Writing is a thinking tool
In our age of information overload, writing is not just a means of expression. It’s a tool for clarity, comprehension, and connection. If metacognition is your compass, then writing is your map.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Self-Anthropology: Become your own anthropologist with personal field notes
When was the last time you stopped to truly observe your own life? Turning an anthropological lens on yourself might feel strange, but it can lead to invaluable insights, allowing you to uncover patterns, gain self-knowledge, and imagine new possibilities. Anthropologists ask fundamental questions such as: What does it mean to live in our world … Read More
You Don’t Need to Choose
“I’ve decided to take it easy at work this year and focus on myself.” I’ve recently been hearing variations of this sentence over and over again. Magazines are publishing stories about “the end of ambition” and how more people are taking extended sabbaticals. It seems like we need to make a constant choice between our … Read More
Interoceptive Journaling
Interoceptive journaling is a mindfulness practice that involves recording and reflecting upon one’s own bodily sensations. It’s an intentional way of tuning into the often subtle signals our bodies send us, ranging from hunger pangs and heartbeats to flutters of anxiety in the stomach or warm waves of contentment. By deliberately writing about these internal … Read More
Interoception: The hidden ‘sixth sense’
“See, hear, smell, taste, touch… With our five senses, we can learn so much!” You’ve probably heard some variation of this nursery rhyme. Most languages have their own version, walking kids through each of their senses. But those songs paint an incomplete picture of our sensory system, for they only include our outward-facing senses, which … Read More
Mindful context switching: multitasking for humans
So many things to do, so little time. When you juggle work, personal projects, and are hoping to have any sort of social life, managing your time can feel like an impossible endeavor. There are many tips out there—the most common one being to focus on the most important task first—but few address the systemic … Read More
Stop looking for The One: The Inverted Pyramid of Life
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Adults often as this question when chatting with a kid. Maybe it’s because the answer is often endearing (an astronaut!) or surprising (a YouTuber!), or because it’s a way to connect through a topic that speaks to us—work. We keep doing this to each other … Read More
The false promise of the 10,000 hour rule
Our culture loves experts. Whether it’s athletes, chefs, or musicians, some of the biggest celebrities are considered masters of their craft, and we admire the long hours they put into practicing over and over again the same skills so they could become second nature. In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell published his popular book Outliers, exploring why … Read More
Creative burnout: when the creativity tap runs dry
You are probably all too familiar with the dreaded creative block: sitting in front of your computer, your mind as blank as the page you are staring at, hoping that some miraculous burst of inspiration will suddenly rush through your fingers so you can finally get back into the flow. You also know of the … Read More
The self-consistency fallacy
Would you want to watch the same play with the same actors repeating the same lines over and over again, with just some small variations in their tone each time? You’d probably get bored pretty quickly. And yet, that’s what we often unconsciously do when making career and life decisions. If you ever applied for … Read More