productivity/work

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 Markle 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…

10 Ways to Deepen Conversation + the Crap Advice You Should Forget (Celeste Headlee)

We’ve found employing Celeste Headlee’s 10 principles for having a better conversation really DO take the conversation farther. Here they are, including the Crap Advice she advises you forget.

Where to Go with Hope or Anxiety

A Monument for the Anxious and Hopeful at NYC’s Rubin Museum is a powerful interactive display of visitor’s anxieties and hopes. As is this strategy for navigating them.

Begin Anywhere, Ideas Will Come (Lucio Fontana, Gary Snyder)

Every morning, we take a minute to look at this image of artist Lucio Fontana approaching a blank canvas. It offers an essential insight about creative work as does this tiny poem by Gary Snyder.

Warren Buffett’s 10-Year Bet Yields Essential Lessons in Investing In Unsettling Times

Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter provides timely counsel for the ordinary investor in our unsettling economic times. We’ve learned a lot from it, especially this year’s.

Computer Screens are Hurting Our Eyes; Trees Can Heal Them

Computer vision syndrome is the narrowing of vision that reading off flat screens, handhelds and desktops cause without our even realizing it. Here’s a cure.

Use Empathy and Observation to Find Simple Solutions (Mileha Soneji)

Designer Mileha Soneji loves to create innovations that aren’t dependent on technology, like the two she created for her uncle with Parkinson’s using a unique approach we can all employ…

When I Deleted My News Feed My Day Got Longer and Calmer

Inspired by Farhad Manjoo’s revelatory NY Times article, I deleted the news feed on my phone to see if I could “have what Manjoo was having”: more free time, and a clearer head.

Birdsong Radio Wakes You UP in the Best Possible Way

How did we forget about the great birdsong.fm, the site that streams only birdsong. Listening to the music of birds first thing in the morning woke us UP in the best way possible. Our friend Josh Eisen described its mighty effect perfectly..

Steven Pinker on How to Live a World We Think is in Dire Straits

We are not alone in feeling that things have never been so bad, that the world is in seriously dire straits. Psychologist Steven Pinker offers some clarifying strategies that shift our view.

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