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If you’re just coming to this blog for the first time, here’s what you should read first:
- 5 Scientific Steps to Ace Your Next Exam - What does research tell us about the best way to learn faster? Here are five evidence-based steps you can apply to pass your next exam (or learn anything better).
- Strangely Useful Career Advice - If you’re a writer, don’t start writing. Understand your career first. Here’s how to do it.
- Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools - If you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But what if you’re an engineer? Artist? Accountant? Here’s how to see past your metaphorical nails and solve tough problems better.
- Why is it So Hard to Build Permanent Habits - Most habits are meta-stable, meaning they can persist, but will fall apart if there’s enough disruption. This explains why our habits rarely last forever and also what steps we can take to ensure their longevity.
- Unraveling the Enigma of Reason - Reason is what separates us from the animals. But why? Why are humans the only creatures that can reason well? And if we do possess this power, why do we so often fail to use it? A surprising answer that has much to tell us about how to think and live smarter.
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The Complete Archives
Still not enough? Here’s all 1300+ articles I’ve written since 2006.
2024 • October
2024 • September
- What Could You Change in a Year?
- How To Be Well Rounded
- Where’s Your Blind Spot?
- 12 Obvious (and 12 Not-So-Obvious) Tips for Living Better
- The Foundations for Success and Happiness Are the Same
2024 • August
- A Solid Foundation is More Than Just Good Habits
- I’m 36
- 5 Ways to Increase Your Learning Throughput
- The Three Gaps
2024 • July
- No, AI Doesn’t Mean You Won’t Need to Learn
- The sweet spot: Why more effort is not always better
- The Twelve Foundations for a Good Life
- The Universal Foundations for a Good Life
2024 • June
- You’re Trying to Do Too Much
- The Most Overlooked Way to Be More Productive
- The Science of Learning Movement Skills
2024 • May
- Talking About Getting Better
- The 7 Reasons You Stop Improving (and How to Keep Getting Better)
- Ultralearning or Get Better at Anything: Which Book is Better?
- Get Better at Anything is Now Available
2024 • April
- My 7 Rules for Happiness
- When Procrastination is Productive
- The Science of Mental Models
- How to Learn Vocabulary in Another Language
2024 • March
- 5 Keys to Get the Most out of the Feynman Technique
- My New Book: Get Better at Anything (Special Offer for Preorders)
- The Infinite Library Problem
- The Paradox of Productivity
2024 • February
- My Simple Habit for Smarter Book Reading
- The 6 Causes of Burnout (and How to Avoid It)
- Does Everyone Learn at the Same Rate? An Intriguing Experiment
2024 • January
- The Science of Learning Physics
- The 10,000-Hour Rule is a Myth
- Why Build a Life of Focus?
- Decide Your Next Decade
- The Psychology Behind Why You Can’t Put Down Your Phone
- How to Get Into a Focused State Quickly
- 5 Ways to Make Studying Fun (Without Sacrificing Effectiveness)
2023 • December
- My 10 Most Popular Essays of 2023
- The 10 Best Books I Read in 2023
- 6 Strategies for Learning New Things (When You Have Kids)
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: How to Change Your Mind
2023 • November
- How to Learn Anything Easily
- The 15 People Who Have Most Influenced My Thinking (Part II)
- The 15 People Who Most Influenced My Thinking About Learning (Part I)
- Reader Mailbag: ChatGPT-Induced Ignorance, Language Learning, Flashcards and More
2023 • October
- What Does Research Say is the Best Way to Learn a Language?
- My #1 Rule for Writing
- Self-Efficacy: The Key to Understanding What Motivates You
- 18 Life Lessons I’d Give My 18-Year-Old Self
2023 • September
- The Simple Rule for Achieving Ambitious Goals
- The Key to Building Rare and Valuable Skills
- Before You Burn Yourself Out Working, Do This
- The Simple Economic Theory That Explains Whether You’ll Have a Great Career
- Who Cares What Warren Buffett Eats for Lunch?
2023 • August
- The Efficiency Mindset
- I’m 35
- 7 Expert Opinions I Agree With (That Most People Don’t)
- Why I’m Not More Popular
2023 • July
- The Mind is a Computer
- Reader Mailbag (Part II): Overcoming Procrastination, the Input Hypothesis, Time Management and Motor Skills
- Reader Mailbag: Range, Learning Styles, Nootropics and the Value of Learning Things You’re Doomed to Forget
2023 • June
- Eight of My Unanswered Questions About the Best Way to Learn
- When are Minimal Habits Useful for Learning?
- The Problem with Being Too Patient
- Why Flashcards Beat Mnemonics for Studying
2023 • May
- When is Learning Worth the Effort?
- Seven Steps for Making a Solid Studying Plan
- Some Thoughts on Becoming Self-Actualized
- Ten Great Books on How to Learn Better
- 10 Ways You Can Use ChatGPT to Learn Better
2023 • April
- No, ChatGPT Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Need to Learn Things
- How Much Transfer Should We Expect Between Skills?
- Ten of My Favorite Papers on the Science of Learning and Thinking
- Reader Request: How Should I Use ChatGPT to Learn Better?
2023 • March
- Recent Reading: Creativity, Mastery and the Three Phases of Learning
- Are We Losing the Ability to Read Books?
- What Would You Do With More Time?
- The Underrated Usefulness of Taking a Time Log
- The Key to Sustainable Productivity
- Needing to Pay Attention is a Novel Problem
2023 • February
- Creativity is Productivity
- An MIT Challenge for Math and Physics? Interview with Diego Vera
- A Little Announcement…
- Learning, Fast and Slow: Do Intensive Learning Projects Work Better Than Slow Ones?
2023 • January
- Curated Consumption: A Saner Approach to Online Media
- Why Do People (Usually) Learn Less as They Get Older?
- How My Views on Learning Have Changed Over Time
- The Ten Books that Influenced Me the Most in 2022
- The Intermediate Plateau: What Causes It? How Can We Move Beyond It?
2022 • December
2022 • November
- Why You Need a Learning System
- How to Approach Any Exam With Confidence
- Which Matters More: Method or Motivation?
- You’ve Never Been Taught How to Learn
- Reader Question: What Classes Should I Study to Land a Job?
- Reader Question: Avoiding “Flashcard Hell” and Finding Enjoyable Studying Strategies
2022 • October
- Variability, Not Repetition, is the Key to Mastery
- Why Didn’t More People Take the MIT Challenge?
- Recent Reading: 7 Books on the Science of Learning
2022 • September
- Building Confidence in Communication: Interview with Tristan de Montebello
- Ten Mental Models for Learning
- Brain Training Doesn’t Work
- Failure is a Lousy Teacher
2022 • August
- What Work Matters?
- Why People Stop Improving
- How to Find Your Next Step
- The Key to Career Progress
- I’m 34
- Practice Made Perfect: The 10 Keys to Optimize Improvement
2022 • July
- You’re Never Too Good for the Basics
- Recent Reading: Viking Law, Backgammon Strategy, The History of Alchemy and more…
- Maximize Your Learning Time with These Seven Habits
- The 85% Rule for Learning
2022 • June
- The 10 Best Books on Productivity
- You Should Pay for Tutors
- Interview: Building a Second Brain with Tiago Forte
- No, You Haven’t Forgotten Everything
2022 • May
- Do You Learn More by Struggling on Hard Problems?
- Book Review — Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs
- More Recent Reading
2022 • April
- See-Do-Feedback: The Right Way To Practice
- Reader Mailbag: Sustaining Motivation, Judging Experts and the Meanings of Life
2022 • March
- Book Review: Human Problem Solving
- How to Decide What to Work On
- Desirable Difficulties: When Harder is Better for Learning
- What I’ve Been Reading
2022 • February
- Cultural Literacy: Does Knowledge Need to Be Deep to Be Useful?
- How Does Understanding Work? A Look at the Construction-Integration Model of Comprehension
- How Do We Learn Complex Skills? Understanding ACT-R Theory
- The Structured Pursuit of Depth
2022 • January
- Why Don’t We Use the Math We Learn in School?
- New Research Shows I Was Right About Watching Lectures Faster
- The Science of Achievement: 7 Research-Backed Tips to Set Better Goals
- Cognitive Load Theory and its Applications for Learning
2021 • December
- The Best Essays of 2021
- Digging into How We Teach and Learn: 7 Books That Have Challenged and Shaped My Thinking
- How Much Do You Need to Know Before Getting Started?
2021 • November
- Learning by Doing: When Does it Work? When Does it Fail?
- What if You Don’t Feel Smart Enough?
- The Craft is the End
- Which Works Better: Habits or Projects?
2021 • October
- The Project-Driven Life
- You’re Trying to Do Too Much
- My Recent Reading: 10 Interesting Books on How We Think and Learn
- Lessons Learned from 5 Years and 5000+ Students in Top Performer
2021 • September
- Want to Write for a Living? The 7 Things I Wish I’d Known
- The 7 Things I Wish I’d Known Before College
- Is Modernity a Myth?
2021 • August
- Learning as Investing: 7 Skills That Pay Off in Any Job
- Why Aren’t There More Apprenticeships?
- I’m 33
- Book Recommendation: Uncommon Sense Teaching
- Is Life Better When You’re Busy?
2021 • July
- The 10 Best Tools to Stay Mentally Sharp at Work
- Metrics: Useful or Evil?
- What are the Best Arguments Against Doing the Real Thing?
- How Becoming a Dad Changed My Thoughts on Productivity
2021 • June
- What is Understanding?
- Beware Tractability Bias
- 14 Books On Learning by Doing, Apprenticeship and Transfer
- Digging the Well
2021 • May
- Make Your Life Better by Doing Less
- How I Do Research
- The Key to Find Time for Learning
- How to Think for Yourself
- The Science Behind Building General Skills
- The 10 Essential Strategies for Deeper Learning
- A New Understanding of Effort
2021 • April
- Should You Use Flashcards to Learn?
- Some Reflections on Being Off Social Media
- Help Me with My New Project
- Book Recommendation: A World Without Email
2021 • March
- How to Improve Your Self-Awareness
- Why We Struggle to Motivate Ourselves
- The Neuroscience of Motivation
- Inspiration is Overrated
- My 10 Favorite Free Online Classes
- Could You Learn Every Subject?
- How Hard Should You Work?
2021 • February
- The Productivity Frontier: Can You Get More Done Without Making Sacrifices?
- Smarter People Take More Risks
- How to Stay Focused
- Get the Most From Your Limited Free Time
- On Doing Your Life’s Work
2021 • January
- It’s Time to Reclaim Your Mind
- Ten Ideas That Have Shaped My Life
- What’s the Best Way to Learn Biology?
- How to Take Notes
- The Key to Making Risky Decisions
2020 • December
- My Best Essays of 2020
- The Value of Learning “Useless” Things
- Why You Procrastinate (with Leading Expert Piers Steel)
- The Boring (and Vastly Underrated) Art of Planning
2020 • November
- How to Become More Curious
- Are You Missing This Essential Foundation for a Good Life?
- Live Chat on the Science of Motivation (and Q&A)
- The Paradox of Effort
- The Complete Guide to Motivation
2020 • October
- The 10 Foundational Practices for a Good Life
- How Much Can You Change Yourself?
- Fearing Forgetting: Should You Try to Maintain or Relearn Knowledge?
- Life of Focus: Focused Work Update (Month One)
2020 • September
- The 7 Essential Rituals for Focused Work
- What are the Limits of Building Better Habits?
- The Competence Trap (and Why it Keeps You From Trying New Things)
- What’s Beyond Self-Improvement?
2020 • August
- Take Control of Your Time
- Rediscover Depth
- Give Your Brain Some Breathing Room
- Returning to a Life of Focus
- I’m 32
- Two Types of Excellence
- The Value of Spare Capacity
2020 • July
- What are the Obstacles to Doing the Real Thing?
- How to Rebuild Your Confidence
- Should You Even Try to Motivate Yourself?
- Boost Your Motivation to Learn Hard Things
- Get Better at the Things You Do Every Day
2020 • June
- The Perfect Studying Routine
- How to Quickly Extract the Best Insights from a Huge Topic
- The Right Way to Measure Productivity (and Why It’s Harder Than it Seems)
- The Surprisingly Narrow Path to Success
- The 10 Most Useful Mental Models
- The All-Important Difference Between Effort and Effectiveness
2020 • May
- Cal Newport on The Narrow Path to Success, Fatherhood and Challenging Conventional Wisdom
- Learning My Wife’s Native Language – One Month Update (Video)
- The Hard Way is the Easy Way
- Macedonian Project (Week Three Update)
- Do the Real Thing
- Macedonian Project (Week Two Update)
2020 • April
- 7 Rules for Staying Productive Long-Term
- Macedonian Project Update (Week One)
- New Project: Learning My Wife’s Native Language
- Being and Time: An Interesting Book You Probably Shouldn’t Read
- Is Your Path a Staircase or a Circle?
- Designing the Perfect Practice Loop
- How to Build Skills That Matter
2020 • March
- Now is the Perfect Time to Start an Ultralearning Project
- What are the Core Ideas of Self-Improvement?
- Audio, Paper or Kindle: What’s the Best Way to Read a Book?
- What is Effort?
- New Edition of Rapid Learner Coming Soon!
2020 • February
- How Does Age Change How You Learn?
- How Fast Should You Be When Learning?
- I’m a Papa!
- How Important is Work?
2020 • January
- Information Overload is a Fake Problem
- Seven Habits that Seem Lazy (but Actually Let You Get More Done)
- Too Tired to Do Everything? How to Live Better Without Burning Out
- Success is Stamina: To Win Means to Keep Playing
2019 • December
- My Best Writing of 2019
- Seven Easy Habits to Read More Books Next Year
- Why is Taking Action Hard?
- Why Care About Learning?
- What’s the Point of Productivity?
2019 • November
- The Neuroscience of Anxiety
- A Subtle Mistake People Make When Trying to Grow Their Careers
- The Obvious Way to Improve Your Career (That Might Not Be So Obvious)
- Meet Me and Cal Newport in DC (+ New Podcasts)
2019 • October
- Why I Became an Entrepreneur
- Are You Stepping Over $100 Bills Lying on the Sidewalk?
- My Best Book Recommendations
- Five Lessons about Life and Ultralearning (My WDS Keynote Talk)
2019 • September
- The Complete Guide to Self-Control
- Thinkers vs Doers: Who Gives Better Advice?
- Explore or Exploit: The Hidden Decision that Guides Your Life
- Book Recommendation: Indistractable
- How to Think About Your Life’s Work
2019 • August
- How Should I Get Better at Writing?
- I’m 31
- Discussing Ultralearning: Some of my Favorite Podcasts, Reviews and Essays
- Ultralearning is Now Available
2019 • July
- Conquering Public Speaking: From Zero Experience to World Championships in Seven Months
- The Best Articles on Feeling Better
- The Best Articles on Thinking Better
- An Introvert’s Guide To Building Confidence (In 4 Not-So-Easy Steps)
- The Best Articles on Life Philosophy
- Update on My 10-Year Plans at Becoming Exceptional
- Do You Even Want Success? (The Perils of Achievement Bias)
- There is No “Real” You
- Useful Mental Model: Normal Distribution
- “I already know what to do, I just don’t do it.” I disagree.
- The 5 Keys to Falling Asleep On Time Every Night
- Fear Fizzle More Than Failure
- The Hardest Part About Learning Hard Things
- Useful Mental Model: Exponential Growth
- 5 Tricks to Never Run Out of Ideas Again
- Learning to Code is Easy: Here’s How to Teach Yourself
- How to Worry Less What Other People Think Of You
- You Do Have Time for Ultralearning
- The Best Articles on Learning
- Useful Mental Model: Evolution by Natural Selection
2019 • June
- Most Books Won’t Change Your Life (But You Should Read Them Anyways)
- Useful Mental Model: Efficient Markets (and the Efficient Market Hypothesis)
- Unpopular Opinion: Don’t Just Get Started
- The World is a Hierarchy, Our Theories Aren’t
- The Best Career Articles
- Can Life Have Too Much Meaning?
- Decision Making: How To Handle All The Permutations And Combinations
- 4 Actionable Steps To Feel Happy, Content and Grateful
- The Best Articles on Productivity
- How To Stay Motivated To Go To The Gym Long-Term
- Do Long-Term Goals Bring Happiness?
- The Perpetual Backburner: Is Procrastination Part Of Human Nature?
- You Have to Be Willing to Get Cut
- The Best Articles on Goal-Setting
- What Medieval People Got Right About Learning
- Why Copying Successful People Can Backfire
- What’s the Best Way to Make a Habit? Comparing Seven Different Approaches
- The Best Articles on Habits
- Have a Podcast or Blog? Help Me Get the Word Out About Ultralearning
2019 • May
- You Need to Negotiate Your Lifestyle
- The Productivity Pitfall
- Feeling Stuck at Work? Here’s How to Keep Moving Forward
- Fantasizing About Retirement? Here’s How to Build a Career You Won’t Want to Quit
- Why Do Some People Get Things Done Effortlessly?
- Evaporating Motivation
- You Fail to Reach Your Goals Because You Designed Them Badly
- Some Things That Have Helped Me Worry Less
- Do You Need to Be Smart to Learn Certain Subjects?
- Your Life Problems are Really Learning Challenges in Disguise
- Is Mastery More Like a Wedge or a Knife?
- How to Stop Feeling Like an Imposter
- What is Quantum Mechanics? (An Incomplete and Amateur Summary)
- Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics: Project Complete!
2019 • April
- Working Memory: A Complete Guide to How Your Brain Processes Information, Thinks and Learns
- Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics – Week Three Update
- The 7 Core Skills to Drawing Realistic Pictures
- Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics: Week Two Update
- Book Recommendation: The Hungry Brain
- Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics: Week One Update
- Should You Fix Weaknesses or Focus on Strengths? Here’s How to Decide
- New Ultralearning Project: Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics
2019 • March
- Why Most Self-Education Efforts Fail
- The Most Powerful Learning Tool (That Doesn’t Involve Studying)
- How to Learn a Language in Record Time
- Five Scientific Steps to Ace Your Next Exam
- How to Know When to Give Up
- The Real Way to Improve Your Reading Speed
- The Six Morning Routines that Will Make You Happier, Healthier and More Productive
- How to Learn Chinese: 8 Things I Wish I Had Known Before I Started
- Do You Have Habits, or Just Commitments?
- How to Improve Critical Thinking
- Stupid Advice: “You’ll Never Be Rich Working for Somebody Else”
- How to Be More Ambitious
- The Hidden Connection Between Habits and Learning
- Who Has Time for Hobbies?
2019 • February
- Why Memorize?
- Life’s Wicked Problems (and How to Get Past Them)
- Useful Career Tool: Look for Partial Mentors
- New YouTube Videos and Podcast Episodes
- Bored with Your Job? The Recipe for Enjoying Your Work
- Is Ambition a Good Thing? Thoughts on Striving Without Selfishness
- Impossible Standards: The 3-Step Process to Reach New Heights in Your Work and Life
- The Complete Guide to Memory
- Follow Me on WeChat! (???????
- Should You Target the Minimum?
- Should You Follow Less News?
- Should You Desire More or Less?
- Play is Learning
- Digital Minimalism
- Follow Me on Instagram
- How to Find Time
- How to Cultivate Mental Stamina
- Unraveling the Enigma of Reason
2019 • January
- The Three Different Types of Luck
- Is Old Advice Better?
- How to Take Notes While Reading
- How to Push Past Your Analysis Paralysis
- How to Make Hard Life Decisions
- How to Get Feedback
- How to Be Prolific
- Haters are Good: Why You Need Your Critics
- Can You Change What You Like?
- How to Change Your Life
- How to Work on Your Goals When You Don’t Have Time
- The Simple Algorithm for Making Big Life Decisions
- Why It’s So Hard to Stick to Your Goals (and How to Make it Easy)
- (A Little) Conformity is a Good Thing
- Ultralearning Environments: Why Where You Learn Determines How Much You Learn
- Hustle or Mediocrity?
- Stress, Not Working Too Much, Causes Burnout
2018 • December
- Is Ultimate Truth a Superstimulus?
- Learning How to Learn
- Success is Boring
- Should You Learn Things You Don’t Plan on Using?
- What is Self-Improvement?
- Why You Cram for Exams (and How to Stop)
- Learning Rule: Quantity, then Quality
- The Two Types of Mistakes
- The Power of Being Weak
- No Problem Sets, No Problem! (How to Study Without Practice Problems)
- Five Steps to Become a Better Writer
- How to Think Better
- What is Productivity Guilt? (And How Can You Prevent It?)
- How Long Will it Take?
- How to Teach Yourself Math
- How to Make Stuff People Will Pay For
- Building Up Your Intellectual Immune System
- Does It Matter Whether Advice is Authentic?
- How to Figure Out Which Skills You Need to Learn to Improve Your Career
- Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools
- How to Learn English
2018 • November
- How to Study for a Standardized Test
- How Procrastination Can Help You Succeed
- The Path to Happiness: Do What You Love, Not What You Like
- The Overkill Approach: How to Solve the Hardest Problems You Face
- Habit Stacking: How to Keep Up With Everything (When You Don’t Have Time)
- How to Enjoy Studying
- Does Choice Exist?
- Underrated Success Tactic: Actually Doing the Math
- Want to Learn a Language on Your Next Trip? Avoid These Six Mistakes.
- Some Thoughts on Meditation
- The Nine Habits to Increase Your Energy
2018 • October
- Should You Be an Early Riser, or Just Get Enough Sleep?
- How to Pick Which Books to Read
- Book Recommendation: Atomic Habits
- How to Know When to Quit
- How to See Reality as It Is
2018 • September
2018 • August
- Richard Feynman on Self-Doubt and Meeting Others’ Expectations
- I’m 30
- On Keeping Your Word
- How Good Is Your Theory?
- Book Club: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (August 2018)
2018 • July
- What’s Your Life Strategy?
- How to Memorize a Speech
- The Complete Guide to Increasing Your Focus
- How to Be Nice (Without Being a Pushover)
2018 • June
- Book Club: The Wizard And The Prophet (June 2018)
- Read my articles on WeChat now!
- Seven Biographies You Should Read to Live a Better, Richer and Happier Life
- I Got Married!
2018 • May
- How to Learn Social Skills
- Book Club: The Selfish Gene (May 2018)
- Lesson One: What most people get wrong about effective learning
2018 • April
- Book Club: The Enigma of Reason (April 2018)
- How to Commit to Long-Term Goals
- The Art of Unlearning
- How to Commit to the Things You Start
2018 • March
- Book Club: Tao Te Ching (March 2018)
- You Probably Have Too Much Motivation
- How Successful Was the MIT Challenge?
- Book Club: The Elephant In The Brain (February 2018)
2018 • February
- Lesson One: How much of your career is running to stay in the same spot?
- Further Notes on “Rethinking Discipline”
- Rethinking Discipline
2018 • January
- Set Goals in the Middle
- Book Club: Seeing Like A State (January 2018)
- How Much Faster Can You Learn?
- What’s Next?
- Choose Your Signal Wisely
2017 • December
- Book Club: Godel, Escher, Bach (December 2017)
- Discovering the Meta
- Book Club: Average Is Over (November 2017)
- Know Your Competition
2017 • November
- Are Successful People Just Putting in More Effort?
- How Much Can You Possibly Learn?
- Is Reading Blogs Like This One Keeping You From Improving Your Life?
2017 • October
- Is the Brain Like a Muscle? Lessons from Debunking a Seductive, But Incorrect, Idea
- Book Club: Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes (October 2017)
- Help Me Research My Next Book
- Cultivating the Skill of Figuring Things Out
- How Ben Franklin Learned to Write Persuasively
2017 • September
- Book Club: Predictably Irrational (September 2017)
- Lesson One: How to finally stop feeling stressed and guilty
- Is Learning Extra Languages Worth the Hassle?
2017 • August
- Book Club: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (August 2017)
- I’m 29
- Why You Should Be More Extreme
- Two Kinds of Difficulty
- Book Club: Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind (July 2017)
2017 • July
- Lesson #1: Capital Trumps Courage
- You Should Have More Spectacular Failures
- Gri-Gri, Money and Bootstrapped Truths
2017 • June
- Book Club: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (June 2017)
- Do You Need Self-Discipline to Have Fun?
- How Much Do You Really Understand?
- The Essential Education: If You Had Ten Years to Learn Anything, What Would You Do?
2017 • May
- Multiply or Add?
- Book Club: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (June 2017)
- New Project: Level Up Korean with Five Hours Per Week
- Should You Listen to Music While Studying, The Pi Model and Learning How to Learn w/ Dr. Barbara Oakley
- Chaos, Ignorance and Newton’s Great Puzzle
2017 • April
- The most common misconception about learning
- Want to Learn History? Read Biographies, Not History Books
- The Problem of Happiness
2017 • March
2017 • February
- Some Useful Distinctions When Thinking About Your Career
- Book Review: The Wisdom of Insecurity
- Simplicity Beats Nuance: Why the Wrong Answer Can Often Beat the Correct One
- Should You Set Deadlines for Your Goals?
- What’s More Productive: Counting Hours or Tasks Accomplished?
2017 • January
2016 • December
2016 • November
- The Hard, But Effective Way to Learn a New Language
- Back to China: Thoughts on Business, Culture and Language Learning in Beijing
- How is Ultralearning Different?
- Advice Reversals
2016 • October
- What Should Your Goals Be?
- Fluency vs Mastery: Can You Be Fluent Without Being Good?
- Should You Try Learning More Than One Thing at a Time?
- How Should I Learn Cognitive Science?
2016 • September
- Learning What Can’t Be Taught
- Three Strategies for Behavior Change
- Lesson #1: An Unusual Approach to Improve Your Ability to Focus
2016 • August
- New Ultralearning Project: Can You Learn to Draw Realistic Portraits in One Month?
- I’m 28
- The Irony of Focus: Why Doing Only One Thing Actually Lets You Do More
- How to Start Your Own Ultralearning Project (Part Two)
2016 • July
- How to Start Your Own Ultralearning Project (Part One)
- Should Learning Be Hard?
- A Simple Strategy for Getting Better at Things
2016 • June
- The Problem with Advice
- How to Read More Books
- How Much Theory Should You Learn for Practical Skills?
- Genes and Free Will
2016 • May
2016 • April
- What We’ve Learned from Top Performer: Free Lesson Series
- Ultralearning Matters More After Graduation
- What’s the Difference Between Learning an Art and a Science?
- There Are No Hard Subjects, Only Missing Prerequisites
- Ultralearning Case Study: Learning Cognitive Science
2016 • March
- Which Ideas are Overrated?
- With the World’s Knowledge a Click Away, We Spend Our Time Looking at Funny Pictures of Cats
- If You Had 15 Days to Learn Calculus, How Would You Do It?
- Career Planning and the Dao
- How I Became a Full-Time Blogger: Reflections on Ten Years of ScottHYoung.com
2016 • February
- How to Get Great Value from Information Products
- How I Choose Projects
- Are Anti-Vaxxers Rational? More Thoughts on the Power of Copying
- Is Rationality Overrated? What an 18th Century Medical Mystery Can Tell Us About the Power of Blind Copying
2016 • January
- At What Age is it No Longer Okay to Be Bad at Something?
- Deep Work
- Should You Use Deliberate Practice… Or Just Practice?
- What I’ve Been Reading
2015 • December
- The Bicycle Problem: How the Illusion of Explanatory Depth Tricks Your Brain
- How Much Free Will Do You Have?
- Should You Know Your IQ?
2015 • November
- Failures of Intensity
- Getting Better at Figuring Things Out
- What Does it Mean to Work Hard?
- Beware of “Magic Bullet” Thinking
2015 • October
- The Mathematics of Perseverance: The Formula to Help You Decide Whether to Strive or Settle
- How to Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Free, Live Webinar with Cal Newport
- If you want to be an author, don’t start writing (and other strangely useful career advice)
2015 • September
- When is it Good To Be a Hypocrite?
- Everyone is Trying to Sell You Something
- Here’s Some Things I’ve Changed My Mind About
- Three Ways to Fix a Stubborn Habit
- How Much Stress Do You Need for Success?
2015 • August
- How I’m Continuing to Learn (and Hopefully Master) Chinese
- I’m 27
- The Two Ways to Evaluate Ideas
- The Isomorphism of Ideas
2015 • July
- Is There Value in Ideas You Can’t Remember?
- Why Focusing Can Often Feel Lazy
- Don’t Be Afraid to Go at Your Own Pace
- Building, Searching and the Algorithm for Finding the Best Spouse
2015 • June
- Learning on Steroids is Open (For the Last Time)
- How to Stop Forgetting What You Read
- I Told My Friend Not to Start a Business. Here’s Why…
- Being Honest with Yourself is Hard
2015 • May
- You Don’t Pay Enough for Information
- How to Build Habits of Moderation
- Should You Accept Your Constraints or Try to Improve Them?
- Why the Smartest People Don’t Always Give the Best Advice: The Importance of Local Wisdom
2015 • April
- My New TEDx Talk: One Simple Method to Learn Any Language
- Are You Trying to Be Too Original? What I Learned About the Value of Imitation from China
- Paradoxical Virtues
- How to Build the Habit of Finishing What You Start
2015 • March
- Why is it So Hard to Create Permanent Habits?
- Which Skills Should You Master?
- Be Bold, Presumptuous and Stop Caring About What Others Think
- Watch us Speak all Four Languages in Three Minutes
2015 • February
- Are There Books You Should Reread Every Year?
- When the Less Efficient Method Gets the Job Done Faster
2015 • January
- Should You Do Intense, Short-Term Projects, or Build Long-Term Habits?
- I Was Wrong About Speed Reading: Here are the Facts
- Watch Me Rap in Korean
- Why You Need Mentors (and Why You Don’t Have Them Yet)
2014 • December
- Should You Maintain an (Almost) Empty Reading Queue?
- Improve Creative Skills by Reducing Degrees of Freedom
- Different Kinds of Difficulty
- Knowing Facts Still Matters (Even in an Age of Wikipedia)
- Two Ways to Think About Career Fulfillment
2014 • November
- Easily Distracted? Use Orienting Tasks While Learning.
- The Fear of Going Soft
- Bias is Inescapable
- Why I’m Skeptical About SRS for Conceptual Subjects
- Make Plans Work on 20% Effort
2014 • October
- Build Your Morning Habits First
- The Stupidity of Cutting Sleep
- How Do You Make a Good Analogy?
- Pick Three Things. Now Do Them Well
- Why do Engineers Think They’ll Be Good at Picking Stocks?
- Is it Better to Review Back or Learn Ahead?
- How I’m Maintaining the Ability to Speak Six Languages
- Why Learn “Useless” Things?
2014 • September
- Choose: Growth or Consistency
- Learning on Steroids is now open
- How to Increase Your Ability to Focus
- Korean Final Update
- Looking Back at a Year (Almost) Without English
2014 • August
2014 • July
- Does Speaking Another Language Change How You Think?
- Korean Halfway Update
- How Many Hours of Preparation Do You Need to Learn a Language Abroad?
- Why You’re Probably Not Working as Much as You Think You Are
2014 • June
- Guest Posts I’ve Done About Learning Chinese
- Learning Chinese over 3½ Months | 12-Min Documentary
- How I Plan to Learn Korean Differently than Chinese
2014 • May
2014 • April
- How Much Harder is Learning Chinese Than Spanish?
- The Three-Step Strategy to Study Hard Without Burning Out
- Why Braintraining Games are Silly
2014 • March
- Never Be Too Pleased With Your Past Work
- Learning Portuguese Over 2 Months + 1 Week
- I Was Wrong About China: A First Two Weeks in China (and Chinese)
2014 • February
2014 • January
- Don’t Think For Yourself
- Are Blogs Better Than Books for Mastering Complex Ideas?
- Things Worth Knowing Well, Things Worth Knowing Poorly
2013 • December
- Things Worth Knowing, Even Poorly
- Chicken Hearts and Glass Explosions: A First Week in Brazil
- Learning Spanish in 11 Weeks | 10-Min Documentary
- My Spanish After Three Months
2013 • November
- How Do You Learn a New Language, Without Forgetting the Old One?
- Should I Have Done the MIT Challenge Over 4 Years?
2013 • October
- Bold Moves are Often Easier than Small Ones
- How to Learn Boring Subjects
- The 7 Most Common Learner Mistakes
- How I’m Learning Spanish
- You Don’t Need to Be Rich to Travel
2013 • September
- Why You Shouldn’t Learn a Language the Way Children Do
- The Importance of Knowing What You Know
- Thoughts on the First Week Without Speaking English
- I’m 25
2013 • August
- My Next Project – The Year Without English
- Learning on Steroids is now open (until August 22nd)
- Free Learn Faster 1-Week Bootcamp
2013 • July
- Watch Out for “Good” Ideas
- Why Your IQ Matters Less Than You Think
- How to Execute a Successful Side Project
2013 • June
- Is Free University the Future?
- Should You Learn Physics Like Newton? Contrasting Expert and Beginner Learning Strategies
- How to Use Feedback
- What’s Your Growth Ratio?
2013 • May
- How Much Specialization?
- A Step-by-Step Process to Teach Yourself Anything (in a Fraction of the Time)
- Break Your Map
2013 • April
2013 • March
- Which Learning Methods Actually Work?
- Catch-22s and Bootstrapping Your Life
- What Matters More: Your Network or Skills?
- Why You Should Read Textbooks
2013 • February
- Self-Discipline Comes First
- WordSmith – Building a Program that Plays Scrabble
- “It’s Who You Know”
- Two Types of Growth
2013 • January
- Flow Doesn’t Maximize Improvement
- Rethinking “Learn it Once”
- Could Obsessive Research Be the Cure for Procrastination?
- What are the Intellectual Ideas Everybody Should Know?
2012 • December
- Is Getting Rich Worth It?
- What I Would Change About the MIT Challenge
- The Interview Method: Why Our Assumptions About Success Are Often Wrong
2012 • November
- Why the Risky Options Can Sometimes Be the Safest
- Should You Pursue Your Dream, Even if You’ll Probably Fail?
- Why the Fuss Over Lectures?
2012 • October
- Learning on Steroids is Now Open
- Double your output (while working fewer hours)
- Free Learn Faster Bootcamp (Starts Tomorrow)
- Why Focus (not Effort) is the Key to Getting Stuff Done
- Paris Meetup and Upcoming Bootcamp
- Why You’re Lazy (and How to Fix It)
2012 • September
- The MIT Challenge is Complete
- One Week Left in the MIT Challenge
- Don’t Follow Your Passion
- The Beginner’s Guide to Learning to Program
2012 • August
2012 • July
- How to Lead an Interesting Life and Still Get Stuff Done
- How to Learn Really Hard Courses
- Should You Learn New Skills or Master Old Ones?
- The DIY Degree: Using Self-Education to Earn a Bachelor’s Degree in 1 Year
2012 • June
- TEDx – Can You Get an MIT Education for Less than $2000?
- Wanting the Right Things
- Nonconformers Need Better Social Skills
2012 • May
- Why Should Life Be Simple?
- The Strangeness of Everyday Things
- The Laziness Paradox: Embrace Your Weaknesses to Accomplish More
2012 • April
2012 • March
- Are Habits the Enemy of Mastery?
- Why Does Most Career Advice Suck?
- Can You Learn Faster Without School?
2012 • February
- Just Finish It
- What Matters More, Marketing or Mastery?
- The Sex Scandal Technique: How to Achieve Any Goal, Instantly (and Party with Tim Ferriss)
2012 • January
2011 • December
- Two Types of Advice
- Thoughts on Learning a Degree, Without Going to School
- Swimming Upstream Against Your Destiny
2011 • November
- How to Stay Focused (Without Extra Caffeine)
- Does Enjoyment Trump Efficiency?
- Do What Others Won’t or Can’t Do
- Why Learn Math?
- First Lessons in Trying to Finish 4 Years of MIT in 12 Months
2011 • October
2011 • September
- Learning 4 Years of MIT in 12 Months
- Living Closer to Reality
- The “Single Flaw” Fallacy
- Learning on Steroids is Open
- Learn Faster with the Feynman Technique
2011 • August
- Cynicism is Easy, Optimism Takes Guts
- I’m 23
- Why You’re Exhausted But Not Improving
- Developing an Appetite for Hard Ideas
- Completing an MIT Physics Class in 4.5 Days?
2011 • July
- The Skill of Trying Your Best
- Step One is Showing Up
- Is Obsession a Prerequisite for Success?
- Rethinking Talent
2011 • June
- Why It’s Hard Not to Be a Hypocrite
- The Danger of “-isms”
- The Paradox of Success and The Only-72
- Losing Yourself
- Happily Ever After
2011 • May
- Living Longer by Stretching Psychological Time
- Could You Walk Away From $8 Million in Easy Money?
- Welcome Study Hacks Readers!
- Getting Good: How I’m Trying to Be a Better Writer
- Welcome Zen Habits Readers!
- Seven Unconventional Ideas for Getting the Most Out of College
2011 • April
- Why Honest People Cheat
- Is What You Learn in School Really Useless?
- We Become the Story We Tell Ourselves
- What if Luck Matters More than Effort?
2011 • March
- How to Juggle Pursuits and Still Get Stuff Done
- Philosophical Tourism
- When Will the Web Transform Education?
- World Travel or Finding Passion Won’t Escape Who You Are
2011 • February
2011 • January
- Asking the Right Questions
- Unconventional Meet-up in Winnipeg and Do You Need School?
- A Brief Guide to Learning Faster (and Better)
- Day Jobs vs Side Projects
2010 • December
- Berlin Meetup and Best Posts of 2010
- Needing Encouragement is a Weakness
- When You Should Fix Your Weaknesses
- Staying in School Forever
2010 • November
- Subscription Popups: Your Thoughts?
- Routine is the Enemy of Good
- Don’t Know What You Want?
- The Obvious Choice is Often the Worst: Why People Fail Choosing Jobs, Classes and Dates
2010 • October
- Does Dreaming Smaller Result in Living Happier?
- If Not Now, Then When?
- Fear is Good
- Should You Plan to Retire?
2010 • September
- Feeling Lost? Stop Worrying About Your “Life Purpose”
- Learn Faster, Achieve More
- Silencing the Background Noise of Life
- Should Future Entrepreneurs Go to College?
- Is it Possible to Ace University Exams Without Studying?
- Don’t Follow Your Passion, Do Less to Achieve More and The Magic of the Failed-Simulation Effect
- Here’s What’s Wrong with Self-Help
2010 • August
- My Upcoming Video Course, Learning on Steroids and Vancouver Meet-Up
- I’m 22
- Discipline Can Make You Good, Not the Best
- Should You Use Scarcity Thinking When Making Big Life Decisions?
2010 • July
- Why I’ve Decided to Be Wrong More Often
- You Can’t Set Goals to Fix Your Flaws
- How to Find What You’re Passionate About (And Get Paid For It)
- Is Being Rich Important for Living the Ideal Life?
2010 • June
- Life Lessons from One Year in France
- Manageable Awfulness and How to Let Bad Things Happen
- Should You Strive to Live Happily or to Live Good?
- Society’s Attention Deficit – Praise for Deep Thinking in the Era of Shallowness
2010 • May
- How Fast are You Running to Stay in the Same Place?
- Mental Aikido: The Necessity of Unhappiness in the Ideal Life
- Are You Living Life or Just Planning Your Biography?
- Should You Waste More of Your Time?
- Should an Atheist Be Reading the Great Books of Religion?
2010 • April
- Inconvenient Conveniences – Is Easier Always Better?
- If You’re So Smart, Why is Your Life Still a Mess?
- Will Reaching the Ideal Life Make You any Happier?
- My Thoughts on Learning to Speak Another Language
- Case Studies: Help Me Write My Next Book
2010 • March
- Do You Use “Lack of Motivation” as an Excuse?
- Could You Sell Who You Are in 30 Seconds?
- Pragmatic Optimism: How Your Fears and Doubts Can Allow You to Succeed
- Why Goal-Setting Can Leave You Miserable
- I’m Reopening My Rapid Learning Tactics Program
- Does Thinking About the Ideal Life Actually Lead to Living One?
- Society Doesn’t Care that You’re Good at World of Warcraft
- Reader Meet-Up in Paris?
- Should You Wander the World or Build a Home?
- You’re Lazier Than You Think
2010 • February
- Is the Ideal Lifestyle Designed or Earned?
- Why Self-Educated Learners Often Come Up Short
- Welcome ZenHabits Readers!
- Why Most People are Happier Working than in Their Free Time
- My Elusive Quest to Complete a Handstand Pushup
- How to Conquer Your Fears – Engineer a Low Cost of Failure
- Perfectionism Isn’t Bad (In the Long-Term)
- Does the Ideal Life Depend on Your City?
- Stop Using Guilt as a Motivation Tactic
2010 • January
- The Serious Pursuit of Fun
- Living on the Edge of Incompetence
- How to Find Your Productivity Achilles’ Heel
- My Mistakes and Triumphs in Learning a Foreign Language
- Friday Links
- Sleeping Enough is More Important Than Early-Rising
- Why You Should Ignore Passive Income
- Learning on Steroids Sells Out in 36 Minutes!
- Too Much Work? Here’s How to Handle It
- Want Better Results for 2010? Commit to Fewer Things
2009 • December
- What if You Never Graduate?
- The Frustration Barrier – The Key Obstacle to Being Good at Anything
- 9 Tactics for Rapid Learning (That Most People Have Never Heard Of)
- Do You Need Friends That Think Like You?
- Friday Links
- The Crowd is Stupid (You Don’t Need Genius to Beat Them)
- Do People Want Riches to Buy Stuff or Status?
- Friday Links
- Is Employment Always a Bad Thing?
- My Five Favorite Inspirational Films
- Friday Links
- Know Which Stairs to Climb (Or How I Trained to do a Pistol Squat)
2009 • November
- People Don’t Want Experts
- Are Passions Discovered or Constructed?
- The 10 Really Obvious Ways to Be More Productive
- Coming Soon: Learning on Steroids
- What if You Have More Than One Passion?
- Why Most People Give Up and Fail
- Friday Links
- The Joy of Cooking Meals From Scratch
- How to Get More From Life – Free EBook
- New Reader Survey
- Exclusive Webcast: Chat with Ramit and Scott, Live
- How to Earn More, Save Better and Be Rich
2009 • October
- Friday Links
- Why the World is Actually Getting Better
- My Progress in Becoming Bilingual
- Friday Links
- Don’t Quit Your Day Job
- Success Requires Hard Work (But Not All in One Day)
- Friday Links
- Why I Hate Self-Help Platitudes
- Fitness is an End Unto Itself
- Friday Links
- Don’t Work 9-5
- Think Outside the Cubicle – Released!
2009 • September
- Can You Spot These 7 Broken Nutrition Arguments?
- Why Vegetarian?
- Friday Links
- Decide What’s Unimportant to You
- 15 Things I Wish I Knew
- Friday Links
- The Importance of Being Likable
- The Art of the Small Start
- How to Chip Away at Your List of Necessities
- The Pleasure of Living Within Constraints
- I’ve Arrived in France
- Accepting Your Inner Slacker
- Should Your Twenties Be for Work or Play?
2009 • August
- New Website Design
- Staying in the Game
- Loneliness and the Unconventional Life
- Friday Links
- I’m 21
- Do You Trust Your Productivity System?
- Friday Links
- The First Step and the Thousandth
- The Reason People are Unhappy in Relationships
- If You Want to Be Fit, Don’t Buy New Running Shoes
- I’m Back From Europe
2009 • July
- What MMORPGs Can Teach You About Physical Fitness
- Why I’m Not Trying to Build Passive Income
- The Top 20 Motivation Articles at ScottHYoung.com
- How to Draw (and Other Life Lessons)
- Know Your Burn Rate, and Why it Sabotages You Before You Begin
- Ruthless Focus and the Art of Saying No
- What are You Going to be Exceptional at in 10 Years?
- How to Meet Interesting People
- How to Achieve a Goal (If You Don’t Know Where to Start)
2009 • June
- Showing Up and Deliberate Inconsistency
- I’ll Be In Europe for One Month
- Show Up, Every Day
- The Art of Nonconformity
- Friday Links
- How to Set Goals, Without Being Obnoxious
- Why I Stopped Setting Long-Term Goals
- How to Escape the Toxic Friends Holding You Back
- Update on My Goal to Learn French
- Friday Links 09-06-05
- How to Kick Yourself Out of a Slump
- How to Change a Habit – Expansion
2009 • May
- Friday Links 09-05-29
- What the Heck is Spirituality?
- Consistency is an Overrated Virtue
- Don’t Burn Your Ships
- How to Increase Your Creative Output
- Friday Links 09-05-15
- Vidcast #1 – My Goals
- The Time to Start a Business is in Your Twenties
- How to Watch Television Effectively
- Criticism and Praise are the Same
- Friday Links 09-05-01
2009 • April
- Escape the Bad Learning Habits You Picked Up at School
- Be a Rockstar, Not a Record Label: Build an Unscalable Business
- Aggressive Learning
- Website Redesign, Survey Results, and Help Name my Next Book
- Taoism and the Art of Productivity
- You Are Going to Lose Everything Eventually
- Survey is Back Online
- A Quick Survey and a Gift For You!
- Doubt
- Restricting Yourself
- Financial Freedom
2009 • March
- The Effort Threshold
- Friday Links 09-03-27
- How I’m Creating an Emergency Fund with One Year of Income
- Execution is More Important Than Planning
- Don’t Swim in the Shallow Waters
- Ask the Readers: Advice for Learning a Foreign Language
- Honest Self-Evaluation
- The 10 Best Self-Help Books (That Aren’t Self-Help)
- Friday Links 09-03-06
- How to Build a Solid Foundation for Self-Improvement
- Humility is More Important Than Confidence
2009 • February
- You Don’t Need to be a Geek to Start an Online Business
- Average Doesn’t Mean Secure
- Friday Links 09-02-20
- Walk Slowly So You Don’t Trip
- In Praise of Solitude
- Just Because It Won’t Cost Money, Doesn’t Make It Free
- The Magic of Small Steps
- Friday Links 09-02-06
- Fear of Loss
- The Power of Curiosity
2009 • January
- The Evils of Partial Boredom
- Boredom is the Enemy
- Friday Links 09-01-23
- Say Hi
- How I’m Learning to Stop Worrying
- You Only Know What You Measure
- Consciousness Explained
- $10,000 Ideas
- Goal Addiction
- Steady, Incremental Improvement is a Myth
2008 • December
- Life Balance is Overrated
- Friday Links 08-12-26
- The Power of Less
- How to Be More Social
- How to Read Books You Disagree With
- It’s Okay to be Unhappy
- Friday Links 08-12-12
- Positive Thinking
- The Power of Overkill
- How to Get More Time to Sleep
2008 • November
- Friday Links 08-11-28
- Boost Productivity With a To-Don’t List
- Self-Awareness
- How to Nap (Without Feeling Exhausted Afterwards)
- How to Know When to Take a Break
- Friday Links 08-11-14
- How to Discover What You’re Passionate About
- How Much Time Do You Spend on Your Most Important Goals in Life?
- Personal Excellence Comes First
- Get My Stuff For Cheap…
2008 • October
- Is Reading Making You Stupid?
- Should You Try to Make Money?
- Friday Links 08-10-24
- Itchy Chair Motivation
- How to Develop a Thicker Skin
- The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself
- The Purpose of This Website is to Lose Its Readers
- How to Figure Out What People Want
- Avoid the Zero-Sum Mind Trap
- Friday Links 08-10-02
- Is It Better to Read Books You Disagree With?
2008 • September
- Help Support Entrepreneurship: The Curry BizCamp
- Why Most Feedback Sucks
- I Hate 99% of All Productivity Gadgets
- Friday Links 08-09-19
- Why Good Deeds and Money Don’t Mix
- Don’t Forget Sunk Costs, Stupid!
- The 10 Best Productivity Articles
- Energy Management Is More Important for Creative Work
- Read More Than You Need to Know
- Know When to Stop Reading a Book
2008 • August
- Friday Links 08-08-29
- The Little Book of Productivity
- 7 Reasons Why the Gym is Better Than Therapy
- Would You Still Work If They Didn’t Pay You?
- I’m 20
- How to Become a Holistic Learner
- In Defense of Food
- Friday Links 08-08-08
- Weight, Traffic and Grades Aren’t That Important
- How to Think For Yourself
- Friday Links 08-08-01
2008 • July
- The Vast, Unstatable Importance of a Positive Attitude
- Schedule Footprints Vs. Deadline Counts: How to Hack Your Stress Levels
- Where Are The Friday Links?
- Gumption
- My Rebuttal to Steve Pavlina: Getting Started Without Skill
- How to Stay Motivated in Long Projects
- Is More Commitment Always a Good Thing?
- Friday Links 08-07-11
- Building Your Persistence Levels
- How to Measure Your Degree of Persistence
- Having Fun With Suicidal Productivity Missions
- The Beginner’s Guide to the 30 Day Trial: Part 2
- Friday Links 08-07-03
- The Beginner’s Guide to the 30 Day Trial
- Set a Higher Baseline
- A Really Cheap Solution to Overspending
2008 • June
- You Can’t Always Separate Wins From Losses
- Friday Links 08-06-27
- Need Little, Want Lots
- How to Stay Focused
- Stop Trying to Impress People
- The High Price of Paying Attention
- Friday Links 08-06-20
- Work, Retire… Then You Die.
- How Much Stuff Do You Need?
- Finding Motivation for Improbable Goals
- How to Improve Your Social Skills
- Friday Links 08-06-13
- The Goal of Learning Everything
- Get More From Life: A Gift For You
- Living a Completely Digital Life
- Social Independence
- Friday Links 08-06-06
- Social Skills and Dancing for Dummies
- Learn More, Study Less: Zen Habits Special Offer
- Why Making Money is More Fun than Having It
- Don’t Pay Yourself By the Hour
2008 • May
- Friday Links 08-05-30
- The Importance of Going to Bed Tired
- Email Zen Released
- The Value of Independence
- My Goals for Life
- Friday Links 08-05-23
- One Month Isn’t That Long…
- Selfish Volunteering
- You’re Allowed to Be Happy and Ambitious at the Same Time
- Be Ambitious With Goals, Not Deadlines
- Friday Links 08-05-16
- Want to Eat Healthier? Learn to Cook.
- Great Ideas are Valuable, But Extremely Hard to Recognize
- Be Unique, Be an Uber-Geek
- Would You Be Bored if You Had Everything?
- Friday Links 08-05-09
- Self-Confidence is an Oxymoron
- Shortcomings Create Your Opportunities
- Why Superman is a Bad Role Model
- Use Projects to Educate Yourself for Free
- Friday Links 08-05-02
- How to Avoid Making Stupid Mistakes
2008 • April
- The Key to Motivation: Forget Goals, Focus on Projects
- People Remember Your Screw-Ups, Not When You Help
- Why You Should Be a Geek
- Friday Links 08-04-25
- Keep a Journal to Solve Tough Problems
- Why Productivity?
- How to Stop Wasting Your Energy
- Can You Live With the Worst Case?
- Adam Smith’s Definition of Productivity
- Self-Improvement Tip: Ride the Wave of Moving Day
- You Don’t Need to Be an Expert
- How to be Relaxed, Even When You’re Busy
- Friday Links 08-04-11
- Are You a Maximizer or a Simplifier?
- Don’t Analyze The Anecdotes When You Need Data
- How to Finish Your Work, One Bite at a Time
- Should You Work on Your Strengths or Weaknesses?
- Friday Links – 08-03-04
- How to Keep Productivity from Making You a Robot
- 20 Tips to Survive When You’ve Overloaded Your Schedule
- Don’t Use Email for Conversations
2008 • March
- How to Become a Great Communicator
- Friday Links 08-03-28
- Do You Need More Effort or Better Opportunities?
- How to Setup a Killer Pre-Exam Warm Up Ritual
- Do Things to Do Them
- What’s Your Exit Strategy?
- Friday Links 08-03-21
- Harnessing the Virtue of Patience
- Should You Try to Boost Your Resume?
- 12 Speaking Errors That Make You Sound Dumb
- How to Sell Your Ideas Like a Movie Producer
- Friday Links 08-03-14
- Using Arete to Make Practical Decisions
- Arete: The Meaning of Life
- Post Number 500
- Eat Like a Statistician
- Friday Links 08-03-05
- Learn More, Study Less – Flow-Based Notetaking
- How to Speed Up Highly Creative Tasks
- Learn More, Study Less – Diagraming
- 9 Tips for Restarting a Habit After Falling Off the Wagon
2008 • February
- Learn More, Study Less Released
- Relax Without Feeling Lazy: Kill Open Loops
- If You Aren’t Getting Hate Mail, Your Writing Probably Sucks
- Stop Checking Your Web Stats Every Day!
- Productivity Tips from High-School Chemistry: Build a Motivation Catalyst
- Friday Links 08-02-22
- 7 Tips to Live a More Spontaneous Life
- 9 Tips to Clean Your Mental Palette
- Walk Your Talk… One Step at a Time
- How to Win a Debate Without Starting a Flame War
- Friday Links 08-02-15
- What’s Your Poverty Threshold?
- Are There Prerequisite Courses for Living?
- Make Your Time Top-Heavy
- 9 Things You’re Paying for that You Can Get for Free (Legally)
- Friday Links 08-02-08
- Why I Don’t Download Music
- 20 Tips for Batching to Save Time and Cut Stress
- Upgrade Your Entertainment
- 10 Tips for Staying Productive While Being Scheduled to Death
- Friday Links 08-02-01
2008 • January
- 7 Tips for Morning Alertness Without the Caffeine
- Sprinting Theory: How to Have Self-Discipline on Steroids
- The Power of Complements: Get Obsessive Results, Without the Obsession
- Riding the Tipping Point: 6 Tips for Using Exponential Growth
- Friday Links 08-01-25
- Keeping To-Learn Lists
- How to Start Projects You’ll Actually Finish
- Steal an Extra Hour With a Morning Ritual
- Partying and Personal Development
- Friday Links 08-01-18
- Decrypting Reality
- 9 Great Ways to Invest in Yourself
- Feeling Overwhelmed?
- Review of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged
- Friday Links 08-01-11
- 20 Tips for Accelerating a Creative Flow
- How to Set Goals Creatively
- How to Find Creative Solutions to Non-Creative Problems
- How to Fuel a Creative Flow
- Friday Links 08-01-04
- Only Suckers Follow the Rules
- Quotes From Atlas Shrugged
- Is School Wasting Your Money?
2007 • December
- Should You Read More Fiction?
- Posts in 08, New Holistic Learning Book and Other News
- Friday Links 07-12-28
- Help Me Find Self-Education Resources
- What Aren’t You Going to Do Next Year?
- Friday Links 07-12-21
- Slow Down – The Hidden Key to Getting More Done
- How to Build Momentum Into Your Day
- Responses to When You’re Happiest
- How to Eat Healthier
- Friday Links 07-12-14
- 7 Reasons Not to Set a New Years Resolution in 2008
- When Are You Happiest?
- 9 Ideas to Overcome Discouragement
- Friday Links 07-12-06
- The Virtue of Failing Fast
- How to Keep a Laser Focus Without Burning Out
- 11 Tips to Get the Most From Your Days Off
2007 • November
- Friday Links 07-11-30
- How to Keep E-Mail From Wasting Your Time
- How to Build an Ironclad Personal Discipline
- The 6 Keys for Writing a Kick-Ass To-Do List
- Friday Links 07-11-23
- How to Stop Making Excuses
- Policies and Guidelines at ScottHYoung.com
- The Psychological Benefits of Optimism
- 9 Tips to Squeeze Exercise Into a Tight Schedule
- Why You Need to Run a Timelog (And How to Do It)
- Friday Links 07-11-15
- Tips for Maximizing Your Days Off (and Prevent Working 24/7)
- The Art of Lifestyle Design
- Making Money From Blogging
- How to Teach Yourself Anything in Less Than Three Months
- How to Debug Your Brain
- Book Review: Zen to Done
- 10 Tips to Be Accomplished and Instead of Just Busy
- 11 Easy Ways to Improve Memory
- Friday Links 07-11-02
- How to Run Life as a Science Experiment
2007 • October
- The Quickest Route is Usually the Boldest
- Are You Too Busy? Or Just Gutless?
- Why You Hate Work
- Help With New Holistic Learning Book
- Friday Links 07-10-26
- Can Partying Make You More Productive?
- The 7 Bad E-Mail Habits that Make People Want to Kill You
- How to Overcome a Leaky Brain in Your Studies
- How to Set Goals Without Craving Anything
- The Art of the Finish: How to Go From Busy to Accomplished
- How to Become an Effortless Achiever
- How to Not Want Things and Still Be Happy
- Save the World and Improve Your Life at the Same Time
- Site Maintenance
- Friday Links 07-10-12
- The Key to Escaping Toxic Motivation
- 15 Ways to Squeeze the Most From 15 Minutes
- Reader Question: How has this site helped you?
- The Virtue of Living Life Rationally
- Problems With the Site?
- Friday Links 07-10-04
- Please Show Me Why I’m Wrong
- 5 Simple Steps to Purify Your Hard Drive
- Use People as an Intelligence Catalyst
- How to Customize GTD to Fit Your Life
2007 • September
- Friday Links 07-09-28
- Are You Giving Yourself Busy-Work?
- How to Keep Bad Habits From Ruling Your Life
- Upcoming Interview on Be Happy Dammit
- Dodging Bullets: 7 Strategies to Handle Conflict
- Friday Links 07-09-20
- Goalless Action
- Creative Acceleration: 11 Tips to Engineer a Productive Flow
- How to Free Yourself from Time Poverty
- 9 Planning Traps and How Not to Get Caught
- Friday Links 07-09-14
- What Does Your Day Say About You?
- 50 Tricks to Study Better, Faster and with Less Stress
- The Seven Major Beginner Mistakes
- Friday Links 07-09-07
- Social Courage: How to Meet New People
- Don’t Confuse a Degree with Learning
- Posting Resumes Tomorrow
2007 • August
- Friday Links 07-08-31
- The Power of Humility: Why Confidence is Overrated
- The Critical 7 Rules To Understand People
- 9 Steps to Stop Information Poisoning
- Rational Versus Emotional Arguments
- Friday Links 07-08-24
- Nine Habits to Change Your Life
- 17 Tricks to Reclaim Your Stolen Attention
- Why Atheism?
- Slim Your Reader, Go on an RSS Diet
- I’m Nineteen
- Friday Links 07-08-17
- Blogging Superheroes
- 7 Tips to Find the Hidden Utility in Everything
- 14 Tips for a Less Materialistic Lifestyle
- The Future of Holistic Learning
- You Suck. Get Over It
- I’m Mentioned in Flak
- Friday Links 07-08-10
- How to Make Deadlines Work Using Hofstadter’s Law
- 7 Ways to Make Exercise Fun
- Find Your Personal Marathon
- How to Read 70+ Books in a Year
- How to Overcome Plateaus
- Friday Links 07-08-03
- 7 Steps for Starting a Financial Checkup
- Problem Solving Toolkit: 33 Tricks to Answer Tough Problems
2007 • July
- Give It To Me Straight – 11 Tips for Better Feedback
- 10 Tips for Enjoying Solitude
- What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?
- New Design is Up
- Friday Links 07-07-27
- Ten Steps to Cultivate the Now Habit
- 5 Methods For Cutting Needless Worry From Your Life
- Better Conversations: Collecting Life Stories
- Ten Skills Everyone Should Have
- Friday Links 07-07-20
- 20 Ways to Bring Order to a Busy Life
- How to Cut Out Timewasters
- I’m Back
- How to Live a More Creative Life
- How to Use Your Blog to Make Friends Online
- 10 Tips for Escaping Your Comfort Zone and Having Adventures
- 100 Good Ideas
- I’m Gone for a Week
- Friday Links 07-07-06
- Nine Tips to Stay Productive in a Spontaneous Life
- Ten Habits to Boost Your Happiness
- Do You Need to Be a Competitive Jerk to Succeed?
- GTD is Broken – Focus on Results, Not the System
2007 • June
- 20 Tricks to Boost IQ and Build a Mental Exercise Routine
- Friday Links 07-06-29
- How to Find a Meaningful Life – Without Quitting Your Job
- Quit Procrastinating! 20 Ways to Energize Out of Your Slump
- 10 Steps to Developing a Meaningful Life Philosophy
- Maximize Brainpower: Program a Function Library for Your Mind
- Stick Figure to Mona Lisa: 15 Tips for Becoming Artistic
- Friday Links 07-06-22
- The Zen of Folding Laundry and Other Thoughts on Happiness
- Budget Your Time: How to Use Deadlines
- Call to Lifehackers
- 10 Must-Have Steps to Getting Honest Feedback
- How to Change a Habit – Now Available
- Friday Links 07-06-15
- Beginner’s Guide to Lifting Weights
- Never Eat Alone
- 21 Not-So-Quick Tips to Improve Creativity
- Reclaim 75% of Wasted Net Time With a Daily Ritual
- The Effort Delusion – Why Hard Work Isn’t Enough
- Friday Links 07-06-08
- Rapid Prototype Your Life
- Upcoming E-Book
- Twenty Unique Ways to Use the 80/20 Rule Today
- Seven Ways to Live a More Balanced Life
- What Are Your Goals?
- Friday Links 07-06-01
2007 • May
- Be Yourself, Law of Attraction and Other Pieces of Bad Advice
- New Entrepreneur Mistakes and Thinking Different with Ben Casnocha
- Eliminate Boredom With These 12 Tips
- Is Willpower an Illusion?
- Get Happy: Making Decisions for Emotional Quality
- Friday Links 07-05-25
- What is Happiness? The Emotional Quality Model
- Twenty Ways to Stay Productive When Working at Home
- How to Handle Criticism at Lifehack.org
- 20 Procrastination Hacks
- Seven Tricks to Stop Forgetfulness
- Friday Links 07-05-18
- If at First You Don’t Succeed – Cheat
- The 4-Hour Workweek
- Do You Need People to Support You?
- Beyond Speed – How to Read Smart
- Want More Spare Time? The 7-Day Workload Detox
- Friday Links for 07-05-11
- Better Writing – How to Improve Your Style
- Solve Tough Problems by Using Lenses
- The Laziest Solution Possible
- Upgrade Your Core Menu – Healthy Eating Without Restrictions
- 29 Happiness Hacks to Feel Better Now
- Friday Links for 07-05-04
- Want to Wake Up Earlier? Remember DIPS
- Seven Rules for Enhanced E-Mail Communication
- Three Strategies for Enhancing Your Day
2007 • April
- Links for Getting in Shape
- Getting Lucky
- Friday Links for 07-04-27
- When Everything You Try Doesn’t Work, Break Cycles
- Get a Reality Check
- When Your Communication Fails, Check Your Layers
- Make Productivity Smooth By Reducing Friction
- New to Exercise? Make Workouts Daily
- Holistic Learning EBook
- Friday Links for 07-04-20
- Daydreaming Without Doing? Try Planning Without Commitment
- Improve Your Conversations With Stories
- Myth: Organization is the Key to Productivity
- Manage Your Energy at ZenHabits
- Want to Improve Your Fitness? Focus on Results
- How to Learn Holistically
- Ask For What You Want
- I Need Your Help
- Do Less to Be More Productive
- Avoiding Motivation Burnout
- How to Find Mentors
- Great Books
- Social Energy
- Gradual Dieting
- The Myth of Confidence
- Creating Your Own Religion
- Fake Your State
- Managing Stress with Daily Goals
- Are You Using Less Than One Percent of Your Brain?
2007 • March
- Empty Calories
- Studying and Holistic Learning
- I am Writing a Book
- How to Ace Your Finals Without Studying
- Maximize Your Reading Effectiveness
- Speed Reading Follow-Up
- Welcome Lifehacker.com Readers
- Responsibility Does Not Equal Control
- Be Decisive
- Planning the Unpredictable
- Be an Adult
- Writing Is
- Seven Ways to Improve Your Workout (Without More Time at the Gym)
- How to Become a Vegetarian
- Double Your Reading Rate
- How to Manage Stress
- Big Ideas Are Not Enough
- Success is Possible, But Harder Than You Think
- Break the Rules
2007 • February
- Set Worthy Challenges
- Imitate Your Way to Success – Osmosis
- Imitate Your Way to Success – Observation
- Imitate Your Way to Success – Instruction
- Imitate Your Way to Success – Introduction
- The Myth of Talent
- Guiding Your Emotions
- Long-Term Habit Changes
- Write What You Know
- The Optimists Dilemma
- Interview at Public Speaking For All
- Specializing VS Generalizing
- Skill Generalizing
- Achieving Impossible Goals
- Does Health Information Need to Be Complicated?
2007 • January
- Stress and Recovery
- Finding Passion
- A Glitch in the Universe
- How to Make Commitments You Will Actually Keep
- Upgrade Your Day
- Accepting Reality
- Faster Improvement Made Simple
- How to Get a Good Nights Sleep
- Experimentation
- How to Build Skills Faster
- Profound Wisdom
- How to Change Your Beliefs
- How to Get in Shape
- Taking the Next Step
- Respect Your State
- Effective Goal Setting
- Back to Blogging
2006 • December
- Last Post for the Year
- Why New Years Resolutions Suck
- Creative Constraints
- Daily To-Do Lists
- How to Get Back Into a Good Mood
- Anchor Moments
- Absolute Decision
- Meet-Up With David Zinger
- Using Diagrams
- Seven Questions For When You Are Failing Miserably
- Donation Form
- Landslide Motivators
- Waiting for an Epiphany
- In Retrospect
- The Seven Keys to Leverage
2006 • November
- Now or Never
- Deciding What to Do With Your Life
- In Search of Valuable Ideas
- Getting What You Want
- Popular Posts for November 21
- Solutions to the Ten Biggest Obstacles to Growth
- Seven Steps to Superior Learning
- Finding Happiness
- Overcoming All the Little Things
- Discover Yourself in Twenty Minutes
- Why You Should Join Toastmasters
- A Drop of Success
2006 • October
- Changing Beliefs
- Personality Evolution
- Mastering Conversation
- Nine Steps Towards a More Interesting Life
- When to Quit Continued
- Ascending the Plateau
- I Will Be Happy When…
- When to Quit
- Using Pessimism
- Is Steve Pavlina Reading this Website?
- Don’t Be Yourself
- Putting it Into Practice – Emotional Mastery (Series)
- Persistent States – Emotional Mastery (Series)
- Energy and Emotions – Emotional Mastery (Series)
- Mental Patterns – Emotional Mastery (Series)
- Body Signals – Emotional Mastery (Series)
2006 • September
- Introduction – Emotional Mastery (Series)
- How to Get the Most Out of This Site
- Procrastination – Start Now (Series)
- Procrastination – Break It Down (Series)
- Procrastination – Introduction (Series)
- Utilizing Hidden Opportunities
- The Confidence Myth
- How to Overcome Fear
- Wade or Dive
- Imagination VS Experimentation
- A Fear a Day
- Overcoming Discouragement
- Rapid Habit Changes
- Beyond Introversion and Extroversion
- Thoughts on University
2006 • August
- Moving to University
- How You Should Pursue Personal Development
- Enjoy Taking Action
- Your Life is Already Perfect
- Dreams to Action
- Technical Problems Solved!
- Technical Problems
- The Best Decisions I Have Made
- Trial Periods – Beyond Habits
- Happy Birthday
- Transform Weaknesses Into Strengths
- 10 Ways to Improve Your Energy
- Energy VS Time
- Finding Truth in Information
- Take a Break From Goal-Setting
- Relationship Geeks – An Interview With Phil Gerbyshak
- Operate From the Highest Level
- Velocity-Based Goal Setting
- Review Your Progress
- Overcoming Obstacles
- Stay Flexible
- Get Organized
- Create an Unstoppable Drive
- Decide Exactly What You Want
- Why Set Goals
- Goals Free Chapters
- Make a Goal-Friendly Environment
2006 • July
- Post One Hundred
- How to Start a Fitness Regimen
- Find Your Personal Development Style
- How to Give Up Television
- How to Recover From a Broken Commitment
- How to Speed Up Your Learning Rate
- Goals an Interactive Guide
- Big Changes to ScottHYoung.com
- Interview: Energy Management with Emily Schwartz
- Another Four Letter Word
- Building Confidence with Constructive Embarrassment
- What Do You Need to Stop?
- The Reality of Focus
- Micro Habits
- I’m Back!
- Energy Management
- Link: Gods Debris
- Life as a Game
- Lateral Growth
2006 • June
- Gone Until July 17
- Career Intensity
- Shrink Obstacles
- Energize Your Mornings
- Living at Full Capacity
- Review – Patterns for Success (Series)
- Implementation – Patterns for Success (Series)
- Ideas – Patterns for Success (Series)
- Introduction – Patterns for Success (Series)
- Back to Basics
- Interview at Make it Great
- Efficient Internet/E-mail Usage
- Time Starved Personal Development
- Dealing with Frustration
- Nine Keys for Lasting Diet Change
- Popular Posts for June 3
2006 • May
- The Secret to Productivity
- Stumbling on Happiness
- Brush Off Failures
- Goal Setting Program
- Recover and Rejuvenate
- The Smallest Step
- Learn By Doing
- Popular Posts for May 16
- Decide Who You Want To Be
- Experimentation – Habitual Mastery (Series)
- Replacement – Habitual Mastery (Series)
- Leverage – Habitual Master (Series)
- Conditioning – Habitual Mastery (Series)
- Introduction – Habitual Mastery (Series)
- Balancing Today and Tomorrow
- Enthusiasm
2006 • April
- Listen for Success
- Mastering Your Personal Resources
- The Other Half of Communication
- Exercise Every Day
- Let’s Be Honest
- Ten Minutes to a Better Tomorrow
- Why Should YOU Pursue Personal Development?
- When Personal Development Conflicts with Society
- Multimedia Project
- Where Did Your Day Go?
- Patience – Making Personal Growth Last (Series)
- Maintaining Motivation – Making Personal Growth Last (Series)
- Continuous Improvement – Making Personal Growth Last (Series)
- Intro – Making Personal Growth Last (Series)
- How to Stop Procrastinating
- How to Change a Habit
- Personal Development Myths
- Book A Day Challenge Complete!
2006 • March
- Vertical and Lateral Growth Continued…
- What is Personal Development? – Vertical and Lateral Growth
- The Book a Day Challenge!
- Living Up To Our Full Potential
- Getting Perspective
- Flexibility VS Focus
- Toastmasters
- Foster Creativity
- Personal Development as a Game
- Balancing Work and Leisure
- Control Emotions by Pretending
- Read for Success
- Be Imperfect
- Decide Now!
- Set an Unbreakable Standard
- Never Run out of Ideas Again
- Positivity and the Elephant
- How Much Time Do You Have?
- To the Teacher
- The World is Flat
- What is Important?
2006 • February
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