laura @laurgao Twitter profile

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laura

14 days

always wanted to write something about tks, tech culture, and disillusionment. shit's complicated, man. this is such a common experience but it's not represented in online discourse?

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

im in sf now hmu

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

my boyfriend is going on an offline retreat for one week and he's been scheduling emails to send to me while he's gone😭 he is the sweetest

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laura

@laurgao

1 year

damn. it's real. i first wanted to make a 3blue1brown-esque video series explaining quantum computing, like, 2 years ago. now i actually have to do it.

nights & weekends

@_nightsweekends

1 year

welcome to s4, @laurgao laura is building a 15-part series explaining quantum computing.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

A somewhat-first-draft of an "Essence of quantum computing" video in attempted @3blue1brown essence-series-style for the @brkthroughprize junior challenge. First time trying out @manim_community and in love. Second half coming tomorrow. Roasts are welcome :) #makevideosinpublic

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Make videos before telling people you want to be a YouTuber. Start a startup before identifying as an aspiring entrepreneur. Build products before engaging on tech twitter. Act before you speak.

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laura

@laurgao

5 months

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laura

@laurgao

8 months

today a friend at lunch said, this school has an ability to make everyone short-sighted & forget the larger purpose in life

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

freedom is great. you can just sit at whole foods and eat $13 worth of watermelon if you want to

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laura

@laurgao

2 years

We tend to complain a lot about the broken education system, but complaints don't recover the 6 hours per day we spend with it. Here are my tips to having a fulfilling school experience, from what I've lived condensed into a guide I wish I had when I started high school: [thread]

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laura

@laurgao

5 months

I’m fired up right now, what if I impulsively commit to a gap year rn

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laura

@laurgao

2 years

I made a Fourier series drawing of @amyli0 Learning math is much more fun when you are creating things with it :)

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Fifth on the leaderboard for @pennylaneai 's #QHack2022 ! With my wonderful teammate @shiro_raven_Q

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laura

@laurgao

9 months

everyone be posting their 2023 reflections but man, the real events that impacted me this year aren't ones i can publicly speak about.

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laura

@laurgao

2 months

speaking and writing are totally 2 different mediums. I realize this after meeting a super charismatic guy and then reading his writing

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

yesterday i spent 8-9 hours optimizing simpy's performance and got down the time for all the tests from 8.9s -> 1.1s! that's a much bigger improvement than i thought i could do. i feel very proud of myself now.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Rejection = redirection.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

For cold outreach: it's okay if you barely know anything. Questions drive a conversation. @nazranoushad

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laura

@laurgao

8 months

maybe i'll make a week in the life of college vlog where you can watch me attempt to have bigger goals again

laura

@laurgao

8 months

today a friend at lunch said, this school has an ability to make everyone short-sighted & forget the larger purpose in life

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

options 1. try to land a full time job i want and start working before graduation 2. speedrun a degree in 2.5 years. drop the double degree 3. stay in school as normal. cut down time spent on school and maximize time spent on my own projects 4. gap year to work on my own projects

laura

@laurgao

4 months

why do I still feel trapped in this “extended childhood” of college. please I wanna do sth real

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Just like any war, the fight for grades leaves even the winners worse off.

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laura

@laurgao

5 months

would it be dangerous if i aim for a B in every class?

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Languages and programming languages share this in common: syntactic perfection is not a prerequisite to fluency.

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laura

@laurgao

1 year

i stopped tweeting for the past ~year. i used to use this platform daily. then it started feeling too... contrived? focused on signalling? anyways, it seems worth to post my recent projects. sth sth serendipity <3 to start off, here is my 2022 in a game

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

There are many ways that companies can become more environmentally conscious but the hard truth is, the most effective way is to produce products more intentionally. Period. - @aboutliahyoo on @QasimAMohammad 's blog

10 Questions with Liah Yoo - Fire Ant

Fire Ant interviews business leaders who are reshaping commerce through new ideas. This week we're talking to Liah Yoo of KraveBeauty.

fireant.co

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

omg my code is so much faster than sympy

laura

@laurgao

4 months

yesterday i spent 8-9 hours optimizing simpy's performance and got down the time for all the tests from 8.9s -> 1.1s! that's a much bigger improvement than i thought i could do. i feel very proud of myself now.

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laura

@laurgao

2 months

wow life is nuanced. Just went thru time #3 where someone I thought was unequivocally bad actually had wonderful intentions and was just unskilled and wanted to avoid the exact harm they caused

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Procrastination is the inability to deal with emotional discomfort. - @nireyal on @TKPPodcast

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laura

@laurgao

2 months

thinking in tweets literally makes me dumber I need to get off this place

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laura

@laurgao

8 months

why do i find 80% of my past projects cringe? is this the necessary price of improving?

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

bruh why does school suck so much

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laura

@laurgao

6 months

laser cutters are so cool

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laura

@laurgao

1 year

wheee thingy i made got published

Michał Stęchły

@mstechly

1 year

Here are two cost-function landscapes for QAOA. A simple Hamiltonian produces a rough landscape and a complicated one produces a simpler landscape. Why? How to predict the landscape from a Hamiltonian? These are questions we tried to answer in a new paper:

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Talking about how you're a bad person doesn't make you a better person. Take action.

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

why do I still feel trapped in this “extended childhood” of college. please I wanna do sth real

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laura

@laurgao

8 months

2024 is the year i'll be unapologetically confident and less rational

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laura

@laurgao

8 months

im having the crisis where you first realize how privileged you are. a lot of privilleges are both something you worked hard for AND a privillege that other people don't have access to even if they worked hard? it's not a dichotomy?

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

How I used to take notes: - In a 20k-word "thought dump" doc - As tweets - As my discord status - As sticky notes on my wall - In DMs to friends - In daily updates (which I never revisit) How I take notes now: - As @postulateapp snippets Thanks for building this @wwsalmon :)

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

@nearcyan @michael_nielsen wait so what is the question you intend to ask

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

It's easy to say you'll work hard. It's easy to talk about having difficult conversations.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

If you're ever unsure about whether to send a twitter DM

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

I am genuinely a bit perplexed by the seemingly ubiquitous expectation to reply to texts quickly. bruh what if I don’t pay 30/month for unlimited data? what if I shut my phone off to focus?? are people supposed to have access to your time whenever

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

If you want to sleep early, don't set an alarm clock. The fear of waking up late & missing school/work/meetings will force you to sleep early. Going to try this for the next week. Last night, I slept at 9 and woke up naturally at 6:30. Idea from @jessicasong_

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Optimizing for good grades = overfitting

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

"The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life span." @sleepdiplomat

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Rejection hurts but regret hurts more. @jessicasong_ @amyli0

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laura

@laurgao

2 months

mechanical or electrical engineering?

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

I have too many small things that add up to take a lot of time. I'm cutting every single thing I work on except: - Quantum computing - Content. Esp videos - Network - Reading/learning - School - Growth - Family - Mgci math exec Thanks @amyli0 @wwsalmon

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

More money will not make you happy. More validation will not make you happy. More Twitter likes will not make you happy. Higher marks will not make you happy.

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laura

@laurgao

1 year

oh my god im in sf for a week and the number of people i want to meet up with is insane. i slept 20 hours in the past 4 days. why are there so many people in this cursed city

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Instant gratification should be called instant discomfort-relief. You eat sugary foods not because you seek pleasure but to quell the discomfort of a sugar craving. You check Instagram not to see people being happy but to escape the discomfort of doing hard work.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

True equality is when gender doesn't matter, not when a 50/50 ratio is achieved.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Wooooooo this video is done!! It's been a wild 7 days, learning @manim_community and getting the vid under the @brkthroughprize time limit last minute. Thanks to y'all for support & quantum gang forever :D

The essence of quantum computing | Breakthrough Junior Challenge 2021

What *really* is a qubit, or a superposition, or any quantum state mathematically? What goes on when you program a quantum computer? This video will answer t...

www.youtube.com

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Come see what I & innovators @theksociety have been working on this past year this Sun @ 11 ET. Register here:

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

for all the students struggling to make peace with the institution of education - there is a lot of beauty even at high school :)

high school

Does life ever feel meaningless to you? Yea, it does to me too.This is the final project for a Film Studies course I'm taking.Music:- Two Moons - Bobby Richa...

www.youtube.com

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laura

@laurgao

11 months

it's been a year since i made the sellouts' dilemma but man it is happening again... i've been at college for 2 months and im already losing sight of what i care about

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Being unconventional for the sole reason of being different is equal to following norms for the sole reason of conforming.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

There's no reason to be sad because it's a miracle that you're here & having a conscious experience.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Build the company you wish existed. This is also why @theksociety was founded.

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laura

@laurgao

4 months

realizing that i never pay for coffee because i want coffee but because i want a place in public with seating and a bathroom

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

The longer you build up your bubble The more violently it will explode, Like a supernova Unleashing 10 billion suns, Burning, Pulsing, Filling your shell with throbbing energy. Spectacularly Blowing away The blanket of illusion, Exposing you to the Cosmic rays of reality.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Excerpt from new video Always remember to move forward <3

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Think about what you want to achieve in the next 2 years, not in the next 6 months. You're all to impatient. - @NadeemNathoo to TKS kids

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laura

@laurgao

14 days

full memoir here

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Be the mentor you wish you had. Be the leader you wish you had. Be the friend you wish you had.

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laura

@laurgao

2 years

1. Measure your success by how much you learn from each class instead of the grade you receive. One is wealth, the other a short-term status game. One's value builds on top of itself over time like compound interest, the other's is inversely proportional to time elapsed.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Talking about your goals is not making progress but nevertheless creates the delusion of progress. I fell into this trap. Read more:

Delusions | Postulate

The best place to publish blog posts and reading notes about what you learn in classes, research, and personal projects.

postulate.us

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

made iced coffee for the first time and that looks kinda good

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laura

@laurgao

7 months

the past week, i have regressed to scrolling twitter for several hours daily and this site makes me stressed

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laura

@laurgao

1 year

i kinda wanna start writing a weekly newsletter again lol

Farza 🇵🇰🇺🇸

@FarzaTV

1 year

We usually stay away from the topic of raising money or finding investors -- we just wanna show you how to make stuff. Yet, every week I see a new @_buildspace alumni raise $50K - $500K. Yes. If you ship, tell the world, repeat... capital finds it's way to you. But, it's not

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

"I want it, I build it." knowing how to develop software is awesome - you can build whatever you want to streamline your own life.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Quick tip: when doing crunches, put your hands on your head so you actually exercise your abs instead of exercising your neck like I did. Thanks @amyli0

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Enjoy the little things in life because one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things. - Kurt Vonnegut Here's a podcast with @jessicasong_ @umadarbha about appreciation!

Appreciation with Uma Darbha and Jessica Song - Mindset of the Week

Episode · First Principles · Appreciation is a simple way to make your brain a happier place. As CGP Grey says, taking 2 minutes per day to write one thing you're grateful for is "frustratingly...

open.spotify.com

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Communicating an idea via writing takes 10x longer than through speech. I think this is why I started a podcast.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

If you're not happy with what you currently have, you won't be magically happier with more external stimuli. Happiness has to come from within.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Here's the 1st animated runthrough with @manim_community of the 2nd half! The video is due for @brkthroughprize tomorrow, I hope I can get it in good shape by then 🤞The plan: - record intro and conclusion - clean up the audio - add music - what do you think I should improve on?

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

The more time I spend online, the lonelier I feel.

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laura

@laurgao

5 months

I am making a symbolic integration calculator! it can currently do most ap calc integrals but isn’t fully there yet. does anyone wanna try it out

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Blog posts are like Tweets: when you have an idea, write it now. Not later.

James Clear

@JamesClear

4 years

How to grow on Twitter: 1. Write about what fascinates you. 2. Post at least 1 tweet per day. 3. If it doesn’t provide insane value, don't post it. 4. Always post your best idea right now. Don’t save it for later. 5. Take 10+ min to edit each tweet and find the perfect word.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Build the life you're excited to live. I think that my major life targets - entrepreneurial pursuits, impacting billions, being at front lines of emerging tech, grow on youtube, a robust network, go to mars - were all driven from wanting to wake up excited to be alive. @amyli0

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laura

@laurgao

1 year

i just spent like 5 hours today and yesterday glued to this stupid phone game. i kept playing even after it stopped being fun. humbling experience, i was proud of my productivity up till now

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

You will never feel that you have enough validation. So stop chasing it. Insight from talking to @jessicasong_

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Thank you Harrison! Grateful to have you as a mentor ♥

Harrison Nolan

@_harrisonnolan

3 years

Can learning about others failures motivate you to accomplish more? Let's find out. @laurgao 🔥

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Analytics are made to serve you, not the other way around.

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

@ChrisChipMonk yeah something something I realized recently that in many situations in the past where I was encouraged to “expand my comfort zone,” it did more harm than good bc it didn’t address why I was actually scared of the thing

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laura

@laurgao

3 months

everything is more nuanced than a tweet can capture. reading twitter a lot has this effect of making you think more in simple binaries

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laura

@laurgao

2 years

A somewhat-related comic

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laura

@laurgao

8 months

good creative work is very not speedrunnable ugh. you have to let it marinate

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Love the @theksociety community

richa 👩‍💻

@_richapandya

4 years

people on slack changed their names and pictures to @elonmusk memes - this community is everything 🤩

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

Great insights lie in the connections between ideas. Memory is stored in the connections between neurons. Connections between ideas is what's valuable, just like connections between neurons is what's valuable.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

"If you know your product is great, you don't have to apologize for being small." - Sara Blakely

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Parallel universes & quantum physics explained intuitively from the ground up, with drawings and animations 😜

The Beautiful Ingenuity of Parallel Worlds

Quantum physics has been widely misconceptualized in popular science…

link.medium.com

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

"Not doing because of your fear to fail is the failure in of itself." - @lofi_bby this is an acutal fire quote

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

Optimizing for the short term = optimizing for local minima. Optimizing for the long term = optimizing for the global minimum.

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laura

@laurgao

4 years

We have the best healthcare technology, yet we live the unhealthiest lifestyles today out of any time in history.

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laura

@laurgao

2 years

4. Align school with personal goals. If you're an aspiring YouTuber, make a video for a school project. With the forcing function of a deadline, assignments are ways to accelerate your progress towards passion projects that would otherwise sit on the backburner indefinitely.

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laura

@laurgao

3 years

It doesn't matter what time management system you use or how much time you spend planning goals. The only thing that matters is how much action you take as a result.

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laura

@laurgao

5 months

why do you tweet?

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laura

@laurgao

8 months