Another interview this week. I’ve previously interviewed Scott H Young and David Pierce. This week I’ve had a couple of posts about multitasking and hard focus, so I think it’s cool to share an interview with Cal Newport I had lately. Cal Newport is the author of ‘How to become a straight-A student‘ and ‘How to win at college‘ and the author of the popular college blog Study Hacks. Pretty awesome. Cal wrote a lot about hard focus and you will see that in the interview!

[Me]: Hi Cal, also you thanks for participating, can you give the readers a short intro about yourself?

[Cal]: I’m a postdoc at MIT in the computer science lab. Before that, I was a PhD student there. And before that, I was an undergrad at Dartmouth, where, surprisingly enough, I majored in computer science. I blog at Study Hacks, which focuses on how to build lives that are both successful and enjoyable to live. Its primary audience is students — though I sometimes wander into more general topics.

[Me]: You’ve started blogging when you were in college. With this two time-sucking activities you must have a cool way to manage to do both of these activities. How did you do it?

[Cal]: I’m a big believer in autopilot schedules for all regularly-occurring work as a student. The idea is simple: you put aside set times to work on specific tasks. I’ve always had a specific time in my schedule for blogging.

[Me]: Well, yeah, that is one of the challenges I face with blogging, when are you gonna do it? I’m commuting twice per week with train, which gives me 5 hours on the road, with my laptop on my lap. Pretty much hours to work on blog posts, I’m looking forward to the day where we get internet in the trains!

Anyway, do you have any ninja tricks to succeed in college life?

[Cal]:

• Do less things (Think: one major, one extracurricular, etc..)
• Do these things much better than your peers. (Take your small number of obligations seriously)
• Have some sense of what you want out of life and then figure out how you can use college to get what you want.

This combination is superior to the “do as many hard things as possible” strategy. In more detail, the lifestyle is much less stressful and it paradoxically makes you more attractive to the world outside of college.

[Me]: I feel like that pressure is on us indeed. Do as many things as you can, join every club you can, get in every organization you can. Though job. Do you read other college blogs which you could recommend?

[Cal]: Yes, I read: Ben Casnocha, Scott Young, Ramit Sethi and Chris Guillebeau

[Me]: Any New Year’s resolutions you wish to share with the readers?

[Cal]: Embrace simplicity. But couple it with quality.

[Me]: Thanks again for having this interview Cal

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

This week I’ve interviewed David Pierce! David Pierce is the author of Digitizd.com, previously The20life.com, a blog about technology! I love this blog and I can advice it to anyone who is trying to learn more about technology and want to get more out of his computer.

This is the second interview in my interview with college bloggers series. Last week I had an interview with Scott H Young. Coming up next weeks: Ibrahim Hussain (previous owner of ZenCollegeLife.com) and Cal Newport (from StudyHacks)! Stay tuned. Here is the interview:

[Me]: Hi David! Thanks for participating in this interview. Can you give the readers a short introduction about yourself?

[David]: I’m a 21-year-old student at the University of Virginia, and a politics major for some reason I’ve never really figured out. Mostly, I love technology- gadgets and gizmos, and all that good stuff. My blog is Digitizd, and I’m also a freelnace writer for a number of tech and gadget blogs around the Web. I’ve been doing both for a little over a year now and it just keeps getting more fun!

[Me]: Nice! You’ve started blogging while you were in college. This combines two time-sucking activities. How did you manage to do both at the same time?

[David]: The key, for me, has been figuring out how to manage my time. I realized pretty quickly that with even the slightest bit of procrastination, something quickly goes by the wayside because there’s just so much going on. I’ve tried to be good about setting and sticking to a schedule, but always making sure there’s plenty of down time and fun time – that’s what college is for! But honestly, the truth is that I love blogging, and I love college – neither is tough to find time for, because I genuinely love doing each one. I’ve been lucky enough to take classes I like, blog about interesting things, and generally enjoy pretty much all of it.

[Me]: Do you have a secret ninja trick to succeed in college life?

[David]: My best trick isn’t really a secret ninja trick (though I do have a couple), it’s just to be smart. In reality, you don’t need to do all the reading for a class, and some papers just aren’t worth 12 hours of your time. Spend some time at the beginning of the semester gauging just how much a given class is going to require from you—they’re really not all equal, and shouldn’t be treated as such.

The other thing I’ve done, which has helped me hugely, is to go through at the beginning of the semester and schedule every single assignment—tests, papers, everything with a due date gets put into my calendar and task list. That way, I can figure out which weeks are going to require tons of my time, and can prepare ahead. There’s nothing worse than suddenly realizing you won’t be leaving the library for six days, and knowing ahead of time when the rough patches hit means you can be ready when they do.

[Me]: Do you read other college blogs as well? And how do you think that helps you in college? Which blogs would you recommend?

[David]: I read a lot of college blogs, actually. Some are more useful than others, but the perspective on life from a college student is a unique one, and tends to resonate with me better than most other people.
Some of my favorites: HackCollege, StudySuccessful (of course!), StudyHacks, Studenomics, and CollegeTimes.

[Me]: What kind of New Year’s resolution do you wish to share with the readers?

[David]: My New Year’s resolution, hmm. For a long time, I gave up on New Year’s resolutions, because they’re kind of arbitrary and guilt-inducing. But for this year, my resolution is to figure out what I love, and how to do it. College students are too worried about finding a job—money comes first, then enjoying your job. I want to do it the opposite, finding out what’s awesome and then figuring out how to do it. College, when we’re pretty carefree and without a lot of responsibilities, is the perfect time to shoot for the stars—why not do it? Forget playing it safe.

[Me]: Any closing thoughts?

[David]: For anyone out there looking to make a name for themselves—start a blog! You can blog on any topic, and if nothing else, it’ll be the best resume tool you ever have.
Thanks for having me, Stefan!

Next week another interview. Stay tuned.

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

I’ve had an interview with Scott H Young, a popular college blogger who is author of Learn More, Study Less. Learn More, Study Less is now expanded by an extinsive video course.

This interview will be the first of a series. I’m planning to interview a college blogger every friday for January. Coming up: David Pierce, Ibrahim Hussain and Cal Newport! So stay tuned.

[Me]: Hi Scott! Thanks for participating in this interview; can you give the readers a brief introduction of yourself?

[Scott]: Yeah Stefan, I’m a university student and blogger, and I’ve been writing ScottHYoung.com for 4 years now and I’ve produced over 700 articles.

[Me]: You’ve started blogging when you were in college. This combines two attention and time-sucking activities. How did you manage to do both of them?

[Scott]: Well I blog because I love it. But productivity skills definitely come into play. A big chunk of my blog is devoted to managing the different time commitments people face.

[Me]: And that certainly helped you with this. Do you have a secret ninja trick to succeed in college life?

[Scott]: Have a plan. If you don’t have a plan to succeed, you probably won’t get there. (No real ninja secret, but it helps!)

[Me]: Great! How do you think that helps in your college life?

[Scott]: Helps a lot, especially with managing different commitments. Waaay too easy to sit around and do nothing all day if you don’t have a plan.

[Me]: And do you read other college blogs as wel? Which would you recommend?

[Scott]:  Of course, I would recommend:

• Cal Newport – Study Hacks
• Ben Casnocha
• Benny Lewis – Fluent in 3 months
• Brad Bollenbach - 30sleeps (no new posts, but a good archive)

[Me]: Cal is actually going to be interviewed here as well! I’ve never heard about the other three, so that’s pretty cool. Do you have any New Year’s resolutions you wish to share with the readers?

[Scott]: I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I’m more about change on a monthly level, small steps with patience rather than giant leaps. That said, I’ve got a new program geared at rapid learning tactics coming out in January, so a lot of my focus is on making that a success. Also, I’m learning French.

[Me]: Well, thanks again for this interview!

Next friday an interview with David Pierce! Stay tuned for more. Check out Scott H Young’s Learn More, Study Less!