 11:30am and 3:00pm, my brain would quite literally, shut down, and progress would seem to halt…
Despite my colleagues’ and friends’ advice, my time spent during the evenings, while perhaps less efficient I still believe I experienced some progress

Although yesterday my mentor really drilled into me that

“Throwing more time at a problem doesn’t improve results, in fact, more often the opposite”

Today, after getting good progress with strong, consistent focus throughout the day, I simply was too exhausted to keep my eyes open by 5pm.
In fact, I was so tired I actually began packing up at a normal time, and managed to fit impromptu dinner with a friend also working nearby!

By the time I got home and cycling through the social media I’d missed while at work, I actually mentally recovered and was able to power through and quite efficiently solve problems I felt infinitely stuck on at work!

“Ignore anything, but don’t ignore advice #3: Don’t overwork”

During the school year I had immense success by scheduling consistent activities at the same time every day (Gym @ 2:30PM) that had lapsed during Q3 midterms/finals and accurately forecasted my lapses in scores…

Perhaps I should begin biking to work – the morning commute would be longer perhaps by 15-30min max, but the nightly schedule would be about the same while vastly increasing efficiency, productivity, and lifestyle standards.

TL;DR:

Some of my experiments

Some of my experiments

and more…

and more…

Results + Immediate plans

Learning

GStreamer

Python

Math

Computer Building

TODO: