Rania El-Ghezzaoui

the productivity religion is so ingrained that it’s almost impossible to imagine a different way of working

“Creativity is about connections, and connections are not made by siloing everything off into its own space. New ideas are formed by interesting juxtapositions, and interesting juxtapositions happen when things are out of place . ”

keeps us on a miserable hamster wheel of churning out more

the neurotic hamster in us

We live in a culture that venerates productivity above all else.

I believe there are two plausible scenarios for the future of knowledge work. There’s one in which as machines become more human-like in their capabilities, we paradoxically become more machine-like in our pursuit of productivity, focused on efficiency and keeping busy above all else. But there’s another where we lean into ways of working that are ... See more

When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular, I’ll remember everything better; everything w... See more

shift to a new paradigm