Better's Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Hacks to help you think smarter.

What is worldly wisdom? Let’s take each word in turn. Worldliness means being concerned with ordinary life. Wisdom, on the other hand, implies knowledge of the big picture when it comes to life as a whole. But there’s more to it than that.

20 March, 2020 02:13 Share

Well, that’s exactly the question Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann set out to answer. Drawing on economics, physics, philosophy and a host of other disciplines, these blinks present a set of mental models that will help you understand the world, make better decisions and take your thinking to the next level.Along the way, you’ll learn what a fourteenth-century philosopher can teach you about dating; why avoiding errors is more important than being right; and what an Israeli daycare center can teach us about reciprocity.

20 March, 2020 02:15 Share

Super thinking leverages tried-and-true concepts to help us explain the world and make better decisions.

Life, however, is full of complicated conundrums and ambiguous evidence. Making up our minds often feels less like an act of reason than a stab in the dark. Surely there’s a better way? Well, there is – super thinking, a way of understanding the world that relies on proven cognitive blueprints to make sense of the jumble of data out there. Let’s unpack that. Every industry has its own mental models that allow practitioners to create "mental pictures" of a problem. These aren’t one-off snapshots, but techniques that can be reapplied time and again – that’s the "model" part. Put differently, they’re recurring concepts that explain the world.

20 March, 2020 02:15 Share

Fax machines were invented in the 1840s, but languished in obscurity for over a century. Why? Their cost meant only a few wealthy individuals and organizations could afford to adopt the technology. That affected the perceived value of faxing: even if you bought a machine, you wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone you knew. As the cost came down, more people bought fax machines and more connections became possible. To put that into numbers, two devices can make one connection, five can make ten and twelve can make sixty-six. By the 1970s, faxing had reached critical mass. There were enough machines that the network itself became useful – if you had your own device, chances were you’d be able to contact anyone. Contemporary businesses have made a killing leveraging that insight. Critical mass told ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, for example, how many drivers they needed in cities before people would begin relying on their services.

20 March, 2020 02:16 Share

Avoiding unforced errors and arguing from first principles can help you be wrong less often.

Avoiding unforced errors involves paying attention to the way you reason things out. This is called arguing from first principles, and it’s all about thinking from the bottom up, starting with assumptions you’re sure are true. Elon Musk, the founder of the automotive and energy company Tesla, defines this as boiling things down to "fundamental truths" and going from there.

20 March, 2020 02:16 Share

How we look at something determines the way we think about it. Take it from nineteenth-century German mathematician Carl Jacobi. His motto? "Invert, always invert," which means that it’s often easier to solve a problem when you approach it from the opposite or "inverse" point of view.

20 March, 2020 02:17 Share

Before sending your résumé out, sit down and define your values. Is independence, status or money most important to you? Next, lay down your red lines – how far you’re prepared to commute, say, or the least-senior position you’re willing to accept. Finally, check those values against existing positions. That’s inversion in action: you’re not asking which jobs are available, but which ones suit your needs!

20 March, 2020 02:17 Share

You can also apply bottom-up reasoning to everyday decisions. Take job hunting. Lots of people waste energy applying for far too many positions, and then jump at the first opportunity that comes their way. First principles suggest a different approach.

20 March, 2020 02:18 Share

Ockham’s razor might just hold the key to your love life.

Twelve hundred years later, the English philosopher William of Ockham reached the same conclusion: when confronted with equally plausible and competing assumptions, the simpler is more likely to be true. Call it Ockham’s razor. The idea is to "shave off" unnecessarily intricate explanations. In other words, think horses, not zebras, when you hear hoofbeats.

20 March, 2020 02:19 Share

That’s also a great way of beating common logical traps. In 1983, the psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman presented a now-famous thought experiment that considered the following: Linda is 31, single, outspoken and clever. She studied philosophy and attended demonstrations at university. Which is more likely: that Linda is a bank teller or that Linda is a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement? Most people plump for the second option. That’s an example of the conjunction fallacy in action. This states that the probability of two events occurring in "conjunction" is always less than or equal to the probability of one event occurring alone. Remember: not all bank tellers are feminists. To go back to dating, what’s more likely – finding a mate who makes you laugh or finding someone who is funny and shares your exact cultural preferences, down to ice cream flavors? The answer tells you why it pays to simplify assumptions!

20 March, 2020 02:20 Share

Putting yourself in others’ shoes is hard but the veil of ignorance can help you make fairer decisions.

Working out other people’s motivations is tricky, especially when they’re strangers. The upshot? We jump to unfair conclusions. If a colleague sends us a curt one-line email, we think he’s being dismissive and discount the idea that he might just be in a rush. Psychologists call that a fundamental attribution error: While we explain our own behavior by looking to our intentions and external circumstances, we ascribe other people’s actions to essential characteristics. If you run a red light, it’s because you need to get to the hospital; if another driver does it, it’s because she’s inherently reckless.

20 March, 2020 02:21 Share

This model states that you should never attribute to malice what can be more easily explained by carelessness. Is your neighbor playing loud music to annoy you? Unlikely – he’s probably just forgotten how thin the walls are.

20 March, 2020 02:22 Share

go a step farther and think more objectively, you can use the veil of ignorance. That’s the name of a model developed by the American philosopher John Rawls in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice. Here’s how it works:Birth is a lottery. Some people luck out and are blessed with a wealth of opportunities; others go empty-handed. That doesn’t stop us believing that our own privileges and others’ disadvantages are deserved. This, Rawls argued, distorts our understanding of fairness. But imagine you had to design a fair society without knowing where you’d end up in it. Rawls concluded that if you couldn’t be sure whether you’d be born a slave or a free person, you’d decide that slavery itself was unfair. Put differently, you’d take the feelings and interests of everyone affected by a decision into account – not just your own. It’s a useful model to apply to your own decision-making. So say you’re a manager in a company that’s thinking about abolishing an established policy that allows employees to work remotely. As you see it, there are a lot of good reasons for doing that. But what if you put yourself behind the veil of ignorance – would you advocate against the policy no matter who you were? What if you were an employee caring for an elderly relative, or a single parent?

20 March, 2020 02:22 Share

If you don’t want to get left behind by social change, you need to become adaptable.

As the American scientist Leon Megginson pointed out, people sometimes confuse "the fittest" with strength or intellect or superior genes. The key, however, is adaptability – adjusting to a changing environment. And that’s the lesson the story of the dark peppered moth teaches us. Society also evolves over time. If you want to thrive in your social environment, you also need to become adaptable. So how do you that?

21 March, 2020 10:22 Share

One great way is by adopting an experimental mind-set. That’s a cycle of making scientific observations, developing hypotheses, testing them, analyzing data and formulating new theories. The most successful people and organizations adopt precisely that mind-set. They’re constantly on the lookout for new tools to boost their productivity, well-being and fitness.

21 March, 2020 10:23 Share

Take your health, for example. There’s an overwhelming mass of data out there suggesting that this or that diet is the best thing you can do for your body. Should you go vegan or paleo, or is fasting a better option? The only way to find out is to experiment. That’s more than just randomly trying different things, though. It means adopting a rigorous trial-and-error approach, trying different diets one by one and analyzing the results to figure out which works for you.

21 March, 2020 10:23 Share

The same goes for your "intellectual diet." If you aren’t experimenting with new ideas, you’re probably stuck with old, out-of-date ones. Notions change all the time, after all. You were probably taught that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and that Tyrannosaurus rex were smooth-skinned reptilians. Well, today, a lot of experts have come to view that theory as outdated, while most paleontologists believe the T. rex was partly covered in feathers! Stick with old ideas, and your thinking will end up just as obsolete as those light-colored moths clinging to sooty trees.

21 March, 2020 10:23 Share

Anecdotal evidence and the fallacy that correlation implies causation skew our understanding of statistical data.

We live in a data-driven world. Quantification, once the preserve of scientists and engineers, shapes the way we understand everything from climate change to our personal lives. You might even be using apps that tally up your daily movements and tell you how much sleep you’re getting. That’s good, right? Well, yes and no. As the American writer Mark Twain liked to point out, there are "Lies, damned lies and statistics." Numbers, in other words, can mislead as easily as they can inform. And that’s why it’s so important to avoid statistical stumbles.

21 March, 2020 10:24 Share

The most common cause of error is relying on anecdotal evidence. That’s basically hearsay and personal experience. Evolutionarily, trusting such partial data makes a lot of sense. If you’ve seen someone eat a berry and get sick, you simply avoid the shrub in question rather than conducting a controlled berry-eating experiment. In other contexts, however, it’s a source of confusion. Think of the stories people tell about, say, their grandfather who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and lived to the age of 90. These are out-of-the-ordinary cases that tell us nothing about average experiences. It’s a bit like going to a restaurant: you’re more likely to tell friends about your meal if it was outrageously good or bad than if it was merely mediocre. Smoking might not cause lung cancer in every case, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t significantly increase the average risk.

21 March, 2020 10:25 Share

What’s missing in this account is the confounding factor, an often less obvious but correct explanation – namely, that people are vaccinated largely when more people get sick than usual. A common cold, against which a flu shot doesn’t provide immunity, ends up being misidentified, and the vaccination gets blamed for causing the very thing it prevented! And that’s the trouble with data – it helps us understand the world, but sometimes it helps us misunderstand it, too.

21 March, 2020 10:26 Share

Then there’s the mistaken idea that correlation implies causation – that is, if two events occur consecutively, one must have caused the other. You can see this fallacy in effect every year around the time people get their flu vaccinations. Inevitably, someone will get a cold at the same time, mistake it for the flu and attribute it to the shot they just got.

21 March, 2020 10:26 Share

Confusing social and market norms undermine reciprocity.

Let’s face it: life is full of conflict. In economics, these adversarial situations are sometimes described as "social games" pitting self-interested "players" against one another. Most conventional games are zero-sum: if you win, I lose. Unlike chess, however, real life isn’t black-and-white. Sometimes everyone can win.

21 March, 2020 10:27 Share

That’s a great example of reciprocity, the perceived obligation to return favors. It’s a pretty universal cultural concept. The Romans called it quid pro quo or "something for something." In modern English, we rephrase that as, "I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine."

21 March, 2020 10:27 Share

Reciprocity is a social norm, a recognized if unwritten rule regulating social life. Obviously, we don’t always behave reciprocally. Sometimes it’s more appropriate to follow market norms. When you look at something from a "market perspective," you think of it in terms of your personal interests. A "social perspective," by contrast, asks if it’s the right thing to do. It’s the difference between asking, "Is this $60 babysitting job worth my time?" and "Should I help my friend out by looking after his kids for four hours?"

21 March, 2020 10:27 Share

Here’s why. Before the fines, latecomers felt guilty and made an effort to be more punctual. The introduction of a market norm undermined their sense that they owed the kindergarten teachers something – after all, they were paying, so there was no reason to feel bad. Interestingly, when the kindergarten abolished the fines, parents didn’t return to their old behavior – the experiment had undermined both types of norms.That just goes to show how important it is to apply the right conceptual models to situations. As the example of that Israeli daycare center shows, it pays to make sure you’re framing things in the right way!

21 March, 2020 10:28 Share

Final summary

The key message in these blinks:Super thinking leverages tried-and-true conceptual models to improve your decision-making and help you avoid common logical pitfalls. Gleaned from disciplines as diverse as physics, economics and philosophy, these "super models" cut through the complexity and shed light on the thorniest conundrums. Whether you’re using Ockham’s razor to select potential mates, applying critical mass to understand an emerging market or using the veil of ignorance to put yourself in people’s shoes, these ultra-adaptable tools are guaranteed to up your cognitive game.

21 March, 2020 10:28 Share

Weigh your decisions with a numbered pro-con list. The simplest way of approaching a big question is to draw up a list of pros and cons – arguments for and against a decision. Chances are, however, that you’ll attach different value to different factors. That’s where numbered pro-con lists come in. Here you’ll be valuing each factor on a scale ranging from minus ten to zero for negatives and zero to ten for positives, thus giving you an insight into the relative value of each item. So say you’ve been offered a job, but taking it involves moving to a new city. What gets a higher score – the location or the improved salary offer? As simple as it sounds, this is a powerful mental model that will help you conduct a systematic cost-benefit analysis before taking the plunge.

21 March, 2020 10:28 Share

What’s in it for me? Learn how to stay present at every part of your day!

From slow speeds when you start and stop your engine to full-speed cruising down the freeway of your day-to-day, these blinks will explain what the different gears are and when you should use them. By following their lead, you can become more connected to all the situations and people you encounter every day.You’ll also find outwhy you should always pay attention to the kiss cam;how one of the authors ended up watching a professional wrestling match; andwhat you can learn from a three-wheel car from 1970s Britain.

19 March, 2020 01:24 Share

To avoid being disconnected from others, you need to use the right gear for each situation.

The disconnect stems from moving at different speeds to those around you. Imagine driving your car around the suburbs but traveling at freeway speeds; you’re bound to cause trouble and probably run somebody over. It’d be the same driving slowly down the freeway; you’re going to get in the way of other cars.Now imagine that the freeway is your office, and the suburbs are your home; if you don’t match your speed to your environment, then you’re going to hurt those around you.

19 March, 2020 01:25 Share

First gear is for individual recharge; second gear is for connecting deeply with friends or family; third gear is for casual socializing; fourth gear is for working and getting multiple tasks done; fifth gear is fully focusing on a single project.

19 March, 2020 01:26 Share

Fifth gear is good for getting something specific done but can make you miss important opportunities.

Look at Andrew, a client of the authors’ at Ford Motor Company, who uses fifth gear throughout the day to get in the zone and focus on getting important tasks done.However, it can cause conflict if he has to communicate with others. Andrew also operates an open door policy for constant communication with his team and found that he had trouble giving them his full attention if they came to him when he was in fifth gear, meaning the policy wasn’t helping anyone.

19 March, 2020 01:27 Share

Another example is a funny video on YouTube of a kiss-cam incident at a basketball game, where a man is so focused on the court that he ignores the camera on him and his date, causing her to kiss another man instead! Too much focus can cause you to miss opportunities at which you might otherwise jump.

19 March, 2020 01:28 Share

So how can you make sure you use fifth gear correctly? By detaching yourself from other interactions! Andrew eventually found that if he let people know that right now he was in fifth, they would leave him to it and come back later, allowing everyone to get what they needed.In the same way, if you schedule specific times for fifth gear and let people know they’ll have to wait, you can be sure to get your projects done without sacrificing focus or being too distracted to help other people

19 March, 2020 01:28 Share

Fourth gear is the most commonly used for day-to-day action, but people tend to overdo it and risk burning out.

When the authors teach clients about the 5 Gears, a whopping 85 percent of leaders say that they’re most commonly in fourth gear. No wonder, since this is the most productive gear, jumping around between multiple tasks and dealing with many events in the course of a day. But is there a bad side to this?Well, as we saw earlier with Kubicek’s own experience, there unfortunately is. The more you try to do in fourth gear, the longer your to-do list gets, and the less you seem to be able to step outside of it.Renowned sports psychologist Dr. Jarrod Spencer likens the mind to a computer, that, at the end of each day, closes and files the documents we have been opening all day. But if we’re constantly opening new files without properly closing old ones, we can’t fully shut down and often have a harder time sleeping – or worse.

19 March, 2020 01:29 Share

You also need to work up to fourth gear by spending a bit of time first and last thing every day in one of the lower gears. And if you use them appropriately, you’ll find that when you are in fourth gear, it runs even better!With that in mind, let’s shift down to third.

19 March, 2020 01:30 Share

Third gear is important for building relationships, but many find it difficult to entertain other people's interests.

This is why companies take clients out to lunch or to play golf: to get to know people better and decide whether they want to work with them and shift up to fourth gear.So why is it that despite its importance for work and pleasure, many people still dislike or feel uncomfortable using third gear? Well, it’s probably because of the diverse interests of the people with whom you end up socializing. No matter what you’re interested in talking about, you’re bound to meet people who’d rather discuss other things. But a little bit of curiosity in other people’s interests can bring you opportunities and increase your influence.

19 March, 2020 01:32 Share

you can create new opportunities in third gear by being genuinely curious about other people’s interests and giving them your full attention, since you never know where it might lead. Just remember not to spend your whole life socializing in third gear – you wouldn’t get anything done or have time to relax and develop real relationships as you would when you shift down to second gear.

19 March, 2020 01:33 Share

Second gear is for cementing real relationships but is all too often ignored or forced at inappropriate times.

You know those few people with whom you have a real connection? Maybe it’s your partner, your family or some close friends. The time you spend together forging those relationships is time spent in second gear.So why is this gear important? Because it’s about taking third gear and bringing it to a more meaningful level, moving from deciding if you’d like to know more about someone to developing a deeper relationship with them. Being truly present with someone and building more of a bond with them will bring personal growth, inspiration and peace of mind.

23 March, 2020 05:35 Share

Second gear requires the most joint responsibility, as everyone must be truly in gear for it to work. Just as the open-door policy clashed with fifth gear, if someone comes to you in second gear and you’re not present too, you’re only wasting their time.

23 March, 2020 05:36 Share

Another senior associate of GiAnt, Tom Nebel, used to lose quality time with his son to both of their phones until they finally agreed to shut them off and commit to second gear. He likens it to cowboys taking their guns off when entering the saloon, making sure everyone knew they weren’t looking for a fight!Make sure not to force it either; there’s nothing wrong with a bit of third gear if it’s not the right time for going deeper.

23 March, 2020 05:36 Share

First gear is about personal recharge and is vital for the other gears but requires individual action.

Imagine your phone only has ten percent battery, and you have an important call in an hour but no charger. It’s not going to happen, is it? Your phone just doesn’t have the energy to complete the call. So why do people think that they can run on empty without properly recharging?

23 March, 2020 05:37 Share

So how exactly do you recharge? Well, that is the million-dollar question, since it’s different for everyone. For example, if you’re introverted, you may enjoy running or walking alone for exercise, reading a novel or maybe just pursuing a particular hobby. But if you’re extroverted, you might prefer exercising in a group, reading about your hobbies for inspiration or even talking with someone in second gear.It’s really up to the individual, but remember that it’s not a substitution for second gear; if you come home from work and go straight into first gear, you run the same risk of not being present during the second-gear phase as mentioned before.

23 March, 2020 05:37 Share

just remember to try and fit in some first gear both first thing in the morning and last thing at night, whether it’s a morning yoga session or cooking family dinner in the evening. After all, you wouldn’t try to start or stop your car without using first gear, so why do the same with yourself? If you recharge regularly and effectively, then all your other gears will also run smoothly throughout your day.

23 March, 2020 05:37 Share

Apologizing in reverse gear is important for maintaining respect and influence, but needs sincerity.

In the same way, if you don’t know how to use your reverse gear and apologize for your mistakes, you won’t be living a very nimble life. It’s the difference between being responsive or resistant. Responsive people are aware of their responsibility for their actions and will reverse and make amends when it’s needed. Resistant people, on the other hand, would rather pass the blame than admit their mistakes and will fight instead of reconciling, thereby digging deeper and deeper holes.

23 March, 2020 05:38 Share

Responsive people are also much easier to work with and be around because they can change direction and because they try to resolve issues instead of avoiding them.So how can you make sure you reverse correctly? Probably the most important thing is to use it sincerely – using an apology to get out of disagreements or manipulate others into getting what you want is not healthy behavior and the opposite of being responsive. Make sure you reverse only when you know you’re wrong, and then make sure you do it every time.

23 March, 2020 05:38 Share

5 Gears requires practice and self-awareness, always applying the right gear to the situation.

The first thing to remember is that there is a correct time and place for every gear. Whenever you find yourself disconnected from a situation, missing opportunities or running somebody over, chances are you’re using the wrong gear for the context.

23 March, 2020 05:39 Share

people generally move between five circles of influence: Self, Family, Team, Organization and Community. Each of these requires different gears to navigate appropriately, such as your family needing more second and third gear, or your self-focusing on first and fifth. The trick is to be aware of which circle you’re in at all times and which gear would be most appropriate. This awareness of context is the first step to maintaining the right gear.

23 March, 2020 05:39 Share

the most important step is to know yourself. The authors have a method for this: the CORE Process. First, you Call the issue, Own it, figure out how to Respond to it and then Execute this plan.

23 March, 2020 05:39 Share

Final summary

Many of us are stuck in one mode, but this isn’t enough. Understanding each of the 5 Gears and when best to use them is the key to being present in every part of your life. From the high focus of fifth gear to multitasking in fourth, socializing in third, connecting with your loved ones in second or taking time for yourself in first, each gear has a right and wrong time and place, even reverse! So long as you know which gears you lean on and which you avoid, you can start to apply the correct one to each part of your day, until you’re fully present in each situation.

23 March, 2020 05:40 Share

Incorporate the language into your office or family.If you bring the terminology of 5 Gears to your home or office, you can easily let others know when you or they are in a different gear to what’s needed. If a colleague is still talking business at lunch, just tell them to switch to third, or if your child is looking for attention while you’re in fifth, flash them five fingers. The message is clear, and no one gets offended by a personal slight – it’s just a case of changing gear!

23 March, 2020 05:40 Share

What’s in it for me? Get an insider’s take on the threats and promises of the digital age.

why the data cloud is more like a fortress than a real cloud;what an eighteenth-century British MP and Edward Snowden have in common; andhow a Stasi prison taught Microsoft a valuable lesson.

18 March, 2020 01:27 Share

Data has always been an integral part of human civilization.

We’ve always relied on data. All human civilizations have passed information down from one generation to the next. Without being able to record our methods, we wouldn’t have been able to make progress.Without the scrolls of antiquity, our great architectural techniques wouldn’t have developed over centuries, mathematical solutions wouldn’t have traveled from one mind to the next, and military strategies wouldn’t have made it from Caesar’s battlefields to Napoleon’s.Then, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, there was something of a data explosion. As more individuals gained access to the achievements of humankind through the printed word, a democratic revolution began. This had momentous consequences for religion, politics and cultural life.Later, the acceleration of commerce in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries meant an exponential increase in the amount of data in the world. By the mid-twentieth century, there were filing cabinets overflowing with data in every organization, for every imaginable purpose.And today, through digitization, we store a quantity of data inconceivable at any other moment in history. We call this digital architecture the cloud.

18 March, 2020 01:29 Share

And though this word brings to mind a fluffy, soft cumulus floating above us, the reality is more like a fortress. The cloud has a very definite physical reality. Every time you look something up on your mobile device, you are pulling a piece of information from a gigantic data center.These are modern marvels that almost nobody gets to see. Take the one in Quincy – a tiny town about 150 miles east of Seattle. Here, there are two campuses with more than 20 huge, nondescript buildings. Each building is the size of a football field and can comfortably house two large commercial airplanes.At the heart of each of these buildings is a computer center, where thousands of servers are lined up in long racks. Somewhere, in one of these buildings, each of us will have our own digital file. In one of these humming, cavernous rooms, there are our photographs, private emails and bank account details.Even more remarkable is the fact that each data center has an exact double, with another set of buildings, just like the one in Quincy, somewhere else. This way, if there’s a natural or humanmade disaster, our data – our memories, messages, private details – will be kept safe.

18 March, 2020 01:29 Share

Edward Snowden reignited the old question of privacy for the twenty-first century.

The source for this story was Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old computer systems administrator working at the NSA Threat Operation Centre in Hawaii. He’d downloaded over 1.5 million classified documents and then fled to Hong Kong before contacting the Guardian and Washington Post with his story.What he’d revealed was that the NSA, in league with the British government, had been hacking into undersea fiber-optic cables to copy data from Yahoo and Google networks. Microsoft, whose own user info was compromised, was stunned.At this moment, Snowden’s revelations brought about a clash between the people and their government that had deep roots. The question of how much privacy a private citizen should have has a long history, and Snowden was just the latest individual to pose it.

18 March, 2020 01:30 Share

One of the first was John Wilkes, a British MP of the eighteenth century. He was notorious for writing critical polemics on the monarchy and the prime minister of the day. Finally, a particularly provocative letter drove the government to issue a warrant for his arrest, allowing them to search any house without warning. The law in Wilkes’ day offered little protection from trespass – the king’s soldiers could break in anywhere without reasonable suspicion. So, many doors were broken down, trunks ransacked and private possessions taken as proof. They arrested 49 people, almost all of whom were innocent, in their hunt for Wilkes.Wilkes was finally arrested but decided to fight his case – and the way he was pursued – in the courts. To the establishment’s shock, he won.As part of his case, the courts ruled that authorities must have greater probable cause to support a search. The British press hailed the ruling, declaring that "every Englishman’s house is his castle and is not liable to be searched."In many ways, Wilkes’ case marked the birth of modern privacy rights. It was an issue reignited by Edward Snowden, in 2013, when he revealed again the age-old tendency of governments to encroach on their citizens’ private lives.

18 March, 2020 01:30 Share

Final summary

When you read a news story, make sure it can be verified.When browsing the internet and coming across some particularly inflammatory headline, check that it’s grounded in truth. Here’s what you can do. See if numerous, well-regarded sources repeat the same story. If not, and it’s limited to only one source, be careful that you’re not being hoodwinked!

18 March, 2020 01:27 Share

New digital technologies present us with astonishing possibilities but also with unforeseen threats. We can either master these inventions for good, such as by using AI to fight poaching and climate change, or we can allow their darker potential to be harnessed by hostile actors. To ensure that technology is a force for good, it is vital that tech companies collaborate with governments on regulation and an ethical framework.

18 March, 2020 01:27 Share

What’s in it for me? Discover why living in the Age of Acceleration might not be as bad as you think.

Unlike generations before us, people alive today must constantly adapt and readapt to rapid changes in technology, society and the economy. The good news is that some people have found ways to harness this new reality to improve the human condition.

18 March, 2020 01:19 Share

The age of acceleration began in 2007, launching an era of constant adaptation.

In 2007, the technological acceleration described by Moore’s law contributed to, and coincided with, accelerations in the market, evidenced by increased global commerce, rapidly growing social networks and an information tsunami. At the same time, mother nature was experiencing an acceleration in the form of climate change and population explosions.So, what does that all mean for life on Earth?Put simply, it means that this is a time of constant adaptation. If prior epochs of history were characterized by occasional destabilization, the modern world is one of near-constant destabilization; humans must constantly reevaluate their ecosystem, remaining agile in order to adapt to a rapidly changing world.That doesn’t mean you can’t attain stability in today’s world. But rather than a static stability, you can expect a dynamic stability, like the one you experience while riding a bike. It’s not the kind of stability that lets you stand still, but it will keep you afloat if you stay in motion.

18 March, 2020 01:20 Share

Technology is transforming at a rate never seen before.

It’s clear that such growth isn’t natural and we can already see it disrupting the world. For instance, a few years back, digitization disrupted dairy farms in upstate New York. For decades before that, milking cows involved manual labor on the part of farm workers, but now computers are increasingly being used to control and monitor udders, supply chains and milk flow.As a result, the successful cow milkers of tomorrow may not match the image we often envision of a farmer sloshing around in the mud; the farmers of tomorrow may actually be sharply dressed data analysts.Now, this could be good news. After all, digitizing milking means fresher milk and less manual labor; but it’s also a depressing thought. It perfectly encapsulates a major problem, namely that countless mid-level jobs are disappearing and being supplanted by software programs and a few lowly laborers.Just take a study done by the University of Oxford in 2013, which found that a whopping 47 percent of American jobs are at very high risk of being supplanted by computers in the next 20 years.Beyond that, technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that it becomes obsolete every five to seven years. Consider Blackberry smartphones or MySpace – can you think of anyone who uses either of them anymore?

18 March, 2020 01:25 Share

Market globalization has fostered an increasingly interconnected world.

It’s this level of interconnectivity that enables products to go viral at a scale and speed that was unfathomable in past generations. For example, in 2012, a photo of Michelle Obama wearing a dress from the online fashion store ASOS was retweeted 816,000 times and the dress instantly sold out.

18 March, 2020 01:23 Share

Climate change is accelerating, threatening to turn the world upside down.

Well, Americans may be focused on the migration of people from the Middle East into Europe, but two-thirds of all migration comes from other places, and most frequently as a result of climate change. In fact, shifting global weather patterns, resulting in droughts in Africa, produce more migrants than any other factor or phenomenon. Terrorism, unemployment and generally frightening futures in these failing African states can be linked to worsening environmental degradation, and leads these countries’ citizens to head for European shores.To make matters worse, there’s no sign that climate change will slow down. According to the United Nations, by 2050, the world population is expected to rise from around 7.2 billion today to 9.7 billion. All those additional people will mean more cars, more homes, more water and electricity consumption and a far greater carbon footprint.

18 March, 2020 01:24 Share

The age of acceleration may bring up some issues, but it has also enabled individuals to work toward the common good.

Technology and globalization have made it possible for anyone with a basic education and access to the internet to help humanity make collaborative decisions, while also handling the challenges these same trends produce.

18 March, 2020 01:25 Share

By acknowledging the need for change, visionary leaders in the community helped support a rapidly growing middle class through good jobs and a great school system. People helped each other overcome their problems and, pretty soon, partisanship, prejudice and pessimism were things of the past.As a result, the community there today is thriving and harmonious. For instance, 70 percent of voters still support funding schools, even though only 15 percent of the population have children of school age.

18 March, 2020 01:25 Share

Final summary

The world is changing more quickly than ever. Rapidly evolving technology, global markets and climate change all imply significant accelerations to the pace of life – and these factors are exerting a major impact on our lives. In this wild new world, working together for the common good may be humanity’s last hope.

18 March, 2020 01:25 Share

What’s in it for me? Discover the revolutionary power of objectives and key results (OKRs).

Have you ever worked for an organization that, if not entirely lacking a sense of direction, at least didn’t seem like it knew where it was going? If so, you certainly aren’t alone. Companies often have so many goals that they might as well have none at all, and workers are tugged in so many directions that they often feel utterly directionless.

17 March, 2020 01:29 Share

By having a handful of flexible, reachable and transparent goals, organizations can work together in an efficient way to achieve success.

17 March, 2020 01:29 Share

And OKRs don’t only allow companies to continuously update, track and rewrite their goals. They also encourage a growth-centered philosophy that is bound to help companies of all sizes rethink their management strategy, thus increasing their potential for greatness.

17 March, 2020 01:29 Share

OKRs were born at microchip giant Intel, where the author worked in the 1970s.

Such KRs had to be measured simply with a clear yes or no. Everyone involved – known as contributors – would have to be able to understand whether the KR had been met or not, without argument.

17 March, 2020 01:30 Share

OKRs allow organizations to stay focused on reaching their goals.

This brings us to the first of three important characteristics of OKRs: there should only be a handful of organization-wide OKRs at any one time. That way, everyone from top management to lower-level employees can stay focused on achieving a limited number of important goals – together. Next, once management has determined these top-level objectives, between three and five KRs are needed per objective to help everyone at the company know when each objective has been reached. Any more than this, and focus will become diluted to the point where progress is hard to measure.

17 March, 2020 01:30 Share

Having a transparent, aligned OKR system helps organizations move forward efficiently – and collaboratively.

One important aspect of OKRs is that they must be transparent to everyone in your organization

17 March, 2020 01:30 Share

OKRs are more than just the overarching business goals of an organization; teams, departments and individual employees use them for their own individual work as well. But once top-level and individual OKRs become part of an organization’s public domain, they must be aligned to truly succeed. This means that employees’ individual OKRs must align with the company’s vision, as set out in the top-level OKRs

17 March, 2020 01:31 Share

By constantly tracking OKRs, organizations can make sure that they’re heading in the right direction.

said for tracking your goals as you pursue them. In fact, a California study showed that friends who both wrote down their goals and shared their progress with friends on a weekly basis were 43 percent more likely to achieve their objectives. The same goes for organizational OKRs. Google, for example, usually has monthly sit-downs where employees touch base on how they are getting along with their quarterly OKRs. Not only is progress discussed; roadblocks are also pointed out and key results updated accordingly.

17 March, 2020 01:31 Share

OKR contributors: continue, update, start and stop.

17 March, 2020 01:31 Share

Implementing stretch goals allows organizations to truly excel.

Well, at Google, OKRs are separated into two distinct categories: stretch objectives and committed objectives. Whereas committed objectives usually have to do with day-to-day metrics such as sales or hiring, stretch objectives are all about bigger-picture ideas. And while committed objectives are meant to be met with 100-percent success, stretch objectives at Google fail about 40 percent of the time.

17 March, 2020 01:32 Share

Coupling OKRs with continuous performance management will help bring about a transparent, healthy workplace culture.

CFRs are the OKRs of the HR world, and are all about having conversations with employees that entail both feedback and recognition. CFRs are a two-way street. Instead of the unidirectional annual performance review, CFRs involve conversations where real-time feedback and recognition go both ways. And, in the same way that OKRs replace annual goals, CFRs should happen regularly so that performance improvements can be made throughout the year.

17 March, 2020 01:32 Share

Final summary

Objectives and key results (OKRs) are a revolutionary tool that can help organizations reimagine their approach to management. As opposed to setting yearly goals, OKRs allow organizations, and teams within them, to continuously set, track and achieve goals in a transparent and accountable way. And when combined with regularly having conversations with employees about their performance – instead of once per year – OKRs can bring about a healthy and high-performance workplace culture.

17 March, 2020 01:32 Share

As Google cofounder Larry Page says, "Put more wood behind fewer arrows." Steve Jobs was essentially saying the same thing when he remarked that, "Innovation means saying no to one thousand things."

17 March, 2020 01:32 Share

The six hats are tools that help us to conceive new ideas and improve thinking.

The six hats, therefore, enable your team in order to engage in parallel thinking, in which everyone views the problem from the same perspective.

3 February, 2020 10:23 Share

When using the six hats, keep some rules in mind.

There are two ways to wear these hats: in single use or in sequence. When the hats are used singly, they function as symbols indicating that you want to concentrate on a particular type of thinking.

3 February, 2020 10:06 Share

Regardless of how you use the hats, you’ll need to consider both discipline and timing. Members of the group must have the discipline to use and maintain only the hat that is required at that present moment. Only the group leader, chairperson or facilitator has the power to change it. Luckily, developing that discipline only gets easier with practice – so keep at it.

3 February, 2020 10:07 Share

The Six Hats method will save you time, money and headaches.

Imagine you’re in a car with three other people and you have to drive somewhere but everyone only vaguely know the roads. There’s bound to be many heated arguments over which road to take, which will only get worse the longer you’re on the road. However, if you have a road map, then it’s much easier to choose the best route, making the best possible choice become obvious to all. The Six Hats method gives you that map.

3 February, 2020 10:10 Share

Success comes from working with long-term systems, rather than short-term goals.

The comic strip Dilbert tells the story of an innocuous office worker who is, in many ways, the perfect antihero. But that doesn’t mean he’s not a successful character. In fact, for Scott Adams, the comic’s creator, antiheroes can still be successful – because success isn’t about achieving goals; it’s about forming systems.

1 February, 2020 13:26 Share

The point is that people tend to focus on short-term goals, like creating and marketing a successful new product. If such goals can’t be attained within a given time frame, people tend to give up, decide that they’re not cut out to be entrepreneurs and go back to their mundane office jobs. This is a huge mistake. Instead, focus on a skill or relationship that you want to develop over time and forget any specific goals. Just take Scott, the creator of Dilbert. He started blogging even though it meant lots of extra work with little to show for it in added income. He knew it was worthwhile nonetheless because he was working within a system. The goal of his blogging wasn’t clear, but, by practicing, he went from being an aspiring writer to a skilled one with an online presence. The system was bound to pay off – and it did. Scott became a best-selling author, but not until many years later.

1 February, 2020 13:26 Share

Being a professional means knowing yourself and your craft.

A professional also knows when to ask for help. Knowing how to ask for guidance can help you to continue to develop your craft, which you should never stop doing. For example, even at the height of his golfing career, when he was widely considered the best golfer in the world, Tiger Woods still had a trainer.

1 February, 2020 03:55 Share

What’s in it for me? Find out how to become a better collaborator.

When reading about the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, it’s easy to think of success as a one-person show. But probe a bit deeper and you’ll see that success depends heavily on being able to form great collaborations with others.

29 January, 2020 01:18 Share

If you want to improve your concentration, you’ve got to clear your mind and be in the now.

Another smart move is to prevent your mind from wandering by giving yourself a purpose. That way, you can easily remind yourself why you wanted to concentrate on something in the first place. In this case, the PIC rule might come in handy: (P)urpose gives you a reason for learning. Take learning a programming language, for example. Your purpose there could be building a website for your family

28 January, 2020 03:06 Share

Use your creativity to bring information to life in a fun way that will help you remember it.

An easy way to remember a bit of information is to bring it to life, and this is all about using your creativity to make a memorable movie or picture. When it comes to words, there’s a lot to play around with. They can often be broken down into smaller words which sound similar to others – that way, you can make them more memorable by making them sound funny or absurd. This is great when it comes to memorizing foreign words or capital cities.

28 January, 2020 03:09 Share

Sort information into categories that already exist in your long-term memory.

Humans are experts at remembering specific routes or places (just think about your commute to work), so most memory systems already make use of loci. It works by putting the items to be remembered at specific locations along a route that is already vivid and familiar in our minds. Here’s how you can put the loci method to work: Say you’re trying to memorize bits of a speech you have to give. You would imagine walking around your house along a particular route. The idea here is to create a string of locations to visit as you go.

28 January, 2020 03:11 Share

This method is effective because it’ll work with any structured location that you know well. Whether it’s your car, your body or a museum, you can use your route to recall your list. If your route is intentionally structured to hold, say, five objects per room, then you’ll remember both the list and its exact order. And if you’re still not convinced, consider this: the author used this very method to remember the first 10,000 digits of the number π (pi)!

28 January, 2020 03:12 Share

Use the four C system to remember names.

Is there anything more embarrassing than forgetting a colleague’s name? Well, when it comes to memorizing this kind of information, just remember the four Cs: concentrate, create, connect and continuous use. If you use this handy system, you’ll never have to deal with this awkward situation again

28 January, 2020 03:14 Share

To help the name stick, pick it apart and use any words that come to mind to create a memorable image. Take, for example, the author’s surname: Horsley. To remember his name, you might picture a fight between a HORSe and Bruce LEE.

28 January, 2020 03:15 Share

Whichever method you use, make sure you revisit the names you’ve learned so that you use them continuously. It would also be handy to list the names in your diary or add the people whose names you’re trying to remember on your favorite social media channel.

28 January, 2020 03:15 Share

Stop yourself from forgetting information by reviewing it.

According to the author’s research, within two years of finishing school, people can only remember the equivalent of about three weeks’ worth of lessons from 12 years of daily classes.

28 January, 2020 03:16 Share

Each time you revisit what you’ve memorized, the information you’ve absorbed has more of an impact in your mind than it did before. Therefore, to really make sure your brain never forgets what you’ve learned, you should gradually leave more time between one review and the next

28 January, 2020 03:16 Share

Another point to remember is that when you’re going through the process of reviewing, take advantage of the memory techniques you’ve learned. The SEE principle should have provided you with clear, vivid images to bring your information to life. Has the bishop still got moves on the moon? Make sure to use the tools you’ve got, otherwise you’ll lose what you’re trying to retain.

28 January, 2020 03:18 Share

When it comes to memorizing what you’ve already learned, the key is reviewing what you’ve done to prevent yourself from losing your newfound knowledge.

28 January, 2020 03:19 Share