Productivity501

Pieces of the productivity puzzle.

You are here: Home / Blog

Blog

Don’t try to Catch a Pizza Thief using Email

By 4 Comments

Like most technological advances, email can help productivity, but it can also hurt it.  It takes intentional effort to reap the benefits of advances without suffering from their negative side effects. Easy communication is good when you have something that needs to be communicated.  Easy communication is bad when it means you are saying things that just waste everyone's time. I ran across an article titled "Efficiency Experts" that talked about how Joe Phelps (CEO of the Phelps Group Inc.) explained proper use of email to his staff using a recent example of an employee who had used email to try to track down who stole his piece of pizza. With technology revolutionizing … [Read more...] about Don’t try to Catch a Pizza Thief using Email

Sleeping Brains

By 2 Comments

Scientists implanted rats with special sensors and then trained them to run a particular course in order to find cheese.  They found that they could tell where each rat was in the course by monitoring which cells were firing in the rats' brains.  When the rats were sleeping, the scientists noticed something strange.  The cells continued to fire in the same order.  It was as if the rats were practicing running the course in their sleep. In another experiment, people were given a mechanical task to learn and repeat quickly.  Scientists measured the areas of their brain that were active when performing the task right after learning it.  Then they let some of the test group sleep and kept … [Read more...] about Sleeping Brains

Fat People to Pay $25 Per Month

By 30 Comments

Back in May I mentioned American Airline's new charge for checked luggage and asked if people would mind paying for their flight based on their weight.  In the comments many people thought this was discrimination against people with a "disability". Well Alabama is now going to charge fat people $25 per month for insurance unless they are working at shedding the extra pounds.  They have a pretty generous definition of who is fat enough to pay the fee--your BMI has to be over 35 (30 is usually considered obese). If you are 5'6" that means you are probably over 220 pounds.  They already charge $24 per month to smokers.  What would you think if your insurance gave you $25 for being at a healthy … [Read more...] about Fat People to Pay $25 Per Month

Math Impaired

By 13 Comments

I've been following the news about the sub-prime markets and foreclosures in the US. In a nutshell, here is what has happened. Companies that lend money for house loans had been doing very well, but their customer base was shrinking--there are only so many homes you can sell to one person.To compensate  they started trying to sell to people who wouldn't normally qualify for a home loan. For example, some companies would get a list of people who had recently had their cars repossessed and use that as a list of potential clients. (I've written a more detailed explanation of the subprime mess in a previous post.) This is kind of what Citibank did in the 90s by offering credit cards to … [Read more...] about Math Impaired

Loneliness is Unhealthy

By 2 Comments

If I was looking for an area to research, loneliness would not make the top of my list. But that is exactly what Steven Cole from the University of California, Los Angeles is studying. One of the more interesting discoveries has to do with a correlation between loneliness and detrimental gene activities. It appears that loneliness can actually change how your genes act and make your body less likely to produce antibodies and fight off viruses. I have heard that from a life expectancy standpoint, not getting married is statistically equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes each day for males. Perhaps this is related to the same results Dr. Cole found. Health issues aside, … [Read more...] about Loneliness is Unhealthy

International Travel and Credit Cards

By 2 Comments

If you are traveling out of the country, be sure to call your credit card company and have them place a note on your account regarding your trip.  If their computers suddently see a bunch of activity internationally it is likely to trigger the fraud alerts.  Letting them know ahead of time won't guarantee that it won't get cut off, but it can help.  In my experience American Express is less likely be cut off than Visa or Mastercard. … [Read more...] about International Travel and Credit Cards

Socialization and Creativity

By 3 Comments

In the June/July issue of Scientific American Mind, Robert Epstein was quoted as saying: When children are very young, they all express creativity, but by the end of the first grade, very few do so. This is because of socialization. He talks about how much of what children learn in school stifles creativity. In addition to the formal training, the interactions with other children can encourage them to be "normal" which can also reduce their tendency to be creative. If Johnny likes to hum and make up tunes, but Robby gets the other kids to make fun of him for that, Johnny may stop expressing himself in that way. Being aware of how creativity can be repressed is useful in raising … [Read more...] about Socialization and Creativity

Laptop for taking Notes

By 21 Comments

Unclutter posted an article about using a laptop to take notes at college.  I tend to disagree.  It is hard to beat a pen and paper for taking notes.  One thing that is commonly overlooked is how different tools exercise your mind.  When you work on the computer it uses substantially different parts of your brain than when you write with pen and paper. (I don't know what happens if you use a typewriter.)  Since so much research and writing papers is done on the computer, taking notes by hand allow you to interact with the content in as many different parts of the brain as possible.  What do you think?  Is a laptop an effective way to take notes in a classroom? … [Read more...] about Laptop for taking Notes