How to Be a High School Superstar – Cal Newport Part 1: Forget overscheduled admissions superstar robots; strive to become genuinely interesting.
Try to be “the type of person who’d appeal to an NPR talk show producer…who can sit down and chat about a topic for 30 minutes and hold an educated audience’s rapt attention” (p 35) “interestingness can’t be forced or planned in advance. It’s a natural by-product of a deep interest – a long-term pursuit you return to voluntarily and eagerly whenever given a chance.” (p 36) o The Saturday morning test: when I wake up Sat AM, is it my first inclination to work on this? o TimeWise curriculum by Linda Caldwell => middle school anti-drug curriculum that helps manage time and develop interests. Key points: expose yourself to many things and have lots of time to do so keep time for unstructured reflection and relaxation. In order to achieve that free time, you must deliberately underschedule yourself by: o Set up a workday, after which you’re done. Time outside that workday is unstructured and unscheduled. Ideally, your workweek is done by dinner on weeknights and takes half a day Saturday or Sunday (not both). To actually keep this schedule, you have to: Take notes more effectively. Use one spiral bound notebook/class for notes, and one folder for each test (fill with study guides, old exams) and paper (research material, rough drafts) in a class, plus one for admin stuff (syllabus). For reading assignments and notes, use the QEC (Question-OutcomeConclusion) method. Check the intro and conclusion sections of stuff first. For math, write down the sample problems and the walkthroughs. If rote memorization is needed, use flash cards early and often. Similarly, fill in blanked out labels on diagrams. Note any trouble spots in the notes and follow up on them within 48 hours (reread, talk to teacher, Google). Study more effectively via active recall. For non-math, cover the E & C, read the Q and answer it. OUT LOUD. For math, start with the problems, and solve them. OUT LOUD. For flashcards – just do it, and start early (2-3 weeks before the test). Write papers efficiently, in three days. Day 1: Do research, review notes, make outline. Take a break and revise outline. Day 2: Write the first draft. Day 3: First editing pass on a computer, done visually. Second editing pass, read it OUT LOUD. Constantly review your methods: after every test/paper, ask: What prep helped me? What prep didn’t help me? What didn’t I do that could have made a big difference? How will I prep for the next one? Keep a good study environment:
Work in isolation, silence, away from any distractions Do 50 minutes work followed by 10 minutes break. After 3 hours, take a 20-30 minute break. Get as much done during school as possible. Avoid state-transition cues until your workday is done. Keep physical energy good – eat real food during the workday. Go NOWHERE NEAR THE INTERNET. SERIOUSLY. Manage your time well, by spreading it out into small chunks and planning ahead. Write down all due dates. Each night before the end of the workday, find out what’s due in the next 2 weeks and schedule the chunks of work. Preferably in a public spot so your housemates hold you accountable. Drop the most demanding and time consuming courses (showboats, electives), unless you’re genuinely interested in them. Drop “Activity Andy” extracurriculars – something anyone with some time and money could do – unless they either have a lot time commitment and function as a social outlet, or are related to your core values. How to use your newly freed-up time to explore: o Read, a lot, about things you find interesting. Go to a megabookstore and browse for pre-existing interests. Then skim the books at Starbucks. If you find a book interesting enough to start really reading, buy it or get it from the library. Do this at least once per month. o Have a Saturday Morning Project: a cool project that would make anyone hearing about it for the first time go “wow!”. But only do it Saturday mornings (keeps time commitment low). o Join communities (special interest groups, clubs, volunteer), either IRL or online. Participate regularly, and volunteer to take on small projects – then follow through. o If interested in pursuing a project or field deeper, use the advice-guide method to find out what it takes to succeed. Find at least one example of actual, specific success in the endeavour, and one example of failure. Analyze each of them. Then, contact whoever’s behind the success and ask for specific advice (keep it short): What single factor do you think helped [this success]? If you had to write a to do list for someone new in [this field] and serious about success, what would the top 2 items be? What myth about succeeding in [this field] do you think is most damaging? o Go to conferences, events, talks, etc., and connect with the interesting speakers afterwards, then stay in touch. Research the speakers before you go so you can have an interesting question ready at the end of the talk.
Part 2: Focus on a few things and do them well.
Superstar Effect: “the most talented in a field earn disproportionately more rewards than those who are only slightly less talented” (113) o This applies for grades in class, but being the best is risky and hard to pull off. o It’s easier for extracurriculars, and holds regardless of the competitiveness of the field. The pursuit itself may be unusual, but you have to appear to be unusually good – a marker of exceptional ability (usually, third party validation) Matthew Effect: opportunities snowball based on your accomplishments and reputation.
Complementary Accomplishments Hypothesis: “once you accomplish something unambiguously impressive, you begin to achieve complementary things with little additional effort” (127) A laundry list of activities that anyone willing to sign up for and invest a reasonable amount of time into actually hurts your acceptance chances. You look unfocused and countersignal – top performers don’t signal madly because they have confidence the side channel will signal their high ability for them. What to do: o Identify a focus. Don’t worry about natural talent; it’s really all effort and persistence. o Get good. Study top performers and seek specific strategies and feedback on your performance. Then immerse yourself in it. Once you have some recognized ability, leverage that to boost perceived ability by participating/leading things that don’t have a huge time commitment. o Maintain Focus Start a bunch of small projects in the field. Each month, do a productivity purge to cull the time consumers: Label a sheet with your focused pursuits. 1-2 is optimal, 3 is “doable if you happen to have an abundance of free time”. Also label “extra”. List each project that requires a regular time commitment under the right heading. For each heading, star the 1-2 projects you think have the greatest chance of rewards. For focused pursuits, rewards = advancing your ability. For extra, rewards = what you enjoy the most. In the remaining projects, identify the ones you could stop doing immediately. Stop doing them. For the rest, develop a 1-2 week winddown schedule to drop them.
Part 3: Pursue accomplishments that are hard to explain, not hard to do
Failed Simulation Effect: “if you can’t mentally simulate the steps taken by someone to reach an accomplishment, it will seem impressive.” (162) This is because we use ourselves as a benchmark when judging others’ abilities. How to find an innovative activity/accomplishment to pursue: o Don’t try to think it up – if you can easily imagine doing it, so can anyone else. o Join closed communities and pay their dues. People know about these groups but don’t understand their operation. o Leverage your way up in the group by finding projects you’re well suited to finish efficiently and competently right now. What community to enter? o NOT one with an established program for working with students, or your role will be rigid and pre-defined. o Find a group that’s missing something you can supply. o Once in, create a “shadow job” – an office area outside of your home, and a schedule (5-10 hrs/wk max). What to do?
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Find a young person who’s done impressive things in a related or overlapping field. Deconstruct their path, with the accomplishments listed in chronological order. Under each one, list: 1) the preceding action or event that made it possible, and 2) the work required to complete it. Pick a sloganable project – the slogan alone should immediately trigger failedsimulation. 1. Strip your idea to its core, in one sentence. 2. Imagine what doubling the project’s ambition would look like. 3. If you succeed, would your jaded brother have to grudgingly admit some pride?
So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Real job satisfaction comes from having autonomy/control, impact, and exercising creativity. Not “passion”. These types of jobs are rare, so you need rare skill capital to trade for them. Some jobs are unlikely to make a good foundation to gain the necessary skill capital: o Jobs with few opportunities to develop rare and valuable skills o Jobs whose focus you think is useless or actively bad for the world o Jobs where you’re forced to work with people you really dislike Determine what career capital is valuable in your market – then obtain it! To get better (obtain more skill capital), you need to challenge yourself and get immediate feedback: deliberate practice (an activity solely designed to improve specific aspects of your performance). o Most knowledge workers never bother to do this. This is an easy win/low hanging fruit for you. o To do this, you must: 1. Determine if you’re in a winner-take-all (one skill is all that matters) market, or an auction. 2. What is the relevant skill? Look for open gates – ways that build on what you already have. 3. What does “Good” look like? Get some goals. 4. Stretch with the deliberate practice. 5. Have patience. Control traps: o Pursuing control when you have no skill capital (aka failed lifestyle design bloggers) o When you get the capital, everyone resists giving you control! o How do you know when you should push for more control? Gather evidence that people will pay you after you have it/push for it. You need a mission for your life’s work o But you need experience to find a good one in the “adjacent possible” of your life’s experiences. This can take years. o So make incremental bets. o Do something remarkable, then promote it in the right community. How Cal applied this to his life: o Once per week, summarize a paper or similar material that you think may be relevant to your work. o Tally the hours spent on deliberate practice each month. o Look for job positions with fuzzy edges – you get more control. o The mission pyramid: 1. Base: Background research (that you do weekly). 2. Exploratory projects (the incremental bids) Less than 1 month long. Create new value – you develop new skills, get new results. Provide a concrete result that generates feedback for you. Track the time you spend on them! 3. Top: the mission statement itself, as it is evolving.