If you want to improve your life, where should you start? Years ago, when I started working on myself, I tried lots of different things. Some helped a lot. But a lot didn’t matter. Filtering by trial-and-error works, but it can be slow and discouraging. Knowing what I know now, I’d recommend different practices to […]
How Much Can You Change Yourself?
How much can you change your nature? Your personality? Your intelligence? Your life? This is obviously a hugely important question. The world where our natures are fixed is a vastly different place from the world where we can bend ourselves into any shape. Unfortunately, this is also not a question with easy and obvious answers. […]
Fearing Forgetting: Should You Try to Maintain or Relearn Knowledge?
How much should you worry about forgetting things? In one sense, forgetting is a very real problem. How many of us could still pass exams for classes we took in college? How many dust-covered books sit on your shelf which you’ve forgotten the plot? Knowledge, like all things, decays with time. It would be nice […]
Life of Focus: Focused Work Update (Month One)
Last month, Cal Newport and I released a new course, Life of Focus. The course covers three months dedicated to cultivating focus in three areas: work, life and mind. One thing that makes a course like this different is that it centers on month-long challenges. Thus even if you’re already relatively focused, you can use […]