Essays

The Limitations of the Deep Work Hypothesis – Introduction

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Reading Time: 16 minutes Articles in this series: The Limitations of the Deep Work Hypothesis – Introduction How Women Find Time for Their Work Projects (part 1) How Women Find Time for Their Work Projects (part 2) In his Deep Work bestseller, Cal Newport coins the term “deep work” as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”   In contrast, Newport defines shallow work as “non-cognitively demanding, …

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Wise Ideas from Morgan Housel’s Book The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness

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Reading Time: 9 minutes One of the better books about financial education that I have read is Morgan Housel’s book, The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness. This book started as a blog post that can be read here. Some sharp insights in this book struck me, and I will discuss them in more detail in the following paragraphs.  Investing is not the study of finance but how people behave with money The premise of this book is that doing well with money has little to …

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What Holds Back Innovation

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Reading Time: 10 minutes The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. Sherlock Holmes  For at least five millennia, we used wheels for transportation, from carts to cars, trains, pushchairs, bicycles, etc. Across ages, we also had heavy trunks to carry luggage. To help with the workload of carrying bags, we used carts with wheels to transport them because wheeling bags was much easier than lugging them. But still, for all the creative minds and visionaries that humankind had across centuries, it …

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What is Creativity?

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Reading Time: 7 minutes One way to define creativity is to look at the same things as anyone else but see them differently. Or, as Stephen King remarked in his book On Writing:  Two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.  Similarly, Adam Grant wrote in his Originals book: I once heard creativity described as being the ability to grasp the essence of one thing and the essence of some very …

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AI’s Impact on the Future of Jobs

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Reading Time: 12 minutes May you live in interesting times.   An English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse The First Industrial Revolution brought us the steam engine, while the Second Industrial Revolution focused on steel production, chemicals, electricity. The Third Industrial Revolution, called the Digital Revolution, was characterized by the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web. How will the Fourth Industrial Revolution look? Profoundly exciting and highly problematic. New vistas will open where incredible breakthroughs can happen because AI holds enormous potential. This …

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When the World Needs Dreamers: Marie Curie

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Reading Time: 9 minutes Marie Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, was a self-sacrificing genius with an incredible work ethic and a complete disdain for money. She was also radioactive. To this day, Curie’s papers (including her cookbooks) are considered too dangerous to handle due to their levels of radioactive contamination. Her notebooks are sealed in lead-lined boxes, and those who wish to check them must wear protective clothing.  Marie Curie was a person of firsts. She was the first woman in France to earn a PhD (in Physics, 1903). The …

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Playing Stereotypes: How We Assign Gender Roles to Children

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Reading Time: 10 minutes Note: This article concentrates on male/female gender roles and not on the broad spectrum of gender identity. Gender expectations start before babies are born. It is not unusual for fathers to want a son to play sports together and mothers to want a daughter to doll up. While pregnant, I told a lady in the tram that I am expecting a baby girl. She told me to count myself lucky as daughters are more inclined to keep in touch with family after leaving the nest. …

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Colours and Gender Bias: The History Behind The Pink Versus Blue Debate

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Reading Time: 6 minutes More often than not, marketers rely on a simple concept to create products designed for women, “pink it and shrink it”. This strategy involves taking an everyday product, paint in pink and making it smaller: razors, clothing, earbuds, technical gear, toolsets, notebooks, pens, etc. Then we have the Pink Tax, gender-based price discrimination where identical products are priced differently based on the targeted gender.  Boots had to correct their prices on toiletries and charge men and women equally. A study compared different industries, such as toys, clothing, …

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