First Month Reflection on Working on Two Things At Once
Why I’m Narrowing My Focus to Investing Fundamentals
Summary
I had a hard time balancing and juggling two subjects while maintaining a demanding full-time job.
3 key lessons I learn on this journey: Focus, Trust your Gut Feelings, Slow Down
For the next 2 months, I will focus on learning the fundamentals of value investing.
This year, I aimed to break free from my daily routine’s inertia and began exploring again. So I picked two subjects I’ve been curious about for a while: AI Engineering and the Art of Value Investing.
I created a 3-month experiment that integrates AI engineering with Finance, week by week. Each week involves studying AI engineering through Chip Huyen’s book, then applying the concepts to value investing by learning how to analyze financial statements.
It looks like this will work out on my schedule. However, in reality, it was brutal.
Both subjects are new to me and switching between them is a pain. I started with no prior knowledge of either, so reading and learning on my own takes longer to get into the mindset of each.
For example, a chapter on building an LLM and the transformer model takes me longer to understand because I lack the fundamentals of machine learning. But once I grasped some basic AI engineering concepts, a week went by, and I had to move on to a new topic: 10-Q. At first, learning about 10-Q was overwhelming, and I wasn’t sure where to start. But slowly, by breaking it down and understanding each part, I finally got what the income statement was really telling me. Now, I have to switch gears again and revisit what I learned about AI engineering two weeks ago, which doesn’t really help me move forward in either area.
This is where I reflected on some of the lessons I learned during the first month of this journey and outlined my plans for the next month.
Focus on One Thing
David Senra, the host and founder of the Founder Podcast, was once asked in an interview with Patrick O’Shaughnessy, “If you could summarize all your work and the work leading up to creating the founder podcast into one thing, what would it be?” Even before the question was finished, David displayed a serious, impatient expression and wanted to answer immediately. Without hesitation, he replied, “That one word is Focus.”
Trying to learn two new fields, plus a demanding full-time job, is the opposite of focus.
It felt like a constant reset.
Each time I switch contexts, I pay a cognitive tax just to get back into the right mental model.
Learning new things requires greater cognitive focus and solitude to get into the craft, because it involves repeating known tasks to stay proficient. Growth requires deliberate practice.
It is challenging to focus on two drastically different fields, and it makes it harder to work on 2 project at the same time because I need to learn the fundamentals of both subjects.
I also realized that the AI engineering book I was reading seems more geared toward ML engineers rather than software engineers. That means I need to brush up on more fundamental ML concepts and dive deeper into the Math behind it, all of which I’m not particularly interested in. I’m more into the practical side of being an AI engineer.
To master the art of investing, including valuation and interpreting financial statements, I need to focus on one aspect instead of splitting my attention.
Follow Your Gut (Intuition)
I was trained that data-driven decisions are more important than gut intuition. This makes me ignore my own intuition.
At work, data is required to sell a product to the team. A simple intuition and anecdote will not be sufficient to convey the message across. This may be a good practice, but it can silence my internal voice and lead me to a more expensive decision.
I learned the hard way with my ADU contractor back in 2025. My gut told me something felt off on the introductory call. The prices felt too good to be true, and I overrode that intuition with “evidence”, trying to convince myself that there are reviews on the internet from the contractor, and moved forward.
That mistake cost me $30K, plus a lot more time and energy.
With these initiatives, I am sitting on a similar decision: Do I want to focus on AI engineering or finance and investing?
While becoming an AI engineer is great for career growth, I feel a strong pull towards exploring finances and investing. From personal experience, I spend my free time reading about investing, even when I’m tired.
I am still evaluating whether focusing on investing and money is what I want for the long term. But it’s the one I will keep iterating on.
Questions - What’s something you keep returning to, even when you swear you’re ‘not that into it’?
Slow Down (Don’t Need to Optimize Everything)
I treat my learning like strength training by training on rotating muscle groups each week and being consistent. I was trying to shove as much knowledge and document as much as possible as I was reading the AI engineering book by Chip Huyen, and also trying to absorb as much stuff from value investing.
But I noticed that cognitive training is different from muscle training.
When I focus on everything, I focus on nothing.
I listened to a podcast by Dr. K recently, discussing how optimization relates to effort - specifically, trying to achieve more with the same amount of resources. Many people optimize just for the sake of it.
As a software engineer, I tend to optimize everything in my life. For instance, I prepare meals on weekends to avoid cooking during the week. I also listen to podcasts while driving or working out to absorb more knowledge while staying physically active. Additionally, I increase the playback speed to 2x on YouTube videos or podcasts, enabling me to learn more in less time.
Life on Earth is finite. I can’t do everything at once.
Slowing down allows me to focus on one goal at a time, which can accelerate my understanding.
If I want to build tools for investing someday, the first step isn’t building. It’s becoming fluent enough to notice the real gaps.
In other words, I need to slow down to actually absorb the fundamentals.
What I’m doing Next
For the next two months, I’m focusing on value investing fundamentals first and letting my curiosity wander through tool ideas if I find one.
Thus, I will be:
Reading more 10-Qs
Write posts focused on fundamentals (income statement, cash flow, segments, and some philosophy and interesting findings that I got while reading on this space)
experimenting lightly, but not forcing a product
Have you ever tried to go deep into two completely different skills at once? What happened?