Preorder my upcoming book, Get Better At Anything, and get $400+ worth of bonuses! The post My New Book Comes Out Next Week! appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Why pursue goals in wealth, fitness, status and mastery only to find that achieving them doesn’t really change our lives very much? Here are 7 maxims on what to do instead. The post My 7 Rules for Happiness appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Productivity isn’t throwing out all your existing commitments in the fanatical pursuit of a big ambition. Instead, choosing what matters and organizing your time and energy to reach it. The post When Procrastination is Productive appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Diving deep into Johnson-Laird’s theory of mental models. It is one of the leading psychological theories of reasoning, even though it doesn’t have the status of being a consensus theory (few theories in psychology do). The post The Science of Mental Models appeared first on Scot … | Continue reading
When it comes to our native languages, researchers already have a pretty good idea of how we learn words, and it’s not through studying vocabulary lists. Here's what it takes. The post How to Learn Vocabulary in Another Language appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
The idea of self-explanations took off and became a studying meme that has since gone far beyond my own audience. Here are 5 ideas you must keep in mind to get the most out of it. The post 5 Keys to Get the Most out of the Feynman Technique appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
My new book, Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery, is now available for preorder. This book means a lot to me. It’s easily the longest and hardest I’ve ever worked on any project in my life. From start to finish, the project took over four years, involving hundreds of bo … | Continue reading
Studying for school can be hard, but the process is pretty straightforward: Outside of school, though, this strategy breaks down. It’s impossible even to be aware of all the books that might be useful for any given subject, never mind actually reading them all. In an infinite lib … | Continue reading
What if being productive doesn’t mean feeling productive? A paradox of productivity is that the things that feel productive—working incessantly, checking off lots of tasks, feeling strained and drained—are often not what produces important accomplishments; in fact, these things c … | Continue reading
The best habit to improve your reading is to ask after every impassioned argument, “What’s the rebuttal?” The post My Simple Habit for Smarter Book Reading appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Burnout can be understood as a mismatch between six different elements of the work environment: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values. The post The 6 Causes of Burnout (and How to Avoid It) appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
A new research paper providing a provocative hypothesis regarding learning. The post Does Everyone Learn at the Same Rate? An Intriguing Experiment appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
What is the best way to learn physics? Here's how to find a balance between understanding principles and practice problems. The post The Science of Learning Physics appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Why the 10,000-hour rule, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, does not provide practical value in the pursuit of mastery. The post The 10,000-Hour Rule is a Myth appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Ultimately, our lives boil down to the things we pay attention to. Here is how to be deliberate about where your attention goes. The post Why Build a Life of Focus? appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
There will always be a gap between our highest pursuits and our everyday reality. But being mindful of that gap is one of the best motivators to make change. The post Decide Your Next Decade appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Here's the one psychological quirk that explains why slot machines and social media algorithms are so addictive. The post The Psychology Behind Why You Can’t Put Down Your Phone appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Here's a simple question to ask yourself - any time you find yourself facing the impulse to give up and distract yourself. The post How to Get Into a Focused State Quickly appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Much of studying and learning is boring because it doesn’t feel meaningful. Here are 5 ways we can fix that. The post 5 Ways to Make Studying Fun (Without Sacrificing Effectiveness) appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
A round-up post compiling some of my most popular essays of 2023. The post My 10 Most Popular Essays of 2023 appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
The past year was good for my reading. I finished around 40-50 books. Here are some of my favorites I read this year. The post The 10 Best Books I Read in 2023 appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
From simple things you learned so long ago as to take for granted, all the way to helping with homework lessons you barely remember having learned yourself, raising kids is a continuous learning experience. The post 6 Strategies for Learning New Things (When You Have Kids) appear … | Continue reading
Given the cost and difficulty of obtaining mental health support and the fact that many people’s difficulties do not rise to the level of a clinical disorder, I think understanding the framework CBT presents can help us live happier and more productive lives. The post Cognitive-B … | Continue reading
Why do we convince ourselves that we cannot learn certain skills or subjects? A dive into what makes learning hard and how we can make it easier. The post How to Learn Anything Easily appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Covering some of the people who have influenced my thinking the most, from Richard Feynman to Siegfried Engelmann. The post The 15 People Who Have Most Influenced My Thinking (Part II) appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Here are the people who have most greatly influenced my thoughts on learning. The post The 15 People Who Most Influenced My Thinking About Learning (Part I) appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Questions from readers, including tips on language learning, learning and aging, whether to use flashcards to learn history and the impact of AI on our collective intelligence. The post Reader Mailbag: ChatGPT-Induced Ignorance, Language Learning, Flashcards and More appeared fir … | Continue reading
A review of How Languages are Learned, covering the evidence behind six popular language-learning approaches. The post What Does Research Say is the Best Way to Learn a Language? appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Write what you like to read, and regardless of what others think, you’ll have something you can be proud of. The post My #1 Rule for Writing appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
What is self-efficacy and the three most important takeaways to succeed with challenging goals The post Self-Efficacy: The Key to Understanding What Motivates You appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Since I’m now twice as old as I was when I started this blog, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on advice I wish I could have given my younger self. The post 18 Life Lessons I’d Give My 18-Year-Old Self appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
The trick for most ambitious pursuits, I’m afraid, is simply doing the obvious thing much, much more than most other people are willing to do—and accepting that it may hurt at times. The post The Simple Rule for Achieving Ambitious Goals appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Top Performer is the course Cal Newport and I teach for helping you deeply understand what drives success in your career, and then gives you the strategy for getting really good at those skills. We hold sessions quite infrequently, and right now we’re opening registration for ano … | Continue reading
The three ingredients needed to apply deliberate practice to your career. The post The Key to Building Rare and Valuable Skills appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Here are the best career research strategies to make sure you are not heading down a dead-ends with your deliberate practice efforts. The post Before You Burn Yourself Out Working, Do This appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Applying Econ 101 to understand why some people have great jobs ... and others don't. The post The Simple Economic Theory That Explains Whether You’ll Have a Great Career appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Why do we obsess over irrelevant personality quirks, instead of what really drives a person's success? The post Who Cares What Warren Buffett Eats for Lunch? appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
When is laziness smart? Why does the thinking behind being productive often feel like we're being tricked into working more? The post The Efficiency Mindset appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Some birthday reflections on the past year, and the year ahead. The post I’m 35 appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Following my mind-is-a-computer essay, I cover seven other popular-among-experts-but-widely-disbelieved opinions I agree with! The post 7 Expert Opinions I Agree With (That Most People Don’t) appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
An analysis into a prevalent cognitive illusion about the nature of success in many fields. The post Why I’m Not More Popular appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
I defend the view that the mind is a computer, and why people who devote their lives to studying the brain believe it. The post The Mind is a Computer appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
I respond to reader questions regarding procrastination, language learning, depression and more. The post Reader Mailbag (Part II): Overcoming Procrastination, the Input Hypothesis, Time Management and Motor Skills appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
I respond to reader questions about the book Range, learning styles, nootropics and more! The post Reader Mailbag: Range, Learning Styles, Nootropics and the Value of Learning Things You’re Doomed to Forget appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Some puzzles about the best way to learn. What do you think works best? The post Eight of My Unanswered Questions About the Best Way to Learn appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Earlier I critiqued the five-minutes-per-day approach to learning. Now let's look at where the slow and patient approach can actually work. The post When are Minimal Habits Useful for Learning? appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Is patience a vice or a virtue in learning? Some reflections on whether minimal habits are sufficient for mastery. The post The Problem with Being Too Patient appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading
Flashcards should be the base for learning any memory-intensive subject, mnemonics layered on top (if that). The post Why Flashcards Beat Mnemonics for Studying appeared first on Scott H Young. | Continue reading