I’ve been trying to figure out why, exactly, I’m so drained at the end of every Zoom meeting — and now we know. A new study last month from Stanford University in California has found it’s because a screen, unlike reality, doesn’t give you the chance to do anything else while you’re paying attention.

Suppose you’re a regular Zoom user or take many video calls in general through platforms like Slack and Google Hangouts. In that case, you might be familiar with what the researchers at Stanford University called “Zoom fatigue.”

It’s that sick feeling you get when your eyes…

If to think well is to write well, it will come as no surprise that a Supreme Court Justice is masterful at writing. The role of Judge is to persuade with a clear and convincing argument.

What may come as a surprise is to hear a Supreme Court Judge explain writing in terms of singing.

Coming to terms with the immense impact of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life after her recent death, I stumbled upon a lovely post by someone who had worked with her as a Supreme Court law clerk. …

In 1983, a thirteen-year-old Dave Grohl snuck into a small bar in Chicago with his elder brother. On stage he saw four punks thrashing fast three-chord music on guitars. About 75 people moshed and crawled all over each other in the audience.

And this changed his life.

By the time he was 14, he says, “All I wanted to do was leave school, jump in a van and tour shitty basement clubs with my punk band.”

He began arranging pillows on his floor. …

Your usual email scheduling may not be keeping up with the pace of the changes in the world out there. In a global crisis, you might find your emails to customers go clunk.

(That’s the sound of your email stats falling off a cliff.)

But what’s happening? Let’s start with the state of your current email list today. Here’s a snapshot of possible customers:

• Customers preparing to start up their business again
• Customers that have gone out of business
• High levels of personal and financial trauma
• Only high levels of general inconvenience
• No savings left
• More savings than ever

Overnight…

Meeting the right person at the right time. Experiencing something you weren’t necessarily expecting. Taking a chance in the moment.

You may follow all the rules and work very hard, but does your success come down to something as random as being in the right place at the right time?

Why bother working hard at all, then? Let’s go back to the sofa, you may rightly say, to spend the rest of the day under blankets like a cozy human burrito.

But understanding the unplanned and the unexpected has never been more crucial. …

You may not be as tone-deaf as Hollywood stars taking rose-petal baths during a pandemic, but how would you know? If you lack self-awareness, you may keep having the same stupid misunderstandings without knowing why.

It may not be an urgent problem if you are sequestered away in a Hollywood mansion, but if you lack self-awareness, you will find out pretty fast when you find yourself leading other people.

Self-awareness is the ability to realize what you feel, think, believe, desire, and value. You are aware of how thoughts and emotions affect your behavior and others. …

“You need to get out of your own way.”

That’s what my retail manager said as he stood behind me while I dusted the shelves. I often think about it even though it was over twelve years ago.

In the grand scheme of things, the job does not even make my resumé today. It was the middle of the last recession, and everyone was clinging on to their mealy jobs for dear life.

You may know what I mean when you hold onto a comment for too long. …

Life happens while you make plans.

My mental snack food: Another anodyne quote on Instagram while waiting for the train to go home. Scrolling on my phone on a windy platform. At times like these, I like to think about being somewhere else, anywhere else.

Have you also felt like everything happening to you now is some half-life? And one day — one day — real life will start.

Once you finish school, once you have the money, once you’re in a real relationship, once, once, once.

Once you (allow yourself to) live.

“Once I’ve done x,y,z and the whole alphabet up to that point, in order and satisfactorily.”

Here is an example of sequential thinking…