The Next Big Idea

What if doing less is the secret to achieving more? That's the counterintuitive argument at the heart of productivity guru Cal Newport's new book, "Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout." Cal says that if we can learn to do fewer things, work at a natural pace, and obsess over quality, we can free ourselves from the clutches of pointless busyness and fin

Raise your hand if you've ever belittled a stranger online, made a decision based on astrology, or, heaven forbid, fallen for a conspiracy theory. No? Well, then, consider yourself lucky. And if your hand is raised, don't feel bad, because it turns out in our Information Age the cognitive biases that kept us alive a few millennia ago now make us susceptible to bouts of extreme irra

In “Psych: The Story of the Human Mind,” Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, lays out, in his words, “basically everything I know about the mind.” And when he says “everything,” he means it. Where does consciousness come from? Does IQ matter? What makes us happy? Was Sigmund Freud a madman? The answers to these questions (and more) are al

For a long time, Bianca Bosker was not on speaking terms with art. “Going to galleries and museums,” she says on today’s show, “reliably made me feel like I was at least two tattoos and a master’s degree away from figuring out what was going on.” What did art snobs know that she didn’t? Determined to find out, Bianca disowned her normal life and ventured into the unde

Do you ever feel like your life has become a film loop of the familiar? Maybe you sympathize with the elegiac poet Logan Roy, who said, "Nothing tastes like it used to, does it? Nothing's the same as it was." What lit you up on Monday barely sparks your interest by the weekend. But don't worry, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just experiencing what scientists call habituatio

Lots of things go viral on the internet: dumb memes, cat videos, one-pan meals, and celebrity gossip. Why not kindness? That’s the delightful question Chris Anderson, the head of TED, asks in his new book, “Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading.” He joins Rufus to talk about what he’s learned running the world’s most famous conference, why we’re hardw

Kara Swisher has been called “pioneering” (the New York Times), “Silicon Valley’s top pundit” (Wired), and “so shrill at this point that only dogs can hear her” (Elon Musk). Thanks to the bad-cop interviews she conducts on her hit podcasts — and, before that, at the can’t-miss tech conferences she co-founded — the world’s most powerful people revere and fear h

According to Merriam-Webster, the word “conversation” has 36 synonyms, ranging from the alliterative (”confabulation”) to the arcane (”persiflage”). Why the linguistic profusion? Because conversing is a fundamental part — maybe the fundamental part — of being human. We chat with our families, friends, strangers, and co-workers, and we communicate in phone calls, tex

Growing old gets a bad rap, and it's not hard to see why. Your hair thins and your waist thickens. The shot clock ticks down on your career, and you realize, much to your dismay, that your youthful dreams of greatness — patents, prizes, and periodicals with your face on the cover — are unlikely to come true before the buzzer. And what do you see up ahead? A road sign. "Highway

Honesty may be the best policy, but that doesn’t make giving honest feedback any easier. That’s why Kim Scott, a veteran of Google and Apple, wrote “Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity.” It’s a life-saving guide for anyone who’s ever had to dole out difficult but important feedback. Which means all of us.