Knowledge Base

The science of note-taking

While note-taking feels natural to students, this is something many people stop doing once they start working, either as an employee or for themselves. We may bookmark something to read it later, but the active process of taking notes when consuming content is not a common habit. “It doesn’t matter how you record your notes, … Read More

The generation effect

Do you feel like you can remember things better when you actively engage with the information and create your own version of it? That’s called the Generation Effect. In a research paper published in 1978 in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, scientists described it as the phenomenon where information is better remembered … Read More

The neuroscience of procrastination: A short primer

Procrastination makes it difficult and stressful to finish certain tasks or to meet deadlines, so why do we do this to ourselves? When we get stuck into an akratic loop, we know we “should” do something, but we resist doing it. The sister word “procrastination” itself comes from the latin “pro”, which means “forward”, and “crastinatus”, which means “till next day.”

Learning how to learn

We spend years of our lives attending school, but there are many life skills missing from the typical curriculum. Critical thinking, constructive conversations, handling money, business writing, time management, and self-care are just but a few. Another skill we don’t spend enough time honing is learning how to learn. It’s a shame, because there are … Read More

Neuralink and the future of knowledge work

Yesterday evening, Elon Musk gave the first public presentation about Neuralink, a company he founded in 2017 to build brain-computer interfaces. While most of the research in that field has been focused on restoring functionality lost due to paralysis, Elon targets healthy and able-bodied people. Elon considers that artificial intelligence surpassing human intelligence is not … Read More

7 books to increase your creativity

We all possess creativity. However, sometimes, it feels like our muse is gone. We just can’t seem to find an idea worth working on. Making things is hard. Here is a list of books to inspire you and stimulate your imagination. If there’s a good book missing from this list, it’s because I haven’t read … Read More

Mindframing: a personal growth framework

Update: following the success of this article, I published a literature review that explores the science of personal growth outside the school and work environments, and how makers can use mindframing to manage their personal growth. According to Marty McFly in the classic 1985 movie Back to the Future, “If you put your mind to … Read More

How stress and anxiety impact your ability to focus

Negative emotions such as stress and anxiety can have an effect on cognitive processes, with many studies showing that inducing negative mood states in individuals leads to a reduction in executive functions (Grant et al, 2001; Hammar & Ardal, 2009). This reduction may be caused by a depletion in limited attention resources in individuals experiencing … Read More