0I’m speaking at the RSA on February 13 on how to “Work Less and Get Things Done.” It’s a lunchtime talk, from 1 to 2 pm (or 1300 to 1400 if you’re on railroad time), in Great Room at their offices on John Adam Street, between the Strand and the Victoria Embankment Garden (here’s a map).

The event is free, but you can RSVP here.

The event marks the launch of the promotion in the UK for SHORTER: HOW WORKING LESS WILL REVOLUTIONISE THE WAY YOUR COMPANY GETS THINGS DONE. For me, it’s also exciting for another, nerdier reason.

The RSA— or Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, to use its full name— has a distinguished history. It traces its origins to meetings 1754 in Rawthmell’s Coffee House in Covent Garden (not far from the RSA’s permanent building), and is one of many scientific societies that crystallized out of the network of people and ideas that circulated around Enlightenment London. I read a lot about its early history when I was in graduate school— and now I get to speak there.

It’s also an ideal venue for talking about SHORTER: the book is all about productivity and work and applying scientific research to commercial problems, which is exactly the sort of thing the RSA was founded to work on. It’s not exactly navigation or chemistry, but in today’s knowledge economy, some of the biggest problems we have to solve don’t involve mechanisms or supply chains, but people.