Are you stuck? Or is it self-sabotage? Do you really not know where you want to go and what you want to do? Or are you just saying that so you don’t have to do those things? These are important questions that we must explore honestly. Most people are not where they want to be because they don’t…

Being mentally strong is one of those personal attributes that everyone could benefit from. Since we all encounter personal challenges and difficulties in our life, the ability to stay psychologically strong is invaluable. But is mental strength something we are just born with? Or can it be…

Your rational brain can process about six bits of data at once. For example, let’s say you’re in a meeting with someone. You could be processing: what happened in your last meeting with her; the concerns that are now surfacing; your goals; the rewards if this meeting goes well; the person’s pupils…

Who doesn’t want their life to be amazing? No one really wants to live a life of blah mediocrity. But stuff just gets in the way. Life happens. Maybe you think you don’t have control. Maybe you think it’s too late to change your path. Hogwash. Patrick Sweeney is a guy who has always focused on…

One of the hardest things in life is to know when to keep going and when to move on. On the one hand, perseverance and grit are key to achieving success in any field. Anyone who masters their craft will face moments of doubt and somehow find the inner resolve to keep going. If you want to build a…

Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on…

In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published his groundbreaking book, The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which described his three laws of motion. In the process, Newton laid the foundation for classical mechanics and redefined the way the world looked at physics and science. What…

This article is an excerpt from Atomic Habits, my New York Times bestselling book. Prevailing wisdom claims that the best way to achieve what we want in life—getting into better shape, building a successful business, relaxing more and worrying less, spending more time with friends and family—is to…

Until recently, when I needed a break I’d grab my phone. Whether I was bored, mentally fatigued, or just wanting a pick-me-up, I felt relief checking the news, Facebook, or Instagram. However, new research suggests there are good ways and not-so-good ways to spend our break time. While some breaks…

There are certain life changes we universally recognize as beneficial—getting into shape, saving for retirement, cutting back on drinking alcohol. For these long-term goals, gradual habit-building approaches (like those explored in the book Atomic Habits) work wonderfully. But what about when we…

We read for the same reasons we write — to think, to feel, to locate ourselves within ourselves and in relation to the world. Of the 258 pieces I wrote this year, these are the “best” — a hybrid measure of those which ignited the most ardent response in readers and those which I most cherished…

Our most popular get-to-know-you questions for work, based on four years of data. If you winced at the word, “icebreaker,” I don’t blame you. Get-to-know-you questions and games tend to feel cheesy. We’ve all been victim to a terribly trite icebreaker with coworkers that made us roll our eyes. I…

In 1986, a McDonald’s restaurant opened at the foot of the Spanish Steps, in the Piazza di Spagna, the most famous square in Rome. The invasion of cheap American fast food into the heart of Rome caused a sensation. One protester was Carlo Petrini, a Leftist Italian journalist, who initiated a…

Home / Featured Content / How To Recover From Extreme Burnout July 17, 2017 by Jordan Gray Jordan Gray says that you won’t truly recover from your burnout until you follow these simple steps. —– Are you currently experiencing extreme burnout? Have you been googling things like “adrenal fatigue”,…

Mental strength and inner peace go hand in hand. Mentally strong people are confident that they can handle whatever life throws their way. That’s not to say they don’t feel pain or that they don’t get sad–they experience their emotions on a deep level. But they don’t waste energy wishing things were…

But what the heck can we do about it? Jim Ralley 5 min read· Aug 30, 2018 -- It’s clear that our workplaces are making us sick. More people than ever are taking time off work for depression, anxiety, and burnout. It doesn’t need to be that way. We can reshape our organisations to be better for…

We can all agree: Open plan offices are the scourge of 21st-century office life. As anyone who’s worked in one knows, open plans are noisy and distracting as hell, and recent studies have even proven that they decrease personal interactions (and increase emails), sap productivity levels, and even…

As constant travelers and parents of a 2-year-old, we sometimes fantasize about how much work we can do when one of us gets on a plane, undistracted by phones, friends, and Finding Nemo. We race to get all our ground work done: packing, going through TSA, doing a last-minute work call, calling each…

By published 31 December 2018 in Features Many of us worry about what our lives will be like in our final years. But after spending a year following six people ages 85 and older, The New York Times reporter John Leland came to some surprising conclusions about old age and contentment later in life.…

Bren Smith is strikingly humble for a man I've often heard referred to as the savior of our food system. Wearing a rubber jumpsuit and sipping weak coffee from a Styrofoam cup, he moves around his dinged-up boat instinctually. Smith is a former industrial fisherman turned kelp farmer and educator,…

Janna Koretz saw a number of her classmates from Cornell University go on to “big jobs” after they graduated, only to burn out quickly from the intensity of the work. So Koretz, a clinical psychologist, decided to open a practice in Boston that addressed their needs. Nearly six years later, her…

Twelve years ago, Dan Buettner visited communities around the world known for having many centenarians (people who live to be 100 or older), including Okinawa in Japan, the Barbagia region of Sardinia and the Seventh Day Adventist enclave in California. Buettner, an author and longevity expert,…

posted Nov 15 @ 12:02 PM by Jason Kottke · gift link I grew up in Wisconsin, and have lived in Iowa, Minnesota, and New York. Except for a two-year stint in the Bay Area, I’ve experienced winter — real winter, with lots of snow, below-freezing temperatures, and little daylight — every year of my…

Illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. As a young teenager, I babysat preschoolers. The experience earned me pocket change, taught me a bit about responsibility, and probably delayed my decision to become a mother for a decade or so. I hated being made to play house, made to pretend to give birth to…

• Changing patterns in home and office use following the pandemic are interlinked. • Ground-floor spaces are crucial in maintaining the vibrancy of urban life. • Street-level lots could benefit from more civic spaces that add to their diversity. Months into a pandemic that has radically changed our…

I’ve been a productivity geek for over 30 years. That’s why I follow all the great productivity gurus, such as David Allen, Craig Jarrow, Tiago Forte, Stephen Covey, Michael Sliwinski, Julie Morgenstern, and, of course, Tim Ferriss. I’m also an avid reader. That’s why I’ve read most of the…

We all face stressful or emotional situations in our everyday lives — whether it's an argument with a friend or partner, or a toxic colleague bringing everything down. And if you're lucky, you might have a surefire tip or trick to deal with these scenarios. NBC Well, Reddit user u/PM_ME_UR_PUPPYDOGS…

Time management March 23, 2021 MirageC/Getty Images Summary. Leer en españolLer em português We are master storytellers. We tell ourselves fanciful stories to motivate ourselves to get vast amounts of work done in small amounts of time. We jot down task after task after task, sure that we can…

When re-reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning (after my bowl of soup), I re-underlined my favorite sentence: “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” I’d been struggling myself a bit with this re-read and…

Productivity 12 May 2025 11 Apr 2019 by Jo Nash, Ph.D. Scientifically reviewed by Melissa Madeson, Ph.D. Key Insights 13 minute read Flow activities are tasks that provide a balance of challenge & skill, leading to deep focus & enjoyment. Engaging in flow activities enhances creativity, motivation &…

New research shows that people prefer addition over subtraction.Academics used Lego to show that people tend to add things even when it’s against their interests.This may be because taking things away requires more cognitive effort.The findings could help us understand our impact on the planet and…

There can be no doubt that automation is the future of work. There’s plenty of debate as to what extent AI will displace workers in the near and far future, but the general consensus is that blue collar work is an endangered species. It’s only a matter of time before robots can perform skilled human…

Photo by Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne “You must change your life,” Rainer Maria Rilke exhorts readers in the final line of his poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” It’s a surprise-twist ending, meant to capture the sudden nature of epiphanies. Having spent the entire poem contemplating the beauty of an…

Why do people constantly ‘move the goalposts’ when making judgments? Photo by JoeNattapon / Shutterstock.com. Why do many problems in life seem to stubbornly stick around, no matter how hard people work to fix them? It turns out that a quirk in the way human brains process information means that…

Loading... Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 70% of office employees worked in open-plan offices.New research suggests a significant relationship between open-plan office noise and physiological stress.The study found noise increased negative mood by 25% and increased the human sweat response by…

This is the midweek edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here. If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing. Constance, age 3 1/2, is exhausted c.1900. Valerie Winkler/Getty Like a lot of people, I have found myself…