I’m fairly new to this, so these principles are especially tentative.
- Focus on writing: Reading is fine, but try not to do too much reading without writing down what you think. (Related)
- Write down what you think about things you’re curious about: I’m not sure that anyone else will get this pointer, but try to avoid:
- Trying to be original OR copying others views OR reacting to others’ views - just write down what you think about the thing
- Trying to be comprehensive and take notes on everything (including the stuff that you already know, or that doesn’t feel interesting/important to you)
- Stay object-level: Try to avoid the following things, and instead just focus on writing what you think is going on in the world:
- Copying out others’ views
- Criticizing and reacting to others’ views
- Mix methods
- I tend to lean too theoretical. I aspire also to do a bunch of empirical analysis, and to do more quantitative analysis.
- And also to spend some time thinking about applications
- What specific things could I ask a policymaker, a donor, an ambitious founder to do?