Be Intentional About How You Spend Your Time Off – “…The benefits of proactive recovery are not limited to holidays. In a different survey we asked a sample of 243 workers if they usually have goals for their weekends. Once again, we found that people who set goals for their weekends were 13% happier than those who did not set weekend goals. Similar to holidays, people who have goals for their weekends are also more likely to spend their weekends pursuing social activities and less likely to spend their weekends resting or doing nothing.
And spending one’s weekend engaging in social activities may in turn lead to greater happiness. Further, the positive effects of setting goals aren’t just limited to weekends and holidays, but can actually be tapped into on a daily basis — setting goals for how we spend our evenings can even be beneficial. In a separate sample of 242 workers, we found that those who set goals for their evenings spent more time on social activities and were also 10% happier than those who didn’t set goals for their evenings…”
Zero f**** given in other languages
Washington Post: “Slack’s CEO Stewart Butterfield says the future of work is being dictated by workers who want more flexibility and better tech tools. The chief executive and co-founder of Slack — one of the fastest growing work communication tools that was bought by Salesforce earlier this year for $27.7 billion — believes the pandemic has charted a new course for the way we work and employees are dictating much of the terms…Butterfield said he quickly learned that workers could be equally productive and creative working remotely than in-person — a learning that may not have come without the pandemic-fueled closure of the company’s offices last year…
For the past two years, Slack has been exploring how to improve the way people work through product development and for its own employees. Last year, it implemented a permanent remote work policy, which it says will help attract top talent and stay competitive in the industry. Slack said it has hired roughly 50% of its workers since the pandemic, and credits its flexible work policy as a differentiator that has helped lure new hires. It also is investing in helping companies create a “digital headquarters,” or the digital space workers go to do their jobs…”
Visions of a Volatile World
The New York Times – “The year 2021 opened with the promise of vaccines, and the belief that we would all return to “normal” after the tumultuous year of the pandemic. But the year instead took off with an insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, and saw a summer of carefree gatherings derailed by a fast-spreading virus. Governments fell, democracies were challenged, and climate-related destruction was unleashed, all while the casualties of the pandemic continued to amass. The vaccine saved some lives, but human passions, hopes and fears did their usual work to create a year that was anything but calm, and is ending with the prospect of a new variant upending plans once again. This is the story of 2021 told visually, through the eloquent universal language of photography…”
A behind-the-scenes look at PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’
Poynter: “We live in a time when misinformation is rampant. Politicians lie. Cable news pundits twist the truth to fit their agenda. And citizens use the wild west of social media to either consciously or inadvertently spread conspiracies that simply are not true. For the past 13 years, Poynter’s PolitiFact has sifted through all the lies of the year to come up with the lie of the year. It’s never an easy choice. Sadly, the year is full of them. This year’s “Lie of the Year” has been told for virtually all of 2021. Published just this morning, PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” is: