Practical. Will what I learn be immediately applicable?
Forward-looking. Will what I learn move me towards the work I want to be doing in the future?
Valuable. Will people pay me to do what I learn?
Synergetic. Will what I learn complement what I already know?
Ingredients
Clear goals
What do I want to be able to do by the end of each course of self-study? Make it concrete and measurable.
Study the experts
Most influential books on the topic
Material by the most influential experts on the topic
Material used in the best courses on the topic
Capture
Take notes on reading
Accountability
Create Beeminder goals specific to the current course of self-study
Post updates to a thread on the Beeminder forum
Deliverables
Course outline
Reading notes
Chapter summaries
Book summaries
Final project
Tools
​Anki - "Powerful, intelligent flash cards. Remembering things just became much easier."
GitBook
Notion
​RemNote - "Organize your thinking. Master your craft. Grow your knowledge."
Roam
​Thought Saver - "Learn. Remember. Instantly create flashcards from anything interesting that you hear or read online. Receive quick, automated quizzes so that you never forget important ideas. Quickly discover new, fascinating and life changing ideas you've never seen before!"
​Project Gutenberg - "Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world's great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for enjoyment and education."
​SkillShare - "Thousands of classes to fuel your creativity and career."
​Zenva Academy - "Trusted by 400,000+ learners and developers, Zenva provides world-class training on in-demand programming skills."