Over the past 30 days, I tried out the digital declutter described in Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I learned a lot from Newport’s book and highly recommend it. If you haven’t read Digital Minimalism, you can read my summary and review here. In implementing the digital declutter into my life over the past 30 days, I learned a lot about my habits and what I value.

To start my digital declutter, I outlined, on an index card, the platforms I use and how I would be using them. Below were my limitations:

• Snapchat: delete app, don’t use at all
• …

For whatever reason, I continually put off writing. It’s one of those things that I tend to enjoy doing in the moment, but struggle to get myself to do. Day after day, I tell myself that I’m going to produce something. And, day after day, I find something more “important” to do.

For me, writing is so difficult because it’s a form of self-expression. In our modern society, we’re constantly being forced to consume rather than create. We use platforms that thrive on us continually scrolling on their newsfeed, watching their latest TV series, and reading their latest news article…

I recently finished reading Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. It was a pretty informative read full of practical and applicable information. The ideas in the book were pretty simple. That said, even though doing the right thing is simple, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The main example of this that Ramsey emphasizes revolves around staying out of debt. The idea of staying out of debt is simple. However, actually staying out of debt while living in our consumerist American culture isn’t easy.

From reading this book, I learned 12 surprising facts about money and American culture:

1. 70% of Americans…

Grit by Angela Duckworth was a fantastic read and I’m excited to share a summary and review of it with you.

Grit is broken down into three parts:

1. What Grit Is and Why It Matters
2. Growing Grit from the Inside Out
3. Growing Grit from the Outside In

Within these three parts, there are thirteen chapters in total that I will dive into in more detail below.

Part 1: What Grit Is and Why It Matters

Chapter 1: Showing Up

In any field, the most successful people are lucky and talented. High achievers keep going after failures, stick things out, are constantly driven to improve, and are “paragons of perseverance.”

In research on high…

I just finished Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and am excited to share a summary and review. Cal Newport is one of my favorite authors. I like the fact that he is a computer science professor. That said, he’s also an incredible writer with an ability to distill information in an engaging way.

The book is all about how we use technology in our lives and how society has been transformed as a result of the latest technological development. Reading this book was somewhat of a wake-up call for me. Even though I was fairly conscious about my social media…

I just finished reading Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Essentialism was a great read and I’m excited to share a summary of the book with you.

I will warn you up front: this isn’t a short summary. That said, I did my best to identify the key ideas and deliver them to you.

There are 4 parts in the book. The first part outlines the core mindset of an essentialist while the following three parts turn the mindset into a systematic process for the disciplined pursuit of less.

The basic proposition of essentialism is that you…

Technical interviews can be super challenging. Very few people enjoy getting in front of a whiteboard to solve a tough coding question. That said, many companies use technical interviews in their hiring process for software engineers. Throughout college, I’ve spent a lot of time preparing for technical interviews and I want to go over some of the main mistakes that I made so that you can hopefully avoid them in your preparation.

The most detrimental mistakes I made are:

1. Typing my solutions directly into LeetCode
2. Looking at a problem’s solution too soon
3. Not taking the time to deeply understand a…

For a while, I’ve been experimenting with ways in which I can leverage technology to be more productive. I’ve tried dozens of apps and kept only the ones that work well for me. If any of these speak out to you, give them a try and see if they help you be more productive.

The apps that I use to increase my productivity are:

1. Trello
2. Toggl
3. Forest
4. Productive

Trello

Trello is a task management software that enables a user to create Kanban-style lists. I use Trello every day to track what I have to do. I like the fact that I can separate my tasks into different lists. I have a…