Betterment

Why did a T-shirt and jeans become the default casual outfit for most people? Discover the surprising origins of casual style today!

'The theory claims that the secret to a creatively fulfilling career lies in understanding the operations of Helsinki's main bus station,' explains Oliver Burkeman

How muggles and sociopaths invade and undermine creative subcultures; and how to stop them.

Gordon Seidoh Worley Hey, alkjash! I'm excited to talk about some of David Chapman's work with you. Full disclosure, I'm a big fan of Chapman's in ge…

Starting a new pet project is easy. But finishing it? That's a different story. Many programmers love to tinker with side projects. I'll argue that most of the decent ones do, anyway. Learning new tools makes us want to build things. Innovative technologies, cool product ideas. Unfortunately, the result is

This article is a distraction. You should get back to your work! Or not?

At Salone de Mobile, the enigmatic director David Lynch has designed a room to help you think. It certainly won’t let you relax.

Productivity isn’t throwing out all your existing commitments in the fanatical pursuit of a big ambition. Instead, choosing what matters and organizing your time and energy to reach it.

If we didn’t have rivals, there’d be no losing. There’d be no winning either. Because there’d be no competition. And while that seems like an appealing

Managers can increase productivity by leading with an inquiry based appraoch.

This week is the 150th anniversary of the most important failed art exhibit of all time. It was organized by and featured artists who weren’t even among those that had a slot at the runner&#8…

A barback supports the bartending staff. There are always clean glasses and fresh ingredients, ready to go. Having someone else do your mise en place can dramatically improve your productivity. And…

“How do you get the word out?” I’ve heard this from presidential candidates, from small business leaders and nonprofits as well. It’s easy to believe that the goal of marketing is…

I walk a lot. I mean, I'm a New Yorker now, and here we walk significantly more than other Americans elsewhere do (which isn't necessarily saying much as Americans in general walk very little -- far far less than the residents in other industrialized countries). Poppy and I walk Kin

Every competitor faces pressure, and it varies by industry, consumer/investor segment and geography. This applies to services, products, ideas, organizations, jobs… whenever there’s a c…

Coach youth sports long enough, and you begin to see the main difference maker as to which would-be athletes improve. The kids who dribble the basketball in their driveway every night or play catch with their parents during the week, get better. Those who don’t handle the ball outside of scheduled practices, do not.  It’s […]

Three masterpieces from glimmer through struggle to breakthrough.

my month of rotting

There are few sitcoms, thrillers or plays where the plot can tolerate the addition of a cell phone. Once the characters have the ability to connect and clear up misunderstandings at will, a lot of …

What kind of culture will we build? At work, in our community, online? Compliance Quality Inquiry Inclusion Consumption Possibility and/or Fear Each of us builds culture every time we interact with…

An open source game about learning Git

When someone starts a business, they spend a bunch of time with a business plan, working to raise funds and get it off the ground. After that, though, the purpose of the business is completely alig…

Every internet success works because the network effect kicked in. There’s no other way for an idea to reliably and economically reach a big enough audience to be sustained. That’s why Super Bowl a…

That’s the first part of the confusion. It’s a group of people who can’t decide what the thing they do is supposed to be. Is it: Advertising Publicity Increasing retail distributi…

Weather predictions are probabilistic, not deterministic. That means there isn’t a single right answer that we can calculate. We can’t say it will rain at 11:05 but we can say that there’s an 80% chance of rain today. Forecasting when we’ll be done is also probabilistic, in exactly the same way. We can say based on past throughput data that we have an 85% chance of being done on or before May 12.

The defenders of the status quo often demand certainty when facing decisions about the future. It sets up the conditions for doing nothing, because certainty never happens until the future arrives.…

The flexibility of Obsidian combined with the organization of a bookmark manager.

Digging into the philosophical roots of the battle between Tiago Forte and Conor White-Sullivan