Inner Peace - Free Self-Help Software for Inner Peace How to Become a Star Grad Student: James McLurkin and the Power of Stretch Churn March 15th, 2010 · 61 comments The Famous Dr. McLurkin In 2008, when James McLurkin graduated with a PhD in Computer Science from MIT, he was unquestionably a star. Perhaps most telling, even my brother, who finished his systems engineering degree in 2002, knew of James. In other words, James is famous in his field. With these accomplishments in mind, this post asks two simple questions: How did James become such a star? The answers, as you’ll soon encounter, are not what you might first expect… A Star is Born The direct source of James’ stardom is obvious. microrobots he called Ants. To call this swarm a breakthrough risks understatement. “Our group at MIT was way out in front,” James recalls. When James published the paper documenting the project, it sparked a sensation that spread beyond the robotics community. James became a star in the field. Once again, the media turned their spotlight on young engineer: generating the stories highlighted in this post’s introduction. And so on.
Psuedo-Tomatis Healing Sounds Listen to the Psuedo-Tomatis Healing Sounds for at least ten minutes prior to a mentally challenging task and you’ll see, hear, and feel a difference. More importantly, it creates a clear-headed, sparkling aural buzz. How It Works Warning: The below is painfully long and will only be of interest to the most intellectual (i.e. boring) of you wonderful readers. If we cannot hear a certain frequency in our ears, we will not be able to vocalize that frequency in our throats. Tomatis’ next goal was to improve the learning abilities of those with autism and pervasive development disorder (PDD). Consider the sounds “b” and “p,” two letters we can only distinguish through their higher harmonics. To retrain left ear dominant people to hear with an “ideal listening curve,” Tomatis developed gated and filtered audio tracks, a sound therapy of high frequencies that stimulates the brain. Even people without learning disorders can benefit from Tomatis sound therapy.
The Four Habits that Form Habits By Leo Babauta My daughter wants to work out more, but she has a hard time forming the habit (many of you might be familiar with this problem). From having to get dressed to go to the gym, to actually going to the gym, to the thought of a hard workout … our minds tend to put off the habit. The solution is exceedingly simple: just do 3 pushups. Make it so easy you can’t say no. Of course, most people will think that’s too easy, and tell themselves they have to do more than that. Learn the fundamentals of habits before you try to do the advanced skills. Today we’re going to go over the fundamentals of habit — four key habits to form habits. Habit 1: Start Exceedingly Small Another common habit that too few people actually do is flossing daily. Of course, that seems so ridiculous most people laugh. That’s the point. If you want to exercise, it’s more important that you actually do the exercise on a regular basis, rather than doing enough to get a benefit right away. One glass of water a day.
How to Write Six Important Papers a Year without Breaking a Sweat: The Deep Immersion Approach to Deep Work March 24th, 2013 · 50 comments The Productive Professor I’m fascinated by people who produce a large volume of valuable output. Motivated by this interest, I recently setup a conversation with a hot shot young professor who rose quickly in his field. I asked him about his work habits. Though his answer was detailed — he had obviously put great thought into these issues — there was one strategy that caught my attention: he confines his deep work to long, uninterrupted bursts. On small time scales, this means each day is either completely dedicated to a single deep work task, or is left open to deal with all the e-mail and meetings and revisions that also define academic life. If he’s going to write a paper, for example, he puts aside two days, and does nothing else, emerging from his immersion with a completed first draft. If he’s going to instead deal with requests and logistics, he’ll spend the whole day doing so. On longer time scales, his schedule echoes this immersion strategy.
Best, Worst Learning Tips: Flash Cards Are Good, Highlighting Is Bad In a world as fast-changing and full of information as our own, every one of us — from schoolchildren to college students to working adults — needs to know how to learn well. Yet evidence suggests that most of us don’t use the learning techniques that science has proved most effective. Worse, research finds that learning strategies we do commonly employ, like rereading and highlighting, are among the least effective. (MORE: How to Use Technology to Make You Smarter) The scientific literature evaluating these techniques stretches back decades and across thousands of articles. The WorstHighlighting and underlining led the authors’ list of ineffective learning strategies. The BestIn contrast to familiar practices like highlighting and rereading, the learning strategies with the most evidence to support them aren’t well known outside the psych lab. (MORE: ‘Implicit Learning’: How to Remember More Without Trying)
How to Level Up in the Game of Life Ding! This may be the sweetest sound you can possibly hear when playing a role-playing game (henceforth referred to as an RPG). “DING!” or something similar depending on the video game you’re playing, means that your character completed a certain number of quests, killed a specific number of monsters, and ran enough errands to level up. Congratulations, or “grats!” are usually in order for this occasion. It’s this particular reason that games like World of Warcraft, Rift, Oblivion, Everquest 2, and any other RPG are so damn addictive: there’s always another level to reach, another dragon to kill, and better armor to acquire. Today, we’re going to turn life into a giant role playing game. Since day one, the tagline for Nerd Fitness has been “Level up your life.” Today, you’re going to learn how. Don’t complain about your starting zone In the game of life: we’re all dealt a “random character.” That’s life. It might not be fair, but it is what it is. We don’t accept excuses, only solutions.
5 Ways to Instantly Become More Productive Believe it or not, productivity can be learned, grasshopper. Yeah, I didn’t believe it either..until I transformed myself into a productivity ninja. Today, I’m going to teach you to maximize your time at your computer, dominate your email in-box, and spend less time on unimportant tasks to focus on what really matters. Once you have freed up your time, you’ll be surprised how you’re able to hang out with friends and family, pick up new skills, spend more time exercising, or cook healthy meals. Like Neo learning Kung Fu, today I shall teach you the skill of productivity. My story I am the world’s best procrastinator. For the past three years: I used to think I was justified in my horribly unproductive, time-consuming behavior because I was running a business. I finally came to the harsh realization that I was lying to myself. So I dumped ALL of my effort into building the habit of productivity. Just two months later, my life is drastically different: I actually feel in control of my life now.
How to Hack Your Education, Learn Faster, And Skip College This is a guest post by author of Hacking Your Education, founder of UnCollege, and entrepreneur Dale Stephens. What’s happened to your self-improvement list since the start of a new year has come and gone? Maybe your bullet points include joining a local gym, swearing off simple carbs, and purchasing a copy of Anna Karenina. Whatever it might be, your list probably also includes learning something new, like speaking Spanish, coding websites, or deciphering American politics. But how many of us resolve to learn how to learn? Reliving the agony of sitting through long lectures and slogging through dense textbooks seems masochistic and perhaps futile, because really, how many of us remember trigonometric functions or the Magna Carta? What most people don’t realize is that learning itself is a dynamic process that we can improve and whip into shape, just like our physical fitness. The brain works in a very simple way. Creating Connections in Your Brain Synthesizing Information
How to Tackle Your Clutter Post written by Leo Babauta. So you’ve been putting off tackling your clutter for months, maybe even years. Papers pile up on a counter, shelves are crammed full of books and magazines and other things, closets are stuffed to the point of spillage, clothes pile up on the floor or furniture, boxes and furniture and other miscellaneous things cover your floor. How do you even get started? If you haven’t yet, start by signing up for the free Clutterfat Challenge, a 30-day challenge to reduce your clutter. But once you’ve decided to dive in, how do you get started? There are two methods, both of which are great, and you can combine them. By the way, last night I held a free Clutter Webinar, and a recording of that webinar is at the bottom of this post. Also: Courtney has a post today on how to make decluttering fun. The Surge One of my favorite ways to tackle clutter is in a huge surge — set aside a weekend, for example, and take on as much as you can, one room at a time. Chunking In Combination