wanda

This column will change your life: age and creativity

This article titled “This column will change your life: age and creativity” was written by Oliver Burkeman, for The Guardian on Friday 25th November 2011 22.59 UTC Excellent news for those of us who don’t have vastly many years to go before we’re 40: there is still a chance of winning a Nobel prize in science! According to a new analysis of 525 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine, under-40s no longer predominate, and the average age at which scientists...Read More

wanda

This column will change your life: small victories

This article titled “This column will change your life: small victories” was written by Oliver Burkeman, for The Guardian on Friday 9th September 2011 22.00 UTC Almost 30 years ago, the organisational theorist Karl Weick made an observation that campaigners on everything fromglobal warming to homelessness have been ignoring ever since. Sometimes, he pointed out, convincing the world that you’re fighting a Very Serious Problem actually makes it harder to solve. In a paper...Read More

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This column will change your life: Poverty and willpower

This article titled “This column will change your life: Poverty and willpower” was written by Oliver Burkeman, for The Guardian on Friday 22nd July 2011 21.59 UTC The stereotypical rightwing commentator’s perspective on poverty is that it’s down to a failure of will: put your mind to it, harden your resolve – get on your bike, as Norman Tebbit never quite said – and you’ll swiftly improve your lot. Unsurprisingly, self-help gurus tend to endorse that view....Read More

guardian

This column will change your life: An alternative to Ritalin and hugs

This article titled “This column will change your life: An alternative to Ritalin and hugs” was written by Oliver Burkeman, for The Guardian on Friday 24th June 2011 21.59 UTC If there were an Alcoholics Anonymous-style 12-step programme for people addicted to tinkering with their “productivity systems” – to-do lists, calendars, email-management techniques, all that stuff – I’d have been a member for some years. (Though I’d probably have spent my time...Read More

wanda

This column will change your life: The science of happiness

This article titled “This column will change your life: The science of happiness” was written by Oliver Burkeman, for The Guardian on Friday 6th May 2011 23.02 UTC Few sentences have irritated me more in recent weeks than this, from the jacket of The Procrastination Equation by the psychologist Piers Steel: “If you think you procrastinate because you’re a perfectionist, you’re wrong.” Singling out Steel is harsh, I admit: he probably didn’t write that...Read More