The importance of doing the exercises
You know the feeling of going through some materials and thinking “I got this, I understand everything”? And seeing the exercises at the end of the chapter and feeling they’re completely pointless because you understand everything already and it’s just a waste of time?
I remember feeling like this when I was 11 and then forcing myself to do the exercises anyway (only because they were my assigned homework) and discovering that, to my huge surprise, I didn’t actually completely understand everything yet. And then going through them, re-reading some of the stuff I thought I knew, trying again and then eventually getting it. And then having this renewed respect for the exercises at the end of the chapter.
The thing is, this cycle happens to me every time I go through some learning material. You’d think that by now my monkey brain would learn that the exercises are really valuable no matter how trivial and obvious they seem at first. But no, it hasn’t - I know I need to do them, but I still feel they’re pointless and need to force my way through the feeling.
I’m now making my way through the Mastering LLMs course conference and I’m hitting the same thing again. The first lesson had a single easy-sounding task at the end and I was this close to skipping it. And then I went through it and while thinking through it, realized something about a couple of projects we’re running at work that I’m going to use pretty much immediately. I could’ve realized this earlier and I had all the tools required before doing the exercises - but I didn’t actually think of it until afterwards.
So there you go, eat your vegetables and do your end-of-lesson exercises.