Unlocking the internet as an independent learning tool - The resources I use

8-minute read

The internet is an amazing tool. Never before in history has human knowledge been so accessible. The great part, most of it is out there free. However, you usually need to spend a lot of time cutting through the noise. I want to save you some of that time, so here are the best resources I’ve used to learn from 48 different areas. I’ve spent 3 hours+ with most of these books/youtube creators/podcasters, so they come with well-informed recommendations.

Sidenote: Going through most of the content I’d ever consumed was a really insightful journey. It showed me just how much I’ve learned through the internet, as well as just how much power our internet feeds have on what we focus on. This has definitely inspired me to consume content more mindfully. I suggest others try the same experiment.

To jump to a section, use this table of contents.

Fitness and health

  • In general I recommend joining a community such as a sports club if you can. Lots of knowledge here is contained orally in this field, and also requires multiple people to actually learn (e.g. you can’t learn Judo online). Sports can form part of a great social community too.

  • Depending on how advanced the scene you join is, it can be hard to find many people to learn from past a certain level. This is when internet learning can come into play, where you can use this community as a test bed for the insights you gain

  • The habit is the most important thing. If you want to go to the gym, even showing up to sit there to look at the plates is better than staying at home. Eventually your boredom will force you to do something. Showing up is more important than being perfect . (Arnold Shwarzenaegger)

  • Within this field especially, it is useful to learn what it actually means to push yourself consistently, most people don’t know this feeling. The best athletes can utilise 100% of the capacity their body offers (e.g Magnus Midtbo)

  • Fitness is a combiantion of flexibility/mobility, strength, cardiovascular fitness. And then there is also coordination, agility and mental awareness which is sport dependent. The first three aspects are the easiest to develop individually since they have more eyes on them and are more transferable between fields.

Cardiovascular fitness
  • Just get outside. Start walking and then running. (5km of walking burns roughly the same amount of calories as 5km of running, it just takes longer.)
  • Couch to 5k is a popular starting point if you want to start running
  • Learn to skip/jump rope if you have less time. (HIT workouts)
Calisthenics
  • FitnessFAQs, Chris Heria, Geek Climber, The Bioneer, Minus the Gym
Strength

Focus on showing up, work hard and get your ‘noob gains’ (building muscle mass and strength is much easier in the ~first year of training).

  • AthleanX, Jeff Nippard, More Plates More Dates
Mobility
  • Movement by David (start here)
  • Squat university (incredible tips)
  • Reddit r/flexibility
  • Knees over toes guy
Basketball
  • In the Lab (handling drills)
  • Daniel Li (analysis)
  • Thinking Basketball (analysis)
Martial arts

Not all of these are creators that will necessarily be important to you to get better, however they can be very interesting/put the sport/art in context.

  • Shintaro Higashi (YouTube)- Great Judo advice, Sensei Seth (Interesting videos from karate perspective), Jesse Enkamp (Interesting videos from karate perspective), Jeff Chan (MMA tips), Chewjitsu (BJJ tips)
Motivation

These include either incredible athletes or fitness inspiration from an uncommon background. Adding these to your feed may improve your algorithm.

  • Magnus Midtbo, Anton Fomenko, Browney, Brently G, Dan Jeong, Jujimufu

Programming

The best way to learn is to learn by doing. Also it is useful to learn version control/git after a bit of experience.

Web development
  • The Odin Project
Game development

Learning how to develop games is a very real way to learn how to program. In addition, popular game engines like Unity can be used in academic research as well for certain projects due to their general ease of use. (Some key words: Blender, Unity, Unreal Engine)

  • Pirate Software (Start here)
  • Sebastain Lague (Blender, Unity, General Programming)
  • The Coding Train (nice, succinct and fun projects)
  • Brackeys (Unity)
  • Red Blob Games (Good, interactive explanations of popular algorithms)
  • Dani (will show you what’s possible by a single person in Unity)
  • Game development ‘devlogs’. There are loads out there, I used to watch Tom Francis when I was younger. Take a search for yourself for your interests
  • Game maker’s toolkit (game design ‘theory’)
Animation for Game development
  • New Frame Plus, Video Game Animation Study
Programming in Python
For kids
  • Scratch, MIT App Inventor
Building a PC/budget gaming
  • Reddit r/BuildAPC
  • RandomGaminginHD
CAD

The good thing about this area is that once you learn one tool you can kind of use them all. Fusion360 is free for students and generally a good place to start.

Self development

I have by far gained the most value from Ali Abdaal. Watch his stuff.

Mindfulness

This can change your life. There a lots of ways to get started. I suggest starting a Bullet Journal. Click here for an overview.

Public speaking
Talking to people
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This is a great book. You don’t even really need the second part too about “influencing people”.
Entrepreneurship/business
Productivity/self help
Mental Health
  • The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos (Podcast)
  • The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns (this is an introduction to cognitive behavioural therapy you can do yourself)
Content Creation
  • Colin and Samir
University
  • John Fish, Ali Abdaal, UnJaded Jade,
Business
  • Good Work (Entertaining 20 minute dives into different industries)
  • jayhoovy (This video (Everything they teach you at goldman sachs), probably contains about 20-40% of my business education in my third year studying engineering in Oxford)
Learning random skills

These creators learn a new skill every week/month. They can show you how learning doesn’t need to be scary (although it will require a lot of failure in the beginning).

  • Mike Boyd, Mike Shake, Max’s monthly challenge
Skincare
  • Reddit r/SkincareAddiction. All the basics of skincare you need to know with a science-based approach. The basics are cleanse, exfoliate, moisturise, suncream every day.

Math, science and engineering

3Blue1Brown is the GOAT in this area

Math
  • The art and craft of problem solving is a decent book for moving past arithmetic and into more actual math
  • Murderous Maths (This series of books is one of the first things that made me fascinated by maths as a young teenager. I think they’re fantastic.)
Science
  • Interesting videos: Up and Atom, Steve Mould, Simon Clark, Tibees, Smarter every day
  • Interesting videos (generally more advanced): Artem Kirsanov, Physics for the Birds, Mutual Information, Brain Truffle, Quantum Sense
  • More people: Welch Labs (Machine learning), Looking Glass Universe (Quantum Physics), Minutephysics (Physics)
  • blackpenredpen (solves fun maths problems)
  • Misc: Good Vibrations with Freeball, Greg winther, The Royal Institution
  • Physics: Alicedoesphysics, Andrew Dotson, Zach Star
Making things (Engineering)
  • Stuff Made Here
  • Mark Rober
  • Michael Reeves, William Osman, I did a thing
Technology
  • Fireship (good summaries of new technologies)
  • Cleo Abram (discusses the future of technology)

Personal finance and investment

These resources are centered on the UK. My general advice is to clear your debt, get an emergency fund and then invest in an index fund. However, do your own research before investing money.

Culture/informational

  • Abroad in Japan
  • Tom Scott

Music

The most common way to actually learn this skill is to have a one on one tutor to get to a high level of ability. To learn the basic skills there are books and videos, especially for popular instruments that will help you definitely learn them.

General
  • Adam Neely, Charles Cornell, Rick Beato
Guitar
  • Justin Guitar (YouTube)
  • Redlight Blue (YouTube)
  • Kevin Nickens (YouTube)
Piano
  • Alfred’s Basic Adult All-In-One Piano Course : Lesson, Theory, Technique
  • Nahre sol

Miscellaneous

Skating
  • Braille Skateboarding
Art
  • Draw with Jazza
  • Reddit r/learntodraw
  • Will Paterson
Dance
  • Steezy (mainly hiphop)
  • 1 Million (Hiphop)
  • pigmie (flips/breakdance-older stuff is better I think)
  • Matt Steffanina (Hiphop)
  • Magnus Magneto (Breakdance)
Freelancing

I would probably recommend you try start a business now though, e.g. online writing. See “The Art and Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention” by Nicholas Cole, it is an amazing book on that topic.

  • Freelancer.com. Fiverr.
Language learning
  • Will probably update later. The more you can practice the better after learning the grammar basics.
Driving
  • Conquer Driving
Cinema
  • Every Frame a Painting
  • Now you see it
More
  • Jan Misali (If you ever wanted to learn about constructed languages)
  • Beau Miles (Great short films on real adventures)
  • Ryan Trahan
  • Casually Explained
  • Daily Dose of Internet
  • Jared Henderson
  • NPR Tiny Desk (just great music)
  • Chicken Shop Dates, Hot Ones