31 Life Skills for Guys

     

Happy September first! Yesterday we completed the series we ran every day last month: Heading Out on Your Own: 31 Basic Life Skills in 31 Days. The goal of the series was simple: to help young men heading out on their own for the first time learn some of the very basic life skills they would need to succeed at living independently. To this end, each day last month we published one article on a variety of basic life skills from personal finance to home-ec know-how.

While we couldn’t have possibly covered every single skill a young man will need to know to successfully live on his own, I really believe we covered nearly all of the important essentials. If you’re a man who’s been living on his own for a long time now, I hope the articles provided an interesting and helpful refresher on skills that we truly use our whole lives through (and all need reminders on from time to time), and maybe even imparted some tips you had never learned before. If you’re a young man heading out on his own right now, our sincere wish is that the series has given you a sense of direction, competence, and confidence about this new and exciting season in your life. Knowing, as GI Joe has taught us, is half the battle. The other half will be won by honing your skills in the only way they can be: through practical experience — trial and error. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes — just commit yourself to always learning from them. We wish you the very best as you embark on whatever new adventure awaits you, and wherever it leads, we hope you enjoy the ride!

If you missed any of the days during the series, or would like to go back and revisit them, here are links to all 31 articles:

Day 1: Develop a Self-Reliant Mentality

Day 2: How to Do Laundry

Day 3: How to Open and Manage a Checking Account

Day 4: Keep a Regular Grooming and Hygiene Routine

Day 5: Create a Weekly Attack Plan

Day 6: How to Ace a Job Interview

Day 7: How to Make a Bed

Day 8: Living With Roommates

Day 9: Managing Your Online Reputation

Day 10: How to Tie the Half-Windsor Necktie Knot

Day 11: Understand Credit

Day 12: What to Do If You Get in a Car Accident

Day 13: Know How to Network

Day 14: Establish a Simple Cleaning Routine and Stick to It

Day 15: How to Change a Flat Tire

Day 16: Create a Budget

Day 17: Essential Etiquette for Young Men

Day 18: Renting Your First Apartment

Day 19: Fix a Running Toilet

Day 20: Maintaining Your Car

Day 21: Know Your Way Around a Kitchen

Day 22: How to Make Small Talk

Day 23: How to Iron a Dress Shirt

Day 24: How to Be a Savvy Consumer

Day 25: Establish an Exercise Routine

Day 26: 15 Maxims for Being a Reliable Man

Day 27: How to Shop for Groceries

Day 28: How to Jump Start a Car

Day 29: How to Iron Your Trousers

Day 30: How to Manage Stress

Day 31: A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place

Will There Be an Ebook?

Throughout the series, we’ve gotten a ton of requests to turn the articles into an ebook. We definitely plan to do so. It may take awhile to put together, but once it’s done, we’ll put up a post announcing that it is available.

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