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3 Study Hacks That Will Make You Remember More

October 8, 2017May 29, 2024 Nik

German college is brutal. Here’s how it works:

You show up the first day, then the professor dumps 800 slides and a ton of materials on you. After that, class attendance isn’t mandatory, so naturally, you don’t go. At the end of the semester, you have to take one big ass exam that makes up 100% of your grade.

*last night pre-exam cramming deluxe here we go*

If you’re like me, then whenever there’s something you just have to do, you’ll try to do it with as little work as you can. Over the course of 10 semesters, I managed to put together a decent system with a good effort-reward ratio.

Today, I want to show you 3 parts of that system. They’re my 3 favorite memory hacks and will help you remember what you read and study a lot better.

Success Has Nothing To Do With Self-Improvement

October 6, 2017September 17, 2023 Nik

Tʜɘ ɔloƨɘɿ you looʞ, ƚʜɘ lɘƨƨ you ƨɘɘ.

Charles Bukowski was born about two hours from where I grew up, in Andernach. Sadly, his resting place is a slightly longer trip, for it holds the bigger lesson, chiseled into his tombstone.

“Don’t try.” In the first chapter of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson decodes some of the hidden meaning of Bukowski’s final message:

How To Set Up Your Mac For Focused Work

October 5, 2017August 8, 2023 Nik

Note: This guide is for Mac users, but most optimizations work on Windows too.

We’re 4 days into the week and my RescueTime dashboard shows 39 hours and 46 minutes of logged time. Without knowing anything about what I did, one thing is clear:

I spend A LOT of time staring at my laptop.

More than most people sleep. Chances are, you do too. What if you saved 10% of that time?

The Secret of a Happy Life

October 3, 2017May 29, 2024 Nik

Look at the man in the picture. His name is Logan.

Logan lived a long, long life, but never an easy one.

He was born an illegitimate child to the groundskeeper of his rich foster parents. In an altercation, he killed his father at less than 10 years old, never knowing who he was. After that, he ran away and grew up in a mining colony.

When You Know What To Do, Don’t Change Course For No Reason

September 30, 2017August 9, 2024 Nik

For the past three years, I’ve been chasing the same vision: sustaining an entire human life with nothing but a laptop and an internet connection.

My life.

Work anytime, anywhere. No boss, no boundaries. All expenses and safety paranoia considered, that adds up to a $10,000/month goal. If you asked me how to accomplish such a goal, I would give you a simple, rational answer:

Find a way — any way — to make $10,000 in a single month online.
See if you like it.
If you don’t, adjust until you do.

I knew that answer three years ago. But when I look back on my past choices, that’s not what I see.

I see a young man who’s passionate and motivated, but whose hotheaded ambition often dissipates into thin air. His heart is in the right place, but his thinking is erratic. And so after three years of hard work, he yet has to make $10,000 in a single month.

I learned a lot, but I could have reached my goal a long time ago. Why is that?

10 Cognitive Biases and How To Fight Them

September 30, 2017February 28, 2024 Nik

Irrationality rules the world. Quite literally, these days.

Global leaders behaving like little boys, threatening each other with their oversized toys. Fake news spreading like wildfire. Needless technology receiving millions in funding.

It’s a great time to be alive, but sometimes I wish Plato were still around to remind us of one of his big ideas: Think more.

Frustrated by the tendency of his fellow Greeks to act mostly on impulse, he always prompted them to examine their own lives. The goal was to think for yourself and be less trapped by doxa — the Greek word for common sense or popular opinion.

This is why we love Elon Musk so much. We see someone, who can objectively look at the world, build their reasoning from the ground up and then make decisions grounded in reality — and we think they’re a genius.

Actually, he’s just doing what we were supposed to all along: think for ourselves. It’s that we do so little of it. As Tim Urban notes on Wait But Why:

“We spent this whole time trying to figure out the mysterious workings of the mind of a madman genius only to realize that Musk’s secret sauce is that he’s the only one being normal. And in isolation, Musk would be a pretty boring subject — it’s the backdrop of us that makes him interesting.”

So how do we get back to rational? How can we think more and more clearly?

This Is Life’s Worst Trap

September 25, 2017May 29, 2024 Nik

Most of the time, life looks like above.

No matter where we stand, the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s that little patch of green across the horizon, where the sun always seems to shine.

A better job.
A beautiful woman.
A million dollars.
A Louis Vuitton handbag.
A sixpack.
A surfing vacation.
A new home.
A better habit.
A few more fans.
A piece of insight.

So we spend our days chasing the light at the end of our tunnel vision. We fight, we struggle, we complain, we throw others under the bus and we forget ourselves completely in the process.

The Evolution of How I Think About Money

September 23, 2017May 22, 2024 Nik

I thought a lot about money this week. I think a lot about money every week, to be honest. Often not in a good way. I’m very paranoid about it. I tell myself it’s out of necessity, but that’s not true.

It’s really just a subconscious mechanism I use to motivate myself. To not lose sight of my goals. It’s efficient in that regard, but in no way is how I view money perfect. So I can’t give you “the ultimate way to think about money.” Because I haven’t found it.

What I can do is tell you how I thought about money at different stages of my life. Because there has been progress. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself. Maybe following my evolution of thinking can help speed up your own.

Let’s find out.

How To Improve Your Writing With 6 Questions

September 23, 2017February 28, 2024 Nik

A writer’s job is to bring order to chaos. It’s our duty to descend into the cluttered world of ideas and then structure whatever insight we manage to wring from its hands.

Therefore, writing is by definition a messy process. The goal of this post is not so much to get you to adopt my version of it — although I will give you the tools if you wish to do so — but to get you to examine your own.

When I recently did, I found I constantly ask myself six questions about writing. Before, after and during. All the time. They’re definitely not a checklist. More of a blurry circle my mind spins in.

I want to show you those questions. Show you you’re not alone. Seeing my lose structure should help accept your own. Then, you can set out to find the little that’s there. So you can build on it. That’s the plan.

Let’s go.

If I Was More Honest

September 16, 2017August 9, 2024 Nik

If I was more honest, I would tell you that I’m way behind. I’m behind on my job, behind on writing this, behind on writing something else, behind on school, behind on spending time with my family and behind on caring for my community.

I feel like I’m behind on life. I should be so much further ahead. I do and do and care and run and do and care way too much and in the end it doesn’t even add up. Am I just faking this? Am I even doing the right things? The important things? Or do I just sabotage myself? So I can then feel behind?

Maybe I’m exactly where I should be. Maybe I’m just standing in my own way.