Things You Might Find Useful

Hey, I’m Scott. I write about self-improvement and effective learning for school, work and life.

I do big learning projects and try to document how to master hard things quickly:

• The MIT Challenge – This was my project to learn MIT’s four year computer science curriculum over twelve months.
• The Year Without English – A friend and I went to learn four languages in one year by not speaking English.
• Portrait Drawing Challenge – Could you draw faces realistically in under a month? See my progress.

Want to know how I do it? Join my newsletter and I’ll give you a free ebook showing how you can learn hard things more effectively:

I also write articles, backed by psychological research to give you advice on how to learn better, be more productive, overcome obstacles and live better. Here are some of my best pieces:

• Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools – What if you see professions, not by what they do, but how they think? How could you apply those different cognitive tools to your own problems?
• Two Types of Growth – Most people think of growth as a straight line. But this isn’t usually the case–and this mistake can cost you big.
• How to Memorize a Speech – How to nail every word in your next big presentation.
• The Nine Habits to Increase Your Energy – Productivity depends more on your energy levels than on your available free time. Here’s how to get more of it, every day.
• Rethinking Discipline – How does self-discipline work? Is it a fuel that can be exhausted, or is it something different?