tl;dr: Duration: Maybe ~12 months. Hours of EA-related video per week during that time: Maybe 4? Hours of EA-related audiobooks and podcasts per week: Maybe 10-15. Hours of all other EA-related learning per week: Maybe ~5-15?
So maybe ~1400 hours total. (What!? That sounds like a lot!) Or 520 hours if we don’t count video and audio, since those didn’t actually take time out of my day (see below).
Duration
I learned about EA around September 2018, and started actively trying to “get up to speed” around October 2018. It’s less clear what “end points” to use—i.e., when was I now “up to speed”?
Two possible “end points” are when I wrote my first proper forum post and when I was offered an EA researcher job. Both of those things happened around the end of December 2019, suggesting this was a ~14 months process.
But maybe a better “end point” would be around August 2019. By around then, I was running an EA-based club at my school and organising and presenting at local EA events. And in September, I attended EAGxAustralia, and felt—to my surprise! - like I was unusually familiar with EA ideas, among the people there. So that suggests this was a ~10 month process.
Hours of video per week
I watched EAG, EAGx, and other EA-related videos only while on an exercise bike or while eating. So it didn’t really cut into my schedule, except in that it meant I wasn’t watching other things at that time (e.g., random history lectures, Netflix). I’d guess this amounted to roughly 4 hours per week.
Hours of audio per week
I listen to audiobook and podcasts while commuting, doing housework, donating plasma, or doing other tasks that don’t require much focus but also don’t allow me to be on my laptop. This seems to amount to roughly 1-2.5 hours per day. As with the video, this doesn’t really cut into my schedule except by displacing other audio things (and also by making me extra helpful with housework when I’ve got a really good book/podcast!).
(I also listen at 1.5-2x speed, but skip back often, so the 1-2.5 clock hours are probably ~1.5-3.5 content hours.)
Hours per week ignoring video and audio
During these 10-14 months, I was also teaching at 0.8 FTE and doing a Masters of Teaching (but with a lower course-load than I expect most Masters have, as it was integrated with my actual teaching). This was part of the Teach For Australia program, which people tend to find very busy and intense by itself. So I crammed my “EA study” into weekends, after-work hours, and (teacher) holidays, alongside the (limited and pretty easy) Masters coursework.
So it wasn’t a huge number of hours per week, simply as I had few available. On the other hand, I think I’m happy with working—and tend to work—more hours than is average. And I also just found learning EA-relevant things veryinteresting, so that didn’t drain me at all—it was more like the carrot I dangled in front of myself to get myself to do my other, actual work more efficiently!
And the matter of hours per week is further complicated by the fact that (a) teachers get long holidays, but (b) I had a lot of Masters work and teacher prep work to do during holidays.
So I’d pretty unconfidently guess I spent 5-15 hours per week on this, averaging out across that whole period (including both the work weeks and holiday weeks).
[My original answer ignored the video and audio time, since I’d been trying to remember how much time I allocated to EA-related stuff, and the video and audio didn’t really require allocating special time so I overlooked it.]
Hey Michael, thanks for detailing this. Do you have a sense of how long this process took you approximately?
tl;dr: Duration: Maybe ~12 months. Hours of EA-related video per week during that time: Maybe 4? Hours of EA-related audiobooks and podcasts per week: Maybe 10-15. Hours of all other EA-related learning per week: Maybe ~5-15?
So maybe ~1400 hours total. (What!? That sounds like a lot!) Or 520 hours if we don’t count video and audio, since those didn’t actually take time out of my day (see below).
Duration
I learned about EA around September 2018, and started actively trying to “get up to speed” around October 2018. It’s less clear what “end points” to use—i.e., when was I now “up to speed”?
Two possible “end points” are when I wrote my first proper forum post and when I was offered an EA researcher job. Both of those things happened around the end of December 2019, suggesting this was a ~14 months process.
But maybe a better “end point” would be around August 2019. By around then, I was running an EA-based club at my school and organising and presenting at local EA events. And in September, I attended EAGxAustralia, and felt—to my surprise! - like I was unusually familiar with EA ideas, among the people there. So that suggests this was a ~10 month process.
Hours of video per week
I watched EAG, EAGx, and other EA-related videos only while on an exercise bike or while eating. So it didn’t really cut into my schedule, except in that it meant I wasn’t watching other things at that time (e.g., random history lectures, Netflix). I’d guess this amounted to roughly 4 hours per week.
Hours of audio per week
I listen to audiobook and podcasts while commuting, doing housework, donating plasma, or doing other tasks that don’t require much focus but also don’t allow me to be on my laptop. This seems to amount to roughly 1-2.5 hours per day. As with the video, this doesn’t really cut into my schedule except by displacing other audio things (and also by making me extra helpful with housework when I’ve got a really good book/podcast!).
(I also listen at 1.5-2x speed, but skip back often, so the 1-2.5 clock hours are probably ~1.5-3.5 content hours.)
Hours per week ignoring video and audio
During these 10-14 months, I was also teaching at 0.8 FTE and doing a Masters of Teaching (but with a lower course-load than I expect most Masters have, as it was integrated with my actual teaching). This was part of the Teach For Australia program, which people tend to find very busy and intense by itself. So I crammed my “EA study” into weekends, after-work hours, and (teacher) holidays, alongside the (limited and pretty easy) Masters coursework.
So it wasn’t a huge number of hours per week, simply as I had few available. On the other hand, I think I’m happy with working—and tend to work—more hours than is average. And I also just found learning EA-relevant things very interesting, so that didn’t drain me at all—it was more like the carrot I dangled in front of myself to get myself to do my other, actual work more efficiently!
And the matter of hours per week is further complicated by the fact that (a) teachers get long holidays, but (b) I had a lot of Masters work and teacher prep work to do during holidays.
So I’d pretty unconfidently guess I spent 5-15 hours per week on this, averaging out across that whole period (including both the work weeks and holiday weeks).
[My original answer ignored the video and audio time, since I’d been trying to remember how much time I allocated to EA-related stuff, and the video and audio didn’t really require allocating special time so I overlooked it.]
Thanks this is super helpful—context is I wanted to get a rough sense of how doable this level of “getting up to speed” is for people.
(Btw, I’ve just updated my original answer, as it overlooked the time spent on audiobooks, podcasts, and video.)