Journal

Data from 10,000 Pebble users doesn’t lie: Here are hacks to make your workplace culture happier and more productive.

Data from 10,000 Pebble users doesn’t lie: Here are hacks to make your workplace culture happier and more productive.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gave pagers to study subjects, ranging from motorcycle gang members to sheepherders. When the pagers buzzed, the participants’ job was to record their happiness levels. These studies ushered in the modern era of happiness research (and gave birth to an idea you’ve probably heard about—the times when productive hours float by like minutes in “flow“).

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If you don’t spend money on a garage, there’s lots of extra cash to add bike-friendly amenities to a new building.

If you don’t spend money on a garage, there’s lots of extra cash to add bike-friendly amenities to a new building.

A new apartment building in Sweden doesn’t have any parking spaces. Instead, the developers invested the money that would have gone to a parking garage into creating an ideal place to live for people who don’t want to own a car.

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This entrepreneur learned (the hard way) what it takes to tame an unruly board and build one that actually works.

This entrepreneur learned (the hard way) what it takes to tame an unruly board and build one that actually works.

There was the board member who tried to vote me out. There were the ones who insisted “this will never work.” There was even the one who joked (I think) about having me hit by a bus in order to get rid of me.

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If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he’d be a Burner. And this is what it took to bring his Vitruvian Man concept to life at Burning Man.

If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, he’d be a Burner. And this is what it took to bring his Vitruvian Man concept to life at Burning Man.

Deep inside a dark tractor trailer in the middle of North America’s most remote piece of desert earlier this month, a doomed Man lay strapped down, waiting to be taken outside, mounted and spun around for all to see, and eventually be burned in front of hordes of screaming, ecstatic people.

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With its Charge 2 band’s cardio and breathing offerings, Fitbit is putting its years-in-the-making PurePulse sensor to work in new ways.

With its Charge 2 band’s cardio and breathing offerings, Fitbit is putting its years-in-the-making PurePulse sensor to work in new ways.

Behind a wall of privacy dividers in a common space at Fitbit’s San Francisco headquarters, a young man in a surfing T-shirt and shorts—and an oxygen mask—is running on a treadmill. Its speed keeps increasing, compelling him to pick up his own pace.

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Volunteering for a disaster-relief effort taught one executive valuable lessons in crisis management.

Volunteering for a disaster-relief effort taught one executive valuable lessons in crisis management.

Sloane Menkes is no stranger to crises.

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Fitbit is releasing updated versions of both trackers, adding new features that make them even better fitness tools.

Fitbit is releasing updated versions of both trackers, adding new features that make them even better fitness tools.

Last Thursday, former volleyball star Gabby Reece worked out with a bunch of tech journalists on a rooftop in downtown San Francisco. I only made it through half of the 20-minute workout, which says something about my personal fitness level or the workout’s difficulty, perhaps both. The event was to show off some of the features of Fitbit’s new devices. One of those features, a new Cardio Fitness Level function, is actually to determine whether I’m as fit as I should be for someone my age. With it, I can confidently say if it was just a hard workout or I’m a bit out of shape. Spoiler alert: The problem is definitely me.

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One writer was surprised by the productivity boost that came from tracking what she’d done, not what she still had to do.

One writer was surprised by the productivity boost that came from tracking what she’d done, not what she still had to do.

I live and die by my to-do list. Jotting down everything that needs to get done is often the very first thing I do when I sit down at my desk in the morning. It helps me to feel focused, organized, and like I have a decent plan of attack for my day.

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If you dislike every choice you’ve got, you’ll look for one to reject rather than one to prefer—subtle difference, big consequences.

If you dislike every choice you’ve got, you’ll look for one to reject rather than one to prefer—subtle difference, big consequences.

You’ve heard by now that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have higher “unfavorables” than “favorables,” in pollster parlance. In other words, more U.S. voters seem to dislike the two presidential candidates than like them. In the latest Quinnipiac poll, for instance, Clinton’s favorable-to-unfavorable scores clock in at 41% to 53%, respectively, and Trump’s at an ever more lopsided 33% to 61%.

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