A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. John F. Kennedy
What would be life without ideas?
With over 1 bln websites and millions of apps out there, you surely can feel overhelmed. So much information, very often redundant and stealing your time. Where to go for information that can deliver real value to your life?
I’ve selected 14 websites and apps than can bring great inspiration and ideas. To make your life more tasty, vivid and colourful. Who knows where it can take you. Stay open minded and look at the following selection.
Ultimate number one. This is my favourite.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a global set of conferences, with the very meaningful slogan”Ideas Worth Spreading”. The popularity of the project is huge. A very important aspect of the talks is to entertain audience with bright and surprising concepts. The range of subjects is vide too: activism, democracy, biology, body language or computers You can see all of them here.
Launched in 2006, now all TED talks (over 2400) are available online on website TED.com for FREE.
Have you heard about it? Just kidding. There are so many music videos, vlogs or just with cats. What I want to recommend you is to subscribe to more mind-blowing youtube channels. So here they are:
On this channel, Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy take a $150,000 high speed camera to show you the world hundreds of times slower than you can see with your own eyes.
Destin, the founder of the project, explores the world with science. The topics are very various: how to ride a backwards bicycle, how Houdini died or shooting AK-47 underwater.
Veritasium – an element of truth.
Here you can find many entertaining videos on: How long will you live? The most radioactive places on Earth or What is electricity?
A weekly dose of fun and scientific videos produced in a funny and entertaining form.
I don’t have to tell you that coding is in demand on the job market. So learning programming languages can be very beneficial. There are many websites where you can learn how to code for FREE. The most popular is Codecademy.
Codecademy is an online very interactive platform which helps you in many programming languages such as Python, java, PHP, JavaScript, Ruby or markup languages (HTML, CSS). You can also learn how to use Git.
Just like they say: “An education company. But not one in the way you might think. We’re committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future”.
You can also learn how to code on Udemy, Udacity and Coursera, which will be talking about later.
Learn how to start a startup.
Website: http://startupclass.samaltman.com
This is a must if you want to learn about entrepreneurship from experienced managers and entrepreneurs like Sam Altman, Ben Horowitz or Peter Thiel.
You can learn how to operate on every startup stage. You will get knowledge about how to build products which users love, how to talk to users, how to create culture and a team.
Train your brain.
The following apps can improve your memory, attention, spatial cognition, processing speed, flexibility or problem solving.
You should definitely give these apps a try:
The games are funnyand entertaining: you will have to remember the arrangement of blocks, be quick enough to serve coffee to a mass of clients or quickly add numbers. And you can play against the clock.
With Peak you can test and improve your cognitive skills. This App is packed with funny games together with a scientifically-researched approach. You earn Peak points and reach daily goals. The system is to build daily, healthy learning habits.
Fit Brains has the highest quality brain training games on the market.
Fit Brains helps you train crucial brain skills such as memory, concentration, problem-solving, processing speed, language, and visual-spatial recognition. As services mentioned before, this tool keeps your mind entertained and challenged at the same time.
The training program is designed by neuroscientists, and can stimulate your memory, focus or processing speed. What’s more, the faster and better you are, system will bring you more challenging levels and games.
Quora is a question-and-answer-website. There is a huge community of users around it who publish questions, answers, edit and organize them into categories and topics. The best answers are upvoted. There is a great range of topics, and definitely it is an amazing place to find inspiration.
Here you can find great resources about Time Management, How to Improve Memory and Concentration or How to Become a Fast Learner.
Learning languages
Learning languages is not a hype. This is a very practical and on demand skill which can help you in a personal and business life.
There are so many tools to learn languages. If you want to know more check out these articles: X Amazing Platforms To Learn Languages For Free and also Top 6 Best Mobile Apps to Learn Languages Like a Boss.
And if you still feel knowledge hungry check this one too: X Tasty Tips for Teaching Yourself Any Language
Highbrow is a subscription service that brings cool and exciting bite-sized daily courses to straight to your inbox. The content is chunked into small, digestible 5- minute long parts.
You get only one email daily and just for 10 days. And what is interesting about it? You can only learn once course at a time. You can’t enroll into multiple courses – only one course. Personally, I think that this simplicity is a great idea.
You can also invite friends to emails and discuss with them what you have learnt. Amazing.
So sign up and learn something new. Every day!
What is Headspace?
Headspace is an online platform that offers 10 minute guided meditation sessions and mindfulness training. Available also as a mobile app. According to the company’s materials, their primary concern is to improve health and happiness of the world.
What is interesting, the founder of this service, Andy Puddicombe, travelled to Asia and became a Buddhist monk in a Tibetan Monastery in the Himalayas. He also took meditation trainings in India, Burma, Thailand, Australia and Russia.
But that’s not all. Here are more websites that you can use.
Udemy.
Udemy is a great platform where you can learn from FREE and paid courses about everything from programming, yoga to photography–and much, much more.
It has become the largest online community of learners worldwide with more than 10 mln users and over 40 000 courses. Every course is in video format, with discussion forum where you can ask your tutor about the lessons.
Cousera is another great learning website.
You can find here hundreds of specializations and courses in business, computer science, data science, and more. You can also connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help with mastering concepts.
Khan Academy is a non-profit educational platform, with free education for anyone, anywhere. Lessons are in the form of short videos.
As you see, you can learn here many subjects like math, Arts and Humanities or Computing.
With skillshare you can learn in short lessons with most classes under one hour. Every Skillshare class has a project. Projects let students exchange feedback and learn together.
With a free subscription you gain access to 354 Free Classes.
Conclusion
There are many options to continuously expand your mind and learn many new things. Who knows, what will happen when you master new skills? Maybe you get a promotion or event change your job?
If you have bad experiences and didn’t get much from your formal education, no need to worry, the whole world of new ideas is waiting to be explored. Just try to imagine, where you can be in a week, month or a year with that kind of knowledge! So don’t wait and happy learning!
Keeping fingers crossed. And please let me know what courses you are enrolling on. Maybe I will join them too?