Want to stay in bed longer? Here’s what I’ve been loving, laughing at, and getting intrigued by all week long. Now cozy up with your laptop/tablet and enjoy 🙂
CAREER
10 Ways to Take Charge of Your Career Destiny. (LevoLeague)
How the ‘jobs-to-be-done’ theory will change how you think about your life. (A Life of Productivity)
Why It’s Harder for Women to Say No to Extra Work. (LevoLeague)
3 unusual places to foster that million-dollar deal. I totally disagree that people on a plane are eager to talk (I’m usually eager for it to be quiet so I can get lots of work done!) but I think this has some great points about considering different venues to start a conversation. (Venture Beat)
Creating a happy office takes more than free lunch and a ping pong table. (Crew Labs)
PRODUCTIVITY/SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
20 New Productivity Apps from 2014 that You Need to Try. (Zapier)
Your to-do list’s sexy, secret lover: The Waiting For List. (A Life of Productivity)
Beyond the List: 8 Powerful Ways to Manage Your Tasks. (Zapier)
Why You Should Write Notes by Hand. (LevoLeague)
How to Commit to CHANGE in the New Year. (Erica D House)
60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days. (Lifehack)
You suck! Now what? The psychology of handling criticism. (Crew Labs)
How To Read People Like Sherlock Holmes: 4 Insights From Research. (Barking Up the Wrong Tree)
How We Can Improve Our Decisions. (Farnam Street)
A Road to Mental Health Through the Kitchen. (Wall Street Journal)
HEALTH/FITNESS
This project is really exciting! Sub 2 hours. (Sub 2 Hours)
Can You Ever Exercise Too Much? (The Atlantic)
Holiday Foods and Electrolytes. (SaltStick)
Holiday eating: Why you feel so lousy after a huge holiday meal. (Washington Post)
6 Days of Twixtmas. (My Fitness Pal)
How To Eat Healthy: 5 Easy New Tips From Research. (Barking Up the Wrong Tree)
Why embrace the New Year’s gym rush? (Run to the Finish)
Cross-Fit Vacations Are Actually a Thing Right Now. (Skift)
TRAVEL
Long Exposure Photos Capture the Motions of Kayakers and Canoers Through Light and Color. (My Modern Met)
10 Winter Photos That Will Make You Fall In Love With Colorado. (The Denver City Page)
The Last Shovelers. (Bozeman Chronicle)
Amazing! – Watch This Ski Video And Try Not To Scream. (Digg)
This just might be the best AvGeek selfie ever. (Boarding Area – Wandering Aramean)
AirTran Airways flies its final flight. (Dallas Morning News)
AirAsia’s CEO Is Becoming the Model for Airline Leaders During a Crisis. (Skift)
AirAsia Black Box Search Renews Debate on Better Airplane Tracking. (Skift)
MISCELLANY
Inside North Portland’s SamplingLab, Where Everything Is Free. (Portland Monthly Magazine)
Pot Pie, Redefined? Chefs Start to Experiment With Cannabis. This is fascinating, though I don’t know if I’d be up for trying it myself, even if it is legal here… (New York Times)
Funny and educational: Celebrity Oxford Comma. PS – I’m staunchly pro Oxford comma. (Medium)
And finally, for a laugh: Against Dryuary: Why You Shouldn’t Give Up Beer This Month. (Brew York, New York)
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Xtreme Ski Video: There is a little resort in Utah (Wasatch Mtns) called Brighton that on a good powder day (and they tend to have many of them) has some exceptional tree skiing (the best I have ever done). Albeit, my tree skiing isn’t xtreme skiing, but there is something exhilarating about twisting and turning as you glide around and through Mother Nature.
3 Unusual Places: I don’t get my peers and colleagues who talk about the need to “turn things off” or “to get away”. When I am enjoying a pleasurable activity sometimes that is when I get my best work ideas. Or when I am really engaged and working hard, the performance arousal is more pleasurable than any non-work activity. So, I really like that last sentence: “All it really takes is diligence and a true understanding of an individual to the core”. Just being present in life; have a plan but be ready for the unexpected.
Sub-2 Hour Project: I feel very uneasy about this. I like the goal/idea, but I am scared about the implications surrounding the achievement of the goal. Individuals who break world records (in anything) find the desire and arrange the pieces to achieve the desire around them. I don’t see any records happening where an organization attempts to arrange the pieces and then artificially put the desire in the individual. If an athlete runs 26.2 miles in under two hours on a standardized course, it will not be done by this project.
My tree skiing is basically completely nonexistent, so you’re one up on me!
I don’t find that being up in the air “gets me away” from anything. I still have email, and I’m still accountable for responding to voicemails as soon as I land… to me, it’s more stressful to NOT know what I’m missing! I know that multitasking has been shown to be unproductive, but I like being able to do that (at least to some extent) so that, to your point, if a good idea occurs to me, I can make the best of it rather than dismissing it as “not the right time.”
Very interesting points about the sub-2 project. I believe the opposite of you – I think it will be a success. I think there are a lot of athletes who have the strong desire that you mentioned, but I think that because all the conditions have to align to be JUST right, it’s less likely that someone will be able to do it by chance vs having it engineered the way that this project is trying to do.
In regard to Sub-2 it could go either way.
In the modern era we have the Nike Oregon Project led by Alberto Salazar who pretty much leads his own “sub 2” project (though that isn’t his stated goal). He recruits the best athletes (or who has the most potential) and has nearly unlimited access to the most cutting edge innovations. Salazar has turned Galan Rupp into a world beater and all Rupp has needed to do was follow directions. Could Salazar take the next Haile Gebreselassie (for example) out of Ethiopia and get him to run a sub-2 marathon? I dunno.
Another example would be Paula Radcliffe. She set the marathon record far out of sight of anyone. She was also a Nike athlete who probably had access to a nearly infinite toolbox of goodies. Did she run 2:15 because of all the help? Or, in spite of the help?
Then we have the 4 minute mile barrier. There were a lot of little training groups/athletes trying to figure out how to run four laps of the track in under 4 minutes. Why did a med student in England get the right conditions to do it? I think you read the Perfect Mile by Neil Bascomb, He offered up a lot of perspective about that history – much of it wasn’t really laboratory/science approved though.
Dr. Michael Joyner also asks why do certain athletes at certain times have exceptional performances?
There is a lot of mystery in the world. And I can’t wait to see what happens to some of these records. My guess is this project might help get it closer, but there will be a surprise waiting at the end…
I haven’t read The Perfect Mile – adding it to my GoodReads “want to read” list!