The Impact of Daily Reflection

I’ve been meditating for short periods for over a year now, usually first thing in the morning and found that it’s really helpful. Recently I’ve started a daily self-reflection period to get a more balanced view on things. I was interested to read that research reported by UCL has provided evidence on the positive impact

Handling Procrastination

I’ve been reasonably busy the last 6 months and I’ve been telling myself this is the reason I’ve not posted much over this period. However rethinking this the other day I came to the conclusion my lack of productivity was mainly procrastination. At the same time (serendipity) I came across a very succinct and helpful

Contrasting Simplicity With Complexity

“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.” – Edsger Dijkstra (computer scientist)

Handling Doubt And Uncertainty

Interesting graphic from psychologist and author Adam Grant on common thinking styles. COVID-19 has certainly highlighted the differences. In particular, slowly the approaches that directly encompass uncertainty seem to be accepted and hopefully this might become more common in other areas too. “The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty,

The UK Sleep Census

I’ve suffered from insomnia for over 20 years and in the process tried many approaches and read many books on the subject. Although my case may be quite extreme, it does seem that poor sleep seems to be an increasingly common problem (at least going on news articles). It’s better to have solid data though,

The Amazing Growth of London

Fascinating dynamic visualisation by Ollie Bye of the growth of London from Roman times until the present day. The legend is dynamic, as the years increase, new periods appear: Roman, Medieval, Tudor/Stuart, Georgian, Victorian and 20th Century. I lived in London for 6 years as a student, although that was years ago now, spending time

Goals And Getting A Taxi In The Rain

I came across an interesting story in Oliver Burkeman’s book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. In one of the chapters he gives examples of where adhering to goals can sometimes be dangerous or less than optimally productive. The particular story that attracted me is rather prosaic, concerning the frustrations of

Making Tough Decisions

Impressive and insightful quote from Barack Obama: “My emphasis on process was born of necessity. What I was quickly discovering about the presidency was that no problem that landed on my desk, foreign or domestic, had a clean, 100 percent solution. If it had, someone else down the chain of command would have solved it

Speaking Skills And The Liking Gap

I came across this recently (from the blog of Ed Batista, who is a business coach): “A mental model I held about myself for years was that I was a poor public speaker. I’d get nervous before a presentation or speech, I interpreted my sweaty palms and the pit in my stomach as evidence of

Critical Thinking and Rough Estimates

I’ve always been a fan of qualitative (back of the envelope) calculations. This started when I was an undergraduate doing my physics degree. After my career in academia ended and I moved to government and commercial work, I was interested to find that similar methods can also be used there (adapted accordingly of course). The