4 Secrets To Becoming Luckier, According To Research
open to more opportunities, interact with a large network of people, break routines and keep a relaxed attitude toward life. Via Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries: ...lucky people pay more attention to what’s going on around them than unlucky people. It’s more nuanced than that. Here’s where being open to meeting, interacting with, and learning from different types of people comes in. Wiseman found that lucky people tend to be open to opportunities (or insights)…
3 minutes
How does Chris Rock create such brilliant comedy?
's relentlessly tested and tweaked onstage over a period of months. Via Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries: When beginning to work on a new show, Rock picks venues where he can experiment with new material in very rough fashion. In gearing up for his latest global tour, he made between forty and fifty appearances at a small comedy club, called Stress Factory, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, not far from where he lives. In front of…
2 minutes
Is it better to do all your reading for the year in two weeks?
y compressing their intake into a matter of days, they give new ideas additional opportunities to network among themselves, for the simple reason that it’s easier to remember something that you read yesterday than it is to remember something you read six months ago." Via Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation: The problem with assimilating new ideas at the fringes of your daily routine is that the potential combinations are limited by the reach of your…
2 minutes
Does quantity lead to quality?
can. Making mistakes can be vital to improvement. Via Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation: “The errors of the great mind exceed in number those of the less vigorous one.” This is not merely statistics. It is not that the pioneering thinkers are simply more productive than less “vigorous” ones, generating more ideas overall, both good and bad. Some historical studies of patent records have in fact shown that overall productivity correlates with radical breakthroughs…
1 min read
This Common Activity Is Reducing Your IQ, According To Research
ssing an hour of sleep turns a sixth grader's brain into that of a fourth grader. Via NurtureShock: The performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the gap between a normal fourth-grader and a normal sixth-grader. Which is another way of saying that a slightly-sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader. “A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh…
2 minutes
4 Scientific Steps To Facing Your Fears
his book The Courage Quotient: How Science Can Make You Braver, Robert Biswas-Diener shows how we can use science and research to be more brave. He explains that there are two factors to courage: Fear Willingness to act They can both go up or down. Courage = "Willingness to act" divided by "Fear." To increase bravery you must either: Reduce fear. Boost willingness to act. Do both of the above. What steps can we take in the moment to…
3 minutes
Here’s The Best Time To Do Anything:
a Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That and Go There": Best time to have surgery: Morning (4x less likely to have complications in the morning than between 3-4PM) Best time to get a human being on the phone when calling a company's customer service line: As early as possible (lowest call volume) Best day of the week to eat dinner out: Tuesday (freshest food, no crowds) Best…
1 min read
What seven factors make companies more productive and employees happier?
a The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work: Our analyses of the 12,000 “event of the day” narratives we received, along with participants’ self-rated inner work lives on those days, revealed seven major catalysts that galvanize work on projects and inner work life... 1) Setting clear goals. People have better inner work lives when they know where their work is heading and why it matters... 2) Allowing autonomy. Setting clear goals can backfire…
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