{"id":37938,"date":"2017-04-07T23:42:23","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T23:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=careerguidepage&#038;p=37938"},"modified":"2026-04-22T23:10:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T23:10:48","slug":"how-to-be-successful","status":"publish","type":"careerguidepage","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-guide\/how-to-be-successful\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 9: All the evidence-based advice we&#8217;ve found on how to be more successful in any&nbsp;job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thinkpositively-240x300.png\" alt=\"A comic of a train approaching a man tied to the train tracks. The caption reads, &quot;What I need to do is think positively about this situation.&quot;\" width=\"420\" height=\"525\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-94213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thinkpositively-240x300.png 240w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thinkpositively-820x1024.png 820w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thinkpositively-768x959.png 768w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thinkpositively-1230x1536.png 1230w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/thinkpositively-1640x2048.png 1640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"audio-player\">\n<style id=\"type-3-player-styles\">@media print { type-3-player { display: none; } } h1 .t3a-heading-play-button { display: none; } h4 .t3a-heading-play-button, h5 .t3a-heading-play-button, h6 .t3a-heading-play-button { display: none; } .panel .t3a-heading-play-button { display: none; 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if (!window.t3aListeningTimeTracker) { window.t3aListeningTimeTracker = { totalSecondsListened: 0, hasFiredSixMinuteEvent: false }; } if (!window.t3aAnalytics) { window.t3aAnalytics = function(eventType, event) { analytics.track(eventType, event); gtag(\"event\", eventType, event); if (typeof plausible === \"function\") { plausible(eventType, {props: event}); } if (eventType === \"continued-listening\") { window.t3aListeningTimeTracker.totalSecondsListened += 30; if (!window.t3aListeningTimeTracker.hasFiredSixMinuteEvent && window.t3aListeningTimeTracker.totalSecondsListened >= 360) { window.t3aListeningTimeTracker.hasFiredSixMinuteEvent = true; const sixMinuteEvent = { ...event, action: \"Listened for 6 minutes\", totalSecondsListened: window.t3aListeningTimeTracker.totalSecondsListened }; analytics.track(\"Listened for 6 minutes\", sixMinuteEvent); gtag(\"event\", \"Listened for 6 minutes\", sixMinuteEvent); if (typeof plausible === \"function\") { plausible(\"Listened for 6 minutes\", {props: sixMinuteEvent}); 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} }); }); })();<\/script><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 100%; min-height: 75px; clear: both;\" class=\"margin-top-smaller margin-bottom-smaller\">\n        <type-3-player \n            cover-image-url=\"\"\n            background-color=\"#f1f1f1\"\n            listen-to-this-page=\"\"\n            listen-to-this-page-text=\"\"\n            link-to-timestamp=\"true\"\n            header-play-buttons=\"true\"\n            sticky=\"true\"\n            primary-color=\"#333\"\n            secondary-color=\"#aaa\"\n            accent-color=\"#2ebdd1\"\n            primary-font-family=\"&#039;museo-sans&#039;,&#039;Helvetica Neue&#039;,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif\"\n            secondary-font-family=\"&#039;proxima-nova&#039;,Arial,sans-serif\"\n            analytics=\"custom\"\n            t3a-logo=\"false\"\n            link-to-timestamp-selector=\".type-3-player__replace-timestamps-with-links\"\n            feedback-button=\"false\"\n            custom-css=\"\"\n        ><\/type-3-player><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The trouble with self-help advice is that it&#8217;s often based on barely any evidence. How many times have you been told to &#8220;think positively&#8221; in order to reach your goals? It&#8217;s probably the most popular piece of personal guidance, beloved by everyone from high school teachers to productivity YouTubers. An idea behind the slogan is that if you visualise your ideal future, you&#8217;re more likely to attract it.<\/p>\n<p>The problem? Recent research found evidence that fantasising about your perfect life can make you <em>less<\/em> likely to make it happen. While it can be pleasant, it can reduce motivation because it makes you feel that you&#8217;ve already hit those targets.<\/p>\n<p>Insisting on positive thoughts can also lead us to suppress negative emotions, deny real problems, and even produce a backlash effect. Studies have found telling yourself positive affirmations that you don&#8217;t really believe, like &#8220;I&#8217;m a brilliant person,&#8221; can highlight the ways you fall short, making you feel worse. Positive thinking <em>can<\/em> be helpful, but as we&#8217;ll see, it really matters how you do it.<\/p>\n<p>Much other advice is just one person&#8217;s opinion, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifehack.org\/articles\/lifestyle\/how-to-be-successful-in-life.html\">useless clich\u00e9s<\/a>. But at 80,000 Hours, we&#8217;ve found that there are a number of evidence-backed steps anyone can take to become more content, productive, and successful in their career, as well as their life in general. So we&#8217;ve gathered and reproduced them here. This list represents the best personal development advice we&#8217;ve come across over the last 15+ years.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve changed to a new career path, you can use these steps to achieve more in your new role. If you&#8217;re not ready to change careers yet, you can use them to invest in your career capital, no matter what you&#8217;re doing now.<\/p>\n<p>Although the evidence isn&#8217;t always as strong as we&#8217;d like, we&#8217;ve tried to gather the best that&#8217;s available. Instead of going blindly with what &#8220;studies say,&#8221; we&#8217;ve included steps that are cheap to test, make theoretical sense, and offer a lot of upside, even if the empirical evidence for them is weaker. You can explore more in the further reading and footnotes for each section.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reading time: 40 minutes<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"toc_container\" class=\"toc_white no_bullets\"><p class=\"toc_title\">Table of Contents<\/p><ul class=\"toc_list\"><li><a href=\"#0-learn-how-to-do-self-development\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">1<\/span> 0. Learn how to do self-development<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#1-dont-forget-to-take-care-of-yourself\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">2<\/span> 1. Don&#8217;t forget to take care of yourself<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#2-if-helpful-make-mental-health-your-top-priority\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">3<\/span> 2. If helpful, make mental health your top priority<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#3-deal-with-your-physical-health-not-forgetting-your-back\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">4<\/span> 3. Deal with your physical health (not forgetting your back!)<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#set-goals\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">5<\/span> 4. Set goals<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#longer-term-goals\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">5.1<\/span> Longer-term goals<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#goals-for-the-quarter\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">5.2<\/span> Goals for the quarter<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#learn-to-prioritise\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">5.3<\/span> Learn to prioritise<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#productivity\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">6<\/span> 5. Try out this list of ways to become more productive<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#how-to-become-more-motivated\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">6.1<\/span> How to become more motivated<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#productivity-processes\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">6.2<\/span> Productivity processes<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#further-reading-on-productivity\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">6.3<\/span> Further reading on productivity<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#6-get-better-at-using-the-latest-ai-tools\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">7<\/span> 6. Get better at using the latest AI tools<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#7-improve-your-basic-social-skills\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">8<\/span> 7. Improve your basic social skills<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#8-surround-yourself-with-great-people\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">9<\/span> 8. Surround yourself with great people<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#best-further-reading-on-networking\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_2\">9.1<\/span> Best further reading on networking<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#9-apply-scientific-research-into-happiness\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">10<\/span> 9. Apply scientific research into happiness<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#10-use-these-tips-to-save-more-money\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">11<\/span> 10. Use these tips to save more money<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#11-use-research-into-decision-making-to-think-better\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">12<\/span> 11. Use research into decision-making to think better<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#12-learn-how-to-learn\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">13<\/span> 12. Learn how to learn<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#13-be-strategic-about-how-you-use-your-time-at-work\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">14<\/span> 13. Be strategic about how you use your time at work<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#14-become-an-expert\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">15<\/span> 14. Become an expert<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#15-become-a-better-person\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">16<\/span> 15. Become a better person<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#the-compounding-benefits-of-investing-in-yourself\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">17<\/span> The compounding benefits of investing in yourself<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#put-into-practice\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">18<\/span> Put into practice <\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#join-our-newsletter-to-get-the-guide\"><span class=\"toc_number toc_depth_1\">19<\/span> Join our newsletter to get the guide<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n<h2><span id=\"0-learn-how-to-do-self-development\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>0. Learn how to do self-development<\/h2>\n<p>We&#8217;ve put the advice roughly in order: the first items are the easiest, highest-upside, and most widely applicable steps, and then we move on to the more challenging ones.<\/p>\n<p>Much of what follows is about building new habits \u2014 regular behaviours and routines that become almost automatic. So if you get better at building habits, everything else will be faster. And there&#8217;s research on how to do exactly that. <a href=\"https:\/\/jamesclear.com\/atomic-habits\"><em>Atomic Habits<\/em><\/a> is a bestselling book that turns the basic behavioural science on forming habits into a very practical guide. If you&#8217;d prefer a more academic vibe, take a look at BJ Fogg&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjfogg.com\/\"><em>Tiny Habits<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The key advice is to make the habit as easy and rewarding as possible. Use environmental cues (like putting your gym bag out the night before), make yourself accountable (such as by agreeing to meet your friend at the gym at 8:00 AM), and use rewards (like letting yourself watch Netflix on the treadmill).<\/p>\n<p>Start small \u2014 smaller than you think. Rather than starting by aiming to do four one-hour gym sessions a week, aim to exercise for five minutes a day. Even a tiny habit you actually stick to can be built upon, shifting your identity until you are someone who exercises regularly. Over a couple of months, not much will change, but eventually you can end up in a totally different place.<\/p>\n<p>It takes about 30\u201360 days to ingrain a new habit. That&#8217;s hard enough without starting five at once. So skim through the list below, pick the <em>one<\/em> area that you think might make the most difference to your life with the least effort, and then pick <em>one<\/em> habit or exercise from there to start.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, you should focus on an area for 3\u201312 months, using each month to build one habit or do one exercise. Look for something you can easily fit around your existing work. As you gain momentum, you can take on bigger challenges.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"1-dont-forget-to-take-care-of-yourself\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>1. Don&#8217;t forget to take care of yourself<\/h2>\n<p>To begin, an important reminder: ambitious, idealistic people often don&#8217;t take care of themselves. This can make them burn out and ultimately be less successful.<\/p>\n<p>Even if you <em>only<\/em> care about helping others, it&#8217;s still important to look after yourself. Psychology professor Adam Grant wrote a book arguing that altruists who also looked out for their own interests were more productive in the long term, and so ultimately did more to help others \u2014 adding empirical backing to a perhaps obvious idea.<\/p>\n<p>To look after yourself, the most important thing is to focus on the basics: getting enough rest, exercising, eating well, and maintaining your closest friendships.<\/p>\n<p>This is common sense, and research seems to back it up. These factors can have a big impact on your day-to-day happiness, not to mention your health and energy. In fact, as we&#8217;ve seen, they probably matter much more than other factors people tend to focus on, like <a href=\"\/articles\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-whether-money-makes-you-happy\/\">money<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So, if there&#8217;s anything you can do to significantly improve one of these areas, it&#8217;s worth taking care of it first. A lot has been written about how to improve them. Sometimes there are small technical tricks (e.g. some people find they sleep far better if they wear an eyemask), but it often comes down to building better habits (e.g. scheduling a weekly call with your best friend).<\/p>\n<p>Here are some quick tips and places to learn more:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The best guide we&#8217;ve found on <a href=\"https:\/\/lynettebye.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/24\/lu1xjfsg8i9rzkatmnqgh2r9ykb0r1\">how to get better sleep<\/a> is by Lynette Bye, who aims to summarise all the research.<\/li>\n<li>Look for other activities you find deeply relaxing and rejuvenating, and schedule them at least once a week. This could be walking in nature, taking a hot bath, shooting the shit with your friends, dance, meditation, or whatever else works for you. <\/li>\n<li>Within exercise, try to at least hit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/live-well\/exercise\/exercise-guidelines\/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults-aged-19-to-64\/\">these guidelines<\/a> by the UK&#8217;s National Health Service. The most important thing is to actually do it, so start with whatever activities you most enjoy. If you want to optimise further, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ben_j_todd\/status\/1584259439183347713\">here are some additional resources<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Not that much is known about what makes for a good diet, but the main areas of consensus seem to be: find a system that helps you avoid eating too many calories (whether that&#8217;s low carb, low fat, intermittent fasting or something else); avoid processed foods and lots of sugar; eat plenty of protein to gain more muscle; and eat lots of plants. Beyond this, experiment and keep note of what makes you feel best.<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps the biggest thing you can do to maintain close friendships is to schedule regular time for them. <\/li>\n<li>If you want to keep going, here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/alexvermeer.com\/life-hacking\/\">a list of life hacks<\/a> by Alex Vermeer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/dog_vacuum.gif\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\nTo avoid colds and flus it&#8217;s important to vacuum yourself daily. We recommend Dyson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><span id=\"2-if-helpful-make-mental-health-your-top-priority\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>2. If helpful, make mental health your top priority<\/h2>\n<p>About 30% of people in their 20s have some kind of mental health issue. If you&#8217;re suffering from one \u2014 be it anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD, depression, or something else \u2014 then it&#8217;s often best to prioritise dealing with it or learning to cope better. It&#8217;s one of the best investments you can ever make \u2014 both for your own sake and your ability to help others.<\/p>\n<p>We know many people who took the time to make mental health their top priority and who, having found treatments and techniques that worked, have gone on to perform at the highest level. Many of our staff have also made their mental health a major priority, and they tell their stories <a href=\"\/topic\/career-advice-strategy\/mental-health\/?content-type=podcast\">on the podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re unsure whether you have a mental health issue, it&#8217;s well worth investigating. We&#8217;ve also known people who have gone undiagnosed for decades, and then found their life was far better after diagnosis and treatment.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get hung up on whether you satisfy the criteria for a formal diagnosis. Many mental health conditions appear to lie on a spectrum (e.g. from good mood to &#8216;normal&#8217; unhappiness to depression), and the point at which a formal diagnosis is made is ultimately arbitrary. What matters is not the label that&#8217;s applied, but whether you can find helpful ways to feel better.<\/p>\n<p>Mental health is not our area of expertise, and we can&#8217;t offer medical advice. We&#8217;d recommend seeing a doctor as your first step, ideally a specialist psychiatrist. If you&#8217;re at university, there should be free services available. All that being said, we&#8217;ve collected some of the resources we&#8217;ve personally found most helpful for you to explore.<\/p>\n<p>Besides medication, therapy is often helpful. Probably the most evidence-based form of therapy is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which has been found to help with many different conditions. Moreover, managing your emotions is just a vital life skill for everyone, and CBT is one of the main evidence-based ways of getting better at that.<\/p>\n<p>One of the central ideas of CBT is that our emotions often follow from our thinking, but our thinking often tends to be unrealistically negative, so learning to spot and combat these  unrealistically negative thoughts can significantly boost your mental health. This is one way that &#8220;think positively&#8221; is pointing in a good direction: having unrealistically negative beliefs isn&#8217;t helpful, but that&#8217;s not the same as denying real problems or having an inflated positive opinion of yourself.<\/p>\n<p>A classic book about CBT is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy\/dp\/0380731762\"><em>Feeling Good<\/em><\/a> by David D. Burns. In fact, reading this book has even been tested in randomised controlled trials and found to reduce symptoms of depression, which is rather more convincing than Amazon reviews. You can also listen to <a href=\"podcast.clearerthinking.org\/episode\/192\/david-burns-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-and-beyond\">two<\/a> <a href=\"podcast.clearerthinking.org\/episode\/255\/david-burns-the-heavy-price-you-ll-have-to-pay-to-have-a-healthy-relationship\/\">interviews<\/a> with the author on the <a href=\"https:\/\/podcast.clearerthinking.org\/\"><em>Clearer Thinking<\/em> podcast<\/a>, which has other great content on mental health. The host of this podcast, <a href=\"\/podcast\/episodes\/spencer-greenberg-bayesian-updating\">Spencer Greenberg<\/a>, has developed an <a href=\"https:\/\/mindease.io\/\">an online CBT app that we like<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On our podcast, <a href=\"\/podcast\/episodes\/tim-lebon-self-defeating-altruistic-perfectionism\/\">we interviewed a CBT therapist, Tim LeBon<\/a>, about what CBT involves and why it might be useful to our readers. We&#8217;ve also written up <a href=\"\/2018\/12\/dealing-with-setbacks\/\">a list of simple CBT-inspired questions<\/a> you can ask yourself whenever something bad happens in your life.<\/p>\n<p>You could also explore other therapies broadly in the CBT tradition, which also tend to be practical and solution-based, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dialectical_behavior_therapy\">dialectical behavioural therapy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living\/dp\/1590305841\">acceptance and commitment therapy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Behavioral_activation\">behavioural activation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Compassion-focused_therapy\">compassion-focused therapy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Exposure_therapy\">exposure therapy<\/a>, and more. Some of our readers have also found <a href=\"https:\/\/focusingresources.com\/\">focusing<\/a>, meditation (<a href=\"\/career-guide\/how-to-be-successful\/#8-apply-scientific-research-into-happiness\">see below<\/a>), and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Self-Therapy-Step-Step-Cutting-Edge-Psychotherapy\/dp\/0984392777\">internal family systems therapy<\/a> useful for general emotional management.<\/p>\n<p>With any form of therapy, a key step is finding a therapist who&#8217;s a good match. Some research has suggested that the degree of &#8216;therapeutic alliance&#8217; can even be as important as the form of therapy. Finding a great therapist is often difficult, but here are some tips:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ask for referrals from friends whose judgement you trust. You can also search professional listings and online reviews, but these will be more hit-or-miss.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t feel like you need to stick with the first therapist you find. Most therapists will be happy to do an initial consultation or trial session. Speak to a couple and see who you get on with best.<\/li>\n<li>Keep in mind that therapy can be roughly divided into two very different forms: those in the tradition of psychoanalysis, which aims to identify patterns of counterproductive behaviour starting in childhood, and those in the tradition of CBT, which tend to be practical and solution focused, and have a clearer evidence base. Both can be useful, but our sympathies lie with the CBT tradition, so that&#8217;s what we&#8217;d suggest trying first. <\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re involved in effective altruism, you might like to check out our <a href=\"\/after-hours-podcast\/episodes\/hannah-boettcher-mental-health-challenges\/\">interview with Hannah Boettcher<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mentalhealthnavigator.co.uk\/\">Mental Health Navigator<\/a>. Private practitioners include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewelinatur.com\/\">Ewelina Tur<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/daystareld.com\/blog\/therapy\/\">Daystar Eld<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/timlebontherapy.blogspot.com\/p\/welcome.html\">Tim LeBon<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Here&#8217;s a longer guide <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20200721142904\/https:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/gruntled\/2014\/05\/08\/the-s-guide-to-getting-a-therapist-getting-started\/\">on how to find a therapist<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here are some additional mental health resources organised by condition:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Some of our favourite resources are the reviews by condition and medication on <a href=\"https:\/\/lorienpsych.com\/\">Lorien Psychiatry<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The UK&#8217;s National Health Service publishes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/mental-health\/conditions\/\">useful, evidence-based advice<\/a> on treatments for most conditions. That&#8217;s usually a good starting point.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Depression and low mood<\/strong> \u2014 in addition to CBT, see this <a href=\"https:\/\/lorienpsych.com\/2021\/06\/05\/depression\/#2_How_do_you_treat_depression\">summary of treatments for depression<\/a> by Scott Siskind. We&#8217;d also recommend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Its-Not-Always-Depression-Reconnecting\/dp\/0241976383\"><em>It&#8217;s Not Always Depression<\/em><\/a> by Hilary Hendel.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Anxiety<\/strong> \u2014 see this <a href=\"http:\/\/slatestarcodex.com\/2015\/07\/13\/things-that-sometimes-work-if-you-have-anxiety\/\">summary of treatments for anxiety<\/a> by Scott Alexander, and <a href=\"https:\/\/mindease.io\/\">Mind Ease<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>ADHD<\/strong> \u2014 check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cognitive-Behavioral-Therapy-Adult-ADHD-Dysfunction\/dp\/160918131X\/\"><em>Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult ADHD<\/em><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Taking-Charge-Adult-Russell-Barkley\/dp\/1606233386\/\"><em>Taking Charge of Adult ADHD<\/em><\/a>. <\/li>\n<li><strong>Perfectionism<\/strong> \u2014 this seems very common among our readers, and is the focus of the <a href=\"\/podcast\/episodes\/tim-lebon-self-defeating-altruistic-perfectionism\/\">first part of this podcast episode with CBT therapist Tim LeBon<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Imposter syndrome<\/strong> \u2014 this is also extremely common, which is why one of our team members wrote her own <a href=\"\/2022\/04\/imposter-syndrome\/\">guide to overcoming it<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See <a href=\"\/topic\/career-advice-strategy\/mental-health\/\">all of our resources on mental health<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Just as with your mental health, it also pays to focus on your physical health&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"3-deal-with-your-physical-health-not-forgetting-your-back\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>3. Deal with your physical health (not forgetting your back!)<\/h2>\n<figure class= \"wp-caption\">\n<img src= \"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/drinking-water.jpg\" alt=\"physical health different health problems\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\nThere&#8217;s<br \/>\n<a href= \"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/25\/upshot\/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html\" ><br \/>\nvery little evidence<\/a> that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day to be healthy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Lots of health advice is snake oil. But it&#8217;s probably also the area where the most evidence-based advice exists. Besides your doctor, you can find easy-to-use summaries of the scientific consensus on how to treat different health problems on websites like the NHS&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/\">Health A to Z<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/\">Mayo Clinic<\/a>. More recently, a study found that AI was basically as good as a human doctor at medical diagnosis, though you should have an expert double-check any recommendations it makes.<\/p>\n<p>We were surprised to learn that the biggest risk to our productivity is probably back pain. After car accidents, it&#8217;s the leading cause of ill-health among otherwise healthy people in high-income countries. Our cofounder, Will, was suddenly taken out for months by chronic lower-back pain. He spoke to over 10 health professionals about his issue before he got any useful advice. This isn&#8217;t uncommon, since the causes of back pain can vary widely, and it can be hard to treat.<\/p>\n<p>Repetitive strain injury (RSI), pain caused by repetitive movements like using a mouse, is also a hazard of modern workplaces.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, you can reduce your chances of back pain and RSI in a few ways:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20260211175341\/https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/healthy-lifestyle\/adult-health\/in-depth\/office-ergonomics\/art-20046169\">Correctly set up your desk<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20260211174304\/https:\/\/ssep.com.au\/best-posture-for-sitting-at-a-desk-all-day\/\">maintain good posture<\/a>. <\/li>\n<li>Regularly change position (methods like working for 25min and then taking a 5min break as in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pomodoro_Technique\">pomodoro technique<\/a> can be useful). <\/li>\n<li>Exercise regularly, including some strength training for the whole body (especially the posterior chain, such as Romanian deadlifts).<\/li>\n<li>If you do get any symptoms, here&#8217;s tips on about how to treat <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/back-pain\/\">back pain<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/repetitive-strain-injury-rsi\/\">RSI<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>These steps sound trivial, but statistically, it&#8217;s pretty likely you&#8217;ll face a bout of bad back pain at some point in your life, and you&#8217;ll thank yourself for making these simple investments.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"set-goals\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>4. Set goals<\/h2>\n<p>There&#8217;s plenty of debate about the best ways to set goals. Should you focus more on outcomes or the process? Should your goals be ambitious or achievable? These differences probably don&#8217;t matter too much. The key point is that <a href=\"\/2013\/03\/should-you-plan-your-career\/\">setting goals works<\/a>: people who set goals tend to achieve more \u2014 so just set some.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"longer-term-goals\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Longer-term goals<\/h3>\n<p>One place to start is to get clearer about what an ideal life would look like for you, so you can spot more effective ways of getting there. We talked about your career vision in the <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-planning\/\">career planning<\/a> article. Now broaden it: How would you like your life to look in five or 10 years&#8217; time? If money were no object, or you knew you couldn&#8217;t fail, what would you do?<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t just think about exciting things you&#8217;d like to achieve \u2014 many external achievements don&#8217;t seem to affect happiness that much \u2014 also think about your ideal &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/waitbutwhy.com\/2013\/11\/life-is-picture-but-you-live-in-pixel.html\">mundane Wednesday<\/a>.&#8221; What exactly would you do from waking to falling asleep, and how would you feel? The point of this is to help you clarify what you actually want and to spot the most efficient ways of getting there.<\/p>\n<p>In doing this, it&#8217;s useful to keep in mind the ingredients that are <a href=\"\/articles\/job-satisfaction-research\/\">normally most important for fulfilment<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Satisfying relationships<\/li>\n<li>Contributing to a goal beyond yourself<\/li>\n<li>Engagement and a sense of competence (where you can enter a state of &#8216;flow&#8217;)<\/li>\n<li>A lack of major negatives, such as financial stress, health problems, or interpersonal conflicts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can get clearer about your values by asking yourself why you&#8217;re pursuing any goals you have over and over until you can&#8217;t think of any deeper reasons. <a href=\"https:\/\/programs.clearerthinking.org\/intrinsic_values_test.html#.ZF6SM3bMK3A\">This tool<\/a> from Clearer Thinking can help. Another exercise that&#8217;s been studied is writing your own eulogy: imagine you&#8217;ve passed away \u2014 what would you like people to say about your life?<\/p>\n<p>A comprehensive take on this step would look like a list of values you want to move towards, a five-year day in the life vision, and one or two other ambitious things you&#8217;d like to achieve.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"goals-for-the-quarter\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Goals for the quarter<\/h3>\n<p>In addition to your longer-term goals, consider setting 1\u20132 professional and 1\u20132 personal goals for the next quarter or two.<\/p>\n<p>I like to do an &#8216;annual life review&#8217; in which I pick a broad focus for the year (e.g. testing out being a full-time writer). Then I set more specific quarterly goals, which I review at the start of each quarter. Here&#8217;s a helpful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pasteurscube.com\/my-template-for-a-quarterly-review-plan\/\">template for quarterly reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For annual reviews, here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1NbhmiIzPa3AKucHvdBRAEmZ4YxzpcX8YAqK5AYtV4E0\/edit?tab=t.0\">my template<\/a>. Many on the 80,000 Hours team have found <a href=\"https:\/\/alexvermeer.com\/8760hours\/\">Alex Vermeer&#8217;s &#8220;8,760 Hours&#8221;<\/a> document (no relation) helpful, and we also developed a short one for <a href=\"\/career-planning\/annual-career-review\/\">reviewing your career specifically<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While your longer-term goals should be dedicated to setting your direction, your shorter-term goals are more about maximising your productivity. Here you might find it more helpful to set an &#8216;input goal&#8217; to do something that&#8217;s under your control (e.g. write for 3 hours per day), rather than an &#8216;output goal&#8217; that you could easily fail for reasons that are out of your control (e.g. finish writing a book by the end of the year). Both kinds of goal are helpful. We have more tips on how to achieve your goals in the next section.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"learn-to-prioritise\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Learn to prioritise<\/h3>\n<p>The 80\/20 principle is the idea that 20% of tasks account for 80% of results. It could be that 20% of clients are responsible for 80% of overall sales, 20% of your friends are responsible for 80% of the parties you get invited to, or 20% of words cover 80% of the language you&#8217;re learning. In reality, the 80\/20 principle is just a rough rule of thumb, but the basic idea can be very helpful. Applied to your goals, it means it&#8217;s really important to put them in order of priority and try to focus as much as possible on those at the top.<\/p>\n<p>But how do you actually figure out what will produce the best results? In &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/lynettebye.com\/blog\/2020\/6\/26\/five-ways-to-prioritize-better\">Five ways to prioritise better<\/a>,&#8221; productivity coach Lynette Bye considers the five most common prioritisation techniques you can apply to goals in your own life. One example is bottleneck analysis. Ask yourself, &#8220;Which key problem would unlock the most progress in the rest of my life?&#8221; Maybe it&#8217;s a certain relationship you need to change, fixing your sleep so you have more energy, or dealing with procrastination.<\/p>\n<p>To stay focused, make a list of your goals, pick the top three or so, and then put everything below that on a <em>do not do<\/em> list. Those are typically compelling but second-best activities that can easily distract us from our top priorities.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s normal to feel like you&#8217;re not doing enough. But if you prioritise and focus on your top priorities, then you&#8217;ll know you&#8217;re doing the best you can.<\/p>\n<p>Now, once you&#8217;ve set some goals, how can you actually achieve them?<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"productivity\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>5. Try out this list of ways to become more productive<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/T6qor0s4ii2QKIgeHyZCr6FvljMyDCNzC4CUEpyH73IB2s_PJUCsrPW8pi8Mo_uWQZ3h1RKvCydry25vi_RvSqSL2A=w640-h400-e365-rj-sc0x00ffffff\" \nalt=\"Twitter news eradicator\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\nWe&#8217;ve found <a href=\"https:\/\/chrome.google.com\/webstore\/detail\/news-feed-eradicator-for\/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en\">News Feed Eradicator<\/a> to be effective at limiting the time we spend on social media.<br \/>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>You can find lots of articles about which skills are most in-demand by employers \u2014 is it marketing, programming, or data science? But what people don&#8217;t talk about so often are the skills that are useful in <em>all<\/em> jobs \u2014 those that make you more effective at <em>everything<\/em>. We&#8217;ve already covered several examples: building habits, prioritising, and taking care of yourself. Here we&#8217;ll cover another: building the habits of personal productivity.<\/p>\n<p>An example is &#8216;implementation intentions.&#8217; Rather than saying &#8220;I will exercise every day,&#8221; define a specific &#8216;trigger&#8217; \u2014 exactly when and where you will do it \u2014 such as: &#8220;When I get home from work, the first thing I&#8217;ll do is put on my trainers and go for a run.&#8221; This surprisingly simple technique has been found in a large meta-analysis to make people much more likely to achieve their goals \u2014 in many cases about twice as likely (effect size of 0.65).<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"how-to-become-more-motivated\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>How to become more motivated<\/h3>\n<p>Psychology Professor Gabriele Oettingen wrote a whole book arguing that implementation intentions can be made even more effective by combining them with some negative thinking, specifically &#8216;negative contrasting.&#8217; Here&#8217;s how it works:<\/p>\n<p>Think about your goal and why you&#8217;d like to achieve it.<br \/>\nSet an implementation intention for actions to achieve the goal.<br \/>\nImagine you fail to achieve your goal. What went wrong?<br \/>\nModify your plan to prevent that issue.<br \/>\nRepeat until you feel confident you&#8217;ll achieve the goal.<\/p>\n<p>Doing this either helps you make a more robust plan, where you&#8217;re more mentally prepared for challenges, or helps you realise the goal isn&#8217;t realistic and needs to be modified. For one of the goals you set in the previous section, what&#8217;s most likely to prevent you from achieving it?<\/p>\n<p>Another way to increase your motivation that many people we know swear by is the use of &#8216;commitment devices.&#8217; Tell a friend you need to do one hour of focused work before noon each day. If you miss the target, you need to rip up $100 and send them a photo. You can use a tool like <a href=\"http:\/\/beeminder.com\/\">Beeminder<\/a> and <a href= \"https:\/\/www.stickk.com\/\">stickK<\/a> to track these kinds of commitments.<\/p>\n<p>You can find many more techniques for increasing your motivation in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Motivation-Hacker-Nick-Winter-ebook\/dp\/B00C8N4FNK\"><em>The Motivation Hacker<\/em><\/a>, a short popular summary of the research by Nick Winter, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Procrastination-Equation-Putting-Things-Getting\/dp\/0061703621\"><em>The Procrastination Equation<\/em><\/a> by Professor Piers Steel. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth-ebook\/dp\/B010MH9V3W\/\"><em>Grit<\/em><\/a> by Angela Duckworth is about how to develop your passion and perseverance.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"productivity-processes\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Productivity processes<\/h3>\n<p>Another way to boost your productivity is by improving your daily systems for completing tasks. Here&#8217;s a list of productivity techniques that have seemed most useful to the people we&#8217;ve worked with. Not all of them have as much direct empirical evidence as implementation intentions, but they&#8217;re quick to test for yourself, and they make sense \u2014 they mostly aim to help you prioritise and focus better. Try one each week, find the ones that help you the most, and then take several weeks to ingrain new habits. All of these are worth trying and can make a significant difference:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Set up a system to track your tasks, especially small tasks.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity\/dp\/0142000280\"><em>Getting Things Done<\/em><\/a> is the most well-known book about task management, but it tends to be too involved for most people. An adaptation \u2014 &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/hamberg.no\/gtd\/\">GTD in 15 minutes<\/a>&#8221; \u2014 is much simpler and better for most of our readers. It&#8217;s usually worth getting some simple task management software, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/asana.com\/\">Asana<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/todoist.com\/\">Todoist<\/a>, to help with tracking.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Do a five-minute review at the end of each day.<\/strong> You can put all kinds of other useful habits into this review, such as gratitude journaling, tracking your happiness, and thinking about what you learned each day. As a bonus: try sending your to-do list for the next day to a friend or colleague. Just telling someone else is enough to give some motivation \u2014 even if there&#8217;s no formal accountability.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Start your day with your most important task<\/strong>, named &#8220;eating a frog&#8221; by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.njlifehacks.com\/eat-that-frog-brian-tracy-summary\/\">book of the same title<\/a>. Get that one crucial thing you know you are avoiding done before you do anything else.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Do a weekly review.<\/strong> Every one or two weeks, take an hour to review your key goals, and plan out the rest of the week (and do the same quarterly). Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/calnewport.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/08\/deep-habits-plan-your-week-in-advance\/\">an example<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Batch your time.<\/strong> Group similar types of activities in regular time windows. For example, try to have all your meetings fall on one or two specific days of the week, then block out solid stretches of time for focused work. Rather than constantly checking your email, clear it once or twice a week. This approach reduces the costs of task-switching, and helps line up how you spend your time with what matters. Paul Graham discusses this in his essay, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulgraham.com\/makersschedule.html\">&#8220;Maker&#8217;s schedule, manager&#8217;s schedule.&#8221;<\/a> A big-picture version of this is to set fixed work hours; for example, have a hard limit of stopping work by 6:00 PM. Many people have found this makes them more productive during their work hours while also reducing the chance of burning out and neglecting their social life.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Block social media.<\/strong> It&#8217;s designed to be addictive, so it can ruin your focus. Changing tasks a lot makes you less productive due to <a href= \"http:\/\/nymag.com\/scienceofus\/2016\/01\/attention-residue-is-ruining-your-concentration.html\">attention residue<\/a>. For this reason, many people have found tools that block social media during work hours, or for a certain amount of time each day, to majorly boost their productivity. Some of the team&#8217;s favourite tools include <a href=\"https:\/\/freedom.to\/\">Freedom<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/appblock.app\/\">AppBlock<\/a> for blocking specific sites and apps at particular times, and <a href=\"https:\/\/chromewebstore.google.com\/detail\/news-feed-eradicator\/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en\">News Feed Eradicator<\/a> for removing the news feed from social media sites. Here&#8217;s a more <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1g52UVpoL7JENMyPYKSrPGPG8rWQSaGdMNT-T5zJYbds\/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.q5eq4lfwzr6q\">detailed guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Build a regular daily routine you enjoy.<\/strong> You can use your routine to build habits automatically \u2014 for example, always exercise first thing after lunch. <a href= \"https:\/\/mymorningroutine.com\/\">Many people<\/a> find having a good morning routine is especially important, because it gets you off to a good start.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Look for ways to avoid thinking about repetitive tasks<\/strong> to free up your attention, like eating the same thing for breakfast every day, or hiring a cleaner.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Be more focused by using the pomodoro technique.<\/strong> Whenever you need to work on a task, set a timer, and only focus on that task for 25 minutes. It&#8217;s hard to imagine a simpler technique, but many people find it helps them to overcome procrastination and be more focused, making a major difference in how much they can get done each day. Professor Barbara Oakley recommends it in her course, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coursera.org\/learn\/learning-how-to-learn\/home\/welcome\"><em>Learning how to learn<\/em><\/a>. Another step would be to do this with someone else: tell each other what you&#8217;re each going to do in the 25-minute focus time, and then hold each other accountable at the end. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.focusmate.com\/\">Focusmate<\/a> is a helpful platform for finding people to co-work with.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Track your time<\/strong> with tools like <a href=\"https:\/\/toggl.com\/\">Toggl<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/hourstack.com\/\">HourStack<\/a>, or a spreadsheet. This lets you check that your hours line up with your priorities, and helps you make better estimates of how long different tasks will take.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3><span id=\"further-reading-on-productivity\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Further reading on productivity<\/h3>\n<p>A huge amount has been written about personal productivity. Hopefully, this list gives you an idea of what&#8217;s out there and some ways to get started. If you&#8217;d like more ideas, here are some systems and over-the-top reflections from highly productive people:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted\/dp\/1455586692\"><em>Deep Work<\/em><\/a> by Cal Newport. Also see our <a href=\"\/podcast\/episodes\/cal-newport-industrial-revolution-for-office-work\/\">podcast episode<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/writings.stephenwolfram.com\/2019\/02\/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure\/\">Seeking the productive life<\/a> by Stephen Wolfram<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lesswrong.com\/posts\/JTHe5oGvdj6T73o4o\/how-i-am-productive\">How I am productive<\/a> by Peter Wildeford<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.samaltman.com\/productivity\">Productivity<\/a> by Sam Altman<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re having trouble getting going with the rest of the list, the techniques in this section can help. Want to socialise more? Use a commitment device. Want to be more focused when you study? Batch your time. Want to take up gratitude journaling? Add it to your daily review. When you&#8217;ve spent a few months incorporating some of these habits into your routines, move on to the next step.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"6-get-better-at-using-the-latest-ai-tools\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>6. Get better at using the latest AI tools<\/h2>\n<p>As I write this, AI is already a bit like a team of expert advisors available 24\/7 to help with any topic. I&#8217;ve heard reports of people who found it a struggle to get through a coding course before now speeding through in weeks because they can get instant help debugging, and they can ask AI to explain a concept in ten different ways until they find one that sticks. You can use AI as a tutor, editor, critic, or source of ideas and personalised advice on any topic \u2014 even things like what to do <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cognitiverevolution.ai\/ai-in-the-cancer-journey-how-i-m-using-ai-to-help-my-son\/\">if you have cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As AI continues to improve, it&#8217;s likely to become more and more like a true team of &#8216;digital workers,&#8217; and effectively directing these workers will become <a href=\"\/agi\/guide\/skills-ai-makes-valuable\/\">one of the most valuable skills<\/a> for any job.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Learn to use AI&#8221; is already a bit of a clich\u00e9, but it&#8217;s still rarely done well. Indeed, some universities even ban their students from using it. First, make sure you pay to use the latest models, since these are usually significantly more capable than the free ones. Through 2025, critics continued to make fun of AI for not being able to count how many &#8216;r&#8217;s there are in the word &#8216;strawberry.&#8217; But this wasn&#8217;t a problem for o1, which was released in September 2024 but only available if you paid $20 a month. They were mocking AI for a limitation it had already overcome.<\/p>\n<p>Second, get in the habit of running your problems past your virtual team of advisors. Then check their answers. Over time, you&#8217;ll build a sense of what work different models can and can&#8217;t do. Using AI effectively means learning how to get it to challenge your thinking and fill in the gaps in your knowledge rather than just flatter you.<\/p>\n<p>One tip is that AI typically generates far better results if you provide it with lots of context and 2\u20135 clear examples of the kind of output you want. But most people don&#8217;t do this; they just write a few sentences \u2014 far less context than you&#8217;d give a human \u2014 and hope it works out.<\/p>\n<p>In GPT and Claude, you can create projects for different types of tasks, and you can preload context and custom instructions for each. For example, when I ask AI to edit some writing, I have a project loaded up with my best examples of that type of writing and instructions to avoid hyperbolic language or lists of common cliches. You can also provide context with long rambling voice notes, which AI itself can summarise into clear project instructions.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, look for bigger chunks of more routine work you can automate wholesale. AI is best at tasks that involve manipulating data that exists on the internet, or answering math, coding, or science questions with known answers, but the scope of tasks it can do is expanding rapidly. It pays to keep an eye on what might become possible in the next one or two generations of models.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s much more to say about building AI-driven applications that automate large chunks of work while catching errors. We&#8217;d recommend listening to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cognitiverevolution.ai\/\"><em>The Cognitive Revolution<\/em><\/a> by Nathan Labenz to hear about the latest examples.<\/p>\n<p>See more tips in our article &#8220;<a href=\"\/2025\/04\/to-understand-ai-you-should-use-it-heres-how-to-get-started\/\">To understand AI, you should use it<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"7-improve-your-basic-social-skills\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>7. Improve your basic social skills<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/eye-contact-in-selling.jpg\" \nalt=\"eye contact important part of good social skills\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\nAn important part of good social skills is never breaking eye contact, or blinking.<br \/>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s surprising how little good advice there is on how to improve social skills, given they&#8217;re important for almost everything in life. Social skills mediate our relationships, which are crucial for both <a href=\"\/career-guide\/community\/\">our work<\/a> and <a href=\"\/career-guide\/job-satisfaction\/\">happiness<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That said, there are some basic things that anyone can learn that can make a big difference. Improving habits, learning how to make small talk, or simply changing how you think about social situations can make it much easier to make friends, get on with colleagues, and generally deal with other people.<\/p>\n<p>The most popular guide to learning basic social skills is probably <em>How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em> by Dale Carnegie. It&#8217;s full of advice like &#8220;A person&#8217;s name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language,&#8221; which you might want to take with a pinch of salt. And yet the book is classic for a reason. Bryan Caplan&#8217;s notes on the book are a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-book-club-round-up\/\">nice summary and steelman<\/a>. A more modern alternative some of our staff liked is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.succeedsocially.com\/\"><em>Succeed Socially<\/em><\/a> by Chris MacLeod, which is now available <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B01AU8C766\/\">as a book<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re looking to develop more advanced social skills, then you might find <a href=\"http:\/\/foxcabane.com\/book\/\"><em>The Charisma Myth<\/em><\/a> by Olivia Fox Cabane useful. It makes at least some attempt to use the limited research that exists. Other people have found things like improv and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toastmasters.org\/\">Toastmasters<\/a> helpful.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, much comes down to practice and getting comfortable talking to new people. So it&#8217;s useful to work on this area while also following the steps in the next section&#8230;<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"8-surround-yourself-with-great-people\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>8. Surround yourself with great people<\/h2>\n<p>We talked about the importance of connections and community in <a href=\"\/career-guide\/community\/\">the career guide<\/a>. If you haven&#8217;t implemented that advice yet, now&#8217;s the time.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually the goal is to have at least a couple of strong allies \u2014 both professionally and personally \u2014 who can advise you on difficult problems. In addition, aim to have a wider set of weak ties in the industries and scenes you&#8217;d most like to engage with, and to take part in one or two communities. Getting to that point takes time. Your network will grow naturally as your skills and accomplishments improve and you have more to offer.<\/p>\n<p>For now, try implementing one or two regular habits that could introduce you to new people more often, such as running a useful social media feed or attending or hosting events. Develop some habits to follow up with people you&#8217;d like to stay in touch with, and look for ways to help them out. Test out being involved in a couple of communities.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, there&#8217;s one other major change you can make to greatly improve your connections: changing where you live. Despite the rise of remote working, industries still cluster in certain places: Silicon Valley remains the place to be for software in the West; Boston is the best place for scientific research, including biotech; Taiwan is best for semiconductors; New York and London still dominate finance. In these places it&#8217;s much easier to build professional connections, to meet new people serendipitously, and to find out what they <em>really<\/em> think at the bar after work.<\/p>\n<p>Globally, innovation is concentrated into under 20 mega-regions, which include the region between Paris, Amsterdam, and Munich; from Chicago to Pittsburgh; Greater Tokyo; Southern California; Seoul; the Texas Triangle; Beijing; Shanghai; and Shenzhen to Hong Kong. Economists believe this unusual productivity comes from the clustering of innovators into these regions, allowing for more rapid sharing of ideas, shared infrastructure, and perhaps the associated culture, suggesting that if you move, you&#8217;ll benefit too.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the people we&#8217;ve worked with saw their careers take off after they moved to a hub for the issues we most focus on, especially the San Francisco Bay Area, or Loxbridge (London, Oxford, Cambridge). Besides being in on the gossip, it&#8217;s more inspiring and energising being close to the action.<\/p>\n<p>Moving can be especially good if you don&#8217;t feel a strong fit with the social life in your hometown. However, if you like your current location, it&#8217;s worth remembering that it takes a long time to build up a network of friends, and that you&#8217;ll probably have to leave behind relatives. Since close relationships are perhaps the most important ingredient of fulfillment, this is a big deal. Your location also drives your social life, your day-to-day physical environment, and even how much money you end up with in retirement. One survey of 20,000 people in the US found that satisfaction with their location was a major component of life satisfaction.<\/p>\n<p>So while moving can be a huge boost, we also know many who moved and then moved back. That includes me. After going through Y Combinator in 2015, the 80,000 Hours team moved to the Bay Area in 2016 in order to be part of the tech scene and because we thought it would be better for hiring. But in 2019, we moved back to London, in part due to dissatisfaction with our social lives. Other common reasons to move back are to be <a href=\"https:\/\/forum.effectivealtruism.org\/posts\/ZEWE6K74dmzv7kXHP\/moving-to-a-hub-getting-older-and-heading-home\">closer to your parents<\/a>, especially when starting a family, or just to feel more at home.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in moving cities, first try out living there for a few months \u2014 and include a cooling-off period before moving. Another option would be to move for 1-3 years to make connections, and then move back. It&#8217;s also possible to get many of the benefits just by doing one or two longer visits to a hub per year. If you do make the move, keep in mind it could take several years to really settle in.<\/p>\n<h3><span id=\"best-further-reading-on-networking\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Best further reading on networking<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Chapter 4 of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestartupofyou.com\/\"><em>The Startup of You<\/em><\/a> by the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.adamgrant.net\/give-and-take\"><em>Give and Take<\/em><\/a>, by Professor Adam Grant, is about how the most successful people are those with a giving mindset, in part because it helps them to build more connections.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B00H6JBFOS\/\"><em>Never Eat Alone<\/em><\/a> by Keith Ferrazzi. The tone isn&#8217;t for everyone, but it shares the same approach as the above, and also has lots of tactical tips.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/firstround.com\/review\/how-to-become-insanely-well-connected\/\">How to become insanely well-connected<\/a> is a classic article with great practical networking advice.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bakadesuyo.com\/2017\/02\/how-to-make-friends-as-an-adult\/\">How to make friends as an adult<\/a> is a short essay in <em>Barking Up the Wrong Tree<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>We also enjoyed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.paulgraham.com\/cities.html\">Paul Graham&#8217;s essay<\/a> about how different locations have different vibes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span id=\"9-apply-scientific-research-into-happiness\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>9. Apply scientific research into happiness<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-caption\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/pexels-photo-e1493091107117.jpg\" alt=\"cute pug dog happiness\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\nApparently cute animal photos <a href=\"https:\/\/biologicalsciences.leeds.ac.uk\/school-biomedical-sciences\/news\/article\/273\/what-are-the-health-benefits-of-watching-cute-animals\">make people measurably happier<\/a>, so there you go.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Being happier is not only good in itself, it can also make you more productive, a better advocate for social change, and less likely to burn out. Researchers in the field of &#8216;positive psychology&#8217; \u2014 the science of wellbeing that we introduced in our article on <a href=\"\/career-guide\/job-satisfaction\/\">job satisfaction<\/a> \u2014 have developed practical exercises to make you happier and tested them to see whether they really work. We think this is one of the better places to turn for self-help advice.<\/p>\n<p>In part, this research re-emphasises the fundamentals we&#8217;ve already covered \u2014 sleep, exercise, family and friends, and mental health \u2014 but they&#8217;ve added some other techniques too. Below is a list of recommendations from Professor Martin Seligman, one of the founders of the field, most of which are taken from his book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Flourish-Visionary-Understanding-Happiness-Well-being\/dp\/1439190763\/\"><em>Flourish<\/em><\/a>. In 2020, the largest meta-analysis of positive psychology interventions we&#8217;re aware of found positive effects for all the types of interventions listed. Test them out, and keep using them if they&#8217;re helpful.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Start gratitude journaling.<\/strong> Write down three things you&#8217;re grateful for at the end of each day, and what caused them to happen. Other ways of cultivating gratitude are also good, like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-healing-crowd\/201112\/the-virtual-gratitude-visit-vgv-psychodrama-in-action\">gratitude visit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Learn some basic cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).<\/strong> Even if you don&#8217;t have a mental health issue, CBT can be helpful for emotional management. A simple exercise is <a href=\"https:\/\/iveronicawalsh.wordpress.com\/2012\/04\/15\/the-abc-of-cbt-the-starter-exercisehandout-to-catch-your-negative-thoughts\/\">the ABC of CBT<\/a> which you could do at the end of each day.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Use your signature strengths.<\/strong> Take the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viacharacter.org\/www\/The-Survey\">VIA Character Strengths survey<\/a>, then make sure you use one of your top five strengths each day. <a href=\"\/2016\/02\/how-important-is-finding-a-career-that-matches-your-strengths\/\">Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Craft your job.<\/strong> Often it&#8217;s possible to adapt your job so that it involves more of the satisfying ingredients identified <a href=\"\/career-guide\/job-satisfaction\/\">earlier<\/a>, like <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flow_(psychology)\">&#8216;flow&#8217; states<\/a>, or less of what you don&#8217;t enjoy. It could be as simple as trying to spend more time with a friend at work, or making the tangible effects of your work more obvious. Adam Grant found that having university fundraisers meet someone who had benefited from a scholarship made them dramatically more productive. And job crafting exercises more broadly seem to work. Here&#8217;s a <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2010\/06\/managing-yourself-turn-the-job-you-have-into-the-job-you-want\">practical introduction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Do something kind each day<\/strong>, like donating to charity, giving someone a compliment, or helping someone at work. Random acts of kindness cause a significant boost to the mood of the <em>giver<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Practise &#8216;active constructive responding.&#8217;<\/strong> When someone tells you good news, make a point of responding enthusiastically and authentically, and ask to learn more.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Schedule something you enjoy each day and practice savouring it,<\/strong> whether that&#8217;s your morning coffee, some beautiful music, or a walk in nature.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Try meditating.<\/strong> There&#8217;s a significant amount of evidence from trials that meditation and other mindfulness practices help with wellbeing, stress, mental health, focus, empathy, and more. You can see a review of some of this literature in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.richardjdavidson.com\/altered-traits\"><em>Altered Traits<\/em><\/a> by Goleman and Davidson, as well as some large studies in the footnotes. You can also try to meditate for 20 minutes per day and see if you notice any benefits. The easiest way to try meditation is by using an app, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wakingup.com\/\">Waking Up<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewayapp.com\/\">The Way<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/lochkelly.org\/mindful-glimpses\">Effortless Mindfulness<\/a>. The book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic\/dp\/1609618955\"><em>Mindfulness<\/em><\/a> by Penman and Williams is also a great introduction, organised into an eight-week course similar to &#8216;mindfulness-based stress reduction,&#8217; which has been shown to be effective for managing stress and improving quality of life in clinical trials.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If you&#8217;re up for something more adventurous, replace a holiday with a meditation retreat. Doing a large dose can give you a better indication of what benefits meditation might have for you (though also with <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC9024164\/\">more risk of negative effects<\/a> \u2014 be sure to find a good teacher and stop practicing if it&#8217;s consistently making you feel worse). Personally, meditation is probably the thing that has most increased my wellbeing, but it also took around 1,000 hours of practice before I noticed persisting benefits, so I&#8217;d normally only recommend focusing on it after taking the low hanging fruit in the other parts of this article. If you&#8217;d like to try a retreat, I&#8217;d most recommend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jhourney.io\/\">Jhourney<\/a>, which was founded by an 80,000 Hours reader.<\/p>\n<p>One other habit that can help with all of the above is to <strong>rate your happiness between 1 and 10 at the end of each day.<\/strong> Our memory of what makes us happy <a href=\"\/career-guide\/job-satisfaction\/#where-we-go-wrong\">isn&#8217;t so reliable<\/a>, but by rating your happiness you can build up a more objective picture of what works for you over time. <a href=\"http:\/\/moodscope.com\/\">Moodscope<\/a> is a good tool.<\/p>\n<p>To get more positive psychology exercises, check out the free courses on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clearerthinking.org\/\">Clearer Thinking<\/a>, and read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-How-Happiness-Approach-Getting\/dp\/0143114956\"><i>The How of Happiness<\/i><\/a> by Sonja Lyubomirsky.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"10-use-these-tips-to-save-more-money\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>10. Use these tips to save more money<\/h2>\n<p>We <a href=\"\/2015\/11\/why-everyone-even-our-readers-should-save-enough-to-live-for-6-24-months\/\">recommend<\/a> people save until they have at least six months of &#8216;runway&#8217; \u2014 the length of time you could comfortably live without income, whether by cutting spending or using savings. Ideally this should be 12, but it depends on how long it would take you to find another job. Besides the extra security, a long enough runway will give you the flexibility to consider big career changes, navigate turbulent times, and take risks.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to your runway, the conventional advice is to work towards saving about 15% of your income for retirement. The possibility of AGI arriving in the next decade <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamintodd.substack.com\/p\/how-can-an-ordinary-person-prepare\">might actually <em>increase<\/em><\/a> the importance of saving money. If mass automation happens, your career might not last as long as you&#8217;d thought, investment returns could be very high for a period, and new technologies (and therefore new goods) might arrive sooner than expected.<\/p>\n<p>So how can you go about saving money? To begin with, make it automatic. Set up a direct payment to flow directly from your main account to a savings account after you get paid so you never notice having the money in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Next, focus on big wins. Instead of constantly scrimping (don&#8217;t buy that latte!), identify one or two areas of your budget you could reduce that would have a big effect. In many cases cutting rent by moving somewhere smaller and cheaper, or sharing a house with someone else, is the best thing you can do to make large savings. Until you have six months of runway, cut your charitable donations back to 1%.<\/p>\n<p>A different strategy is to move somewhere fun and cheap temporarily. This is easier than ever due to the rise of remote work. It&#8217;s still possible to rent a nice apartment with a pool for $500 per month in Chiang Mai.<\/p>\n<p>While doing the above, beware of swapping money for time. Suppose you could save $100 per month by moving somewhere more affordable \u2014 but you&#8217;d be adding an hour to your commute. Instead, maybe you could spend that time working, making you more likely to get promoted or earn extra wages. You&#8217;d only need to earn an extra $5 an hour to break even. It might also be more effective to focus on earning more than spending less, especially by <a href=\"\/career-guide\/how-to-get-a-job\/#stage-3-negotiation\">negotiating your salary<\/a>. This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clearerthinking.org\/tools\/value-of-your-time-calculator\">tool<\/a> can help you quantify the value of your time in dollars.<\/p>\n<p>For more advice on how to save money, many of our readers have found the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/FIRE_movement\">financial independence retire early (FIRE) community<\/a> and the blog <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mrmoneymustache.com\/\">Mr. Money Mustache<\/a> helpful. For more reading on personal finance for people who want to donate to charity, see this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.benkuhn.net\/giving-101\">introductory guide<\/a> and this <a href=\"http:\/\/reducing-suffering.org\/advanced-tips-on-personal-finance\/\">advanced guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"11-use-research-into-decision-making-to-think-better\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>11. Use research into decision-making to think better<\/h2>\n<figure class= \"wp-caption\">\n<img src= \"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/pasted-image-0-3.png\" alt=\"SMBC comic, chance of death flying vs driving\"\/><figcaption class= \"wp-caption-text\">\n<a href = \"http:\/\/www.smbc-comics.com\/comic\/2010-12-01\">Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal<\/a><br \/>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Why do so many smart people make so many dumb decisions? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/09\/18\/opinion\/sunday\/the-difference-between-rationality-and-intelligence.html\">Research suggests<\/a> intelligence and rationality are distinct. You can be great at solving narrow problems, but bad at making decisions in real-life situations. Fortunately, the same research has shown that of the two, rationality is easier to train.<\/p>\n<p>Having more accurate beliefs and making good decisions are two of the most important meta-skills, because they&#8217;re what you use to figure out everything else. They&#8217;re even more important if you want to have a positive impact on the world: it&#8217;s hard to know which ways of helping are actually best, and all strategies will involve some judgement calls, but at the same time, there are huge differences in the impact of different paths. That means the more reliable your judgement, the more likely you are to find the most impactful options. So how can you improve it?<\/p>\n<p>Beyond <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-decision\/\">our discussion<\/a> of what cognitive psychology has learned about improving decision-making, here&#8217;s another line of fascinating research by Philip Tetlock, a professor of psychology. For years, Tetlock tracked the predictions pundits made in the media about current events, such as who would win elections, or whether Russia would invade Ukraine. He found that most pundits couldn&#8217;t predict these kinds of events better than chance. However, he identified a minority who were much better than average. He dubbed those individuals &#8216;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Superforecasting-Science-Prediction-Philip-Tetlock\/dp\/0804136696\">superforecasters<\/a>.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Tetlock identified the traits that make someone a good forecaster, then developed a training programme to teach others those skills. He tested the training programme to prove it made people measurably better at making forecasts. So what did he learn? Broadly, getting better judgement is a matter of having the right <em>mindset<\/em>, building the right <em>habits<\/em> of thinking, and <em>practice<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>On mindset, Tetlock concluded that the people with the best judgement tended to have a &#8216;fox&#8217; thinking style: they considered many different points of view, were cautious and humble about what they knew, and saw their beliefs as hypotheses to test. In contrast, many pundits were &#8216;hedgehogs&#8217;: they had a single worldview and applied it to every question. To start developing this mindset, we&#8217;d recommend the book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Scout-Mindset-People-Things-Clearly-ebook\/dp\/B07L2HQ26K\/\"><em>Scout Mindset<\/em><\/a> by Julia Galef.<\/p>\n<p>Being aware of the <a href=\"\/articles\/4-biases-to-avoid-in-career-decisions\/\">many biases<\/a> that compromise our thinking can be helpful, but research has also shown awareness alone is not sufficient \u2014 we need better habits of thinking. Tetlock also found that the best forecasters would typically break questions down into smaller, easier ones. They would often start with a &#8216;base rate&#8217; forecast (based on what&#8217;s happened most often in the past), and then adjust from there by considering what was unique about the situation. Rather than restrict themselves to &#8216;rigorous&#8217; evidence like scientific studies, they&#8217;d consider any kind of evidence, but they&#8217;d weigh it by its strength.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;d also consider the question from many angles and find an average across the different perspectives. For example, if one expert believes a risk is 90% likely, while another believes it&#8217;s 1% likely, the best forecasters would go for somewhere in the middle, depending on how much they trusted each opinion. To consider many perspectives, it helps to be a generalist: to have a little knowledge about a wide range of fields. Former 80,000 Hours staff member Peter McIntyre created a list of key concepts, which you can receive via a <a href=\"http:\/\/conceptually.org\/\">weekly email<\/a>. It&#8217;s particularly important to understand basic statistics and decision analysis, since the best forecasters often think quantitatively. A great book about how to take a rational approach to messy problems is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business\/dp\/1118539273\/\"><em>How to Measure Anything<\/em><\/a> by Douglas Hubbard.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, and most importantly, is practice. Most people are overconfident about their predictions. If they say it is 80% likely that the answer to a question falls within a specific range, they&#8217;re only correct about half to two-thirds of the time. However, studies have found that just an hour of &#8216;calibration training&#8217; can significantly reduce this problem. You can do this with an online tool, such as <a href=\"openphilanthropy.org\/calibration\">Coefficient Giving&#8217;s Calibration quiz<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To further improve, make predictions relevant to your own life, and track them using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fatebook.io\/\">Fate Book<\/a>. Or try participating in a forecasting competition or platform, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.metaculus.com\/\">Metaculus<\/a>, which will let you measure your accuracy over time. We also have a longer article about <a href=\"\/2020\/09\/good-judgement\/\">improving your judgement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Forecasting and decision-making are just one aspect of the broader project of thinking well, but they&#8217;re especially useful because they&#8217;re measurable. Personally, when I need to think more clearly about a topic, I find the most useful technique is to write about it. GiveWell and Open Philanthropy founder, Holden Karnofsky, has written a guide to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cold-takes.com\/learning-by-writing\/\">learning through writing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"12-learn-how-to-learn\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>12. Learn how to learn<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_81772\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-81772\" style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Forgetting curve graph showing retention drops from 100% to 60% over 3 days without review, but stays above 80% with spaced daily repetition\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1449\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81772\" srcset=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-1024x579.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-768x435.jpg 768w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-1536x869.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ForgettingCurve-2048x1159.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-81772\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spaced repetition learning takes advantage of the forgetting curve.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Many people have spent thousands of hours driving, but that doesn&#8217;t make them expert drivers. Why not? One explanation comes from K. Anders Ericsson, whose research on expertise we introduced in <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-capital\/\">our article on career capital<\/a>. Ericsson argues that expertise depends not so much on how many hours a person has spent doing a task, but how many hours they&#8217;ve spent doing <em>deliberate practice<\/em>, which can be characterised according to the following four factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Specific goals focused on improving your weaknesses and trying new techniques<\/li>\n<li>Intense focus on the task that feels both effortful and a little uncomfortable<\/li>\n<li>Rapid feedback on how well you&#8217;re performing<\/li>\n<li>A good coach or teacher <\/li>\n<li>Progressively increasing difficulty of tasks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On a typical drive to the supermarket, none of these ingredients are present, which is why you don&#8217;t get better at driving. Becoming an expert driver requires putting yourself into increasingly challenging situations that stretch your abilities. The same turns out to be true for work. In our article on <a href=\"\/career-guide\/personal-fit\/\">personal fit<\/a>, we saw that the correlation between years of experience and job performance is very weak. One explanation is that people rapidly improve in their first couple of years while they&#8217;re being stretched, but eventually they can basically do the job, and their skills stop progressing.<\/p>\n<p>Ericsson&#8217;s research is summarised in his fascinating (if polemical) book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise-ebook\/dp\/B011H56MKS\">Peak<\/a>. While many researchers in the field think his claims about practice being the <em>sole<\/em> determinant of expertise are overstated, pretty much everyone agrees that deliberate practice is very useful for gaining skills. This suggests that rather than just carrying out your work in the normal way, you can learn a lot faster by seeking out the above five conditions.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s often hard to hit all of the five criteria in real-life situations, but you can still modify your normal work to get a bit closer. This approach has been called deliberate performance. Here are a couple of exercises from the literature:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Experimentation: Rather than carrying out your work the same way every time, try out different techniques. For example, if you want to improve your public speaking, get advice on common techniques and try one each time you give a talk.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Debugging: When you encounter a problem (or even just a near-miss) try to come up with an explanation of what went wrong, or ask an expert. For instance, after giving a talk, ask your boss about why the audience seemed to lose interest on a particular slide.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Estimation: Estimate how long different tasks will take, and check your accuracy. For example, how long will it take you to write the script for a talk? How long will it take to deliver the introduction? This helps to improve your mental models of how the activity works.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Deliberate practice and performance are easiest in more predictable domains where standardised training techniques exist, such as in chess or sports. In less predictable fields, like disaster response or business strategy, every situation is different, which means there&#8217;s less correlation between practice and performance. However, even in these fields, experts can build better intuitive, tacit knowledge of how to do the task. What&#8217;s crucial in either case is spending time with experts in the field and seeing lots of real cases. If you&#8217;re not able to find an expert mentor, you can ask AI to act as a tutor and get some of the benefits.<\/p>\n<p>There are other ways to learn much faster than the normal defaults, such as spaced repetition. If you&#8217;re trying to memorise something, like a word in a foreign language, research shows that there&#8217;s an optimal frequency to review the word. If you use this frequency, you&#8217;ll be able to memorise much faster. There are tools that can help you with this, like <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.ankiweb.net\/\">Anki<\/a>, which lets you make your own flashcards.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/forgetting-curve.png\" alt=\"Forgetting curve\"><\/p>\n<p>For more study techniques, our top recommendation is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coursera.org\/learn\/learning-how-to-learn\"><em>Learning How to Learn<\/em><\/a> course on Coursera by Professor Barbara Oakley, which is among the most viewed online courses of all time. You could also read the book it&#8217;s based on, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mind-Numbers-Science-Flunked-Algebra\/dp\/039916524\"><em>A Mind for Numbers<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Learning rapidly is another area where the 80\/20 principle applies. When I was working through a Chinese textbook at a university in Beijing, I found all kinds of random topics (one day we studied the special interior decoration of the train to Tibet). But the top 1000 Chinese words account for about three quarters of daily usage, so it&#8217;s better to learn the most common words first. I was a bit obsessive about Chinese food, so even more useful (for me at least) was studying the words that were most likely to appear on menus. More broadly, I wanted to be able to travel and chat in Chinese, so deliberate practice in my case meant actually speaking Chinese out loud rather than studying in a classroom.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"13-be-strategic-about-how-you-use-your-time-at-work\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>13. Be strategic about how you use your time at work<\/h2>\n<p>Just as some of your goals will produce much bigger results than others, and some things you could learn will have far more application than others, it&#8217;s probably the case that in your job, a minority of tasks will do far more to determine your success than others.<\/p>\n<p>A salesperson is judged by the revenue they bring in, an academic by the number of quality papers they publish, and a YouTuber by their view counts. This means you can often advance a lot faster and have more impact by identifying and focusing on the tasks that drive those key results. An entrepreneur who builds their product and gets feedback from real users will make more progress than one who does lots of conferences and media, even if the second works longer hours. Working harder helps, especially in &#8216;winner-takes-all&#8217; situations, but you should only work harder after first taking all of the steps available to work smarter.<\/p>\n<p>In order to figure out which activities are crucial to focus on, talk to people who have succeeded in your chosen path. Don&#8217;t just trust what they tell you \u2014 work out what they actually did to get ahead. Once you&#8217;ve identified all of these activities, use the advice from the sections on productivity and learning how to learn to get them done as well as possible.<\/p>\n<p>The advice above applies to situations where your impact comes directly from carrying out your work, or when you&#8217;re trying to build your career capital in a path, but what about situations where your impact is more indirect?<\/p>\n<p>Imagine you work in government. There will be hundreds of policy ideas you could work on, but for all of the reasons we&#8217;ve seen in <a href=\"\/career-guide\/\">the guide<\/a>, some of these will probably be massively more impactful than others. What your boss wants you to work on, however, may not line up with the policies you think are most impactful. This suggests the following strategy: spend most of your time focused on doing whatever your boss (or other seniors) cares about most, but with 20% of your time, make a bid to work on what you think will be most impactful. Doing what your boss wants advances your career and gives you the workplace capital needed to make requests later, but if that 20% is well-targeted, you can still have an outsized impact, perhaps even achieving the majority of what you could have achieved with 100% of your time.<\/p>\n<p>A similar dynamic often applies in media careers, like journalism. The demands of the market mean that most of the stories you write won&#8217;t be on the topics you think are most important. But succeeding conventionally can enable you to spend 20% of your time writing about genuinely novel and neglected stories.<\/p>\n<p>Further reading: check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/join.ingeniumcourses.com\/topperformer\/\"><em>Top Performer<\/em> course<\/a> by Cal Newport and Scott Young, as well as their other writing, including <a href=\"http:\/\/calnewport.com\/books\/so-good\/\"><em>So Good They Can&#8217;t Ignore You<\/em><\/a>, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170405184713\/https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/16\/career-stuck\/\">Why most people get stuck in their careers<\/a>,&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170405184827\/https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/lesson-2-four-principles\/\">Four principles for decoding career success in your field<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"14-become-an-expert\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>14. Become an expert<\/h2>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve worked on the basics, become more productive, learned how to learn, and figured out where to focus in your job, an endgame would be becoming an expert in a valuable skill and using that expertise to tackle a meaningful problem. While most of the steps above are things you might focus on for a few months or a year, this is a life-long task.<\/p>\n<p>So how should you choose what expertise to focus on? First, if you&#8217;re going to put a decade plus of work into something, you&#8217;ll want to pick an area of expertise that&#8217;s valuable. Hopefully our <a href=\"\/career-guide\/most-valuable-skills-AI\/\">advice on valuable skills<\/a> gives you some ideas for this.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t necessarily mean becoming a specialist in a single narrow topic. Our article talks about which <em>combinations<\/em> of skills are valuable, and you can also become an expert in being a generalist. Many roles, such as those involved in running organisations, require people who are well-rounded and understand each part of the organisation. As a researcher, knowing about several fields can help you spot new ideas. Communicators, grantmakers, and policy makers also often need medium-depth knowledge of a wide range of areas in order to spot the best ideas.<\/p>\n<p>Second, you&#8217;ll want to choose an area where you have a reasonable shot at actually attaining expertise. We saw in the <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-capital\/\">career capital article<\/a> that this requires a mixture of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Personal fit<\/li>\n<li>Deliberate practice<\/li>\n<li>Good timing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s unlikely that you can fully predict this ahead of time, so you will need to try out different areas and see what works. Once you&#8217;re on a path, try to set up the best possible conditions for practice, as covered in section 12, including mentorship and rapid feedback. Then practice as much as you can.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that sets true experts apart is their ability to make creative contributions. We&#8217;d love for there to be better recommendations on this topic, but here are two books where you can learn more:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Originals-How-Non-Conformists-Move-World\/dp\/014312885X\"><em>Originals<\/em><\/a> by Professor Adam Grant<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wired-Create-Unraveling-Mysteries-Creative\/dp\/0399175660\"><em>Wired to Create<\/em><\/a> by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span id=\"15-become-a-better-person\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>15. Become a better person<\/h2>\n<p>Nothing listed here is worth much unless you use it for good ends. But it&#8217;s not always easy to act virtuously.<\/p>\n<p>Becoming a better person means getting clearer about what you value and trying to live your life more in line with those values. In the section on setting goals, we introduced some ways to reflect on what your ideal life looks like, but don&#8217;t limit yourself to self-reflection. People have thought about these questions for millennia, and it&#8217;s worthwhile to learn about these ideas at some point. This means being familiar with basic moral philosophy. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Being-Good-Short-Introduction-Ethics\/dp\/0192853775\"><em>Being Good<\/em><\/a> by Simon Blackburn is a good introduction. You may also want to explore some of the major spiritual traditions.<\/p>\n<p>While our career guide focuses primarily on the question of what ends to strive for, most spiritual and moral traditions place great emphasis on another part of leading a good life: the development of <em>character<\/em>. By this I mean the habits of behaviour that support a flourishing life, such as kindness, courage, curiosity, humility, respect of important norms, and integrity. In the early 2000s, a group of psychologists set out to study the character strengths that were valued by different moral traditions and found that many converged on the same ones. They made a list of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.viacharacter.org\/character-strengths\">24 key character strengths<\/a>, which they grouped into wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.<\/p>\n<p>Many of these strengths help us overcome the human tendency to do what&#8217;s easy in the short run at the expense of what&#8217;s best in the long run. Asking your boss for feedback could save you a lot of time, but requires enough courage and humility to overcome the short-term sting of finding out you&#8217;re not doing as well as you thought.<\/p>\n<p>But rather than being courageous a single time, you could make courage part of your character, turning it into a habit and a part of your identity that becomes deep-rooted and automatic.<\/p>\n<p>In the book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Road-Character-David-Brooks\/dp\/0812983416\"><em>The Road to Character<\/em><\/a>, David Brooks explores how character was pivotal in the success of historical figures, such as George Marshall, whose exceptional trustworthiness enabled him to end up coordinating a large part of the Allied War effort in WW2.<\/p>\n<p>These character virtues are also vital for working with others. If you get a reputation for dishonesty, it will harm your impact because people won&#8217;t trust you. And if you&#8217;re part of <a href=\"\/career-guide\/community\/\">a community<\/a>, the consequences could be far worse:  you might undermine trust within that community and damage its reputation with outsiders.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a significant literature in game theory and evolutionary psychology showing that cooperative behaviours can benefit both the individual and the group. In the 1980s, the political scientist Robert Axelrod designed a competition where contestants would play repeated games of &#8216;prisoner&#8217;s dilemma&#8217; against each other. This is a game where you can either choose to cooperate or defect. It&#8217;s designed so that from an individual perspective, the best option is to defect, but if both parties overcome that to cooperate, they can achieve an even better joint outcome.<\/p>\n<p>Each entrant to the competition wrote an algorithm for how their player would respond to other players. Axelrod shows that the strategies that did best were those that tried to cooperate first, but had a backup plan: if someone defected against them, they&#8217;d give the defector one chance to change their ways before they&#8217;d defect back. In other words, be kind to strangers, be forgiving, but don&#8217;t tolerate those who try to exploit you. These strategies not only enabled each individual to maximise their score, but also made it easy for others to maximise their own. (I explore this more in our <a href=\"\/articles\/coordination\/\">article on coordination<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Cultivating character is especially important if you&#8217;re going to seek influential positions to maximise your impact. The more influence you get, the more tempted you&#8217;ll be to do something unethical in order to preserve your power. Resisting this temptation when it most matters requires you to build up your character when the temptations are less intense.<\/p>\n<p>Many moral traditions claim that upholding positive character traits is inherently good, whether or not it leads to better consequences. But even utilitarian philosophers \u2014 who argue all that matters in the final accounting is how much you help others \u2014 have long argued that behaving virtuously tends to lead to better outcomes. You can find a modern version of this argument in &#8220;<a href=\"doi.org\/10.4324\/9781003301424-11\">Virtues for real world utilitarians<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So how can you build character? This brings us back to where we started. At their simplest, character traits are habits that have become so ingrained as to become automatic. That means you can build them in the same way you&#8217;d build other habits. For instance, to develop an honest character, practice being more honest in small stakes situations each day and by surrounding yourself with unusually honest people.<\/p>\n<p>It can help to be part of a community with an explicitly moral focus. I&#8217;ve been involved in effective altruism, but also in secular Buddhist communities. You can explore whether that&#8217;s of interest in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLXOkY5npSnhW3y48nDl9tTnWSUfp8TlF-\"><em>Buddhism and Modern Psychology<\/em><\/a> by Robert Wright and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion-ebook\/dp\/B00GEEB9YC\/\"><em>Waking Up<\/em><\/a> by Sam Harris. The book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Altered-Traits-Science-Reveals-Meditation-ebook\/dp\/B01N3BUE70\"><em>Altered Traits<\/em><\/a> also explores the evidence that certain meditation practices can increase compassion and your ability to act virtuously.<\/p>\n<p>Emotional triggers may also prevent you from being your best self, so you may want to return to the section on mental health. But this time the aim isn&#8217;t only to address a specific mental health issue, but rather to reduce how often you get emotionally triggered, and how well you&#8217;re able to deal with it when you are. Therapies in the tradition of CBT have several tools for this, including exposure therapy to triggering situations and memories (which reduces how much they activate), examining unconstructive beliefs behind your triggers, developing better awareness of your emotions, building habits that help you self-regulate, and strengthening your communication skills. Two resources aimed at helping successful people develop these kinds of skills are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/15-Commitments-Conscious-Leadership-Sustainable\/dp\/0990976904\"><em>The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership<\/em><\/a> (which I&#8217;ve found helpful, though I don&#8217;t agree with all their advice), and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofaccomplishment.com\/\">Art of Accomplishment<\/a> (which has been recommended to me by several people).<\/p>\n<p>One exercise is to pick one character strength or emotional management habit each quarter to focus on building. But occasionally, really challenge yourself: change jobs to help others, give more, or take a stand for an unpopular issue. Try setting yourself one big moral challenge each year.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"the-compounding-benefits-of-investing-in-yourself\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>The compounding benefits of investing in yourself<\/h2>\n<p>People <a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-capital\/\">keep improving their skills for decades<\/a>. So even if you&#8217;re not in the ideal job right now, know there&#8217;s still a huge amount you can do to make yourself happier, more productive, and better placed to have a positive impact on the world. These won&#8217;t always be overnight fixes, but you&#8217;ll be surprised by how quickly small adjustments snowball to produce dramatic effects.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n      Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest. Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works 10% more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>      <cite>Richard Hamming, <i><a href='https:\/\/archive.ph\/QK2H7\/'>You and Your Research<\/a><\/i><\/cite>\n    <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you apply the material on productivity and learning how to learn, you can learn everything else on the list. Apply the material on positive psychology and you&#8217;ll be happier, which helps you be more productive. If you surround yourself with supportive people, that helps with everything else too. In this way, over the years, you can grow far beyond where you are today and achieve much more than you might first think. So pick an area and get started.<\/p>\n<div class=\"panel clearfix \">\n<h2><span id=\"put-into-practice\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Put into practice <\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Of the 15 areas in this article, which one seems most useful for you to focus on right now?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are 1\u20133 small ways you could improve in that area?<\/strong> When and where will you do them?<\/li>\n<li><strong>When will you next review what personal development topic to focus on?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcsweeneys.net\/articles\/my-fully-optimized-life-allows-me-ample-time-to-optimize-yours\"><strong>Take a break<\/strong><\/a> by learning about how we turned this advice into our daily routine.<\/p>\n<div class=\"well bg-gray-lighter margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<h2 class=\"no_toc\"><small>Read next:<\/small> Part 10: How to make your career plan<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"\/career-guide\/career-planning\/\" class=\"btn btn-primary\">Continue &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Or <a href=\"\/career-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">see an overview<\/a> of the whole career guide.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"well visible-if-not-newsletter-subscriber margin-bottom margin-top padding-top-small padding-bottom-small\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-7 col-lg-7 margin-top-smallest pr-sm-0\">\n<h2><span id=\"join-our-newsletter-to-get-the-guide\" class=\"toc-anchor\"><\/span>Join our newsletter to get the guide<\/h2>\n<p class=\"margin-bottom-smaller\">Get started planning a career tackling the world&#8217;s most pressing problems. <\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll never share your email, and you can unsubscribe in one click.\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-sm-5 col-lg-5 hidden-xs pl-0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/at_book_screen.png\" alt=\"The 80,000 Hours career guide\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<form data-80k-object-id=\"\" data-80k-form-action=\"newsletter__subscribe\" action=\"\/\" method=\"post\" class=\"form-newsletter-signup form-newsletter-signup-step-1 margin-bottom-smallest margin-top-smaller\">\n<div class=\"mc-field-group input-group compact-input-group input-width-xl\"> <input type=\"email\" value=\"\" name=\"email\" required class=\"form-control email\" placeholder=\"Email address\" id=\"input_email\" pattern=\"[a-zA-Z0-9._+\\-]+@(?!(gmial\\.com|gnail\\.com|gmai\\.com|gmal\\.com|gmali\\.com|gamil\\.com|gmail\\.co|gmail\\.con|gmail\\.om|yahooo\\.com|yaho\\.com|outlok\\.com|outloo\\.com|hotmial\\.com|hotmail\\.con|hmail\\.com|yopmail\\.com|discardmail\\.com)$)[a-zA-Z0-9.\\-]+\\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}\" title=\"Please enter a valid email address (e.g. user@example.com)\" > <span class=\"submit input-group-btn input-group-btn-right\"> <input type=\"submit\" id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" value=\"GET THE FREE GUIDE\" class=\"btn btn-primary \" \/> <\/span> <\/div>\n<div> <input name=\"_eightyk_action\" value=\"mailchimp_add_subscriber\" type=\"hidden\"> <input name=\"redirect_path_after_step_2\" value=\"\/newsletter\/welcome\/\" type=\"hidden\"> <\/div>\n<div style=\"position: absolute; left: -5000px;\"> <input type=\"text\" name=\"b_abc12f58bbe8075560abdc5b7_43bc1ae55c\" tabindex=\"-1\" value=\"\"> <\/div>\n<\/form>\n<p class=\"center-align\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":94213,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[fn 1]\r\n\r\nThis research is covered in the book [*Rethinking Positive Thinking*](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Rethinking-Positive-Thinking-Science-Motivation\/dp\/1617230235) by Gabriele Oettingen, published 10 November 2015. You can see a popular summary in [*The New York Times*](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/10\/26\/opinion\/sunday\/the-problem-with-positive-thinking.html). Oettingen actually finds that also thinking about how you're most likely to *fail* makes you more likely to achieve your goals, so in a sense *negative* thinking is more effective in this context. However, there are other senses in which positive thinking is helpful. CBT, as we cover in this article, is based on the idea that many mental health problems are caused by unhelpful beliefs, which can be changed by disputing them, and other techniques. So \"positive thinking\" can work, but it depends on exactly what you mean and what the context is.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 2]\r\n\r\n>But, there's this other group of givers that I call \"otherish.\" They are concerned about benefiting others, but they also keep their own interests in the rearview mirror. They will look for ways to help others that are either low cost to themselves or even high benefit to themselves, i.e., \"win-win,\" as opposed to win-lose. Here's the irony. The selfless givers might be more altruistic, in principle, because they are constantly elevating other people's interests ahead of their own. But my data, and research by lots of others, show that they're actually less generous because they run out of energy, they run out of time and they lose their resources, because they basically don't take enough care of themselves. The \"otherish\" givers are able to sustain their giving by looking for ways that giving can hurt them less or benefit them more.\r\n\r\nFrom an interview with Adam Grant, by Wharton, where he summarises his research. [Archived link](http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170406170758\/http:\/\/knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu\/article\/givers-vs-takers-the-surprising-truth-about-who-gets-ahead\/), retrieved 6 April 2017.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nYou can find more detail in his book [*Give and Take*](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Give-Take-Helping-Others-Success\/dp\/0143124986), published 25 March 2014.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 3]\r\n\r\nWe think it's common sense that health, diet, exercise, and relationships all matter a great deal to day-to-day happiness. We've also reviewed the literature on positive psychology [here](https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/job-satisfaction-research\/) and think the evidence is in favour of this idea (especially the importance of close relationships), or at least doesn't contradict it. There is also research specifically about the impact of sleep on mood.\r\n\r\nNote that we haven't seen good direct evidence that a healthy diet improves mood, but we find it hard to believe that it doesn't improve health and energy, which will improve mood over the long term.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 4] \r\n\r\nDifferent surveys give different results, but 30% seems like a reasonable ballpark. For instance, the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) says that 30.6% of 18- to 25-year-olds and 25.3% of 26- to 49-year-olds have \"any mental illness.\"\r\n<br>\r\n\r\n[Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230228170726\/https:\/\/www.nimh.nih.gov\/health\/statistics\/mental-illness), retrieved 28 February 2023.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nThe NIMH also finds that 17% of people aged 18\u201325 experienced a major depressive incident in the last 12 months, compared to only 5.4% for those above 50.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n\r\n\r\n[Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230308132420\/https:\/\/www.nimh.nih.gov\/health\/statistics\/major-depression), retrieved 8 March 2023.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 5]\r\n\r\nThe following major study published in *The Lancet* found the top-five causes of ill health (measured by percentage of disability-adjusted life years) were, among 25- to 49-year-olds:\r\n\r\n* Road injuries (5.1%)\r\n* HIV\/AIDS (4.8%)\r\n* Ischaemic heart disease (4.7%)\r\n* Low back pain (3.9%)\r\n* Headache disorders (3.7%)\r\n .\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nSee Figure 2, \"Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990\u20132019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019,\" [Link](https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(20)30925-9\/fulltext).\r\n\r\n\r\nAccording to [the US government](https:\/\/www.hiv.gov\/hiv-basics\/overview\/data-and-trends\/global-statistics\/):\r\n\r\n> The vast majority of people with HIV are in low- and middle-income countries. In 2021, there were 20.6 million people with HIV (53%) in eastern and southern Africa, 5 million (13%) in western and central Africa, 6 million (15%) in Asia and the Pacific, and 2.3 million (5%) in Western and Central Europe and North America.\r\n\r\nAnd according to [the NHS](https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/coronary-heart-disease\/causes\/):\r\n\r\n> Coronary heart disease (CHD) is usually caused by a build-up of fatty deposits (atheroma) on the walls of the arteries around the heart (coronary arteries). The build-up of atheroma makes the arteries narrower, restricting the flow of blood to the heart muscle. This process is called atherosclerosis. Your risk of developing atherosclerosis is significantly increased if you: smoke, have high blood pressure (hypertension), have high cholesterol, have high levels of lipoprotein (a), do not exercise regularly, have diabetes.\r\n\r\nWhile, for back pain, according to [the NHS](https:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/back-pain\/):\r\n\r\n> Back pain can have many causes. It's not always obvious what causes it, and it often gets better on its own.\r\n\r\n\r\nThis suggests that if you're not hit by a vehicle, don't live in a developing country, and don't have any of the major factors associated with ischaemic heart disease, the biggest risk to your health during your working life is low back pain.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n[fn 7]\r\n\r\n>In his 2007 study, Grant and a team of researchers arranged for one group of call center workers to interact with scholarship students who were the recipients of the school's fundraising largess. It wasn't a long meeting \u2014 just a five-minute session where the workers were able to ask the student about his or her studies. But over the next month, that little chat made a big difference. The call center was able to monitor both the amount of time its employees spent on the phone and the amount of donation dollars they brought in. A month later, callers who had interacted with the scholarship student spent more than two times as many minutes on the phone, and brought in vastly more money: a weekly average of $503.22, up from $185.94.\r\n\r\n*Putting a Face to a Name: The Art of Motivating Employees*, by Wharton, 2010, [Archived link](http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170405233236\/http:\/\/knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu\/article\/putting-a-face-to-a-name-the-art-of-motivating-employees\/), retrieved 5 April 2017.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\n>In summary, our intervention provided callers with an opportunity to spend 10 min interacting respectfully with only one beneficiary of their work. One month later, over the course of 1 week, these callers spent significantly more time on the phone, and secured significantly more donation money, than their counterparts who read a letter by the beneficiary or had no exposure to the beneficiary. Further, the persistence and performance of the callers in the control conditions did not change, whereas callers in the intervention condition spent 2.42 times as many minutes on the phone, and secured 2.71 times as much money, as they had before the intervention. It appears that our small manipulation caused a large difference in caller motivation.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nAdam Grant, Elizabeth M. Campbell, Grace Chen, Keenan Cottone, David Lapedis, Karen Lee (2007), \"Impact and the art of motivation maintenance: The effects of contact with beneficiaries on persistence behavior,\" *Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103*(1), 53-67. [Archived link](http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170406000932\/https:\/\/faculty.wharton.upenn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/GrantCampbellChenCottoneLapedisLee_ImpactAndArt.pdf), published May 2007.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 8]\r\n\r\nThe researchers don't think this effect is caused by the fact that happy people tend to hang out with other happy people \u2014 they used a couple of smart techniques to separate causation from correlation. Negative behaviours like smoking spread in a similar way. Our guess is that who you spend time with is a major factor in your personal growth and character.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br> \r\nFowler, James H., and Nicholas A. Christakis. \"Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study.\" *BMJ* 337 (2008): a2338. [Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160322091059\/http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/337\/bmj.a2338.short), retrieved 22 March 2016.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 9]\r\n\r\n>The world's 10 largest mega-regions in terms of LRP house\r\nonly about 416 million people, or 6.5 percent of the world's population, but account for 42.8\r\npercent of economic activity ($13.4 trillion), 56.6 percent of patented innovations, and 55.6\r\npercent of the most-cited scientists.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\nFlorida, Richard, Tim Gulden, and Charlotta Mellander. \"The rise of the mega-region.\" *Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society* 1.3 (2008): 459-476. [Archived link](http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170406002740\/https:\/\/static.sys.kth.se\/itm\/wp\/cesis\/cesiswp129.pdf), retrieved April-2017.\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 10]\r\n\r\n>The correlation coefficients between overall happiness and various factors are as follows: financial satisfaction (.369), job satisfaction (.367), and place satisfaction (.303). Compare with income (.153), home-ownership (.126), and age (.06).\r\n\r\n<br>\r\nThis research is covered in *Who's Your City?* by Richard Florida. [Link](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Whos-Your-City-Creative-Important\/dp\/0465018092), published 30 June 2009.\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\nWe're not aware of much other research into the importance of location in life satisfaction, so we only have weak confidence in these correlation coefficients.\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\nThis book is also the source for the claim that three-quarters of US entertainers and performers live in LA.\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 11]\r\n\r\n>David Deming, associate professor of education and economics at Harvard University, argues that soft skills like sharing and negotiating will be crucial. He says the modern workplace, where people move between different roles and projects, closely resembles pre-school classrooms, where we learn social skills such as empathy and cooperation.\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n>Deming has mapped the changing needs of employers and identified key skills that will be required to thrive in the job market of the near future. Along with those soft skills, mathematical ability will be enormously beneficial.\r\n \r\nReported by the World Economic Forum, Sept 2016, [Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170406003528\/https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/agenda\/2016\/09\/jobs-of-future-and-skills-you-need\/), retrieved 5 April 2017. See the original paper: D. J. Deming, \"The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market,\" Harvard University and NBER, August 2016, [Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170413234103\/http:\/\/scholar.harvard.edu\/files\/ddeming\/files\/deming_socialskills_aug16.pdf), retrieved 13-April-2017. \r\n\r\nSee more detail in our [full analysis of which skills are most useful](https:\/\/80000hours.org\/articles\/skills-most-employable\/).\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 12]\r\n\r\n> Professor Morewedge and colleagues found that the computer training led to statistically large and enduring decreases in decision-making bias. In other words, the subjects were considerably less biased after training, even after two months. The decreases were larger for the subjects who received the computer training than for those who received the video training (though decreases were also sizable for the latter group). While there is scant evidence that any sort of \"brain training\" has any real-world impact on intelligence, it may well be possible to train people to be more rational in their decision making.\" \r\n\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nDavid Hambrick and Alexander Burgoyne, \"The Difference Between Rationality and Intelligence,\" September 16, 2016, *The New York Times*,\r\n[Link](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/09\/18\/opinion\/sunday\/the-difference-between-rationality-and-intelligence.html).\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 13]\r\n\r\nEricsson shows that world-class performance usually requires 10 to 30 years of focused practice. It's debated whether this level of practice is enough to guarantee expertise, but everyone agrees that it's usually always *necessary* for expertise. More practice is required in more established, competitive domains.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nEricsson's research is summarised here:\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nEricsson, K. Anders, et al., eds. *The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance.* Cambridge University Press, 2006.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nOr see the excellent, popular summary by the same author, <em>Peak.<\/em> ([Amazon link](http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise\/dp\/0544456238))\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nHere's a popular review by Scott Barry Kaufman that points out some of the limits of deliberate practice: \"The Complexity of Greatness,\" *Scientific American*, [Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160607122217\/http:\/\/blogs.scientificamerican.com\/beautiful-minds\/the-complexity-of-greatness-beyond-talent-or-practice\/).\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nThis meta-analysis also found that deliberate practice explains a small amount of the variation in performance in professions and education. It also explains more variation in performance in predictable areas rather than unpredictable ones.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nMacnamara, Brooke N., David Z. Hambrick, and Frederick L. Oswald. \"Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions; a meta-analysis.\" *Psychological Science* 25.8 (2014): 1608-1618. [Archived link](https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160607131916\/http:\/\/www.scottbarrykaufman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Macnamara-et-al.-2014.pdf).\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n[fn 15] Here's a highly cited review article on the benefits of meditation:\r\n\r\n> After reviewing 18,753 citations, we included 47 trials with 3515 participants. Mindfulness meditation programs had moderate evidence of improved anxiety (effect size, 0.38 [95% CI, 0.12-0.64] at 8 weeks and 0.22 [0.02-0.43] at 3-6 months), depression (0.30 [0.00-0.59] at 8 weeks and 0.23 [0.05-0.42] at 3-6 months), and pain (0.33 [0.03- 0.62]) and low evidence of improved stress\/distress and mental health\u2013related quality of life. We found low evidence of no effect or insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight. We found no evidence that meditation programs were better than any active treatment (ie, drugs, exercise, and other behavioral therapies).\r\n\r\nGoyal, Madhav, et al. \"Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis.\" *JAMA Internal Medicine* 174.3 (2014): 357-368. doi:10.1001\/jamainternmed.2013.13018, [link](http:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamainternalmedicine\/fullarticle\/1809754).\r\n\r\n<br><br>\r\n\r\nNote that most of the studies were about mental health rather than wellbeing, which is a significant reason for the null result.\r\n\r\n<br><br>\r\n\r\nA 2019 meta-analysis on mindfulness in the workplace found:\r\n\r\n> Mindfulness had moderate effects on deficit-based outcomes such as stress (SMD = \u22120.57), anxiety (SMD = \u22120.57), distress (SMD = \u22120.56), depression (SMD = \u22120.48), and burnout (SMD = \u22120.36), and moderate to small effects on asset-based outcomes like health (SMD = 0.63), job performance (SMD = 0.43), compassion and empathy (SMD = 0.42), mindfulness (SMD = 0.39), and positive wellbeing (SMD = 0.36), while no effects were observed for emotional regulation. However, the quality of the studies was inconsistent, suggesting more high-quality randomised controlled trials are needed.\r\n\r\nLomas, Tim, et al. \"Mindfulness-based interventions in the workplace: An inclusive systematic review and meta-analysis of their impact upon wellbeing.\" *The Journal of Positive Psychology* 14.5 (2019): 625\u2013640 [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/17439760.2018.1519588](https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/17439760.2018.1519588)\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 16]\r\n\r\n> Holding a strong goal intention (\"I intend to reach Z!\") does not guarantee goal achievement, because people may fail to deal effectively with self\u2010regulatory problems during goal striving. This review analyzes whether realization of goal intentions is facilitated by forming an implementation intention that spells out the when, where, and how of goal striving in advance (\"If situation Y is encountered, then I will initiate goal\u2010directed behavior X!\"). Findings from 94 independent tests showed that implementation intentions had a positive effect of medium\u2010to\u2010large magnitude (d = .65) on goal attainment.\r\n\r\nGollwitzer, Peter M., and Paschal Sheeran. \"Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta\u2010analysis of effects and processes.\" *Advances in Experimental Social Psychology*, 38 (2006): 69-119. [http:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/S0065-2601(06)38002-1](http:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/S0065-2601(06)38002-1)\r\n\r\nA later meta-analysis supports these findings, and found an even larger effect of implementation interventions on goal achievement *for people with mental health problems*.\r\n\r\n> Excluding one outlying (very large) effect, forming implementation intentions had a large-sized effect on goal attainment (d+ = 0.99, k = 28, N = 1,636). Implementation intentions proved effective across different mental health problems and goals, and in studies with different methodological approaches.\r\n\r\nToli, A, Webb, T. L., & Hardy, G. \"Does forming implementation intentions help people with mental health problems to achieve goals? A meta-analysis of experimental studies with clinical and analogue samples.\" *British Journal of Clinical Psychology* 55.1 (2015). 69\u201390. [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/bjc.12086](https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/bjc.12086)\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn 17]\r\n\r\n> We study a unique sample ... where Facebook usage was manipulated by an organizational policy change, initially banning Facebook altogether and later differentially restricting its usage. Thus, the assignment to the group of non-users was circumstantial ... which makes it possible to identify Facebook's impact on social comparison and happiness. We find that Facebook usage increases users' engagement in social comparison and consequently decreases their happiness. Social comparison mediates the effect of Facebook on happiness, but only for the younger half of our sample and only for those who believe that others have many more positive experiences than they do. Surprisingly, we find that Facebook does not cause users to overestimate the frequency of their friends' positive experiences.\r\n\r\nArad, Ayala, Ohad Barzilay, and Maayan Perchick. \"The Impact of Facebook on Social Comparison and Happiness: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.\" (2017). [Link](http:\/\/www.tau.ac.il\/~aradayal\/Facebook.pdf).\r\n\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn ppis]\r\nThe largest, most recent meta-study of positive psychology interventions. These included:\r\n\r\n* Practicing gratitude\r\n* Practicing forgiveness\r\n* Doing exercises that create an optimistic outlook (e.g. best possible self)\r\n* Savouring by reminiscence, life review, recalling recent events, or appreciating the present moment\r\n* Identifying and using signature strengths\r\n* Being kind to others\r\n* Writing about positive, meaningful or successful experiences\r\n* Practicing meaning making \r\n* Humour (e.g. recalling three funny things)\r\n* Setting highly valued goals (e.g. writing an obituary, eulogy, or legacy letter)\r\n* Savouring\r\n* Solution-focused coaching\r\n* Relationship strengthening \r\n* Appreciating beauty\/nature\r\n* Active constructive responding \r\n* Rehearsing positive statements \r\n* Volunteering \r\n* Practicing humility \r\n* Finding flow \r\n* Temporarily having restricted access valued experiences (e.g. giving up chocolate)\r\n\r\nThey classified these into 10 types: savouring, optimism and hope, meaning-making, gratitude, using signature strengths, humour, kindness, positive writing, forgiveness, and goal setting. They tested effects on (among other things) increasing wellbeing, reducing depression, reducing anxiety, and reducing stress. \r\n\r\nThey found that the effects of forgiveness and goal-setting interventions on wellbeing were not statistically significant; the effect of kindness interventions on depression was not statistically significant; the effects of kindness and gratitude interventions on anxiety reduction were not significant; and the effects of forgiveness, kindness, and using signature strengths interventions on stress were not significant.\r\n\r\nThey found statistically significant effects of all other interventions, although correlations varied from around 0.2 to 0.7 depending on the intervention and the effect.\r\n\r\nThe study found evidence of publication bias, and it's not clear to us that the effect sizes were appropriately reduced to account for this. Nevertheless, it still seems like there's pretty good evidence that these interventions work.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\n\r\nCarr, A. et al.. \"Effectiveness of positive psychology interventions: a systematic review and meta-analysis,\" *The Journal of Positive Psychology* 16 (2020): 749-769. [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/17439760.2020.1818807](https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/17439760.2020.1818807)\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn metastudyppiwork]\r\nA 2019 meta-analysis looked at 22 different studies including thousands of participants, and found support for the idea that positive psychology techniques improve wellbeing and performance at work.\r\n\r\nThey looked at the following kinds of interventions:\r\n\r\n* Psychological capital (e.g. practicing optimism and bouncing back from adverse situations)\r\n* Job crafting (e.g. helping employees craft projects and objectives)\r\n* Employee strengths (e.g. helping employees identify their strengths)\r\n* Employee gratitude (e.g. asking employees to keep a log about what they are grateful for in their job)\r\n* Employee wellbeing (e.g. spending time with people they care about, practicing living in the moment)\r\n\r\nThey found small-to-moderate effects of all these interventions (*g*=0.1 to 0.4).\r\n\r\nAgain, the study found evidence of publication bias, and it's not clear to us that the effect sizes were appropriately reduced to account for this. Nevertheless, it still seems like there's pretty good evidence that these interventions work.\r\n\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n\r\nDonaldson, S. et al.. \"Evaluating Positive Psychology Interventions at Work: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,\" *International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology* 4 (2019): 113\u2013134. [https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s41042-019-00021-8](https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s41042-019-00021-8)\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn thinkingfastandslow]\r\nOn the [replicability index blog](https:\/\/replicationindex.com\/2017\/02\/02\/reconstruction-of-a-train-wreck-how-priming-research-went-of-the-rails\/), three psychologists wrote a detailed critique of Chapter 4 of *Thinking Fast and Slow*. In response, [Kahneman wrote](https:\/\/retractionwatch.com\/2017\/02\/20\/placed-much-faith-underpowered-studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes\/):\r\n\r\n> What the blog gets absolutely right is that I placed too much faith in underpowered studies. As pointed out in the blog, and earlier by Andrew Gelman, there is a special irony in my mistake because the first paper that Amos Tversky and I published was about the belief in the \"law of small numbers,\" which allows researchers to trust the results of underpowered studies with unreasonably small samples. We also cited Overall (1969) for showing \"that the prevalence of studies deficient in statistical power is not only wasteful but actually pernicious: it results in a large proportion of invalid rejections of the null hypothesis among published results.\" Our article was written in 1969 and published in 1971, but I failed to internalize its message.\r\n\r\nA [later analysis on the same blog](https:\/\/replicationindex.com\/category\/thinking-fast-and-slow\/) wrote:\r\n\r\n> Daniel Kahneman is a distinguished psychologist who has made valuable contributions to the study of human decision making. His work with Amos Tversky was recognized with a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (APA). It is surely interesting to read what he has to say about psychological topics that range from cognition to well-being. However, his thoughts are based on a scientific literature with shaky foundations. Like everybody else in 2011, Kahneman trusted individual studies to be robust and replicable because they presented a statistically significant result. In hindsight it is clear that this is not the case. Narrative literature reviews of individual studies reflect scientists' intuitions (Fast Thinking, System 1) as much or more than empirical findings. Readers of \"Thinking: Fast and Slow\" should read the book as a subjective account by an eminent psychologists, rather than an objective summary of scientific evidence. Moreover, ten years have passed and if Kahneman wrote a second edition, it would be very different from the first one. Chapters 3 and 4 would probably just be scrubbed from the book. But that is science. It does make progress, even if progress is often painfully slow in the softer sciences.\r\n[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn COIasana]Asana was founded by Dustin Moskovitz, who is the primary funder behind Open Philanthropy, which is 80,000 Hours' largest donor.[\/fn]\r\n\r\n[fn givers]In his book *Give and Take*, psychologist Adam Grant argues that *givers*, who help others without condition, are more likely to be successful:\r\n\r\n> Across occupations, it appears that givers are just too caring, too trusting, and too willing to sacrifice their own interests for the benefit of others. There's even evidence that compared with takers, on average, givers earn 14 percent less money, have twice the risk of becoming victims of crimes, and are judged as 22 percent less powerful and dominant.\r\n\r\n> So if givers are most likely to land at the bottom of the success ladder, who's at the top\u2014takers or matchers?\r\n\r\n> Neither. When I took another look at the data, I discovered a surprising pattern: It's the givers again.\r\n> As we've seen, the engineers with the lowest productivity are mostly givers. But when we look at the engineers with the highest productivity, the evidence shows that they're givers too. The California engineers with the best objective scores for quantity and quality of results are those who consistently give more to their colleagues than they get. The worst performers and the best performers are givers; takers and matchers are more likely to land in the middle.\r\n\r\n> This pattern holds up across the board. The Belgian medical students with the lowest grades have unusually high giver scores, but so do the students with the highest grades. Over the course of medical school, being a giver accounts for 11 percent higher grades. Even in sales, I found that the least productive salespeople had 25 percent higher giver scores than average performers\u2014but so did the most productive salespeople. The top performers were givers, and they averaged 50 percent more annual revenue than the takers and matchers. Givers dominate the bottom and the top of the success ladder. Across occupations, if you examine the link between reciprocity styles and success, the givers are more likely to become champs\u2014not only chumps.\r\n[\/fn]\r\n"},"categories":[315,419,1513,881,1360,1207,1509,322,1508,1354,1362],"class_list":["post-37938","careerguidepage","type-careerguidepage","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-advice-strategy","category-career-capital","category-doing-good-in-your-current-job-other-topics","category-foundations","category-job-satisfaction-career-advice-strategy","category-mental-health","category-other-topics","category-personal-fit","category-reasoning-and-decision-making","category-skill-building-and-career-capital","category-skills-skill-building-and-career-capital-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to be more successful (an evidence-based guide) | 80,000 Hours<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Much advice on how to be successful is wrong, or useless clich\u00e9s. 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