Tag: Work Life Balance

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News You Can Use: 2/12/2020


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  • The Coronavirus Impact on Hardware Startups

    It seems like most people are expecting factories to open on 2/10 as planned. However, the expectation is being set that production will take two weeks to ramp back up to normal. And, there is some concern that larger companies will likely exert pressure to be at the front of the line.

    Another problem at this point is movement into and out of China. The Chinese border with Hong Kong is only open at a few places and many are afraid to enter China right now for fear that they won’t be able to leave.

    Everyone anticipates a big logistics clog once things start shipping, which will introduce delay and cost, although the magnitude of this is unknown.

    Finally, the downstream (or upstream – I never get that right) impact of long lead time items will add another wrinkle once people understand the volume and timing constraints when things settle down.

    https://feld.com/archives/2020/02/the-coronavirus-impact-on-hardware-startups.html

  • Quit Buying Coronavirus Masks You Don’t Need

    So what’s the harm? If supplies were unlimited, there wouldn’t be any. But there are only so many face masks manufactured every year, and a lot of them are actually made in China. As Maryn McKenna writes here, China is choosing not to export as many of their masks and other personal protective equipment, because they need them at home.

    At a press briefing today, the World Health Organization’s director-general noted that demand is up 100-fold for masks and related supplies, and prices are now up to 20 times higher than usual. Some of that is to be expected in an epidemic situation, but then he adds: “This situation has been exacerbated by widespread inappropriate use of [personal protective equipment such as masks] outside patient care.”

    https://vitals.lifehacker.com/quit-buying-coronavirus-masks-you-dont-need-1841521105

  • The Coronavirus’ Impact on Global Supply Chain
  • The Lost Art of Ambition: Debunking The 6 Lies Keeping You From Your Full Potential

    We might slow down but life is going to keep trundling relentlessly onwards. The world will keep on changing, and sooner or later that change is going to come back to bite us. Whether it’s in our relationships, in our work, in our knowledge, or even just in our perspectives, we will be made obsolete if we’re just standing still.

    Contentedness- true contentedness- is about making the most of what we do have, not convincing ourselves to be satisfied with the things we don’t. Trying to pretend that a lousy job, worse pay, and a nasty apartment are perfectly acceptable isn’t noble or commendable, it’s delusional. Never feel guilty about demanding more out of life.

    Real danger comes not from wanting too much, but in asking for so little.

    https://www.primermagazine.com/2015/live/the-lost-art-of-ambition-debunking-the-6-lies-keeping-you-from-your-full-potential

Posted on

News You Can Use: 11/20/2019


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  • Executives at Google are under investigation by the board for how they handled sexual harassment

    New York Times expose last October by noting that, at the time, 48 employees had been fired over the prior two years without severance and that 13 of those people were “senior managers or above.”

    Despite this, the on-going reports of sexual harassment have led to increased tensions with the company. 20,000 Google employees would go on to stage a walkout in response to the Times report on November 1st, 2018. Two of the organizers of that walkout, Claire Stapleton and Meredith Whittaker, later reported retaliation from Google earlier this year over that walkout. Stapleton announced in June that she had decided to leave the company entirely due to retaliation, while Whittaker left in July to focus on her work on AI ethics, saying “it’s clear Google isn’t a place where I can continue this work.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/6/20952402/google-alphabet-investigation-handling-sexual-harassment-executives-andy-rubin-david-drummond

  • How I learned to curb my tendency to work too much

    Ask yourself, what’s the real root of your need to impress others? What is this weight of responsibility you feel? Who are you afraid of letting down? Answering these questions might feel like a therapy session, but you can’t fix the problem until you know what the problem is. So take the time to dig deep and understand what is fueling your workaholic nature.

    For me, it took a series of micro-moments to break my workaholic ways. Getting married was number one. Then, when my wife got pregnant, I worked harder than ever before: I had the sense of needing to be more responsible, and to me, that meant needing to provide. That was my “why”—and recognizing it was the first step toward finding balance.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90425678/how-i-learned-to-curb-my-tendency-to-work-too-much

  • Why Mike Rowe Says It Can Be Scary to Follow Your Passion

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/341433
  • Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent

    Last August, Microsoft Japan carried out a “Working Reform Project” called the Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019. For one month last August, the company implemented a three-day weekend every week, giving 2,300 employees every Friday off during the month. This “special paid vacation” did not come at the expense of any other vacation time.

    And the results were pretty incredible!

    First off, the reductions. Employees took 25.4 percent fewer days off during the month, printed 58.7 percent fewer pages, and used 23.1 percent less electricity in the office (since it was closed an extra day). All of these saved the company quite a bit of money.

    Next, the increases. Productivity went up by a staggering 39.9 percent. That means even though the employees were at work for less time, more work was actually getting done.

    https://soranews24.com/2019/11/03/microsoft-japans-experiment-with-3-day-weekend-boosts-worker-productivity-by-40-percent/

Posted on

News You Can Use: 10/9/2019


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  • Jenny Odell on why we need to learn to do nothing: ‘It’s a reminder that you’re alive’

    Many commentators have zeroed in on our relationship with technology as the source of the problem: Newport advocates a 30-day “digital declutter”, while others suggest using apps to monitor or restrict screen time. But Odell sees that approach as too limited, not only inadequately isolating tech as the cause but also framing it as the answer. Her proposal is that we train ourselves to assume a different perspective, one that allows us to see familiar things in a new way and in the process find momentary relief.

    “When I try to articulate it, it sounds really abstract, but I think it’s actually very practical,” Odell says. “If you think about your mindset when you go to a place you’ve never been, especially on vacation, the way that you look at things is quite different than how you would normally look at things while on your way to work. A lot of what I’m describing is trying to apply that same mindset to things that you’ve seen many times – you will always be surprised.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/27/jenny-odell-on-why-we-need-to-learn-to-do-nothing-its-a-reminder-that-youre-alive

  • Blockchain simplified: How it eliminates the middleman
  • Willingness to learn is number one skill when hiring says IBM chief

    In an interview with Bloomberg TV, she talked about what she looks for when recruiting. ‘’The number one thing we hire for is now is propensity to learn. It doesn’t matter about age. If you think about tech, the half life of a skill is less than five years. If I hire you with a skill today, it’s not going to matter in a very short period of time. I want you to be curious and want to learn’’.

    IBM has invested heavily in training and education, and Rometty says 8 out of 10 employees are equipped with the skills needed for the future. ‘’It starts with telling people – be transparent. Will your skill be in demand in the future? Is it abundant or scarce?’’

    http://hrmasia.com/willingness-to-learn-is-number-one-skill-when-hiring-says-ibm-chief/

  • Can Bullet Journaling Save You?

    Basically, you take a journal, number the pages, and create an index so you can find everything. From there, you can list tasks, write diary entries, and build out a minimalist calendar. Like CrossFit, Paleo, and other hyper-efficient communities, Bullet Journaling—or BuJo, as it is known online—has developed its own vocabulary. Participants identify as Bullet Journalists. There’s a daily log, a monthly log, and something called a future log. There are symbols for notes, events, and tasks, and additional symbols to indicate when a task has been completed, scheduled, moved to another section, or deemed irrelevant. (The method takes its name from the bullet point, as well as the word’s suggestion of speed.) There are collections of related material, like languages you’ve failed to learn or miles you haven’t run. There are trackers for anything you feel compelled to track: sleep, workouts, mood, alcohol. Each day, you practice “rapid logging.” Each month, you review everything you wrote down and move only what is meaningful to the next monthly spread, in a spine-straightening process called migration.

    https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/can-bullet-journaling-save-you

Posted on

News You Can Use: 9/11/2019


Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

  • The Case for Lowering Your Expectations

    In 2006, epidemiologists from the University of Southern Denmark set out to explore why citizens of Denmark consistently score higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction. Their findings, published in the medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), zeroed in on the importance of expectations. “If expectations are unrealistically high they could be the basis of disappointment and low life satisfaction,” write the authors. “While the Danes are very satisfied, their expectations [compared to other countries] are rather low.”

    In a more recent study that included more than 18,000 participants and was published in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from University College in London examined people’s happiness from moment to moment. They found that “momentary happiness in response to outcomes of a probabilistic reward task is not explained by current task earnings, but by the combined influence of the recent reward expectations and prediction errors arising from those expectations.” In other words: Happiness at any given moment equals reality minus expectations.

    https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-case-for-lowering-your-expectations

  • How to Communicate With Your Boss

    We recently conducted a survey of 355 people and learned that the #1 piece of information that managers want to know is the progress that’s being made on a project. As a result, you’ll want to ask yourself: Am I sharing the progress I’m making day-to-day or week-to-week? You can also ask your boss directly: “How can I give you more visibility into my work?” or “Are there any decisions or projects you wish I were more transparent about?”

    https://lifehacker.com/how-to-communicate-with-your-boss-1837407349

  • Why employees have the upper hand now more than ever before
  • You should think more about how you onboard your newest hires

    No matter how experienced your new hire is, they likely don’t want to be the center of attention of a group of strangers on day one. Starting a new job is stressful, and being immediately thrust into a round of clapping employees magnifies that stress exponentially.

    What to do instead: Opt for “pre-boarding.” To minimize first-day jitters (and the chance of a new hire getting cold feet after accepting your offer), send a welcome email within a couple days and perhaps have one or two key staffers send a similar email. You may also want to send along the employee handbook and a brief outline of the first week’s schedule. That way, new employees can start with confidence and a warm, but low-key, welcome.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90382574/you-should-think-more-about-how-you-onboard-your-newest-hires

Posted on

News You Can Use: 7/3/2019


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  • Transitioning From Solopreneur to a Team Leader

    Additionally, self-awareness is the key to entrepreneurial success. For starters, it helps you realize your strengths and weaknesses. Knowing this allows you to surround yourself with the right people. Ideally, they complement your strengths and pick up the slack in your weaker areas.

    Furthermore, being self-aware can assist you in aligning the strength of your team to the business. It guides you in developing your authentic brand and will aid you in making faster and more efficient decisions. Self-awareness reveals you to you — and helps you keep your emotions in check.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/335357

  • The DO MORE mindset is ruining the planet
  • I used to believe in hustle porn, and now I think it’s the antithesis of the American Dream

    But something has happened in recent years to our idea of a good work ethic in this country. Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit, dubbed it “hustle porn.” At a November 2018 web summit in Lisbon, he said, “This idea that unless you are suffering, grinding, working every hour of every day, you’re not working hard enough . . . this is one of the most toxic and dangerous things in tech right now.”
    **
    There is nobility in hard work no matter the profession. One should take pride in a job well done. But we shouldn’t encourage a culture that is all work and no play. We shouldn’t equate liberty with exhaustion, and we shouldn’t worship at the altar of professional achievement and money.

    We need corporate leaders to build cultures that embrace the values on which our country was founded. I’m talking a culture that values excellence and keeps work in its rightful place, but also encourages employees to tend to their own mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. I’m talking about a culture that trusts that employees will be more productive when they take care of themselves first.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90366162/hustle-porn-and-the-american-dream