If you’re willing to put in the time, you can find plenty of online insights and courses that teach new skills and broaden your knowledge. We’re not talking about self-help books or quick-fix seminars that charge a lot of money – we list sites that provide real value and don’t charge you a cent.
To help you find what you want, we’ve split these resources into three categories: Self-improvement, Professional skills, and General knowledge.
Self-Improvement
Want to work a little on yourself? These three sites have a lot to tell you.
You’ll find a ton of online advice on how your mind and body work – but much of it is wrong or lacks context. So, let’s get that information from an authority. And you can hardly ask for more of an expert than Dr Andrew Huberman, professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
In this ongoing series of videos and podcasts, he goes into detail on how we function. Want to sleep better? Lose weight? Balance your mood? There are no quick answers. But what Dr Huberman and his guests tell you can change your life.
Ever felt that you waste too much time? More to the point, ever sat around avoiding tasks you know you should be doing? Procrastination is probably the main curse of our demanding modern lifestyles, and it’s not just about getting up and doing things. Successfully overcoming procrastination habits is a skill worth learning.
Lifehack.com built its brand on giving people helpful tricks and tips, and the site offers a free course on managing and reducing procrastination. It only takes 20 minutes a day, but the benefits will be with you for a lifetime.
Professional Skills
Improve your professional world with courses from the following sites.
More and more academic institutions are taking their courses online, and many are free. The problem is finding them, which is why Coursera is an excellent place to start developing your professional knowledge. Created by Stanford University professors, Coursera curates courses from institutions across the globe.
Choose from hundreds of free, university-grade courses: learn about negotiation, machine learning, finance, game theory, nutrition, and so much more…
Google Digital Skills of Africa
Google recently revamped its Digital Skills for Africa site to offer many free courses that teach business, marketing and technology skills. A lot of the material aims to help you run an online business – and it’s particularly useful for small businesses. But you’ll also find much more, including skills to help you in your job or get you hired.
At first glance, many of the courses seem to relate to Google services. But the site includes options from different sources. It’s easy to navigate: you can filter according to provider, course length and how advanced you are in the skills you want.
Many companies pay for a LinkedIn Learning subscription that their employees can access. If you have such an opportunity, jump on it! LinkedIn Learning has many fantastic courses designed for people with busy professional lives. And if your company hasn’t allocated budget (or you want to develop yourself in your own time without paying for it), LinkedIn also has a lot of free courses.
Many of these focus on the struggles created by the pandemic and are split into eight different learning paths. Pick a course to help you find a new job, learn how to manage virtual teams, sharpen your sales and marketing skills, and/or develop a better work-life balance.
General Knowledge
Become smarter and more interesting through some general knowledge courses.
Similar to Coursera, Open Culture brings together formal educational content from across the web. But it focuses on variety, making it an excellent place to explore some less conventional topics. The site also rounds up other free resources, such as textbooks, audiobooks and image assets.
From Islamic calligraphy to the secrets of ancient Egypt, to public speaking, to product design, Open Culture offers a dizzying variety of subjects from the many places that offer free courses.
You've probably heard of TED Talk, the platform where experts in various fields give short, captivating presentations on topics they’re passionate about. But TED also has another side – its TED Ed videos that explain different concepts and ideas through short animated videos.
Though it’s aimed at students, TED Ed is also a fantastic place for anyone who wants to know a bit more about a topic. The videos are typically not longer than five minutes, yet cover the basics to get you started. From the history of electric cars to the chemistry of cookies, TED Ed provides a wide range of topics with great animations that are fun to watch.
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- Cover image by Abhilash Sahoo from Pexels
