A Bad Job May Be Worse For Your Wellbeing Than Being Jobless (Psychology Today)

...Recent research by Gallup...shows that American workers who are emotionally disconnected from their work and workplace, rate their lives more poorly than do those who are unemployed. ...

Gallup's findings are consistent with those in a recent Australian study...which found that the unemployed have poorer mental health than the employed, but those with poor or unhappy work environments had worse health than the unemployed.

I could have saved a lot of people a lot of money if only they'd asked me. Yes, being unemployed is stressful but it's NOTHING compared to the feeling that you'd rather eat glass than go to work.

Read the full article here.

How to Know When It Is Time to Leave a Job (by me @ Suite 101)

Feeling like your job is almost worst than catching the Bubonic plague is actually the easiest way to know you need to begin job hunting. But sometimes there are other, more subtle signs that you need to be heading to greener pastures. Such as...

* You're Never Going to Get Promoted
* You're Discouraged from Taking on Additional Responsibilities
* You Don't Agree with the Direction of the Company

Hopefully you won't find it too obnoxious that I'm posting articles that I wrote. I promise only to do so when they're relevant (or at least not completely off-topic), and I hope you enjoy them. Of course, your feedback is always welcome! And those of you who know me well, you can have fun trying to guess which companies I talk about in the article.

Read the full article here.

I'm Now Writing for Suite 101 ! Check it out!

I am now writing about the entertainment industry and career advice for Suite 101. You can check out my profile here.

So far, I've posted three articles, with many more to come!
Stupid Mistakes to Avoid in Your Résumé and Cover Letters
Feeling Stuck as a Hollywood Assistant?
Is Agency Experience Really Necessary to Work in Hollywood?

If you have any topics or questions you'd like to see me to address, please feel free to send me an email.

Hollywood Shadows (The New Yorker)

By far the most common problem afflicting the writers in Michels’s practice is procrastination, which he understands in terms of Jung’s Father archetype. “They procrastinate because they have no external authority figure demanding that they write,” he says. “Often I explain to the patient that there is an authority figure he’s answerable to, but it’s not human. It’s Time itself that’s passing inexorably. That’s why they call it Father Time. Every time you procrastinate or waste time, you’re defying this authority figure.” Procrastination, he says, is a “spurious form of immortality,” the ego’s way of claiming that it has all the time in the world; writing, by extension, is a kind of death. He gives procrastinators a tool he calls the Arbitrary Use of Time Moment, which asks them to sit in front of their computers for a fixed amount of time each day. “You say, ‘I’m surrendering myself to the archetypal Father, Chronos,’ ” he says. ‘I’m surrendering to him because he has hegemony over me.’ That submission activates something inside someone. In the simplest terms, it gets people to get their ass in the chair.” For the truly unproductive, he sets the initial period at ten minutes—“an amount of time it would sort of embarrass them not to be able to do.”

Sorry kids, Barry Michels rate starts at $360/hour. You'll just have to read the rest of this fascinating article to get Michels and Phil Stutz' advice and therapy. Really, really interesting.

Read the full article here.

Make Stress Work for You (Harvard Business Review)

But what if focusing on the negative impact of stress only makes it worse...? And what would happen if we reframed the way we thought about stress? ...

Stress can cause the human brain to use more of its capabilities, improve memory and intelligence, increase productivity, and even speed recovery from things like knee surgery. Research indicates that stress, even at high levels, creates greater mental toughness, deeper relationships, heightened awareness, new perspectives, a sense of mastery, a greater appreciation for life, a heightened sense of meaning, and strengthened priorities.

The findings of our study were significant: when an individual thought about stress as enhancing, instead of debilitating, they embraced the reality of their current stress level and used it to their advantage.

What?!? But stress is always bad! It's always negative! And why didn't I think of reframing the way I think of stress before? We do it will so many other areas of our lives - learn from your mistakes, anticipate the runner's high when you don't want to get out of bed, etc. - so it seems like we should have figured this out a long time ago. But it's never too late, so next time you're freaking out about having to read four scripts before you can go to bed, just remember that stress gives us superpowers.

Read the full article here.

How Long Will This Take? 3 Steps to Being a Better Judge of Time (Fast Company)

...Human beings are generally pretty lousy when it comes to estimating the time they will need to complete a task. Psychologists refer to this as the planning fallacy, and it's an all too common problem - one with the very real potential to screw up our plans and keep us from reaching our goals. ...

People in positions of power, for example, are particularly vulnerable, because feeling powerful tends to focus us on getting what we want, ignoring the potential obstacles that stand in our way. A recent set of studies ... shows that such a narrow focus does indeed turn powerful people into very poor planners.

This certainly explains a lot about why bosses always think the people who work for them should have finished everything in fifteen minutes or less. But more than that, the article breaks down why we underestimate completion times and how to avoid it in the future. Good read and definitely worth the thirty seconds it will take you to read it. Oh wait... maybe you should budget a full minute or two. :)

Read the full article here.

What Is It About 20-Somethings? (NY Times Magazine)

The whole idea of milestones, of course, is something of an anachronism; it implies a lockstep march toward adulthood that is rare these days. Kids don’t shuffle along in unison on the road to maturity. They slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace. Some never achieve all five milestones, including those who are single or childless by choice, or unable to marry even if they wanted to because they’re gay. Others reach the milestones completely out of order, advancing professionally before committing to a monogamous relationship, having children young and marrying later, leaving school to go to work and returning to school long after becoming financially secure.

Even if some traditional milestones are never reached, one thing is clear: Getting to what we would generally call adulthood is happening later than ever. But why? That’s the subject of lively debate among policy makers and academics. To some, what we’re seeing is a transient epiphenomenon, the byproduct of cultural and economic forces. To others, the longer road to adulthood signifies something deep, durable and maybe better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring. What we’re seeing, they insist, is the dawning of a new life stage — a stage that all of us need to adjust to.

This is a seriously lengthy but fascinating article on a trend I'd guess a lot of us were aware of long before the media started thinking about it. Maybe we weren't thinking in terms of the "traditional milestones" but I know many of us simply don't feel our age, and aren't even remotely concerned about the fact that we might not be married with children by the time we hit our 30s. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this "phenomenon" - is it a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing?

Read the full article here.
And read one Atlantic Monthly writer's response here.
Finally, check out Slate's discussion of / reader comments on the article here.

Generation Me - Are We in a Narcissism Epidemic? (Newsweek)

But no matter how you were raised, the handiest cure for narcissism used to be life. Whether through fate, circumstances or moral imperative, our culture kept hubris in check. Now, we encourage it. ... Treating the whole world as if it works for you doesn't suggest you're special, it means you're an ass.

This article is actually from an old issue of Newsweek (I'm finally getting around to my Spring cleaning) but it's still 100% relevant. Not so much because I think we are all narcissistic asses, but because Hollywood has influence on the hubris-checking culture mentioned above. And I'd guess about 99% of biz bosses firmly believe the world works for them. The industry is certainly not the only culprit, but change has to start somewhere, right?
Read the full article here.

The Creativity Crisis (Newsweek)

... there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ [Creativity Quotient] scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect — each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.

Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.

Not sure about you, but I definitely feel less creative now than when I was a kid. The article goes on to talk about how creativity works, whether it can be learned (Good news! It can!), and the roles of schools and society on our creativity. Maybe if we all put our creative-thinking caps on, we can figure out a way to reverse this trend.
Read the full article here.

Retaining a Workforce That Wants to Quit (Harvard Business Review)

Why are employees walking away from their jobs, even with unemployment still hovering near 10 percent? Our studies show that the three biggest reasons are a lack of growth opportunities, dissatisfaction with compensation, and employees feeling their contributions aren't being recognized. Growth and recognition are particularly important to younger workers, who have higher expectations of their employers than others do and are defecting in large numbers.

I know I've left jobs because of things like this, but would have been happy to stay if one or more of the above reasons had been successfully addressed. Why do so many managers seem to simply not get this? Then add in the fact that "The cost of replacing an employee is estimated at up to 250 percent of annual salary." Can you say "no-brainer"? Frustrates me to no end!
Read the full article here.

Powerlessness Corrupts (Harvard Business Review)

The less there is to go around, the more infighting there is over the crumbs. Comparing companies that have lost dramatically during a previous recession with those that have succeeded, I found that the losers were twice as likely as the winners to be characterized by internal rivalries and intergroup conflicts — and only half as likely to employ cross-department teams. ...

The powerless retaliate through subtle sabotage. They slow things down by failing to take action — a form of pocket veto, in which a bill is killed simply because time runs out. Negativity and low aspirations show up in behaviors psychologists call defensive pessimism, learned helplessness, and passive aggression.

I think this explains a lot, and is also yet another arrow pointing towards the need to avoid office politics. I believe there's room enough for everyone, and hope I'll keep that attitude as I rise through the ranks.
Read the full article here.

The Early Bird Really Does Get the Worm (Harvard Business Review)

Though evening people do have some advantages — other studies reveal they tend to be smarter and more creative than morning types, have a better sense of humor, and are more outgoing —they’re out of sync with the typical corporate schedule. When it comes to business success, morning people hold the important cards. My earlier research showed that they tend to get better grades in school, which get them into better colleges, which then lead to better job opportunities. Morning people also anticipate problems and try to minimize them, my survey showed. They’re proactive. A number of studies have linked this trait, proactivity, with better job performance, greater career success, and higher wages.

I'm definitely an evening person, but take heart in the fact that this article says you can train yourself to be a morning person - that way I'll have the best of both worlds! Now if I could just stop hitting the snooze button...
Read the full article here.

Take Back Your Lunch and Transform Your Day (Harvard Business Review)

Sixty per cent of 1200 respondents told us they took less than 20 minutes a day for lunch. Twenty per cent took less than 10 minutes. One quarter said they never left their desks at all. ...
At the most practical level, leaving the office for lunch is an opportunity to relax, let go of whatever stresses you've accumulated during the morning, and return to work feeling more energized, more focused and more engaged in the afternoon.

Sound familiar? I know many of us feel like we can't leave our offices since our bosses don't. But don't forget - you are LEGALLY entitled to a lunch break. Simply tell The Man you're stepping out for lunch and head out the door - don't give them the option to say no. If that doesn't work for you, show him/her this article, and remind them they didn't go to Harvard (unless they did, and then you're only recourse is to mumble an apology and schlep back to your cubicle.)
Read the quick article here.