Let's learn about Self Improvement via these 500 free blog posts. They are ordered by HackerNoon reader engagement data. Visit the Learn Repo or LearnRepo.com to find the most read blog posts about any technology.
"There's no genre more discredited than self-help. It's become synonymous with sentimentality, idiocy and hucksterism. This verdict is not unfair. The book covers are frequently garish; the promises overblown. But to dismiss the idea that underpins self-help—that one might at points stand in urgent need of solace and education—seems an austerely perverse prejudice." — Alain de Botton
1. Best Programming Languages to Start Freelancing
Programming has been one of the most in-demand and highly-paid skills for the last two decades, and the demand is only increasing. In addition to this demand and popularity in the market, working as a developer also provides a lot of flexibility. You can work from wherever you want and contribute to projects all around the world. All of these reasons make software development highly compatible with the freelancing lifestyle.
2. Present Your Way to Success: Key Tips for Landing a Product Design Job
Every design job interview I’ve ever done or given has had one thing in common, and that’s the portfolio presentation.
3. How to Create a Habit Tracker in Notion
Why Even Track Your Habits?
4. How I Use Notion to Manage My Relationship
A list of reasons why you should try documenting your relationship on Notion
5. Parenting Skills That Shape Effective Business Leadership
As a parent, I've found that these seven parenting skills have helped me become a better business leader in my everyday life.
6. 5-Hour Rule: Why you Should Spend Time Learning
Michael Simmons wrote a great <a href="https://medium.com/the-mission/the-5-hour-rule-if-youre-not-spending-5-hours-per-week-learning-you-re-being-irresponsible-791c3f18f5e6?_lrsc=367a8963-f057-48e9-9b62-e1500f3b5216" target="_blank">article</a> about the importance of intellectual capital. We fully agree on his opinion and added our comments to the original article related to the blockchain space.
7. Transitioning to Product Management: Resume Writing Tips for Novices
Useful tips on how to write your resume if you are looking for a product manager job.
8. How Communication Skills Help Software Engineers Succeed
In reality, software engineers are not necessarily the worst communicators. However, there are a number of reasons why this bias toward engineers exists.
9. I Did The 10-Day (Silent) Vipassana Course And Doubled My Productivity
"In the middle of 2018, in the midst of the Blockchain and crypto-mania research and roadshows, I was consulting with dozens of startups on China strategies, dealing with endless emails, taking calls during the night due to different time zones, and constantly answering pop-up messages on Whatsapp, WeChat, Telegram, and Facebook. Ultimately, it was negatively affecting my mental health. My head felt like hundreds of tabs in a single browser trying to load multiple types of information..."
10. What I Learned About Human Psychology From the CIA
What CIA figured out about human nature that we can apply to our everyday life. What motivates us, how most people function, how to get what we want and more.
11. The Feynman Learning Technique: How to Learn Anything Well
It is 1941 and you have a problem. While you haven’t yet gotten around to defining quantum electrodynamics, or even started your work helping design the atomic bomb, you are nearing the end of your second year of graduate school. This means you have an exam soon.
12. Understanding the Role of a Product Manager in ML Product Development
What do the product managers of machine learning products do?
13. Learn How to Learn, Before Learning How to Code
While this anecdote is from my own experience, I firmly believe that most of us been in this situation before. One day, you decide to learn something new. Perhaps you want to learn how to code, so you pick the hottest language of the moment. It's a language that "pays the most", works like magic, and everyone is looking for people that know it.
14. 4 Lessons I Picked Up as a Machine Learning Product Manager
How does one succeed as a product manager in the field of machine learning? Know the tech and get ready to work with many different tech roles!
15. An Evidence-Based Guide to Nootropics and Cognitive Enhancement [Comic]
After years of listening to people preach misinformed rubbish about nootropics and cognitive enhancement, I decided to do the responsible thing and write a comic to preach myself.
16. Unpopular Opinion: It’s Harder Than Ever to Be a Good Software Engineer
Surviving tech's fast lane: A story of engineers, hype, and staying focused on what truly matters in a changing world
17. Landing A Job At Twitter As A Software Engineer [How I Did It]
This is the story of how I landed a job at Twitter as a full-time software engineer, what I went through, how I prepared and why I finally decided to join the company.
18. How To Use Guilds For Better Knowledge Transfer Between Engineers
Hello, Hacker Noon people! Technology guilds are a popular but still fresh way of implementing communities of practices in companies. Still, there are many questions, especially related to guild responsibilities and organization. Together with Andrew Kozin, I've prepared this post for you as a summary of our personal experience and understanding of the role of a technology guild nowadays.
19. Mastering Trade-Offs for Effective Product Management
Naturally, the responsibility of choosing the right solution by assessing every aspect of the problem and its possible solutions falls on the shoulders of product managers. As a matter of fact, most common challenges faced by product managers are hefted with the weight of trade-offs. You can learn how to deal with these tradeoffs just by keeping a few things in mind and having a structured decision-making process.
20. How to Become a Top 1% Programmer: The Path You Have to Take
So you want to become better than 99% of programmers. But you are doing the exact same things that 99% of programmers are already doing.
21. Choosing the Right Side Hustle That Actually Works
A practical guide to choosing the right side hustle, focusing on performance-based income and smart steps to long-term freedom.
22. Procrastination From a Remote Programmer's Perspective
I've read many articles on procrastination and motivation, but I've always found in them a complete or partial misunderstanding of the problem. Or just inconsistency with my realities – after all, people are different. I'm going to describe what I know from my own experience and what helps me personally. Maybe it will help someone else.
23. Dear Aspiring Data Scientists: Skip the Certificates, Do This Instead
If you've been on LinkedIn anytime in the past several months, you've probably come across the infamous "certification post."
24. AI in Fitness: Top 10 AI-based Personal Trainers
Health is wealth- we all refer to this old saying to highlight the importance of health and fitness in our lives. But how many of us do actually have a fitness routine? Digging deeper into the facts; approximately 3/4th of adults worldwide do not exercise at all. In fact, inadequate physical activity has been identified as one of the main risk factors of death worldwide over the past decade.
25. Simple Questions for Trading Your Day up
Dive into a transformative practice that sharpens focus, fosters growth, and illuminates the path to day-to-day excellence.
26. Cognitive Dissonance Theory and How it Impacts US
Cognitive dissonance is a psychology theory about how we strive to make sense about conflicting cognitions and behaviours.
27. Behavioral Interview: The Guide to Fitting In
Behavioral interviews assess how a candidate's experience matches a company's needs. Culture fit and compelling stories are key to nailing these interviews.
28. The Dark Side of LinkedIn: A Capitalist’s Pipe Dream
LinkedIn has become a cesspool of toxic productivity, virtue signaling, and corporate worship. It is time to call for a change!
29. How to get over $200 of free food in SF
As VC firms hurl money into the battling Silicon Valley food delivery startups, the consumer can really benefit from the influx of free meal discounts and referral codes.
30. Learning from the OSS: Destroy Your Organization by Following the Simple Sabotage Field Manual
"The purpose of this paper is to characterize simple sabotage, to outline its possible effects, and to present suggestions for inciting and executing it."
31. Saying "Yes" Is Killing Your Happiness
Learn how to say “no” without guilt or burning bridges. Protect your time, energy, and priorities with these practical tips for setting boundaries that stick.
32. I’m an engineer, how do I become a tech leader?
<em>I had questions when starting my career, more since and plenty today. I’ll give my personal story for the ones I’ve experienced and bug a friend or two for the ones I haven’t. A few other topics I’ll be covering:</em>
33. How I live: My iPhone home screen
<em>This post is part of a larger attempt to share my personal “systems” that help me organize my life. By sharing my system, I hope to get feedback and inspire others to share as well.</em>
34. Common Mistakes During 1:1 Meetings with Your Manager
The article describes common mistakes which can be easily fixed to get more out of 1-on-1 meetings with your manager.
35. 3 Tips to Improve Your Mental Health as a Developer
It's been over a month now since I last wrote an article here for my blog. I've been struggling a lot with low mood, which has meant that I haven't had the motivation or the energy to produce new content. I have been getting help, which I've found really useful, so I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned in the hope that it might help other developers in a similar position.
36. Practical Exercises for Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
Overcome limiting beliefs by recontextualising them in your mind, writing down the old ones to create new ones and practising both meditation and embodiment
37. Don't Be Scared Of Indeterminacy
Hello, people! I'm an IT analyst from Russia, and I want to make the world around me better. Last time I worked for the biggest Russian energy company as a business analyst, and during my work, I noticed that it is unnecessary to be good at making the final result even if you are a really good professional in your field.
38. Lessons on Human Connection from the Hedgehog's Dilemma
The Hedgehog's Dilemma & Human Connection
39. Four Possible Ways to React to Other People's Happiness or Misery
Schadenfreude, Compassion, Envy and Mudita: explaining how we react to other people's fortunes or misery
40. UX Portfolio-Building Tips that Don't Get Old
5 UX portfolio tips from Meta & ex-Google designer. Upgrade your design portfolio and get the job you want.
41. How I Designed My Own Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Degree
After noticing my programming courses in college were outdated, I began this year by dropping out of college to teach myself machine learning and artificial intelligence using online resources. With no experience in tech, no previous degrees, here is the degree I designed in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence from beginning to end to get me to my goal — to become a well-rounded machine learning and AI engineer.
42. What I Learned Using ChatGPT as a Programming Mentor
Nothing accelerates your growth like an experienced mentor. Can ChatGPT serve as a substitute? I'm a dev with 20+ years of experience and I put it to the test.
43. The Secret to Learning: How to Learn 10 Times Faster
Dan Koe unveils the secret to learning quicker.
44. 78 Experts Share Their Remote Working Tips
Productivity is a concern for modern management. As offices have seen productivity benefits of traditional, standardized and documented practices, these companies have also imposed key performance indicators to better gauge employee production and productivity. At the same time, the people themselves, from the employees up to the owners realize that they need to work better, as well as improve their working environment.
45. Making a Good Engineer a Great One: Training Your Skills and Training Your Mindset
Navigating challenges in engineering growth: from coding struggles to leadership dilemmas, a narrative of perseverance and self-discovery.
46. No One Knows That You're Great At What You Do
This is an article by Eko Adetolani that explains low-effort ways that people can use to get recognition and visibility for their work.
47. 51 Stories To Learn About Decision Making
Learn everything you need to know about Decision Making via these 51 free HackerNoon stories.
48. Turn Your Self-Isolation into Self-Improvement [Hacker Noon Newsletters]
49. How To Take Notes So Good They Become Your Second Brain
Today, we consume more information per person than at any other time in human history. We are continually reading, observing, monitoring, conversing and mentally trying to build a knowledge of the world we can use in our daily work and lives. The problem? The disparity between the total quantity of human knowledge and our ability to assimilate and filter it grows, unremittingly, by the day.
50. The 5 Best Books Every CTO and Engineer Manager Should Read
Here’s my recommendation when it comes to books that will help a technical person to get into management and executive functions.
51. 10 Online Activities To Do During Quarantine
Unfortunately quarantine has become our new reality for some indefinite time. However, it doesn’t mean we are completely doomed to give up on what we love doing. Of course, certain limitations are inevitable, on the other hand when life gives you lemons... you know what to do.
52. How to Prep for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Certification Exam
I recently passed the Amazon Web Solutions (AWS) Web Services Test to an Assistant Engineer. The information was new to my mind, but I wanted to put together a publication about my experience to help those looking for similar certificates.
53. The Rational Software Engineer: A Guide to Work Time Organization
As a software engineer, I often try to understand how to optimize my productivity: I want to get more work done, without having to do more work.
54. Programming Principles for Beginners
55. How to Setup a Better Column-based Habit Tracker in Notion
Not another Column-based Habit Tracker. Try using Relation Property to Track Habits.
56. Knowledge Work is Non-Linear—Here's How You Keep Devs Motivated
Software development might not look exhausting at first glance, but it’s one of the most consuming fields out there. Developers need to maintain steady concentration through 8-10-hour working days, approach tasks creatively, and maintain communication with their colleagues. Even top talent gets bored and burnt out.
57. What Is Impostor Syndrome?
Impostor syndrome is a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills or talents and has a fear of being exposed as a fraud.
58. How to Help Those Who Are NEET
Most of us know volunteering is good for our health. You’re giving something back, meeting people you might not otherwise meet, and possibly transforming lives.
59. I’m an ENTP - Now what?
60. 3 Life Lessons From John Grisham’s Writing Habits
Adopting a stoic mindset, employing consistent habits, learning to enjoy improving in our craft could bring meaningful insights into our efforts.
61. Exercise and the Hacker
Self care through physical exercise can help hackers with stress and energy.
62. #LockdownConf: How to Learn New Skills While Social Distancing
63. How To Reduce Workplace Stress
Work is a big part of our life. Done well, it can be a source of joy. But when managed poorly, it can often lead to stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction at work
64. The Illusion of Personal Knowledge Management
The concept of the second brain recently entered the intellectual milieu. personal knowledge management, taken to its extreme, can serve as a distraction.
65. The Less Debt You Have, the More Risk You Can Assume.
Think about the level of focus you can have without the stress of losing everything.
66. G.I. Joe Lied To Us—Knowing Is Not Half The Battle
For anyone who is a G.I. Joe fan, they would know this quote very well.
67. How I've Navigated a 30-Year Career in IT and Software Development
During Career Day in High School a teacher pointed out that only if you had advanced math skills could you be successful in Computer Programming.
68. Personal Finance 101 for Developers: How to Hack Your Financial Well-Being
As a freelance web developer, it recently dawned on me that I had never given any thought to my pension. After all, at thirty years old, retirement is still a couple of decades away. But I know that being a freelancer comes with the responsibility of having to take care of my own pension, and I don’t want to end up as a retiree without any income. So I set out on a quest to improve my financial well-being and be better prepared for the future.
69. Over 40, With No Technical Background, This Is How I Learned Javascript in 2 Weeks
In this article, I'll share a complete strategy for a complete beginner to learn the basics of JavaScript quickly and complete small projects.
70. From Mid to Senior: How to Deal With Imposter Syndrome
Combat Impostor Syndrome as a developer. Understand it, identify signs, and learn strategies to manage self-doubt while stepping into senior roles.
71. 13 Free/Low-Cost Sites to Supercharge Your Programming Self-Education
Although we still talk about programming as a standalone career, the dominance of technology in our lives makes it clear that coding is much more than a career path. In my opinion, computer science is more than a college major or a high-paid job; it’s a skill, essential for thriving in a modern-day economy.
72. Java Coding Problems Review
I recently bought Java Coding Problems by Anghel Leonard because the topics covered in this book interested me as a Java trainer. I decided to buy it after I saw the TOC here. Since Java has started to evolve quite fast is hard to keep myself up to date and is quite easy to miss new Java features or to not have time to explore them in detail.
73. Here's Why You Should Stop Over-Apologizing at Work
Saying sorry may seem polite, but apologizing even when it’s not required can hurt your image and credibility—you may come across as defensive and submissive.
74. Speed Is Slowing You Down: How to Outperform Everyone With Effortless Effort (and Overcome Laziness)
Laziness isn’t about doing nothing—it’s about doing the wrong things. Work isn’t about spending more time—it’s about getting the right things done well and fast
75. How to Achieve Hard Things following Brandon Sanderson's Advice
Brandon Sanderson, a bestselling fantasy author, presents a framework to achieve hard things, based on his experience.
76. The Art of Mastering Atomic Habits
If you want to change your life, you need to start with your habits. Atomic habits are the building blocks that make up our lives.
77. The Importance of Unlearning
The world of software is constantly changing at a very fast pace. Yesterday’s axioms might be tomorrow’s anti-patterns.
78. Why Self-Taught Skills Are the New MBA in Today's Economy
Discover how self-education can help you build wealth, create businesses, and impact the world beyond the confines of traditional college degrees.
79. How To Build Your Self Esteem
Self-esteem refers to how we view and respect ourselves. Because it is founded on our views and beliefs about ourselves, changing them can be challenging.
80. “Looking For My Next Challenge”: How Tech Executives Should Do It
We try, we fail or we succeed but we always learn.
81. Our Greatest Growth Resource Is Each Other: The Power of Setting Private Goals in Small Communities
Goal-setting is so much more effective when done as part of a community.
82. I Built a Mental Health App While Stuck in My Tiny Studio in NYC
Mental health has been a rising issue lately since the pandemic and it caught my attention right away since I was going crazy being stuck in my tiny studio in New York City that has no view. Also, I was consistently looking for ways to help users on Goodnight Journal who expressed depression and anxiety through public journals. Some of the public journals really got me concerned and think more about features that I can implement to help them feel better. It kind of came naturally that I want to do something about it. I ended up playing around with a bunch of mental health and meditation apps out there and came up with the app called Happy.
83. Turn your idea into a product that people actually use
<strong>We are all inspired by great ideas and thoughts towards which we strive to accomplish,</strong> but this doesn’t mean they will be done by the next day. If you are inspired by a great idea or you have thought about something you <em>really</em> want to do, you will also notice that you instantly get this urge to follow it through till the end to finally see the finished product. But how long does this feeling last? It’s these rare moments that give us such motive, and you should make use of this time before it starts fading away.
84. Reasons to Write Code On Paper
Half and a year ago I rewrote the JavaScript encyclopedia starting from "Advanced working with functions" until the end, and oh boy, the result was amazing. From start I easily wrote the JavaScript class for the Webpack plugin, that was a joy.
85. 14 Small Productivity Principles You Can Start Practicing Today
Early in my career, I placed a lot of focus on doing more in less time. I thought I was being productive. The reality was I was simply scrambling from one task to the next without clarity on whether my work was effective or how I could do better. I focused on the end goal, the result I wanted to achieve without really caring about the process to get there.
86. A True Story About How Stoicism Saved a Prisoner of War: 7 Tips for Your Own Life
Stockdale had no reason to think that the day’s mission was to be anything unique.
87. Over 40, With no Technical Background, This is How I Learned a Frontend Framework in 2 Weeks
Over 40, with no technical background, this is how I learned a Frontend Framework in 2 weeks.
88. The Ultimate Guide to One-On-One Meetings for Managers
All managers struggle with the fine balance between doing work that achieves short term goals vs investing time in activities with long term benefits.
89. Confessions Of A Shitty Leader
Growing up with a speech impediment I was constantly in awe of confident leaders, and as a result, I spent the first half of my career trying to become one. In order to get over my fear of talking, I threw myself into sales, and within a year I had ...
