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April 23, 2014

Boring Gloria Mark is unstressful

mindless at-work activities such as surfing the Web or deleting the inbox--may sound a bit mind-numbing. But new research has found that people are actually happiest on the job doing unchallenging assignments.

The study, led by Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine along with colleagues at Microsoft Research, examined how employees' mood and attention change when performing various activities at work, such as responding to email or checking FacebookFB +2.92%.

"With rote work, you get a feeling of accomplishment, but you haven't exerted a lot of mental activity," says Dr. Mark. "It gives you a feeling of fulfillment, but there's not frustration or stress."

The researchers' findings provide a picture of how boredom and focus change throughout the day--and what digital tasks make workers happiest.

Focus, they found, peaks in the mid-afternoon from 2 to 3 p.m. and also rises in late morning, around 11 a.m., after workers have time to gear up. (After 3, however, workplace focus drops precipitously.) Meanwhile, people are most bored early in the afternoon, soon after lunch--and not surprisingly, on Mondays.

"It takes time to ramp up and get into a focused and productive state," says Dr. Mark. "You don't hit the ground running."

The research will be presented at a panel on workplace distraction at the SXSW Interactive conference on Saturday, and is forthcoming for publication in April at the Proceedings of the Computer-Human Interaction Conference 2014.

Workers may say they want a challenge, but the researchers found that employees were actually less happy doing work they rated as difficult, involving a lot of attention and engagement, such as reading and responding to emails.

"Focus involves a kind of stress and people aren't generally happy when they are stressed," says Dr. Mark. By contrast, "rote work is effortless, so you can get gratification for getting things done."

Another mood booster? Facebook. The researchers found that occasionally "grazing" the social network seemed to provide a refreshing break for workers, boosting their happiness. Unlike responding to email or chit-chatting with colleagues, making a quick trip to Facebook doesn't require much focus or stress, Dr. Mark says.

April 20, 2014

Sell yourself the google $GOOG way

Bock: "Humans are by nature creative beings, but not by nature logical, structured-thinking beings. Those are skills you have to learn. One of the things that makes people more effective is if you can do both. ... If you're great on both attributes, you'll have a lot more options. If you have just one, that's fine, too." But a lot fewer people have this kind of structured thought process and creativity.


Are the liberal arts still important?

They are "phenomenally important," he said, especially when you combine them with other disciplines. "Ten years ago behavioral economics was rarely referenced. But [then] you apply social science to economics and suddenly there's this whole new field. I think a lot about how the most interesting things are happening at the intersection of two fields. To pursue that, you need expertise in both fields. You have to understand economics and psychology or statistics and physics [and] bring them together. You need some people who are holistic thinkers and have liberal arts backgrounds and some who are deep functional experts. Building that balance is hard, but that's where you end up building great societies, great organizations."

How do you write a good résumé?

"The key," he said, "is to frame your strengths as: 'I accomplished X, relative to Y, by doing Z.' Most people would write a résumé like this: 'Wrote editorials for The New York Times.' Better would be to say: 'Had 50 op-eds published compared to average of 6 by most op-ed [writers] as a result of providing deep insight into the following area for three years.' Most people don't put the right content on their résumés."

What's your best advice for job interviews?

"What you want to do is say: 'Here's the attribute I'm going to demonstrate; here's the story demonstrating it; here's how that story demonstrated that attribute.' " And here is how it can create value. "Most people in an interview don't make explicit their thought process behind how or why they did something and, even if they are able to come up with a compelling story, they are unable to explain their thought process."

April 18, 2014

Sleep: At least 6 hours a day


For about nine weeks, Mitchell worked with the sleep therapist to adjust her sleep habits. She got under the covers only when she was extremely tired. She quit watching TV in bed. She stopped drinking caffeinated coffee in the evening. She also learned breathing exercises to relax and help her drift off. It was all quite simple and common sense, and, most importantly, noninvasive and didn't require popping any pills.

"It's common knowledge that sleep is needed for day to day function," says Dr. David Rapoport, director of the Sleep Medicine Program at NYU School of Medicine. "What isn't common knowledge is that it really matters--it's not just cosmetic." Rapoport has long seen people seek sleep therapy because they're chronically tired or suffering from insomnia, but an increasing number of patients are being referred to his center for common diseases, disorders, and mental health.

Researchers have known for some time that sleep is critical for weight maintenance and hormone balance. And too little sleep is linked to everything from diabetes to heart disease to depression. Recently, the research on sleep has been overwhelming, with mounting evidence that it plays a role in nearly every aspect of health. Beyond chronic illnesses, a child's behavioral problems at school could be rooted in mild sleep apnea. And studies have shown children with ADHD are more likely to get insufficient sleep. A recent study published in the journal SLEEP found a link between older men with poor sleep quality and cognitive decline. Another study out this week shows sleep is essential in early childhood for development, learning, and the formation and retention of memories. Dr. Allan Rechtschaffen, a pioneer of sleep research at the University of Chicago, once said, "If sleep does not serve an absolutely vital function, then it is the biggest mistake the evolutionary process ever made."

April 16, 2014

Stratechery

Stratechery is an oddly titled blog.

Strata Cherry ? With a cherry on top ?
Strategery ? With George W. Bush ?
Stratarchy ? Strategy with anarchy ? Or with archery ?


Talks about bitcoin and Apple>.


April 12, 2014

Pantone skin color

Pantone's color spectrum of human skin tones.

April 10, 2014

The dissolve on cinema

The Dissolve provides great retrospective on film and actors. Example, the broken-down grace of Bill Murray.

April 8, 2014

Shake your head, wait for something to appear

Shake your head for something to appear!

shake_head.jpg

Via 9gag.

April 3, 2014

Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin, Unstoppable

ANTHONY LANE's New Yorker's Scarlett Johansson, Unstoppable before and after Under the Skin.

Robert Downey Jr. drinks her in and says, "I want one"--the best line in any Marvel picture, telling us everything about Iron Man, the superhero so blasé that his only option is to buy, or build, enough toys to perk him up. Most of the characters are no better than playthings, anyway. But not her.

April 1, 2014

Explainers explained, by 'less stupid' Awl.

The Awl's eleven questions about explainer journalism.