Betterment

Remember Sweethearts, those popular heart-shaped fruit flavored candies that appear every year around Valentine's Day, with those corny wee messages

The waters of Buck Lake are cool and clear and restorative. All summer, it’s tempting to go for a swim. But it’s also a hassle. You need to change your clothes, find someone to guard, b…

There are two modes of learning, two paths to improvement. One is to relentlessly, deliberately improve what you can do already, by trying to perfect your process. Focus on optimizing what works. The other way is to create new areas … Continue reading →

Advice sent by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773), to his son Philip on how to attain success in the world: Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so. An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all. I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh. The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so. Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry....

AI-powered chatbots give users instant access to common information without interrupting your experts.

Where to give all your precious fucks.

Capitalist cultural hegemony turned a species based on cooperation and community into legions of solitary contestants.

[and all customers are different.] Customers are why you’re here. They pay the bills and they are the primary driver of your growth. But each adds a different amount of value to your organiza…

Jerry Seinfeld was once interviewed by HBR’s Daniel McGinn:  McGinn: You and Larry David wrote Seinfeld together, without a traditional writers’

There are no city buses with just four seats. And none with 400 seats. We get to leverage the driver’s effort if we put in a few more seats, but add too many and the bus is too big to make a …

A new research paper providing a provocative hypothesis regarding learning.

“The artist appeals to that part of our being which is a gift, and not an acquisition, and therefore more permanently enduring.” - Joseph Conrad. There’s

In 1951, Abraham Joshua Heschel published a monograph titled simply, The Sabbath. It consisted of ten short chapters, comprising of less than a hundred total ... Read more

Johnny.Decimal is a system to organise your life

A six-hundred-year-long organ recital is going on, and today marks a change in notes. If you miss it, the next one is in two years. We’re used to the rapid increase in speed in just about eve…

Have you ever had one of those weeks disrupted by sick days, or snow days, or both? You probably felt discombobulated, unproductive, and out of sorts.  It’s easy to notice the effect of these kinds of macro disruptions and recognize why they’ve thrown you off your stride. But the very same dynamic you experience with […]

In the US, [next Sunday] is a major holiday. The Superb Owl, with nachos, commercials and beer. People who don’t even watch football watch this game, and it’s one of the largest audienc…

Along the way, folks have talked about “niching down” as a way to help a project find focus. But that’s backward. When we identify and embrace the smallest viable audience, we&#82…

“Why did the chicken cross the road” tells us a bit about jokes. It’s a joke about jokes. The first half is a setup, reminding us that an absurd question creates tension, which is…

Build back _ _ _ _ _ _ Yes, _ _  _ _ _ Make _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _ _ _ Just _ _   _ _ The _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ driving _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ lovin’

If we’ve got tenure, a lifetime appointment or simply a really secure gig, what should we do with it? One option is to race to the bottom, to chase short-term self-focused outcomes and to see…

Matt Zigler is the author of a new book for educators titled "3 Modes of Making." He talks about imitation, modification and innovation as three different modes of student projects, which develop different maker skills. Matt is an artist and educator who has been running the makerspace at Bullis, an independent school in the DC area. He brings a background in art and creative practice to the makerspace and his school. it's not that every student is going to be an artist but every student should develop a creative practice, regardless of subject or area of interest.

I walked by a psychic’s storefront studio. The window said that this person had been reading palms and predicting the future since 1989. It was a large space on a vibrant New York City corner…

There’s a fine line between sounding smart and trying too hard to sound intelligent. Certain words in our daily conversations might actually be doing more harm than good to our perceived intelligence. It’s not about using big, fancy words, but using the right ones at the right time. In fact, avoiding certain words can make … Continue reading "10 words you should stop using if you want to sound intelligent"

New research by psychologists demonstrates a peaceful walk through a natural setting enhances attention.

At first, this stop sign sign makes a lot of sense: Lives are at stake. Break the rhythm, turn something ignored into something noticed. The challenge with “highlighting” is that it fad…

When it comes to fitness, the words “exercise” and “training” are often used interchangeably. A guy who regularly goes to the gym and randomly does some weight machines and a little cardio might say he’s training. This same guy is frustrated that he’s not making any progress with his strength or appearance despite his regular […]

Napoleon had a paradoxical leadership style. Instead of organizing his army into one huge mass, he organized his army into semi-autonomous divisions of

Shoplifters lurk in the shadows. They realize that they will have an easier time if they quietly steal stuff, because speaking up about it won’t help their cause. Sometimes, though, some peop…