Don’t Let Your Obsession With Productivity Kill Your Creativity
Our current work world is obsessed with productivity. We read about other leaders’ productivity hacks, trying to model how to get into hustle mode. But our relentless quest to be productive is undermining one of the most important abilities in today’s workplace: creativity.
The Class Of 2000 ‘Could Have Been Anything’
The Minford High School Class of 2000, in rural Minford, Ohio, began its freshman year as a typical class. Over the next decade, Scioto County would become ground zero in the state’s fight against opioids. It would lead Ohio with its rates of fatal drug overdoses, drug-related incarcerations and babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes
The high speed of society has jammed your internal clock. Not long ago I diagnosed myself with the recently identified condition of sidewalk rage. It’s most pronounced when it comes to a certain friend who is a slow walker.
Inside The Dark, Lucrative World Of Debt Collection
A dizzying array of variables affects a portfolio of debt’s true potential — the age of the debt, how many agencies have tried to collect on it, the size of the balances, the type of credit card, where the debtors live and the current economic climate.
The Age Of Envy: How To Be Happy When Everyone Else’s Life Looks Perfect
We live in the age of envy. Career envy, kitchen envy, children envy, food envy, upper arm envy, holiday envy. You name it, there’s an envy for it. Social media has created a world in which everyone seems ecstatic – apart from us. Is there any way for people to curb their resentment?
How Much Is A Human Life Actually Worth?
As a society we have historically been willing to incur costs to save lives. Government forces carmakers to reduce air pollution to help people with asthma, and the price of cars goes up. Laws prevent factories from polluting to save fisheries, and goods cost more. But that kind of tradeoff clearly has limits.
There’s More Than One Way To Age. How Are You Doing It?
Most of us think we know what aging looks and feels like. It announces itself with wrinkled skin and gray, thinning hair. But scientists are cataloging far subtler signs of biological aging, evident long before hair is lost and skin starts to crinkle.
How To Prevent Loneliness In A Time Of Social Distancing
Researchers have long understood the toll that social isolation and loneliness take on the body. People who do not feel connected to others are more likely to catch a cold, experience depression, develop heart disease, have lower cognitive function and live a shorter life.
How ‘The Five Love Languages’ Can Improve Your Relationships
Love languages let you in on what makes your partner tick. The idea is: we all express and feel love differently, and understanding those differences can seriously help your relationship. In fact, it’s one of the simplest ways to improve it. This term was coined by longtime relationship counselor Gary Chapman.
Sunday Night Is the New Monday Morning, and Workers Are Miserable
Like many bosses, Chris Mullen found the final hours of the weekend ideal for decluttering an unruly inbox, sharing stray thoughts with staff on projects and requesting status updates to prep for the week. His colleagues felt otherwise.
Before Tinder, There Was Dateline
Operation Match was a computer dating service started at Harvard in 1965 by two undergraduates, that paired students together for dates for $3 a pop. Students filled in questionnaires which were processed by an IBM 1401 before receiving the names and telephone numbers of their matches in the post.
Instagram, My Daughter, And Me
What Instagram has allowed me to do is to employ a kind of digital physics, to warp my experience of space and time in my favor. In the offline world, I spend precious hours with her and then she disappears. But online, she is with me again when I post, and then again each time I receive a notification.
The McMansion As Harbinger Of The American Apocalypse
Increasing interest rates, inflation, and supply chain disruptions notwithstanding, the McMansion is alive and well. Far from being a boomtime fad, it has become a durable emblem of our American way of life.
The Key To Good Luck Is An Open Mind
What do these people have that the rest of us don’t? It turns out “ability” is the key word here. Beyond their level of privilege or the circumstances they were born into, the luckiest people may have a specific set of skills that bring chance opportunities their way.
The Only Metric Of Success That Really Matters Is The One We Ignore
When all is said and done it’s the people around you that make the difference. Warren Buffett, a friend of Bill Gates, says that his measure of success comes down to one question: “Do the people you care about love you back?” Gates wrote: “I think that is about as good a metric as you will find.”
How Silicon Valley Ruined Work Culture
More and more offices are adopting the work culture invented by the technology upstarts. These are not the offices where your grandparents worked, clocking out at 5 sharp, eyeballing the corner office. There is no corner office here—just “hot desks” and open floor plans, wide as the prairie.
Former FBI Agent Explains How To Read Body Language
Former FBI agent and body language expert Joe Navarro breaks down the various ways we communicate non-verbally. What does it mean when we fold our arms? Why do we interlace our fingers? Can a poker player actually hide their body language?
Relax, Turn Off Your Phone, And Go To Sleep
Our devices are a gift that connect us to so many people and so much information, but they do not have to raise our anxiety and harm our all-important sleep. We need to control our devices, rather than letting them control us.
The Diabolical Genius Of The Baby Advice Industry
Every baffled new parent goes searching for answers in baby manuals. But what they really offer is the reassuring fantasy that life’s most difficult questions have one right answer. While there might indeed be one right way to do things, you will never get to find out what it is.
How To Overcome Your Fear Of Failure
Behind many fears is worry about doing something wrong, looking foolish, or not meeting expectations — in other words, fear of failure. By framing a situation you’re dreading differently before you attempt it, you may be able to avoid some stress and anxiety.
Overcoming Despair To Discover The Meaning Of Life
“Sick Souls, Healthy Minds” offers us a lifeline at this moment. As we tell each other what to watch, what to cook, what to read and what exercises to do, John Kaag invites us to ask, together with America’s greatest philosopher, William James, what makes life worth living.