Betterment

So many political strategies are centered around “beating” the other side(s), and claiming victory over their defeat.  For evolutionary reasons, it is easy to see why these attitudes might have won out.  Yet in general those approaches are a sign of a narrow vision.  Beating the other side is a possible strategy, but it should […]

Before the written word, humankind used a different tool to spread useful information quickly and memorably through populations and generations. The tool?

Which way to head? We live in a world characterized by mistrust, ill health, economic uncertainty, inflicted racial trauma, generational shift and the existential crisis caused by carbon. Not to me…

On the West Side Highway in Manhattan, there’s currently a billboard for some sort of placebo supplement. In the corner is a QR code for more information. Unless the person in the passenger s…

Books used to be a solitary endeavor. Ironically, it took the network effect and noise of the web to flip that idea upside down. Now, a book is a totem, a chance to share, an item to be discussed, …

Tanveer Naseer guides Tom and Jim Kouzes through a discussion of the challenges leaders are facing today.

There might be a 100% correlation between what you do and what you get and what you want (if you’re trying to train for the hundred-meter dash.) Anything that makes you go faster is correlate…

How to improve society is one of the most commonly discussed questions, but it is not always approached with sufficient seriousness. We don’t think analytically enough about which variables can have maximum impact and also which are most feasible to steer. For instance, the management of science is a radically underappreciated issue. How many managers […]

Alpha (α) , used in finance as a measure of performance, is the excess return of an investment relative to the return of a benchmark index.

According to Parkinson’s Law, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” A homemaker or employee will linger and dawdle over their chores and responsibilities because they can, in order to fill the day or eight-hour shift. How much time they spend on each task comes to seem like how much […]

“My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended.” — Robert Anton Wilson

There are thousands of books, podcasts, and social media posts about how to be more productive, strengthen your relationships, find your purpose, and be your all-around best self. And there are legions of programs and seminars out there designed to help you improve your life. All together, self-help represents a multi-billion dollar industry. But despite its ubiquity and […]

In 12 months, @aarondfrancis changed his life by bypassing fear and embracing risk. Now, he’s working his dream job @tuple. Get his full story on The ReadME Project:

How do you learn more in a busy life? Follow these seven habits to increase the amount of learning, without overwhelming your schedule.

Obsidian DataView Docs Introduction Dataview is an advanced query engine / index for generating dynamic views of the data in your knowledge base. You can collect pages by tags, folders, contents, or fields, which are arbitrary values associated with pages. A typical page using dataview might look something like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 # Daily Retrospective #daily Date:: 2020-08-15 Rating:: 7.

Most of our interactions fall into one of these categories. Our strategy for the game involves doing something to the other team. Many service businesses are aligned around the idea of doing things…

Humans gossipped before we figured out fire, housing or farming. It’s built into our culture and possibly our DNA. Gossip informs culture and can influence connection and hierarchies. And in …

Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system. One that supported and enhanced the work you do, telling you exactly where to put a piece of information, and exactly where to find it when you needed it. This system would have to be: universal, encompassing any conceivable kind of information from any source flexible, able to work with any project or activity you take on, now and in the future

This post is part 1 of a multi-part series. Part 2 is here. In this blog post, I'm going to talk about why I moved 3,000 Evernotes from Evernote to Obsidian, and walk through the process of doing so with the help of a third-party open source tool, plus some code I wrote to drive that tool. Bre

There are two kinds of skills, resources and tools: Ones that get used up as you use them. And ones that get better when you do. Nobody wants there to be a crowd at the ski area on a bluebird powde…

We explore recent research that connects a key suite of skills with highly compensated IT roles.

Some years ago, I was explaining to my manager that I was feeling a bit bored, and they told me to learn how to read a Profit & Loss (P&L) statement. At the time, that sounded suspiciously like, “Stop wasting my time,” but operating in an executive role has shifted my perspective a bit: this is actually a surprisingly useful thing to learn. The P&L statement is a map of a company’s operation and is an effective tool for pointing you towards the most pressing areas to dig in.

First, let’s agree that there’s a problem. It may be that I think we’re facing something serious, something costly, something urgent–and you don’t. We can have an hone…

Learn all about the fedora hat; its history, quality hallmarks, what to buy & what to avoid, and how to wear this great felt hat so you look your best!

In the modern age, people are bombarded with more information, and are more personally responsible for managing that information, than ever before. How do you stay on top of your schedule, work responsibilities, financial obligations, and the spigot of media that runs full force 24/7 while not only avoiding becoming overwhelmed, but actually using all […]