Anything you try to improve will have a growth curve. Imagine you ran everyday and you tracked your speed to finish a 5-mile course. Smoothing out the noise, over enough time you’d probably get a graph like this: Here, improvement works on a logarithmic scale. As you get better, it gets harder and harder to […]
Flow Doesn’t Maximize Improvement
Flow is the mental state of complete engagement. It happens when you are fully immersed in an activity that is neither too difficult to be frustrating, but not so easy as to be boring. First described by Dr. Mihály CsÃkszentmihályi, the concept became popular because it was seen as a key to both performance and […]
Rethinking “Learn it Once”
The notion to learn something once and never learn it again bothers me. Learn why I think it#s bad advice and how I approach learning.
Could Obsessive Research Be the Cure for Procrastination?
There’s a lot of ways to procrastinate. Extra pushes of the snooze button, the final cram session before an exam, waiting until midlife to pick a career. Maybe you’re procrastinating right now. I used to believe most of this was just inertia. With a push, you could start rolling and finish the work with less […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.