Study Hacks

Ahead of the Curve

Recently, I’ve been reading Ahead of the Curve, Philip Delves Broughton’s memoir of his time at Harvard Business School. It’s a reasonably interesting read, buoyed more by Broughton’s writing ability (he was a professional journalist before arriving at HBS) than the events that transpired (attending b-school, as it turns out, is not an adrenaline-soaked adventure).

There was one passage, however, from page 85 of the paperback edition, that caught my attention. It reads:

At a meeting of the Mormon Club, [the dean of HBS] explained the secret of his success. He has whittled his life down to just four things: work, family, faith, and golf.

This focus was later elaborated:

As an academic, he used to arrive at his office at dawn and work in silence until lunch time. Only then would he engage with the world…On Saturdays he played golf, and on Sundays he spent the day at church with his family.

Then came the conclusion:

Such discipline had propelled him to the leadership of the school.

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A Non-Conformist Manifesto

My friend Chris Guillebeau runs the fascinating and extremely popular blog, The Art of Non-Conformity. What I like about his site is that: (a) Chris is a good writer; and (b) he actually does interesting things, and then reports back about them.

On his FAQ page, Chris notes the following about the philosophy motivating the site:

• “My target market consists of people who want to live unconventional, remarkable lives.”
• “You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”
• “From time to time, people will try to stop you from pursuing your goals. You can safely ignore them.”
• “We’re waging war on the status quo, mediocrity, and the passive act of sleepwalking through life.”

These same ideas, of course, show up again and again in the growing number of popular blogs and books that tackle the topic of building a remarkable life. At their core, they all express the following belief: the key to living a remarkable life is mustering the courage to step off the “safe path.”

In this post, by contrast, I argue that having the courage to ignore the status quo is of minimal importance for achieving this goal. The most important factor, instead, is becoming so good at something that society rewards you with a remarkable life.

(I should mention, before continuing, that Chris and I are in agreement about this philosophy — c.f., this recent post from his blog — I’m using the above quotes only to typify the standard thinking about the topic.)

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Passion Plays

I’m proud to announce that as of this afternoon, I’m officially caught up with the reader e-mail I received during my recent vacation. While working through the final batch of these messages today, I came across a student, from the University of Melbourne, who mentioned the following in the middle of a longer question:

Yes, this particular major isn’t my passion. However, my studies are funded by my disciplinarian father who insists…

What caught my attention was his use of “passion.” I hear this term often from students in reference to their selections of college majors. (They’ll apologize or lament that they aren’t following their true passions, before moving on to enumerate the specific issues that trouble them.)

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Update (7/8/09): I’ve returned from California and am once again online. (The picture below is of the trip; I’m the guy in the back.) I have 30 - 40 e-mails from readers, built up during my absence, that might take me a while to work through, so excuse the delay in my responses. I will eventually get back to everyone.

In Praise of Grittiness

While on vacation, I read two books. The first was Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, which has been causing an idealistic stir among the usually cynical intelligentsia. The second was Winifred Gallagher’s Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life. Both intrigued me, though I’ll admit that I’m still processing the ideas. You’ll probably hear more about them from me at some point in the future.

Today, however, I want to briefly mention one piece of social psychology research, described by Gallagher in Rapt, that resonates well with our conversation here at Study Hacks.

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Running Wisdom

I recently began reading Haruki Murakami’s excellent mini-memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. If your life requires a non-trivial amount of creative work, I highly recommend this quick read.

Today, I wanted to focus on a few quotes that resonated with my thinking. On page 77, Murakami remarks:

If I’m asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that’s easy too: focus — the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value.

You’ve heard me make this argument before. But Murakami takes the idea somewhere interesting when he then notes:

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The Power of Good

In early May, I received an interesting e-mail from a reader. After the standard introductions, he said:

Though I’m progressing towards my goal to become a physicist, I’m also very interested in writing a novel.

He noted that before diving into a novel he would probably have to first “write a short story or two.” He wanted my advice for how to kick off this project in time for summer.

“This sounds like a great idea for a Grand Project,” I replied. “But I would first be definite that this is an important goal in your life, because I predict you’d need at least five years of focused work before landing a book deal becomes a possibility.”

My answer reflects an observation that plays an increasingly important role in my understanding of the world: if you want to do something interesting and rewarding — be it writing a novel, becoming a professor, or growing a successful business — you have to first become exceptional. As Study Hacks readers know, I think Steve Martin put it best when he noted that the key to breaking into a competitive and desirable field is to “become so good, they can’t ignore you.”

In other words, there’s no shortcut. If you want the world to pay attention to you, you have to provide a compelling reason. It doesn’t care about your life goals.

In this post, I want to discuss a simple method with a complicated back-story. It’s a technique that can help you move efficiently down the road toward becoming exceptionally good.

The story behind this advice starts with an old friend who possessed an unlikely talent.

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Deep Trouble

I recently received an e-mail from our friend Tyler. As you may recall, he found peace last year by swapping a premed major that never interested him for a classics major that did. He went on to pare down his schedule and then focus on becoming an A* student. In short, he was a perfect example of the study hacks philosophy: do less; do better; know why.

Then things got bad again.

“I know you keep saying ‘pick a  major and stick to it.’” Tyler told me in his e-mail. “But the only thing saving me from academic oblivion is the fear of failing.  My major recently has only been sucking up my time and causing me major stress.” He then proposed that he should switch majors; even though he is only 2 - 3 classes away from a classics degree. He didn’t know what else to do.

Tyler is not alone. His e-mail is probably the 5th or 6th I’ve received this spring that offers some variation on the same common conundrum: what do I do if my dream major is turning into a nightmare? In this post I tackle this issue with a series of observations on the lost art of cultivating a healthy relationship with your academic concentration.

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Good Will (Not) Studying

One of my favorite scenes from the tortured genius weepy, Good Will Hunting, is the montage of Matt Damon working with an eccentric MIT math professor. The professor slaps a transparency on an overhead projector, splashing a series of graph structures on the screen. (There’s a professor on my floor here at MIT who actually does this.) Will stares at the screen for a thoughtful, brooding moment. Then he stands, grabs a marker, and adds some extra edges. They slap five.

Proof solved!

To American students, this vision of the genius who instantly solves problems has become the platonic ideal for a star undergraduate. This leads to the belief that the best students complete even the hardest work easily. Therefore, if you want to prove that you’re a top student you need to take the hardest possible course load and get the best possible grades. The goal is to make it seem like your brain is so supercharged that you can swat aside problem sets and exams like Matt Damon solving proofs on the MIT blackboard.

I call this the Good Will Hunting (GWH) strategy for becoming an academic star. Here’s the thing about this strategy: if you can pull it off, it will yield rewards. People are impressed by the 4.0 student with the triple major. But there are two problems:

1. Most people who attempt the GWH approach don’t pull it off.
2. It is incredibly stressful and painful, and will probably send you into deep procrastination.

As far as I can tell, many students view the GWH strategy as the only way to stand out academically. (Here at MIT, I had a student tell me that if she didn’t take a killer course load people would just assume she’s not smart.)

In this post, I want to explain a different, more sustainable path to academic stardom…

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