Resolution: Pick up all phone calls

Unless it's a bad time, my new goal is to pick up all phone calls and respond to them.

If it's an unsuitable time, I will pick up anyways and request that they call back. My goal is to not ignore messages.

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Although there must be a line somewhere because people like professors and company higher-ups have no time to respond to all inquiries... and if something is really urgent the caller will find another way to contact you (a la Don Knuth's no-email policy and how Sergey Brin only responds to his top k emails). So maybe I can compromise by picking up calls only when it's convenient, and responding to voice mails for missed calls. That way I am not obligating myself to call back every single missed call.

Dr. Ozan Tonguz's talk on Virtual Traffic Lights

can always get money back, can never get time back

if you sit in traffic for too long, there are other side effects like increased blood pressure and bad health from snacking

biologically inspired, based on communication between ants and the different roles individual ants play

Analogy: Gear Backlash and Hysteresis

Gear backlash is a discretized version of hysteresis in materials.

This can be seen by comparing the hysteresis plot (displacement field vs. electric field) to the backlash plot (output vs. input).

It makes sense because depending on the direction of the input (field applied to a material), the output of the system exhibits a different set of responses.

Note Taking: Including Pictures

Pictures can greatly improve note taking, since readers are naturally attracted to visuals and it's easy to highlight the important aspects. However, be careful with color - you will need multiple, and often times a single pen will not suffice and instead end up as a mess.

Learning: Improving on Repetitive Tasks

Ask for someone experienced to watch you perform the task (such as coding, or solving problems), and suggesting any improvements, tricks they know, or things you could do to improve efficiency.

Alternatively, if it's time sensitive, you could also record yourself doing the tasks and ask someone to look at it later on.

Self-Imposed Deadlines via Accountability

I'm finding that the best way to get optional/long term things done is to be accountable to someone. But, it takes practice to get the time estimates right, and doesn't bode well when something else gets delayed and everything subsequently has to get postponed.

So, the trick is to also leave unscheduled time - you can't account for random things coming up, like events with friends or various meetings, and delays of things that must get done.

How I see robotics

Robotics can be split into:
Physics (kinematics, dynamics, control)
Mechanical design (making the physical robot)
Computer science ("coaching" the robots - making the machines do meaningful things. managing their interactions with the world and each other)
Math/signal processing (vision)

Suggestions/modifications?

Reorganized Blog System

I need to work on my writing and communication skills. To work on this, I reorganized my blogs to the following:

• Research log - document my research progress. guilt trip self into spending more time on research
• Organized writing - goal is to write a longer post once a week. currently i plan to focus on things i've learned that week or cool observations I've made. a good example is the gimbal analogy in planes and insects.
• Hobbies - cooking, bike trips, travel destinations, etc
• Project Updates - get myself writing more about what I work on, so that I have a better idea myself when explaining to other people. tech/computer discoveries will also go here. 
• Observations/Thoughts/Comments - life realizations, rants, short thoughts that I want to save, motivational stuff. lot of extra posts from the past, won't bother pruning those.

I will NOT save articles. That's a bad habit. I need to read and absorb the lessons from the articles instead, rather than hoarding browser tabs and links.