productivity/work

Private Office Rituals That Make Work Better, Deeper, Richer

Accepted for artists, rituals are taboo in the business world even though they can enhance productivity and well-being. Peter Bregman tells how to use them in any setting (once you understand what they really are and do.)

Benediction for Living a Creative Life, from John O’ Donohue

A reader wrote that she has poet John O’ Donohue’s benediction tacked on her fridge to remind her to “let my work feed and refresh me”. Which is what it does for us, mightily.

What We Do When We’ve Done Everything We Can and Feel We Should Do More (Chris Eldredge, Pat Steir)

When we’ve worked hard taking care of something and feel there is still more we should do, leaving us restless and worried, we employ this 10-word reality check, learned from a psychotherapist friend.

By viewing time as something incredibly delicious, would we feel like we have more of it?

A random sign got us wondering if shifting our view about time would, in fact, make us feel like we have more of it.

How To Change a Negative Habit

Over the years, I’ve learned that change doesn’t happen over night, but it WILL happen if I practice these five steps…

How to Do Nothing (Jenny Odell)

One of the very best things we’ve read recently is Jenny Odell’s ‘how to do nothing’, a thoughtful deep-dive into the fraught and very taboo idea of “doing nothing”.

Why Napping Is Essential to Well-Being and How To Do It (with Haiku)

Sleep researcher Damien Leger is determined to dispell modern-day guilt about fatigue and napping, because, he says, it is an essential practice, not a luxury of the lazy or entitled…

Jocelyn Glie’s Newsletter: Ideas for Finding Creativity and Meaning Delivered to Your Inbox

Among the email newsletters I subscribe to, From the Curious Mind of Jocelyn K. Glei is one where I always find something that challenges my thinking and/or makes my life better.

Brian Eno’s Early Handwritten Oblique Strategies Cards Inspire Our Own

Brian Eno’s original set of handwritten oblique strategies cards designed to break creative impasses made us wonder about making our own…

Slow Walk to Happiness and Gratitude (Leo Widrich)

Buffer founder Leo Widrich discovered that practicing deliberate slowness in times of high stress yields feelings of happiness and gratitude. His practice is amazingly simple…

Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategy: Don’t Wait for Inspiration. Do this instead…

This video of artist and musician Brian Eno is full of interesting ideas about the creative process. The best, to us, is right up front in the first 1:44 minutes…

‘Don’t try’ and other Practical Wisdom from Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski said many wise things in his life. We especially like is antodote for depression and burnout, and his views on “trying”…

Sardinian Women Show How to Wash Dishes with Passion and Joy

Our friend Peggy Markel took this remarkable little video of women in a church rectory’s kitchen in Sardinia washing dishes as one sang loudly in dialect, refusing to be shushed…The BEST way we’ve seen to transform an ordinary household task.

Viewing the Day as a Blank Canvas

Every morning when we open our office for work, we take a minute to look at this image of artist Lucio Fontana. We love its enduring message.

Multiple Discovery is Not Plagiarism, But a Reflection of How Connected We Secretly Are

Did National Geographic steal the idea for its cover or is it an instance of Multiple Discovery? I’ve experienced it many times…

Why You Should Play: It Sparks Creativity and Invention (Steven Berlin Johnson)

In this mind-boggling little film, Steven Berlin Johnson shows how play and pleasure may be as powerful drivers of invention as necessity.

How to Do Almost Nothing on Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend is the real start of summer in our minds. And our minds are full of ideas for simple pleasures and ramblings, whether home or away.

Ambient Nature Sounds by Irv Teibel: “Like Experiencing Something Great and Sublime”

On a packed subway train I listened to birdsong and felt myself calming down. This was not just any endless-loop “nature sound” tape. This was Irv Teibel’s artful recording from the 70’s, now available as an app that I can’t live without.

Opened at Random: Free Play, Improvisation in Life and Art

This morning, we opened Stephen Nachmanovitch’s Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art to this…

Ask This Simple Question to Disarm Your Self-Critical Inner Voice

We found a lovely, simple way to reframe those big existential questions everyone seems to ask themselves about whether they are enough…

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