About
Background
Who are we?
Effective Self-Help is a non-profit research organisation providing rigorous, practical advice on the best ways in which you can improve your wellbeing and productivity. We recommend practical and effective interventions, offering free access to trustworthy information on how to live better. The project began on the EA Forum as a series of articles. This includes reports on sleep and stress, a mental health podcast directory, and a in-depth explanation of the project’s goals.
For more about the wonderful people who produce our research and make Effective Self-Help possible, take a look at the Our Team page.
Where are we headed?
Effective Self-Help aims to eventually cover every impactful method of improving wellbeing and productivity, providing a comprehensive source of transformative advice. In the coming weeks, we’ll be publishing further in-depth research reports on minimising procrastination, direct interventions for improving subjective wellbeing, and the best strategies for efficient learning.
We are now working to expand significantly as an organisation, building our capacity to research many more topics and interventions. We are also beginning to experiment with different avenues for presenting our work, from infographics and short articles, to collaborations with other organisations.
Beyond this, we’re excited to soon launch the Effective Self-Help podcast and begin a pilot version of our consultation service, offering tailored advice to empower individuals doing high-impact work.
Why ESH?
We put the evidence first.
We prioritize the most effective interventions, and our advice joins scientific literature with Bayesian reasoning.
We’re comprehensive.
We cover a breadth of topics on wellbeing and productivity, rather than just specific domains of expertise.
We’re practical.
We focus on what actions you can take right now, highlight practical interventions and tailoring our content to maximise the success of behaviour change.
We’re free.
No paywalls. No affiliate links. No ads. Just advice. Our only focus is to provide the best possible information through the most effective means available.
What's Effective Altruism?
Effective altruism (EA) is a global movement of people motivated to do the most good that they can in the world. Loosely directed by the Centre for Effective Altruism, members of the EA community uses evidence and careful analysis to figure out how we can use our resources to help others the most. Effective Self-Help is currently funded by the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund, an offshoot granting organisation that forms part of the EA community.
While we hope that our resources help can help Effective Altruists improve their well-being and productivity, we believe this advice can improve the lives of people from any and all backgrounds. For more information about effective altruism, including how you can get involved, we recommend effectivealtruism.org, Giving What We Can, and the EA Forum.