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Ask HN: What self-study curriculum organizer tool do you use?

6 points by YuriNiyazov ↗ HN
I found myself recently with a lot of free time on my hands, so I decided to brush up on everything hacking related. Out come Skiena's "The Algorithm Design Manual", Sipser's "Theory of Computation", Axler's "Linear Algebra Done Right", and plenty of other stuff I never knew or already forgot. I want to organize all of that into some method as it was once done in college: schedule, assigned readings, problem sets, etc. except this is all self-imposed. What nifty Web 2.0 tool can I use to do this? A To-do list like "www.rememberthemilk.com" doesn't seem adequate - I think I would like a more rigid setup.

9 comments

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neovive
Have you considered using a spreadsheet? Maybe a Google Spreadsheet or Excel. You can use to create a list of topics and associated readings, lessons, problem sets and materials. Then create an extra column "completed" to track the status of each item. Then just filter out the completed items to see what else you need to do. It's a simple solution, but should work well.
YuriNiyazov
Yes, and this will probably be my final solution if nothing else comes up. I was thinking perhaps someone already went through the pain of setting up the structure around it, and also maybe figured out some interesting use cases that wouldn't be apparent in a spreadsheet.
manvsmachine
I'm not sure how it will integrate with the books you are using, but I'd suggest checking out MIT's OpenCourseware. They provide the syllabi / assignments / calendar used for all of their courses. You could probably take the corresponding classes and adapt their schedules and problem sets. I've done this for classes where I didn't find my lectures or suggested materials particularly helpful.
xlnt
text files win
Kinimat
I'm not sure if this is what you're after but Supermemo is a fantastic learning tool.

It uses a system of spaced repetitions to significantly increase retention and memory. It's been around a long time and has been refined over many years. The creator was featured in Wired not long ago..

http://www.supermemo.com

Unfortunately it's windows only.

fuad
+1 for MIT's OpenCourseware
jauco
If you want to say plus 1, you should just vote on the comment instead of making a new post. It's both nicer to the author and it reduces the noise in the thread.