Hacking the curve: do less, but do it better
I step into the office of MIT postdoc Calvin C. Newport PhD ’09, and his dog Bailey greets me with a couple of excited, energetic yips, prancing back and forth between the open door and the room’s strange intruder. Newport watches with amusement from behind a thermos full of coffee. So here’s the man behind How to Win at College, written while he was still an undergraduate at Dartmouth, and Study Hacks, a study skills blog () with over 19,000 readers. Here’s the man who preaches “less is more, even when it comes to school,” and I get the sense that he applies this generously to his own life. He pursues his interests passionately, saying, “My friends and I had an N64, so we tried to master every level of Mario Kart.” He gives himself enough free space to create an enjoyable life.