Study Hacks

What is Study Hacks?

Study Hacks was launched in the summer 2007 by me (aka., Cal Newport). At the time I was a computer science PhD candidate at MIT. Now I’m an assistant professor at Georgetown University.

I’m interested in why some people end up leading successful, enjoyable, meaningful lives, while so many others do not. Being a geek, I’m not satisfied with simplistic slogans (e.g., “follow your passion!”) or conventional wisdom (e.g., student success requires stress). Instead, I dive deeper, looking to decode underlying patterns of success.

When I started this project, I was a student. Therefore, much of my early writing concerns the patterns of success followed by remarkable students. I reject the idea that doing well in school requires stressful overwork, and instead promote a philosophy of simplicity: do less, but do what you do much better.

During this period I also wrote three books on my student philosophy: How to Be a High School Superstar (Random House, 2010), How to Become a Straight-A Student (Random House, 2006) and How to Win at College (Random House, 2005).

Over 125,000 copies of these books are currently in print, so people must be finding them useful.

Recently, as I’ve moved beyond my student years, I’ve turned more of my attention toward decoding patterns of success in the working world. I’ve come to believe, for example, that “follow your passion” is bad advice if your goal is to end up loving what you do.

If You’re New to Study Hacks, Start Here

Patterns of Success for Students…

• The Study Hacks Philosophy on College
• How to Become a Zen Valedictorian: Decreasing Your Stress Without Decreasing Your Ambition
• The Straight-A Method: How to Ace College Courses
• How Double Majors Can Ruin Your Life: Two Arguments for Doing Less
• The Danger of Deep Procrastination and How to Cure Deep Procrastination
• Want to Get Into Harvard? Spend More Time Staring at the Clouds
• How to Get into Stanford with B’s on Your Transcript
• Some Thoughts on Grad School

Patterns of Success for the Working World…

• Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving What You Do (For more on this topic, see the Rethinking Passion Archive.)
• Does Living a Remarkable Life Require Courage or Effort?
• The Pre-Med and Ira Glass: Complicated Career Advice from Compelling People
• The Danger of the Dream Job Delusion
• The Passion Trap: How the Search for Your Life’s Work is Making Your Working Life Miserable
• On the Value of Hard Focus
• Zen and the Art of Investment Banking: When Working Right is More Important Than Finding the Right Work
• Lab Notes: I Spent 42 Hour Last Month on the Activity Most Critical to My Success
• Plan.txt: The Most Successful Productivity Tool That You’ve Never Heard Of
• How the World’s Most Famous Computer Scientist Only Checks E-mail Once Every Three Months

Contact

I try to avoid sources of constant, light distraction, such as Facebook, Twitter, and smartphones. It’s not that I think these things are bad in a general sense, but I do think they hurt my ability to focus, which, as a theoretical computer scientist, is how I make my living.

With this in mind, there are only two ways to contact me:

1. If you have a question about applying my advice to your life, e-mail me at author [at] calnewport.com. Be warned, my response latency can be as short as one day or as long as a three months, but I do try to answer every honest question.
2. One of the advantages of running a blog is that it exposes you to interesting people and opportunities. With this in mind, if you have an offer, opportunity, or introduction that might make my life more interesting, e-mail me at interesting [at] calnewport.com. If I agree, I’ll respond.

Advertising

Study Hacks is not my full time job and doesn’t cost much to maintain, so I don’t need your money. There are, however, several exceptional student-focused charities that do need your help. If you’re interested in advertising on Study Hacks, and reaching my large audience (over 20,000 subscribers and 250,000 monthly blog visitors) of highly-educated and self-motivated students and professionals, here’s my offer:

If you donate $500 to one my preferred student charities, I’ll dedicate a Study Hacks post to thanking you for your donation and explaining, in my own words, what I like most about your product or service.

For more information, contact me at interesting [at] calnewport.com.