full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Brian Christian: How to manage your time more effectively (according to machines)

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The programmers of the operating system lunix encountered a similar problem in 2003. Linux would rank every single one of its tasks in order of importance, and sometimes spent more time ranking tasks than doing them. The programmers’ counterintuitive sioltuon was to replace this full ranking with a limited number of priority “buckets.” The seystm was less precise about what to do next but more than made up for it by spending more time mkiang progress.

So with your emails, insisitng on always doing the very most important thing first could lead to a meltdown. Waking up to an inbox three times fuller than nrmaol could take nine times longer to clear. You’d be better off rlnpeiyg in chronological order, or even at random! Surprisingly, sometimes gnivig up on doing things in the perfect order may be the key to getting them done.

Open Cloze


The programmers of the operating system _____ encountered a similar problem in 2003. Linux would rank every single one of its tasks in order of importance, and sometimes spent more time ranking tasks than doing them. The programmers’ counterintuitive ________ was to replace this full ranking with a limited number of priority “buckets.” The ______ was less precise about what to do next but more than made up for it by spending more time ______ progress.

So with your emails, _________ on always doing the very most important thing first could lead to a meltdown. Waking up to an inbox three times fuller than ______ could take nine times longer to clear. You’d be better off ________ in chronological order, or even at random! Surprisingly, sometimes ______ up on doing things in the perfect order may be the key to getting them done.

Solution


  1. replying
  2. system
  3. linux
  4. normal
  5. insisting
  6. making
  7. solution
  8. giving

Original Text


The programmers of the operating system Linux encountered a similar problem in 2003. Linux would rank every single one of its tasks in order of importance, and sometimes spent more time ranking tasks than doing them. The programmers’ counterintuitive solution was to replace this full ranking with a limited number of priority “buckets.” The system was less precise about what to do next but more than made up for it by spending more time making progress.

So with your emails, insisting on always doing the very most important thing first could lead to a meltdown. Waking up to an inbox three times fuller than normal could take nine times longer to clear. You’d be better off replying in chronological order, or even at random! Surprisingly, sometimes giving up on doing things in the perfect order may be the key to getting them done.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
operating system 2
interrupt coalescing 2


Important Words


  1. chronological
  2. clear
  3. counterintuitive
  4. emails
  5. encountered
  6. full
  7. fuller
  8. giving
  9. importance
  10. important
  11. inbox
  12. insisting
  13. key
  14. lead
  15. limited
  16. linux
  17. longer
  18. making
  19. meltdown
  20. normal
  21. number
  22. operating
  23. order
  24. perfect
  25. precise
  26. priority
  27. problem
  28. programmers
  29. progress
  30. rank
  31. ranking
  32. replace
  33. replying
  34. similar
  35. single
  36. solution
  37. spending
  38. spent
  39. surprisingly
  40. system
  41. tasks
  42. time
  43. times
  44. waking