7 TED Talks That Help You Start (and Maintain) Good Habits

You probably know it's a lot easier to create a good habit than to get rid of a bad one. Forming good habits is one of the few ways you can create better, healthier, or more productive behavior. But how do you start these great habits? And how do you get them to stick?

As with so many things, TED speakers can provide some answers. In a playlist oncreating better habits, half a dozen experts--neuroscientists, a psychologist, an economist, and people who've actually done it--ask just how human beings can create healthier habits, and offer some powerful answers.

1. Build a new habit in 30 days.

We know it takes about a month to form a new habit, whether it's eating salads, biking to work, or giving up watching the news. That's the message from Google engineer Matt Cutts, who says he "decided to follow in the footsteps of the great American philosopher Morgan Spurlock," by trying something new for 30 days at a time. "The idea is pretty simple," he says. "Think of something you've always wanted to add to your life and try it for the next 30 days."

Simple and yet powerful. In his talk, Cutts explains how, as a result of his own 30-day challenges, he did things, like hiking up Mount Kilimanjaro and writing a novel (not necessarily a good one), that he never would have done otherwise. More to the point, he discovered that when he used the technique to make gradual changes to his routine, those changes tended to stick. 

2. Laser-focus on your goals.

How hard or easy something is to do depends a lot on your own perceptions, as social psychologist Emily Balcetis demonstrates in a thought-provoking talk. Through a series of experiments, she and her team demonstrated that our perceptions of distance, and of the difficulty of a challenging activity, changes dramatically according to our attitudes, experiences, and motivations.

Who has the easiest time completing a difficult walk? The person who focuses on the finish line at the end of the walk and tries to focus on nothing else. There's a lesson there for us all.

3. Don't get isolated.

National Geographic writer Dan Buettner has traveled the world examining "Blue Zones," places where people have much higher longevity than elsewhere. In this fascinating talk, he describes areas of commonality among them, and perhaps the most striking is this: They all live in tight-knit communities. It may seem like an odd idea in our increasingly mobile, work-at-home world, but having a community of people you share your joys and sorrows with really can make you healthier, happier, and longer-lived. (Here's more about Buettner's findings.)

4. Don't neglect your own emotional health.

Our society overvalues physical health over emotional health, argues psychologist (a.k.a. "not a real doctor") Guy Winch, in an illuminating talk. The result is that too many of us struggle with self-criticism, and loneliness--so much so that it is sending many of us to an early grave. In fact, he says, chronic loneliness and emotional hurt is as bad for you as smoking. But by changing your thought patterns and attitudes, you can reverse a lot of these effects. It's an effort well worth making.

5. Eating right really is worth it.

You know that eating a diet that's high in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and "good" fats and proteins is good for your health. You may even know it can help prevent disease. But did you know that changing your diet can actually reverse cardiovascular disease and shrink tumors? In this very brief talk, UCSF clinical professor Dean Ornish shows how.

6. Never, ever go on a diet.

Diets almost never work, even if you call them "eating plans" instead. In fact, they can lower your metabolism and often cause people to gain wait in the long run. What should you do? Make peace with the fact that long-term weight loss is impossible for most people, says neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt in her highly honest talk. But healthy habits such as eating fruits and vegetables, not smoking, drinking moderately, and exercising at least three times a week can make you healthy no matter what weight you are.

7. Save your next raise.

You'd like to save, but you just can't figure out how when every penny you earn seems to be spent before it ever lands in your bank account? In his talk, economist Shlomo Benartzi offers a breathtakingly simple solution: Wait until your next raise, and then start saving all or part of that increase. It's a brilliant idea that Tony Robbins recommends highly and the best strategy for kicking a savings plan into gear I've ever heard of.

Fonte: Inc.

Tudo tem seu tempo!

Tudo tem a sua ocasião própria, e há tempo para todo propósito debaixo do céu. 
Há tempo de nascer, e tempo de morrer; tempo de plantar, e tempo de arrancar o que se plantou; 
Há tempo de adoecer, e tempo de curar; tempo de derrubar, e tempo de edificar; 
Há tempo de chorar, e tempo de rir; tempo de prantear, e tempo de dançar; 
Há tempo de espalhar pedras, e tempo de ajuntá-las; tempo de abraçar, e tempo de abster-se de abraçar; 
Há tempo de buscar, e tempo de perder; tempo de guardar, e tempo de jogar fora; 
Há tempo de rasgar, e tempo de coser; tempo de estar calado, e tempo de falar; 
Há tempo de amar, e tempo de odiar; tempo de guerra, e tempo de paz. 

mais em Eclesiastes 3.

"O valor das coisas não está no tempo que elas duram, mas na intensidade com que acontecem. 
Por isso existem momentos inesquecíveis, coisas inexplicáveis e pessoas incomparáveis."  

Creating A Personal Masterplan

“Know how to choose. Most things in life depend on it. You need good taste and an upright judgement; intelligence and application are not enough. There is no perfection without discernment and selection.”

Baltasar Gracian, philosopher and aphorist

To achieve what you want in life, you generally need to do three things:

1.     Identify what you really want. (Not what others want or what you think you should want.)

2.     Decide what’s most important, so you can start working on it.

3.     Act to make progress on your most important priorities.

Creating a “Personal Masterplan” is the best way I’ve found to stop dreaming about what you want and start making progress.

What Is A Personal Masterplan?

A “Personal Masterplan” is a short planning document that captures what you want to achieve most within the next three years, then systematically breaks down those goals into the most important actions you need to take this week in order to achieve them.

Once you’ve created your Masterplan, planning your day is a simple matter of choosing 2-3 things to accomplish today from your weekly list (your Most Important Tasks), then doing them before you do anything else that day. Why the three-year time horizon? Simple: it’s short enough to be able to visualize clearly, but long enough for you to be able to make drastic changes and accomplish major goals. It’s a good rough estimate for the “foreseeable future,” which makes it useful for this type of planning exercise. Writing down your goals and having a clear plan of action is critical if you want to make the best use of your finite time and energy. This process is the most effective means I’ve found to identify what I really want and focus on what really matters. After creating your Masterplan, you’ll be amazed at how clearly you’ll be able to visualize what you want to achieve and what you need to do right now to move forward.

Phase #1: Dreaming on Paper

First, you’ll need to spend some time thinking of all of the things you’d like to accomplish. The best way to do that is to write down everythingyou think you’d ever (even remotely) like to do, without editing or censoring yourself in any way.

It’s easier to prune your list of active projects than to feel vaguely uncertain if you’ve captured everything, so err on the side of completeness.

Also err on the side of being completely honest with yourself about what you want: if your lists contain things you’d be embarrassed about if someone else reads it, you can always destroy your notes when you’re done.

1.1: Gather Materials

For this exercise, you’ll need at least 5 sheets of paper, your favorite writing instrument, and at least an hour of uninterrupted personal time. (Depending on how deep you go in this process, it can take longer: 2-3 hours is typical. It’s a great process to go through over the course of a long lunch break or similar block of time alone.)

Label each piece of paper paper as follows:

·         Health / Fitness

·         Relationships

·         Skills / Personal Growth

·         Wealth / Career

·         Enjoyment

Resist the temptation to do this on your computer: there’s too much potential for distraction, and writing longhand will help you think in a more relaxed way.

1.2: Brain Dump

Pick up one of the papers, consider the topic area, and ask yourself the following question:

“What are all of the things I might want to accomplish in this area within the next three years?”

Write down everything that comes to mind - avoid self-editing as much as possible. Think and write as fast as you can, and fill all five pieces of paper with as many ideas as you can muster.

1.3: Apply the “Five-Fold Why”

Once you’re done, go back and read over one of your lists. Look at each desire you’ve recorded and ask yourself:

“Why do I really want this?”

When you think of an answer, ask yourself the question again. You should ask yourself this question at least five times or until you absolutely can’t come up with another answer. (That usually comes in the form of a reply like “because I want to.”)

When you’ve reached this point, ask yourself:

“Is the original wording of this goal the best way to capture the essence of what I actually want?”

The point of this step is to help you question your assumptions and focus on the true intent of each of your goals instead of getting caught up in arbitrary specifics or social conditioning.

For example, many people have the goal of earning an arbitrary large sum of money. (Let’s say $10 million.) After asking themselves why, they often find that it’s freedom or security they really want, and they don’t need need $10 million to achieve their true objective, making their desire attainable in a much shorter period of time. A better goal might be to find a reliable way to earn enough income to meet their financial needs using a minimum of time and energy, thereby giving themselves the freedom to invest their time as they see fit.  Once you know the root of your desires, you can go about pursuing them in a more effective manner.

1.4: Is it Positive, Immediate, Concrete, and Specific? (PICS)

To ensure your goals are well-formed and clear, ask yourself:

“Is this desire Positive, Immediate, Concrete, and Specific?”

Positive is something you can pursue vs. something you want to avoid. “I want to exercise every day” is positive. “I want to stop sitting on the couch all day” is not.

Immediate is something that you can pursue now vs. something that might happen in the future if other things happen first. “I want to land a lead role in a movie” is immediate. “I want to become a famous actor” is not.

Concrete is something that can be defined in objective terms. “I want to visit Russia this year” is concrete. “I want to travel the world” is not.

Specific is something that has defined parameters. “I want to earn at least $8,000 each month” is specific. “I want to make a lot of money” is not.

Rewrite your desires in Positive, Immediate, Concrete, and Specific language. If you can’t, discard that desire for now by crossing it off.

1.5: Is it Ambitious, Meaningful, and Exciting? (AME)

This step ensures you’re stretching yourself and engaging your emotions appropriately in forming your goals. Ask yourself:

“Is this goal Ambitious, Meaningful, and Exciting?”

Most of us are far too conservative when it comes to planning for the future. If your desire doesn’t push your limits and give you a strong sense of anticipation, reword it until it does.

Here’s an example of a well-formed goal:

Within the next three years, I want to write a book about {TOPIC} and sell 20,000 copies worldwide.

Phase #2: Focusing Your Efforts

2.1: Pruning Your Lists

As tempting as it is to try to accomplish everything on your lists all at once, it’s far more productive to consciously restrain yourself so that you can focus your time, energy, and attention on just a few important things at a time.

When you divide your efforts and attention across several projects, it’s difficult to achieve the critical mass of thought and action necessary to accomplish what you set out to achieve.

By temporarily eliminating non-critical projects, you’re freeing yourself to focus on the small core of projects that are most important to you right now, allowing you to accomplish more with less effort.

The goal of this phase of the Masterplanning process is to reduce your list of active goals to five:

1.     One health / fitness goal

2.     One relationship goal

3.     One skill acquisition / personal growth goal

4.     One wealth / career goal

5.     One enjoyment goal

By focusing on these five goals, you’ll enjoy the benefits of a productive, sustainable, and balanced life.

2.2: Choosing What’s Most Important

Pick up one of your lists and ask yourself the following question:

“If I could only accomplish half of these things in the next three years, which ones would I choose to accomplish?”

Cross out the goals that don’t make the cut.

2.3: Recursive Elimination

Apply the same selection process to your remaining goals:

“If I could only accomplish half of these things in the next three years, which would I choose?”

Again, cross out all of the goals that don’t make the cut. Continue asking this question until you have one goal remaining, hen move on to the next list.

2.4: Build Your “Someday / Maybe” List

Don’t completely discard the goals you decide aren’t important enough to focus on right now: they’re still useful, since they represent things you’d like to do at some point in your life. Place your items on a “Someday / Maybe” List so you can easily refer to them at a later date. (For more on “Someday / Maybe” lists, read Getting Things Done by David Allen.)

2.5: Finalize Your Most Important Goals

At the end of this phase, you’ll have five goals you’ve identified as the accomplishment that will make the largest positive difference in your life. These goals will form the basis for the next phase in the process: creating an action plan that will help you achieve them quickly.

2.6: Self-Check - How Do You Feel?

After making these edits, check your current emotional state - how do you feel? If you’re excited, happy, and relaxed, you’re on the right track, and the goals you have are well-formed. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, or apathetic, re-examine your choices before moving onto the next phase.

Phase #3: What Can I Do Right Now?

Now that you’ve identified your single most important goal in each of the five areas, it’s time to use them to build an action plan you can use to decide what to spend time doing right now. The process is simple: we’re going to break down your long-term goals into manageable steps you can accomplish immediately.

3.1: Define Objectives For This Year

For each of the five objectives, create a single goal that expresses the most important thing you can do to move yourself towards the accomplishment of the three-year goal in the coming year.

Example Three-Year Goal: “Within the next three years, I want to create a cash-flow positive business that allows me to earn at least $10,000 each month.”

Example One-Year Goal: “I want to launch my online waffle iron store and generate at least $3,000 in profit per month before January 1 of the coming year.”

3.2: Define Objectives For This Month

Once you know what you need to accomplish this year, define what you need to accomplish this month to keep you on track:

Example One-Year Objective: “I want to launch my online waffle iron store and generate at least $3,000 in profit per month before January 1 of the coming year.”

Example Monthly Objective: “I will launch the new WaffleMaster 5000 via an online and direct marketing campaign by the end of this month.”

3.3: Define Objectives For This Week

Once you know what you need to accomplish this month, define what you need to accomplish this week:

Example Monthly Objectives: “ I will launch the new WaffleMaster 5000 via an online direct marketing campaign by the end of this month.”

Example Weekly Objective: “This week, I will develop three drafts of sales copy for the WaffleMaster 5000 and pre-test response rates using pay-per-click advertising.”

3.4: Test Your Objectives

Examine your yearly, monthly, and weekly goals to ensure they pass the Five-Fold Why, PICS, and AME tests. Once all of your goals have passed, review the entire list and check your emotional state. Are you excited to get started? If not, re-examine your intermediate goals and adjust as necessary until you find yourself itching stop writing and start making progress.

Phase #4: Getting the Most From Your Master Plan

Your Masterplan is only valuable if you use it. Here are a few tips that will help:

4.1: Morning Routine

Make reviewing your Personal Master Plan a part of your daily routine. I review my plan every day, immediately after exercising, showering, and eating breakfast. By reviewing your plan every day, you’ll strongly reinforce what you want to accomplish, making it easier to stay motivated and on track. Establishing this habit is critical.

4.2: Most Important Tasks

Immediately after reviewing your Masterplan in the morning, write out the two or three most important tasks for you to accomplish that day, then commit to completing them by 11:00 am, before checking e-mail or working on less important tasks. To plan your day, I highly recommend using David Seah’s free “Emergent Task Planner” worksheet. Filling out an ETP each morning is a great way to plan your day’s tasks and visualize how your time will be invested.

4.3: Weekly Review

In Getting Things Done, David Allen recommends setting aside a few hours every week to do a thorough review of all of your outstanding commitments. A few minutes of review every week will help you keep yourself clear, calm, and focused. Using this time to review your Masterplan and make updates as necessary is an excellent way to ensure your immediate actions are leading to the fulfillment of your long-range goals. You can also use this time to update your “Someday / Maybe” list as necessary.

Create Your Personal Masterplan Now

Creating a Personal Masterplan takes a few hours, but they’ll be some of the most productive hours you spend this year.

Happy planning, and good luck.

Josh Kaufman

Excellence is not an act, but a habit

What is the one thing that you have been meaning to achieve for the past year but never quite got around to? Sometimes all we need is a bit of inspiration to kick start us into action. All you need to do is pick a goal, something you want to accomplish, and turn it into an amazing success with the help of some rousing words from the likes of Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin and Maya Angelou (your awesome spirit guides). Contemplation: What do you want to achieve? Okay, so maybe you got to this stage all by yourself and could do with moving on. But contemplation is an important step. You need to decide where you want to go and why! Preparation: Plan and commit to your goal Even if you’re eager to start right away, take some time, make a plan with lots of details and steps so you reach little goals on your way to success. Because, after all… Action: Implement your plan and make the change You can only hope to succeed if you get started! Now all you have to do is to take the first step and you’re on your way. Planning is fine, a to-do list is great, but... Maintenance: Keep it up! Remind yourself every day why you’re doing this and keep your focus on the goal. Even the best athletes, musicians and scientists didn’t get to where they are over night! What’s that you say, Aristotle? Hurdles: You might fall down, but you will get back up! Nothing great has ever been achieved without some kind of failure along the way, so pick yourself back up and get on with it, because after all… (We’re also not sure whether Disraeli has been misquoted here and actually meant to say "iversity", but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt this time…) Success! Achieving a long-term goal is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Well done! Take some time to enjoy it and look back on what you have achieved. Feels good, doesn’t it?

From Iversity.

100+ Self-Education Resources For Lifelong Learners

Self-education and the embrace of lifelong learning is becoming a critical mindset to navigate our rapidly changing world. Lifelong learning can be a catalyst for earning more money in your career and it can be a gateway to self-employment. Fortunately, the Internet has made it easier than ever to find the right resources to spark your curiosity and learn what you need to know.

In this post, I have compiled some of the most useful self-education resources that I’ve found online. You will find online courses and tools to master new skills, learn languages, find classic books, broaden your mind and interact with other lifelong learners.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs):

Take free online courses from the world’s best Universities. MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) provide video lectures, structured deadlines and interactive learning communities.

1. Coursera -The largest course platform for free MOOCs . Founded by two former Stanford University professors.
2. Udacity – Founded by Sebastian Thrun, the creator of the artificial intelligence system behind Google’s self-driving cars. Udacity’s focus is on free MOOCs for improving your knowledge of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) disciplines.
3. EdX – A free MOOC platform developed through a partnership between Harvard, MIT and Berkeley. Expanding rapidly.
4. MIT Open Courseware – This ambitious project launched over a decade ago by MIT makes the course materials used in virtually all of MIT’s courses available on the web for free.
5. Khan Academy – Salman Khan’s pioneering online academy where you can learn just about any academic subject online for free.
6. Saylor – Started by serial entrepreneurial and education futurist Michael Saylor. The Saylor Foundation is a non-profit that provides a free University education that includes written exams and University credits for most of your work.
7. University of the People – A tuition-free online University that aims to democratize higher education by offering it anyone in the world.
8. iTunes U – Apple’s iTunes University initiative makes it easy to take courses on your iPhone or iPad wherever you go.
9. World Education University (WEU) – A massively open online University (they call it MOOC 2.0) that offers degrees and full program for free. It’s a for-profit enterprise that funds itself through advertising, publishing and organization partnerships rather than tuition fees.
10. Canvas Network – An open learning network with a growing collection of free online courses. Sign up early for courses, they fill up fast.

Lectures and Video Learning Websites:

Get inspired by watching short lectures by the world’s leading thinkers, entrepreneurs and creators.

1. TED – With its slogan “Ideas Worth Spreading” the TED Conference (stands for Technology, Education, Design)  features world’s leading academics, teachers and innovators in easily digestible 18-minute lectures.
2. YouTube EDU – Google’s YouTube Education channel. Lots of great educational content, lectures and conference talks conveniently organized.
3. Do Lectures – Inspiring talks from people who have set out to change the world.
4. Solve For X – A forum established by Google to amplify technology-based solutions to radically challenge the world’s problems.
5. Big Think – Short videos with important contemporary thinkers, entrepreneurs and scientists talking about their expertise.
6. Fora.TV – Constantly expanding collection of videos from the world’s biggest conferences and events.
7. @Google Talks – Innovator thinkers and doers visit Googleplex to give inspiring talks that are posted freely online by Google.
8. RSA Animate – Engaging, hand-drawn videos that illustrate important issues in the world today.
9. Creative Live – Live workshops taught by world class experts. Free if you mark the talks on your schedule and watch the live streams.
10. Mixergy – Excellent courses and interviews by Andrew Warner with today’s top Internet entrepreneurs.
11. Academic Earth – 1000s of free video lectures from many of the world’s top Universities.
12. The Faculty Project – Udemy has created an excellent free platform for the best professors from the world’s leading Universities to teach online.
13. The Floating University – Inspiring video lectures from today’s most interesting thinkers, practitioners and leading scholars.
14. Reddit Lectures – A busy Reddit community for the latest and greatest video lectures.
15. Video Lectures – A growing collection of 14,500+ video lectures.

Watch Streaming Documentaries:

Watching documentaries is a great way to relax and learn new things.

1. Mind Expanding Documentaries – Free, streaming educational documentaries collected from across the web.
2. Snag Films – One of the largest collections of ad-supported movies and documentaries online.
3. Can I Stream I? – Search Netflix, Hulu, Google Play and iTunes to find movies and documentaries that you can instantly rent or buy.
4. PBS Video – Watch full-length shows and documentaries from PBS. I especially recommend their Frontlinedocumentaries.

Digital Skills Training:

An  emerging group of education startups that are offering skills training for the digital workplace.

1. Udemy – The iTunes of learning new digital skills and training for your career.
2. Skillshare – A global community centered around creativity, collaboration and learning by doing. Online and offline classes.
3. University of Reddit – If you love Reddit, you can take part in their evolving online education initiative.
4. ALISON – Free workplace skills training with over 300+ online courses accessible to you.

Digital Skills Portfolios:

With so much informal learning now happening online, your credentials are less important than what you can do with your knowledge. These platforms are developing alternative forms of accreditation that are based on your practical skills and accomplishments.

1. Degreed – Trying to jailbreak the college degree by helping your build a digital, lifelong diploma.
2. Pathbrite – Collect, organize and share a lifetime of learning and achievement.
3. Smarterer – Benchmark your skills and track what you’ve learned through online skill tests.
4. Mozilla’s Open Badges – Get recognition for your skills and achievement by earning digital badges.
5. LinkedIn – The professional social networking website has become the new social resume.

Open Educational Resources:

Access high-quality education textbooks, get your burning questions answered and explore a world of free digital self-education resources.

1. Boundless – Disrupting the big textbook publishers by offering textbooks online, for free.
2. Textbook Revolution – Free, open source textbooks if that’s how you want to learn.
3. Open Textbooks – Browse college textbooks by subject, which are made freely available online.
4. Scribd – Amazing library of digital documents on every imaginable subject.
5. Slideshare – Learn new things and find information broken down to the essential bits in this incredible library of digital presentations.
6. Creative Commons Education – An open source movement to make educational content freely available online.
7. Connexions - A global knowledge sharing community that breaks information down into small, easily-digestible chunks.
8. Open Study – Ask. Answer. Understand. Get real-time study help in the world’s largest study group.
9. Quora - My favorite question and answer community. Find expert and amateur advice on every imaginable topic.
10. iTunes Podcasts – I highly recommend browsing the Podcasts on iTunes. So many incredible free audio shows at your fingertips.

DIY Education Communities:

Online communities where you can meet other lifelong learners and build a mastermind community for your own self-education endeavors.

1. Uncollege – The Uncollege movement challenges the notion that you need to go to University to get an education. They provide inspiration and resources for alternative educational paths.
2. Zero Tuition College – A community of self-directed learners that provide mentoring to each other.
3. The Public School – A school with no curriculum. A framework for self-education and auto-didactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.
4. Meetup – Find interesting meetups and meet new people in your local area. Or start your own meetup, join a mastermind group or create a new learning community.
5. P2PU – An open education community for lifelong learning leveraging open source education materials, collaborative learning and an evolving system that gives learners recognition for their achievements.

Liberal Arts: Study The Classics

A great way to get inside the minds of civilization greatest thinkers is to read their books.

1. The Liberal Arts 4-Year Reading List – Study the essential classical books and educate yourself in the liberal arts by reading a book every 2 weeks for 4 years (or pick the ones that interest you the most). The first year covers Greek authors; the second year is from Roman, medieval, Renaissance periods; the third year is the books of the 17th and 18th centuries and the fourth year covers books from the 19th and 20th centuries.
2. A Lifetime’s Reading: The World’s 500 Greatest Books – Compiled by the prolific Philip Ward,  a librarian, scholar, editor and author of more than 50 books.
3. Great Books of the Western World – 161 books essential books of the West on Wikipedia.
4. The Western World’s 500 Greatest Books – An excellent collection of over 500 books from Western civilization with links to where you can read them on Project Gutenberg.
5. Great Literature of the Eastern World – I couldn’t find an equivalent book of Eastern books online but this book apparently covers the major works of prose, poetry and drama from China, India, Japan, Korea and the Middle East.
6. Classic Reader - Search and access an online library of 3800+ mostly classic books.
7. Planet Ebook – Read 80+ free classic books for free on your computer or mobile device.
8. Project Gutenberg – Read over 42,000 free books in the massive Project Gutenberg archive. Download many of them directly to Kindle or other mobile reading formats. Amazing resource for self-education.

Find and Share Amazing Books:

Discover new books that you can read online or find at your local library and connect with other people reading similar books.

1. Good Reads - A massive social network (recently acquired by Amazon) for discovering new books and sharing the books you love.
2. Book Yards – 1000s of more free ebooks easily browsable by author or category.
3. Read Print Library – A social network “where books and people meet”.
4. Library Thing – A community of 1.6 million book lovers. Meet and share stories with people who have similar taste or are reading the same books you are.

Self-Knowledge and Wisdom:

Educating the mind without awakening the heart is no education at all. Explore religious texts to develop your self-knowledge and awaken to the spiritual dimension that gives life meaning and richness.

1. Internet Sacred Text Archive – Read the sacred texts from the world’s major religions and other less institutionalized religions like Sufism, Gnosticism, Tantrism, Taoism, Shamanism and more.
2. Sacred Books of the East – Browse and read public domain copies of 50 of the most important books of Eastern philosophy and civilization.
3. Virtual Religious Index – Extensive link collection maintained by Rutgers University of websites with informative religious content. Categorized by religion as well as ancient religions, archaeology and philosophy.
4. Meta Religion – Internet project for educating people in a multidisciplinary view of the religion, spiritual and the world of esoteric phenomena.
5. Sacred Destinations – Places of great spiritual power around the world that you can explore and plan to visit one day.
6. Religion Facts – Get your religious questions answered on this site.
7. Spiritual Reality Power of Meditation – Freedom from compulsory thoughts is the gateway to wisdom and a true understanding of who you are. This YouTube video is one of the best introductions to meditation.

Education Depositories and Tools:

Some great digital tools for furthering your self-education and lifelong learning.

1. Learnist – Browse and create your own online learning collections. Lots of great content to enjoy.
2. MentorMob – Discover and create your own learning playlists. Similar to Learnist.
3. Kibin – A proof-reading and editing community that can help you improve your writing. You can either pay or proof-read other people’s work and get credit for it.
4. Library of Congress – The de facto national library of the United States of America and the largest library in the world. Most of it is accessible online.
5. BBC Learning – Huge collection of learning resources from the BBC. Find online courses, video clips and educational games.

Learn New Languages:

The best way to learn is to travel. To travel well, you’re probably going to want to learn the local languages. Here are the best ways to do it fast.

1. Duolingo – My favorite free language learning website. Totally gamified learning process where you can learn for free by translating content while you learn. Their iPhone app is great too.
2. Memrise – Innovative memorizing system for learning new languages.
3. Live Mocha – The largest language learning community online that I know of.
4. BBC Languages – Great language learning resources freely provided by the BBC.

Self-Education Toolbox:

Here are my favorite tools for managing my own self-education and creative projects. I prefer digital tools with seamless cloud-based syncing across computers and mobile devices.

1. Evernote – Outsource part of your brain to Evernote. Much more than just notes synced across all your devices. You can also take photos of pages or items and search them later with full text recognition, record voice memos, organized your research and collaborate seamlessly with colleagues on projects.
2. Feedly –  The best Google Reader alternative for grabbing RSS feeds from your favorite blogs. Syncs with iPhone, iPad and Android too.
3. Flipboard - Find interactive content from the web’s best sources and curate your own digital magazine of the websites, articles, videos and photos that inspire you.
4. Pocket – Save articles and information on websites you like to read later online or offline on your laptop, smartphone or tablet.
5. Diigo – My favorite tool for organizing bookmarks by keyword, highlighting text online and posting sticky notes to read important things later. Accessible from any computer or mobile device.
6. Trello - An essential tool for keeping yourself organized and accountable with to-do lists, workflow and flexible deadlines. Also excellent for collaborative learning projects. In one glance, know what’s being worked on, who’s working on it and keep up-to-date with your colleagues progress with private Twitter-like social project stream. Great mobile support on iPhone, iPad and Android.
7. Google Apps For Education – Free web-based email with Gmail, calendar to set reminders and schedule your life, and documents for collaborative study anytime, anywhere.
8. Toggl – Easy time and task tracking for your creative projects. Get an instant breakdown of which projects are consuming your time. For freelance business projects, Harvest has better invoicing and tax features.
9. MindMeister – Create mind maps for brainstorming and organizing where you creative ideas lead you.
10. Astrid – Create and share to-do lists and easily set reminders from your iPhone, iPad or Android device. Wunderlist is great too.

Self-Discipline Tools:

Self-discipline rarely comes naturally so these digital tools are great for setting goals, accountability and tracking progress.

1. Cojourneo – A new app in beta-testing for setting goals and achieving them.
2. 43Things – A goal setting community with 3 million members.
3. Day Zero Project – Make lists of your goals and turn them into a challenge.
4. Everest App – An iPhone app that helps you achieve personal goals.
5. RescueTime - An excellent time management and productivity tool. See where you’re wasting your time and break the habit.
6. Pomodoro App – My favorite productivity tool. The scientifically-proven Pomodoro method breaks down your work or study projects into easily managed 25 minute chunks with 5 minute breaks in-between.

Recommended Reading:

All education is self-education, a good teacher can only point the way, we have to do the work. Interesting perspectives on how education is being revolutionized by the Internet and information abundance.

1. Weapons of Mass Instruction (John Taylor Gatto)
2. Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will (Dale J. Stephens)
3. The Education of Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think and It’s Not Too Late (Michael Ellsberg)
4. The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined (Salman Khan)
5. Better Than College: How to Build a Successful Life Without a Four-Year Degree (Blake Boles)
6. DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education (Anya Kamenetz)
7. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (John Taylor Gatto)
8. Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better (John Holt)
9. The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World (Chris Guillebeau)
10. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Peter Gray)
11. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (Neil Postman)

Free Self-Education Ebooks:

Some great free ebooks about self-education and how to become more creative in your life and work.

1. Stop Stealing Dreams: What Is School For? (Seth Godin)
2. The EduPunk’s Guide To A DIY Credential (Anya Kamenetz)
3. Deschooling Society (Ivan Illich)
4. Teaching As A Subversive Activity (Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner)
5. Education and the Significance of Life (Jiddhu Krishnamurti)

Critical Thinking Resources:

If you’re going to follow the path of self-education these resources can help you sharpen your critical thinking skills.

1. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue – Improve your ability to assess arguments other people make and learn how to construct good arguments of your own.
2. Critical Thinking in Global Challenges – Interesting course that teaches you how to assess information and develop reasoned arguments in the context of global challenges facing our world.
3. Trivium Education – An excellent website dedicated to the Trivium, an ancient system of grammar, logic and rhetoric that provides the intellectual tools to establish clarity and consistency of personal thought. It used to be the cornerstone of a classical liberal education through the study of essential 7 liberal arts and sciences but it is now largely absent from schools.
4. Trivium Resources – An excellent collection of Trivium resources from online free thinking community Tragedy and Hope. I recommend starting with the 5-page summary of the Trivium method for critical thinking and creative problem solving.
5. The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric – The classic book by Sister Miriam Joseph that teaches the Trivium and how it can be used to improve your faculties of intelligence and reasoning.

More Lifelong Learning Resources:

1. Meta-Learning – 70 pages of the Meta-Learning section of Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Chef book.
2. Google World Wonders Project – Google brings to life the wonders of the modern and ancient world.
3. Google Art Project – Explore collections from art museums around the world with thousands of artworks photographed in extremely high resolution.
4. National Geographic Education – Cultivate your knowledge of the world’s geography and countries.

A big thank you goes to Opensource.com for the image at the top.

Do you know of a really valuable self-education and lifelong learning resources that can help me improve this list? I’d love to hear from you.

Fonte: http://www.diygenius.com/