Superhuman

To satisfy my own curiosity and push beyond what I know, I have started paying attention to the things that matter to my work. The pendulum has swung back from mindlessly scrolling the internet in my downtime to finding something interesting to focus on and embracing the road less traveled. My own experience makes it very clear: now is the time to

busy and overextended is evidence of productivity, then you probably believe that creating space to explore, think, and reflect should be kept to a minimum. Yet these very activities are the antidote to the nonessential busyness that infects so many of us. Rather than trivial diversions, they are critical to distinguishing what is actually a trivia

A consistent challenge in my development as a researcher has been: how to cultivate deep, stable concentration in the face of complex, ill-structured creative problems?

In roles oriented around operation and execution, I benefited enormously from standard “productivity” advice. Task managers and time-planning tools were essential. But now, task mana

In real life, creativity doesn't usually happen while you're sitting alone at a desk. In fact, distractions and working with other people are critical ingredients.

Meanwhile, the long message from an old friend now living in New Delhi and research for the major article I’d been planning for months would get ignored, because I told myself that such tasks needed my full focus, which meant waiting until I had a good chunk of free time and fewer small-but-urgent tasks tugging at my attention.