Oliver Burkeman on the four-hour working day
Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman talks about REST in his latest column, "Let’s hear it for the four-hour working day," and makes a connection that I confess I hadn't
Deliberate rest and daily schedules
Writer and artist Carey Dunne has a piece in Quartz that talks about deliberate rest and daily schedules, and argues for shorter, more focused working days: An underlying assumption
“Science demands a lot of its disciples, so scientists should take control, not be controlled”
This piece about scientists' working hours was written from last year, but it recently came to my attention after Jennifer Polk tweeted it out. (Of course I'm not
“You will eat vegetable soup again today and like it; Mommy’s beginning chapter three:” Shirley Jackson and creative lives
The author and critic Ruth Franklin has a terrific article about Shirley Jackson in New York Magazine (it's a selection from her new book, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life,
“it was usual in Cambridge to do our main work at night, 9:30 to 2:00 or later:” John Littlewood on morning work
The great English mathematician John Littlewood wrote an essay called “The mathematician’s art of work,” published in The Mathematical Intelligencer in 1978. (Here's a link, though it's behind a firewall.) It's full
“science benefits when we think more and do less”
Susan Fitzpatrick, the president of the McDonnell Foundation, has an opinion piece in The Scientist about the importance of unstructured, social time in doing good science. There was
“I love to do research, I want to do research, I have to do research, and I hate to sit down and begin to do research”
Mathematician Paul Halmos, from the Notices of the American Mathematical Society: I love to do research, I want to do research, I have to do research, and I
“Control of the mind… can be accomplished with deliberation and repose, never with hurry and worry”
From William Osler’s A Way of Life: An Address to Yale Students, Sunday evening, April 20th, 1913: Control of the mind as a working machine, the adaptation in it
“Four or five hours daily it is not much to ask”
I'm constantly amazed at how, in the past, the idea that four or five hours or really focused work was a solid day for the thinker or artist was
My Washington Post interview: “How Charles Darwin used rest to be more productive”
I'm in today's Washington Post, thanks to Brigid Schulte, a Post contributor and author of Overwhelmed. In the United States, we work among the longest hours of any