Common sense; Priorities; Meetings

Hello again!

You’d be right in thinking that I didn’t send an issue last week. I was feeling particularly un-creative, and I think that’s okay. We don’t always need to be on top of our game.

It gave me an opportunity to take a much needed breather and come back this week raring to go.

It was confirmed this week that I’ll be going to San Francisco for a work conference, my first time there. If you have any tips for places to check out, please let me know 🙌

I experienced my first Tesla ride last night (an eco Uber) and was made to feel very stupid by the fact that the doors were buttons and not handles. Anyway, the on-board computer felt futuristic and somehow self-aware, which led me to wonder how far away that actually is. This article takes a look at consciousness with computers and whether it’s realistic that they could acquire common sense.

I was talking about this with my brother this week – I had too many things I could potentially do, which ended up crippling my productivity, leaving me sitting aimlessly for a while. This article is a bit of a practical look at work-based decision making, and I love their advice about the best decisions being made with a pessimistic mindset, allowing you to separate the decision from execution and forcing realism.

I feel like I’ve been beating this drum for a while, but this article’s fresh. Apparently, Microsoft employees are in 250% more meetings now than before they were moved to a remote setup. That’s…a lot. It means that we’re (or they are) spending so much time talking about the work, that nothing really ever moves forward. There’s some great advice in here: we should be empowered to audit our meeting time, and find out what really is essential, and what’s someone proving worth through group work.

What does the metro/underground/tube sound like in your nearest city? Can you picture the voices? This podcast interviews people whose voices have become synonymous with the rail network across the world. Bit left field, but a really enjoyable episode (a bit sad in parts too).

Listen to this podcast (37 minutes)

Spotify – Apple Podcasts