Study Hacks

Passion and Minimalism

For those interested in the deep contentment of a minimalist lifestyle, few strategies work better than using a passionate pursuit to focus your attention beyond the clutter and distraction of modern life. But where do such pursuits come from? This is the topic of my recent guest post on Zen Habits, one of my favorite blogs (and the original inspiration behind my Zen Valedictorian philosophy).

The post is based off Part 1 of my new book about finding a Zen path through the college admissions process. Specifically, it details the research I discovered about how deep interests are formed. (Preview: you can’t forcefully identify them with self reflection or personality tests; you must instead expose yourself to bulk positive randomness and see what sticks.)

For Zen Habits Readers: This blog is dedicated to strategies for building a remarkable life, which I define to be one that is both remarkably accomplished and remarkably enjoyable to live. Though the site started out focused on achieving this goal as a student, I have since broadened its scope to cover all walks of life.

Here are a few highlighted articles to give you a taste of what Study Hacks has to offer. If you like what you see, consider subscribing to my feed.

Articles on Building a Remarkable Life

• Corrupted Callings: The Subtle Difference Between Finding Your Life’s Work and Loving Your Life
• Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving What You Do
• Treat Your Mind as You Would a Private Garden
• Is Allowing Your Child to Study While on Facebook Morally Irresponsible?
• The Grandmaster in the Corner Office: What the Study of Chess Experts Teaches Us About Building a Remarkable Life
• Does Living a Remarkable Life Require Courage or Effort?
• How to Become a Star Screenwrite: A Case Study of Modern Craftsmanship

Articles for Students

• The Study Hacks Philosophy on College
• The Radical Simplicity Manifesto
• How to Become a Zen Valedictorian: Decrease Stress Without Decreasing Your Ambition
• Want to Get into Harvard? Spend More Time Starting at the Clouds
• How to Get Into Stanford with B’s on Your Transcript: Failed Simulation and the Surprising Psychology of Impressiveness
• How to Become a Star Grad Student: James McLurkin and the Power of Stretch Churn

UPDATE (4:17 pm): Attack Repelled?

After a day spent counter-hacking, Study Hacks should once again be back in business. That being said, please help me keep a wary eye for anything else amiss — it’s always possible a backdoor was left open.

I apologize for the few hours this afternoon when the site was down as I scrubbed it clean and updated it. For those who are interested in this type of thing, the attack I suffered is called the Online Pharma Hack. It’s a clever beast that presents the normal site to every user…except Google’s index spider, to which it presents spam. The idea is to hijack the site’s reputation in Google’s eyes to increase the ranking of certain keywords. The effect of the attack will still be seen for a while in Google search results (search for study hacks cialas to see what I mean), but hopefully, with re-indexing, they will eventually return to normal.

Finally, someone in the comments was worried about their e-mail information from subscribing to my feed. The e-mail subscription is handled by FeedBurner and all of your information is safe.

Study Hacks, Perhaps Ironically, Has Been Hacked

It appears that hackers have gained access to Study Hacks and have been inserting spam ads, among other intrusions, throughout the site. (Search for “Study Hacks” on Google to see the attacker’s “brilliance” in action.)

I’m working with my host company to re-secure and sanitize the site, and it should still continue to work fine in the interim, but there may be some weirdness in the near future as I update my software, etc., so be warned.

Two Notes:

• If you notice any hacked pages, please e-mail them to my attention to aid my efforts in cleaning things up (author@calnewport.com).
• If you know anything about WordPress hacking/securing and want to help, I would appreciate any assistance.

I’m crossing my fingers that any inconvenience will be minimal…

The Book Arrives

Over the weekend, I received a large box from Random House containing copies of my brand new book, How to Be a High School Superstar, which is coming out next week.  (Click here to pre-order.)

• Here’s what the book jacket says it’s about: applying the philosophies of sustainable success I preach here at Study Hacks to high school — teaching students how to build interesting, engaging, and low-stress lives, yet still do well during the college admissions process.
• Here’s what it’s secretly also about: my general philosophy on how anyone — be they a student or CEO — can build an interesting life. I combine a diverse collection of scientific results — from signaling theory to the economics of superstars — with in-depth case studies to deconstruct exactly how people become fascinating.
  

I Want Your Help

I tend to feel guilty about my abysmal book promotion skills. My lack of a Facebook fan page, for example, has been cast as a mortal sin. But as I explained to my publisher, I do have one secret weapon: the smartest, most engaged readers in the world of advice blogging.

Here’s my request: if you’re a serious fan of my philosophy, and believe this book deserves an audience, send me a proposal for how you can help spread the word. It can be something local, such as organizing a reading group with parents at your local church, or something epic, like convincing your good friend Oprah that it’s worth a read.

• I’ll send a signed copy of the book — and my eternal gratitude — to the best (implemented) idea.
• If there are lots of great ideas, I’ll send out lots of signed copies. (I have a bunch.)
• If the idea is particularly epic, I’ll throw in a free phone consultation on admissions, interestingness, or whatever else you want to chat about.

If you’re interested, e-mail me: author [at] calnewport.com

What to Expect Over the Next Few Weeks

The book launches next week on Tuesday, July 27th, so you’re going to see a lot more post traffic over the next month or so.

As part of the promotion efforts, I’ve arranged fascinating guest posts with a series of high quality advice blogs.  I’ll announce and summarize these posts as they go live in late July and early August. The result: expect a large amount of original content in the near future. 

These are exciting times. I hope you like the book, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts…

Quick hits is an occasional feature where I take a breather between my epic big idea posts to share ideas, ask questions, and in general provide a catch-all place for me to catch up with you.

E-mail Renegades

As part of an exciting writing project, I’m looking for people who have taken drastic steps to reduce the distraction generated by electronic communication tools — e-mail, social networks, twitter, etc. I’m more interested in big changes — e.g., getting rid of public e-mail addresses — than I am in moderation — e.g., checking e-mail only twice a day.

I’m interested in stories from knowledge workers, entrepreneurs, and folks in academia — be it professors, grad students, or undergraduates.

If this describes you or if you know someone like this, please e-mail me: author [at] calnewport.com. 

Interesting Links

• “When it comes to student loans, financial aid, and higher education, everyone’s got an opinion. They just usually happen to be wrong.” Thus opens Ramit Sethi’s barnburner of an article on the costs of higher education.
• “Comfortably situated in Chicago outside of the ‘start-up’ echo chamber, 37Signals is focused on getting sh*t done instead of chasing the Silicon Valley venture capital death spiral” This is Tim Ferriss’ description of the tech firm 37Signals. I’ve been fascinated by this Chicago-based company since I first read about their four day work week policy. Ferriss’ article is a great introduction to their unconventional thinking on integrating work into a full life.
• “This would suggest that sometimes you’re not going to be interested in something right out of the gate.” This is one of several interesting conclusions from Ben Casnocha’s recent article on the science behind interest development. (A topic, incidentally, that I cover in-depth in my new book on college admissions. Did I mention that I had a new book coming out?)

Coming Up

I have two provocative posts in the works. One describes recent research on people who describe their work as “a calling,” while the other explores the controversial idea that competitive college admissions can actually be good for students.

Stay tuned…

Note: Though my new format focuses on publishing in-depth articles twice a month, I still reserve the right to occasionally publish one my classic-style student advice articles. 

The Pre-Med’s Lament

I recently received the following e-mail:

“I’ve failed both of my tests in Organic Chemistry 2…I don’t know what I’m doing wrong…no matter how much I review or study my class notes, nothing seems to work.”

This is a familiar lament. I recently reviewed the student e-mails I’ve received so far in 2010, and discovered that I average around one “I failed my Orgo exam!” e-mail per week.

That’s a lot of unhappy pre-meds.

I decided it was time to write a definitive answer to this common issue.  This post details my famous three-step plan for turning around a chemistry disaster.

Read the rest of this entry »

Quick hits is an occasional feature where I take a breather between my epic big idea posts to share ideas, ask questions, and in general provide a catch-all place for me to catch up with you.

Rethinking Remarkable

A collection of recent articles dissecting the idea of remarkableness…

• Ben Casnocha has a pair of fascinating posts on building a remarkable life. His first points out the contradictions in Steve Jobs’ famous Stanford commencement speech, while the second takes issue with “attitudinal” self-help.
• Scott Young weighs in with an interesting take on whether the good life is chosen or earned.
• Chris Guillebeau has an insightful profile of a Tsilli Pines, who quit a corporate job to run her own hand-crafted ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) business. What strikes me about about Tsilli is that she avoided the conventional entrepreneurial wisdom to “start as soon as possible,” instead spending three years tuning and testing her idea until she could make the leap with confidence.
• I just finished reading an advance copy of David Shenk’s The Genius In All of Us. I’m excited for this book’s release. It covers much of the same ground as Outliers, but Shenk is more optimistic than Gladwell, aligning more with my own philosophy that once you understand what generates remarkable achievement you can harness it better in your own life. In the meantime, if you’re not reading Shenk’s blog, you should start. (See, for example, his recent post on the myth of the meritocracy.)

My Next Post

I’m in the process of writing a real humdinger of a post. It’s the next entry in my series on applying deliberate practice in everyday life. The focus is how star graduate students become stars (it’s built around an interview I conducted with James McLurkin, the famous MIT roboticist who just got hired at Rice.) The strategy I highlight, however, is wildly applicable to a lot of different fields.

Stay tuned. I hope to have it up soon…

My New Book is Available!

As you know, I have a new book coming out this summer. It’s called How to Be a High School Superstar, and it introduces the zen valedictorian concept to the students who arguably need it most: those suffering through the college admissions process. (See this article for more details.)

Though its primary audience is high school students, it also provides a general look inside the fascinating science of what makes interesting people interesting; so it will hopefully find a home with an even wider readership.

If you like my writing and are interested in this book, you should consider pre-ordering a copy on Amazon. (Fans of my red and yellow books know that I’m perennially understocked at bookstores — a large number of pre-orders will inspire the big chains to take my titles more seriously.)

A brief interruption…

Study Hacks is switching to an advertising firm that specializes in my type of audience. They want you to consider filling out this short survey to develop a better idea of who you are. Here are two reasons why you should fill out the survey:

1. I’ll give away a free signed book to a randomly selected respondent (the survey asks for your e-mail address expressly and only for the purpose of this drawing).
2.  I give 50% of my ad revenue to charity, and this survey will increase the quality of my ads. Ergo, you’ll be helping charity.

That’s it. Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

The Big Give

Over 50 of you responded to my call to donate money to earthquake relief in Haiti. We ended up raising over $4700.  As I mentioned in my replies to the contributors, I’m lucky to have such an exceptional group of readers.

Here are the results of the signed book giveaway contest:

• Allen won a signed copy of the rare yellow-covered version of the red book for donating $500 — the most out of all of the contributors.
• Shruti won a signed copy for having her name drawn at random.

(Both winners have been notified by e-mail.)

We’ll return later this week back to our regularly-scheduled programming (I’m working on the next post in my series on the mechanics of constructing a remarkable life), but I want to thank you one last time for your support.