The Anatomy and Upside of Boredom

Every now and then I come across in my reading list something that lies at the intersection of being interesting, useful and practical. The below post is one such example. This originally appeared on Aeon, written by Neel Burton and edited by  Nigel Warburton. I have written elsewhere (here, here, here and here) about the importance of boredom and how it has an impact on creativity in the least and overall life satisfaction at the most. So, when I came across this post, it was natural for me to share the entire article in its originality rather than my take […]

The Difficulty of Being in the Present Moment and Strategies to Overcome it

Premise: Earlier today, I came across a blog post on The School of Life blog about the difficulty of being in the present. You can read the entire post here. It so happens that I’ve been having a conversation with my wife and son recently about the same topic (which is a slightly better way of saying that both of them don’t think I am being present in the moment when I am with them). I do accept this as a fact as I am mostly in the midst of either looking at my past or looking forward to my […]

Seizing the day with principles of Improv Comedy | Anil Abraham | TEDxSJMC

One of the things that I talk about in my book Thrive, is about the mindset of “Yes And”. This comes from the world of improvisation comedy. This mindset indicates that the best way forward in any situation in life, as in an improvisational comedy session, is to first agree and accept what has already happened and then build on it.  “Yes” part of the mindset is about acceptance of what has preceded or what has already happened. “And” part of the mindset is about building on top of what has already been accepted. You can’t change what has gone […]

Book Review – Indistractable by Nir Eyal

Overview: I got a digital preview copy of this book via NetGalley. This book is all about how to handle distractions that are hurled at us from all directions. What is the book about: In his previous book – Hooked, Nir shared the framework that could be used to build habit forming products and in this book he shares strategies for consumers to avoid getting sucked into the habit forming products that were built using the framework he shared in his previous work 🙂 He is candid in sharing that he found himself constantly distracted by all the things that […]

Book Review – Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Perez

Overview: I bought this book on Audible after listening to the author talk to Roman Mars on his podcast – 99% Invisible) and listened to the audio book, which the author has read herself. The book is primarily about three things: Design Data and Women The entire book is about how designers have ignored the role that gender plays in designing their products or services and how by not collecting data about how the design interacts with half the world’s population, we are blind-sighted of the huge implications of ignoring this demographic from our design research. Ease of reading: The […]