Sarah Owen

The Hidden Cost of To-Do Lists: And yet, despite its theoretical rationality, even the most carefully captured, prioritized, and well-reviewed to-do list can’t always escape the scourge of unintended consequences. As soon as you put stuff on your to-do list, even a purely mental to-do list, you run the risk of awakening that inner coercion... See more

Census tracts are tiny, hyper-local designations, with populations between 1,200 and 8,000 each; mine is only 0.2 square miles in area.

Within the tranquil Porta Vittoria neighborhood in Milan, Italy, the European Library of Information and Culture (BEIC) proposal by noa* is intended to serve as a center for creation that inspires and liberates the mind. Titled ‘the Tree of Knowledge’, the project was flanked by the development of a natural landscape that permeates all spaces,... See more

"The society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise was founded by a physician named Julia Barnett Rice in 1906. Rice believed noise was unhealthy, and enlisted New York City’s gentry (including Mark Twain) to lobby for things like rules governing steamboat whistles, and silence pledges from children who played near hospitals."

Thus we stumble across a new standard for productivity: non-self-coercion. If you wouldn't vociferously berate your coworkers or roommates for their various foibles and inefficiencies, why do you keep behaving as if it’s acceptable to do it to yourself?