Weekends are time when things slow down a little. Your weekend shouldn’t be two more regular work days. That’s a sure road to burnout. Take time to refresh yourself. Take time for something different. Take time for some of that reading you can’t find time for during the week.

Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms. This week there are articles about one of today’s most important leadership skills: learning.

From Chen Zhang, Christopher G. Myers, and David M. Mayer: To Cope with Stress, Try Learning Something New

“So what else can employees do to temper the ill effects of stress? Our research suggests a third option: focusing on learning. This can mean picking up a new skill, gathering new information, or seeking out intellectual challenges. In two recent research projects, one with employees from a variety of industries and organizations, and the other with medical residents, we found evidence that engaging in learning activities can buffer workers from detrimental effects of stress including negative emotions, unethical behavior, and burnout.”

From Ulrich Boser: Learning Is a Learned Behavior. Here’s How to Get Better at It.

“A growing body of research is making it clear that learners are made, not born. Through the deliberate use of practice and dedicated strategies to improve our ability to learn, we can all develop expertise faster and more effectively. In short, we can all get better at getting better.”

From Ed Batista: Learning How to Learn

“By definition entrepreneurial leaders are doing something for the first time (and in some cases they’re leading for the first time), which inevitably entails making mistakes. If they fail to learn from their mistakes, they won’t be leading for very long, but this requires accepting the dissonance that comes from acknowledging a mistake in the first place.”

From Jesse Sostrin: A Practical Plan to Become a More Agile Learner

“These transformation-ready leaders don’t ask what they need to know about a given circumstance; they ask what they can learn from it. The subtle difference signals a flexible, curiosity-driven mind-set in the latter, and exposes a more rigid, expertise-forward attitude in the former that may limit their relevance beyond their core set of skills.”

From Bill Gates: The 4 Learning Hacks Bill Gates Swears By

“There’s never been a better time to be alive if you’re curious. When I wanted to learn something outside of school as a kid, cracking open my World Book encyclopedia was the best I could do. Today, all you have to do is go online. There are many good resources out there, but these are a few of my favorite ways to continue learning.”

From Open Culture: A Master List of 1,300 Free Courses From Top Universities: 45,000 Hours of Audio/Video Lectures

“Right now you’ll find 173 free philosophy courses, 92 free history courses, 128 free computer science courses, 81 free physics courses and 55 Free Literature Courses in the collection, and that’s just beginning to scratch the surface. You can peruse sections covering Astronomy, Biology, Business, Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Math, Political Science, Psychology and Religion.”

Book Suggestions

Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything by Ulrich Boser

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown and Henry L. Roediger III

How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens by Benedict Carey

Every week I share some recommendations of business books that I think are worth a look. Follow this link to the most recent list.