Self-help is something we all do all the time.
Many of our everyday decisions – from what we eat, read and watch, to how we communicate and why we maintain certain habits – are motivated by a belief that these choices will improve our quality of life.
But if the general quality of information available to us is low, we are likely making sub-optimal decisions. With access to better knowledge, we could improve our choices in how we approach everyday activities.
By providing higher-quality recommendations that are easier to understand and implement, Effective Self-Help can make a real difference.
We believe that the principles and methods behind Effective Self-Help will make our work uniquely valuable and enable us to help you to consistently increase your wellbeing and productivity.
What exactly is Effective Self-Help?
Effective Self-Help is a non-profit research organisation aiming to document and synthesise the most effective ways for individuals to improve their wellbeing and productivity.
We conduct thorough research into key topics, prioritising the most effective interventions based on the best available evidence. We then find the most effective ways to support you in applying these recommendations and thereby improve your wellbeing and productivity.
Effective Self-Help was founded in November 2021 and so remains a relatively new project. As such, our work until now has been of limited scope. Moving forwards, our efforts in both the short- and long-term, are directed at progress towards our two main aims:
- Building a comprehensive database of the highest-quality self-advice
- Finding the most effective means of communicating this advice to produce sustained, positive behaviour change
What makes our work different?
While there is an abundance of self-help resources that already exist, we are confident that Effective Self-Help can offer something distinctive and highly valuable. This belief is based on the seven key principles that drive Effective Self-Help and make our work unique.
Summarised briefly, these principles are:
Prioritisation
Highlighting the most effective interventions and how effective they are, rather than just listing interventions that may be effective.
Research Quality
Providing more rigorous and well-rounded advice that combines the findings of scientific literature with more Bayesian forms of evidence.
Presentation
Maximising engagement through curated recommendations and the use of digital media (video, audio, and interactive programmes).
Breadth
Covering topics across the full breadth of wellbeing and productivity, rather than just specific domains of expertise.
Practicality
A focus on enabling behaviour change by highlighting practical actions and tailoring content to maximise the success of habit adoption.
Positive mental health
Looking at how to improve the wellbeing of people who are not struggling with mental health issues as well as those who are.
Free Access
Avoiding any influence of paywalls, advertising, or affiliate marketing on the quality of advice provided and full access to advice.
…
In short, we aim to slowly outcompete lower-quality projects by providing better, more trustworthy guidance in a superior format for free.
What's been done so far?
Since launching, we’ve produced in-depth research reports assessing the most effective interventions for:
- Improving sleep
- Reducing stress
- Optimising habit formation
We currently have research underway into several new topics that we are excited to publish over the coming weeks. This includes reports focused on minimising procrastination, increasing learning efficiency, and maximising subjective wellbeing.
If you’re excited to read our findings on any of these topics, you can sign up to our newsletter and receive a short summary each month of our latest work straight to your inbox.
We’ve also recently launched a consultation service, where you can apply for advice tailored specifically to you. For more information, take a look at our ‘Speak with us‘ page.
What do you have planned?
Our plans for the coming months focus on two main directions.
Building our research database
Our long-term vision is to become a comprehensive base for wellbeing and productivity advice. Given there are hundreds of topics that could feasibly be valuable to cover, we are looking to significantly extend the scope of our work.
Our current reports focus on specific topics related to wellbeing or productivity. However, we envisage Effective Self-Help developing into a database of interventions, highlighting their impact across many different topics.
In this way, we hope to find what the most effective things are that you can do for your wellbeing and productivity as a whole, not just in specific areas.
As part of this, we plan to build with domain-specific experts to enhance the quality of our advice and ensure that we are providing the best possible recommendations. These partnerships should prove particularly useful for maximising the value of our consultation service, helping us find the best advice for people’s individual circumstances.
Diversifying our presentation
Alongside our efforts to produce the best available wellbeing/ productivity advice, we want to maximise the level and ease of uptake for the recommendations we make. Up to now, we have presented our advice through articles published on the EA Forum and on our website.
We have recently begun to experiment with different methods of presentation for our work, including producing infographics and flashcards. These aim to increase the ease of identifying key recommendations and then consolidating knowledge of the best approaches to implementation.
In the next few months, we plan to launch an Effective Self-Help podcast, providing a more accessible, audio-based discussion of our recommendations.
We also plan to run experiments with several other approaches to presenting our work, looking to identify the most cost-effective means of maximising the sustained uptake of our recommendations.
Potential approaches include making short videos (loosely modelled on the work of The School of Life), producing interactive courses/ programmes (using GuidedTrack and loosely modelled on the work of Clearer Thinking), and creating a prioritisation/ screening quiz that allows people to quickly tailor recommendations to their personal circumstances.
In the long-term, we hope to use a diverse set of presentation techniques to maximise the reach of our research.
Next steps
Excited about our work and our plans?
We’d love to keep in touch.
Have ideas, comments, or feedback on Effective Self-Help as a project?
Please let us know!
Thanks for taking the time to learn more about who we are and what we have planned. Make sure to take a look at our current research reports and see what recommendations you could be experimenting with right now.
To living better,
Ben Williamson
Founder & Director
Effective Self-Help
