Study Hacks

In search of a few good writers…

One my favorite student life hack bloggers, Gideon from Mindful Ink, has recently decided to move his blog into a collaborative format. He’s looking for a few good writers to join the cause.

I’ve always been a fan of Gideon. He brings a needed dash of literate intelligence and introspection into a topic area that’s often too quick to wax triumphantly over the latest improvements to our to-do list font size (I think Martin over at the University Blog also fits this intelligent productivity guru profile.)

Anyway, if you’re looking to do some smart writing at a great venue, check out Gideon’s invitation.

(I should also mention, for the graduate students among you, that the always quality Academic Productivity blog has also recently opened their doors to guest writers.)

Interesting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal…

Links that I like better than UCLA because they didn’t lose to Memphis and destroy my bracket:

• The Centenarian Strategy: Life / Career Issues When You Will Live to 100 | Ben Casnocha
  Ben digs up a fascinating Rutgers commencement speech from 1996. The setup: it’s likely that those of us in our 20′s today will live active lives until we are 100. The question: how does this change the way we should plan our life and career?
• Job Series — That About Wraps it Up | Hack College
  The guys (plus gal) over at Hack College just wrapped up a multi-part series on how to get a job. If you figure this is something you might have to do sometime (the horror!), the series is worth checking out. (Though I still have a hard time imagining Kelly and friends as productive citizens in the working world…)
• Beat anxiety before it beats you | The University Blog
  Martin tackles a topic that afflicts all students, even though most think they are the only one facing it: anxiety. As usual for Martin: effective, well thought-out advice.
• The Incredible Power of Contement | Zen Habits
  Every time I read an article by Leo and imagine him, playing with his six kids, living by the beach in Guam, blogging full-time, running marathons, and, I assume, sipping tropical drinks in a hammock and just generally enjoying life — I can’t help but feel optimistic. This recent article is a dead-on match to a lot of the Radical Simplicity-infused dogma I’ve been pitching your way recently. It talks about balancing ambition with relaxation. I couldn’t agree more with his conclusions.
• One Project: One Project Log | Getting Things Done in Academia
  The crew over at GTDA discusses how to take the staple of the science laboratory — the project log — and use it help manage all the projects in your life. I’m fascinated. You might be hearing about my own log-based system in the near future…

Interesting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal…

In honor of the Radical Simplicity Manifesto, this week’s link post celebrates advice for simplifying your student life and focusing on what’s important.

• The Curve of Life | Ben Casnocha
  Ben discusses a talk by management guru Charles Handy. The focus is the curve of life — a sinuous trajectory that dips, rises, then falls. Handy claims that most life endeavors follow this up and down trajectory. The key, says Handy, is to to spawn a new curve before the current one begins its degredation.
• The Big Secret Key to High School Success | Gearfire
  The folks over at Gearfire invited a high school student to write a guest post. The student choose to focus on what he discovered to be the key to having a successful high school career. What is it? I’ll give you a hit, it starts with a “b,” but you’ll have to follow the link to learn the rest.
• Where are the aids for increased genuine productivity | Life Hack
  Over the past month or so, Life Hack writers have been waging an unofficial war against the generic concept of productivity — challenging the definition and questioning its universal goodness. This post is a good example of what this thread is about. In it, Adrian redefines productivity to center on expending less effort not accomplishing more things. Amen.
• Arete: The Meaning of Life | Scott Young
  Scott’s been blogging recently about the concept of “Arete” (a terrible word but exciting concept). In essence, the idea of arete is seeking extreme quality in everything you pursue. In this post, and another, Scott has begun the work of spinning a life philosphy around the concept. I think he’s on to something interesting here.
• Twitter – A Success Story | Hack College
  Kelly over at Hack College talks about how random twittering got him a free pass to SXSW; a good parable on the value of leaving time in your life to explore, and experiment, and seek out crazy random opportunities. (The Hack College crew seems to be constantly flying around the world and attending random, interesting conferences. They’re a great example of how to have an excellent, engaging time at college without overloading yourself with a dozen obligatory on-campus activities.)

I’ve just published a new article in Flak Magazine:

On the Making of a Rap Song | Flak Magazine

In this piece, I follow a Manhattan-based rap musician through the creative process surrounding the creation of a new song. Here’s an interesting insight: the majority of the time spent working by the musician did not produce any usable output. He invests hundreds of hours listening and rapping and recording for every complete song that might make it out of his studio.

Something to keep in mind in your own quest to find your inner Rhodes Scholar. To be really good at something means, perhaps, having a very high quality threshold, and the willingness to cull all efforts that fall below it.

Interesting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal…

Links That Win More Than Barack Obama

• Todoist with a Notecard for a Day | Grad Hacker
  Over at Grad Hacker we get a twist on student time management that makes the Hipster PDA seem like Microsoft Project. (How’s that for overly-complicated, insider productivity-themed analogies?) Carry one single index card in your pocket. That’s it.
• A Simple Guide to Being Present for the Overworked and Overwhelmed | Zen Habits
  Leo offers some insightful advice for finding what’s important in the middle of chaos. I’m increasingly convinced of the importance of psychology in the college experience. And Leo’s a pop psych master. So check it out…
• The Happiness Project | Alex Shalman
  More from the “find your bliss” wing of the Study Hacks party: Blogger Alex Shalman is asking well-known productivity bloggers to weigh in on the topic of happiness.
• Where to Find a Librarian 24/7 | Student Hacks
  Back to the hard stuff. Over at Student Hacks we get a list of online librarian resources you can access any time from any where.
• Cognitive doping for intellectually demanding tasks: worth it? | Academic Productivity
  Speaking of hard stuff, over at Academic Productivity we get an interesting article on mind doping in academia.
• 5 Creativity Tips from Steve Martin | Getting Thing Done in Academia
  Great minds think a like. The gang over at GTDA was also enthralled by Steve Martin’s new memoir. Their post extracts some tips for his rich experience for inducing more creativity. A good compliment to our earlier discussion of the Steve Martin Method.
• 6 Lessons for Making a Smooth Transition in Life | Life Hack
  Have a big change coming up? A summer internship? Moving into the working world? Life Hack has your back. Some solid tips for managing the transition smoothly.
• 10 Tips for Being Productive While Being Scheduled to Death | Scott Young
  Do you wonder how some students manage to fit in so much into their day while you feel overwhelmed just trying to keep up with your basic coursework? Scott’s article provides some insight into the type of project hacks that get the big things done.

Interesting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal…

A Collection of Links Stronger than Tom Brady’s Ankle

• Living Consciously: 10 Things I Have Learned About Myself | I Will Change Your Life
  Peter over at the I Will Change Your Life blog shares some interesting reflections on how his life operates. A useful exercise for all of us.
• Helping Students Find Their Way | Ben Casnocha
  Our friend Ben asks whether college students need help finding their way after graduation. Follow the comments thread for bonus insight from Ben’s freakishly insightful readers.
• 5 Transformative E-mail Tips | Getting Things Done in Academia
  I’m particularly entranced by the idea of subject line protocols. I knew a professor who tried this for a while. It didn’t stick. But I always thought it cool…
• Dealing with Information Overload | Life Hack
  Monkia over at Life Hack provides some direction for clearing out the information clutter in your life.
• Sprinting Theory: How to Have Self-Discipline on Steroids | Scott Young
  If you can tear your eyes away from the photo of myself at the top of the post, you’ll encounter more of Scott’s famed ability to deconstruct why we get things done, and, more importantly, why we don’t.

Interesting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal…

Links. Lots of Links. Did I Mention Links?

• Hairy and hairier: Visualizing unresponded email in your mailbox | Academic Productivity
  The folks over at Academic Productivity feature an innovative new software solution to taming inbox chaos. It’s a little creepy for my tastes. But it’s nice to see some new ideas for tackling this growing problem.
• The Holy Grail: How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check Email Again | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss
  Speaking of e-mail, Tim Ferriss describes his novel solution to reducing his time on e-mail: hiring other people to check it for him. I’m surprised more professors don’t have their grad students doing this for them. On second thought, definitely don’t mention this to my advisor.
• Will you earn your Ph. D.? | Getting Things Done in Academia
  A nice summary of some new research on predicting a student’s success in a Ph.D. program. Notice how the factors that predict passing quals (which I recently did) are different than the factors that predict finishing the entire program (which I haven’t done, yet). I think the results are probably applicable to any big, self-motivated, non-constrained endeavor.
• The connection between a good job and happiness is overrated | Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
  An older article, but one of my Penelope favorites. It deflates the trumped up idea among college seniors that they need to leave the “safe path” to find a job they’ll love. Penelope’s take: you’re not going to love your job. Get over it.
• Write to Done
  Leo Babauta of Zen Habits fame has just started a new blog dedicated to writing. He recently landed a book deal, so I assume a lot of the posts will be born of painful firsthand experience. (Trust me, I’ve been there twice before.)
• Keeping To-Learn Lists | Scott Young
  Scott offers up a novel, self-improvement flavored twist on the traditional to-do list.
• Kick Down a False Sense of Security | The University Blog
  An interesting essay by Martin over at the University Blog on why you should be careful about not slacking too much during your first year of university.
• The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters | APS Observer
  Another oldie that’s worth a read. It’s an article from the Association for Psychological Science that covers a fascinating speech by Malcolm Gladwell on our national obsession with the idea of the prodigy. Knocking down the “Good Will Hunting Myth,” as I like to call it, is something I face frequently when working with students in math and science. Good to see some Gladwell firepower behind these ideas.

Interesting links from around the web to help you through your weekend Study Hacks withdrawal…

A Backlog of Burnished Bits of Advice Bombs

• How to Complete your PhD (or any large project): Hard and Soft Deadlines, the Martini Method | Academic Productivity
  Shane over at Academic Productivity describes the system he used to finish his PhD. If it worked for his dissertation, imagine what it would do for your next term paper?
• What’s Stopping You From Getting Started (and What to Do About It) | LifeHack
  This article over at LifeHack is surprisingly perceptive. Dustin really gets to the core of what stops many of us from getting started on projects we know would be important. Most insightful: (1) lack of confidence in plan; and (2) too much on your plate. Good guide to help you diagnosis your own stasis.
• GTD and Inbox Zero | ProtoScholar
  Speaking of perceptive, Rebecca over at ProtoScholar provides some honest (and hauntingly familiar) reasons why achieving an empty inbox is so difficult. Fascinating stuff for all you reformed productivity junkies out there…
• What Do You Want To Do With Your Life? | Scott Young
  A thought-provoking article from the Scott Young’s archives. He attempts to deconstruct the idea of passion, and, in doing so, provides some nice insight into what we value.
• The 12 Days of Hack College Christmas | Hack College
  The crew over at Hack College spent their Christmas vacation putting together a 12-part series on useful techno tips and tricks for students.
• Improve Your Productivity in One Step — Go Offline | The Student Help Forum
  A simply observation, but one that should be hammered into student’s heads again and again. Don’t go online while trying to work! Here, Saad Padela makes a good pitch for the idea.
• Me, Me, Me: Find Your Voice and Make it Shout | Mindul Ink
  Martin, our friend from the University Blog, has a good guest post on Mindful Ink about looking to yourself to figure out the best way to run your life.
• Helicopter Parents Need to Fly Away | The University Blog
  A post about the (purported) problem of helicopter parents in academia and beyond. Bonus content: note the back and forth discussion between Martin and me in the comments section.