Learning feels better when it’s yours. Pick one topic this month just because you want to know.

Assigned work carries somebody else’s purpose, so even when you do it well the satisfaction belongs partly to them. Choosing the subject yourself changes the whole experience, because there is no mark at the end and nothing to prove, only the thing you wanted to know. That is usually when people discover they can learn far more than school suggested.

Pick something this month with no use at all: a war, a sport, how bridges stand up, a language. Give it twenty minutes most days. Keep no notes you would show anybody, and stop the moment it starts to feel like homework.