Betterment

Fearing failure leads to failure. Why? Because fearing failure leads to not trying new things, not innovating, and not taking risks. And not trying is

Rhetorical questions, some easy, some particularly difficult, all worth thinking about: If your house near the ocean has a beautiful view, should the person who buys the lot closer to the shore be …

Everyone wants advanced techniques. But it's really the basics that count.

You struggle with being productive. So you decide you need to establish a routine for yourself. You get real gung-ho about this routine — this is going to be the thing that changes everything! But then you fail to stick to it. So you flagellate yourself for that failure and decide what you need is […]

And vs Or. Leading a project is about causing the death of a million ‘ands’. There was a long line at the ice cream stand, but the person in front wasn’t budging. The customer had…

This is a distinct skill. Something can be dependable without being extraordinary, rare or even a good value. It’s also one of the easiest skills to acquire, and often quite valuable if you s…

Before beginning my tirade, a few disclaimers: I do not support sloth. I do not agree with not performing one's paid duties correctly. You shouldn't consume junk food at every meal, but it's acceptable to do so occasionally. It is acceptable to spend time on your couch doing nothing as

Working professionals develop emotional detachment. It’s the only way to thrive in the work. Emotional detachment helps us remember that we are not our work, and that feedback is useful, not …

Most of us do. The interesting challenge is that our brain doesn’t often make beliefs and tested reality feel like different things. It’s almost as if ‘true’ and ‘beli…

Likability is a weird quality. Plenty of people are fans of Aretha Franklin or Bob Dylan, but it’s not because either of them spent a lot of time mailing out Christmas cards or being particul…

GitHub Issues is a core component of how developers get things done and, as we built more project planning capabilities into GitHub, we’ve found some fun and unique ways to use the new projects experience for personal productivity.

So many political strategies are centered around “beating” the other side(s), and claiming victory over their defeat.  For evolutionary reasons, it is easy to see why these attitudes might have won out.  Yet in general those approaches are a sign of a narrow vision.  Beating the other side is a possible strategy, but it should […]

Before the written word, humankind used a different tool to spread useful information quickly and memorably through populations and generations. The tool?

Which way to head? We live in a world characterized by mistrust, ill health, economic uncertainty, inflicted racial trauma, generational shift and the existential crisis caused by carbon. Not to me…

On the West Side Highway in Manhattan, there’s currently a billboard for some sort of placebo supplement. In the corner is a QR code for more information. Unless the person in the passenger s…

Books used to be a solitary endeavor. Ironically, it took the network effect and noise of the web to flip that idea upside down. Now, a book is a totem, a chance to share, an item to be discussed, …

Tanveer Naseer guides Tom and Jim Kouzes through a discussion of the challenges leaders are facing today.

There might be a 100% correlation between what you do and what you get and what you want (if you’re trying to train for the hundred-meter dash.) Anything that makes you go faster is correlate…

How to improve society is one of the most commonly discussed questions, but it is not always approached with sufficient seriousness. We don’t think analytically enough about which variables can have maximum impact and also which are most feasible to steer. For instance, the management of science is a radically underappreciated issue. How many managers […]

Alpha (α) , used in finance as a measure of performance, is the excess return of an investment relative to the return of a benchmark index.

According to Parkinson’s Law, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” A homemaker or employee will linger and dawdle over their chores and responsibilities because they can, in order to fill the day or eight-hour shift. How much time they spend on each task comes to seem like how much […]

“My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended.” — Robert Anton Wilson

There are thousands of books, podcasts, and social media posts about how to be more productive, strengthen your relationships, find your purpose, and be your all-around best self. And there are legions of programs and seminars out there designed to help you improve your life. All together, self-help represents a multi-billion dollar industry. But despite its ubiquity and […]

In 12 months, @aarondfrancis changed his life by bypassing fear and embracing risk. Now, he’s working his dream job @tuple. Get his full story on The ReadME Project:

How do you learn more in a busy life? Follow these seven habits to increase the amount of learning, without overwhelming your schedule.