Essential stories from Fast Company for the week of April 8-12

Welcome to Fast Company Digest. Essential stories from Tech, Design, Impact and Work Life. Narrated by Noah App. I'm Fast Company Deputy Editor and host of the new Way We Work podcast, Kathleen Davis. Here are this week's stories. First, the total solar eclipse is the biggest story this week for millions in North America. But as scientist Frederick Bertley argues, the eclipse frenzy illustrates how America is essentially an entertainment culture, the solely looking for the next dopamine hit. Instead, he says, we should take this collective moment of interest in science to address the inequalities in STEM education.

For Noah, this is Sam Scholl reading from Fast company. We're on the 7th of April 2024. Frederick Bertley writes STEM Needs More Than an Eclipse Moment I applaud those science educators who are using the rare phenomenon of the solar eclipse as a teaching moment. These examples warm my heart as noble and important efforts to inspire young people to develop a lifelong passion for science. The cool factor of the moon asserting its temporary but awe inspiring dominance over the sun is undeniable, and the resultant media frenzy that is sweeping across the land is understandable. Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time this has happened. Other headline news throughout our industrial history has provided a catalytic springboard for learning. From the discovery of penicillin to Sputnik, from the invention of the transistor that allowed for the electronic revolution we depend on to the first heart transplant, from the discovery of the double helix and of course AI. But unfortunately they came and went and little on science literacy and stem. Public engagement has changed. As a scientist myself, and as someone privileged to lead one of America's leading science museums, cosi, I support all efforts to engage kids with the world around them. But at the same time, I do not want us to take false comfort in event science as a replacement for the fundamental systemic problem we have in educating the next generation. In stem, I am sure there are a handful of brilliant students whose imaginations will be hijacked by the solar spectacle. I am also sure that in two decades we will read of a brilliant astronomer who traces her inspiration to 2024. Though deeply satisfying, that is also desperately insufficient. As I see it, the eclipse frenzy illustrates the deeper problem rather than solving it. America is in many ways an entertainment culture. We are captives of the moment and then we race for the next dopamine hit. We are on a stimulative treadmill, but the depth and consequences of our inability to educate this generation and our failures to educate previous ones in STEM are so profound that they require a broad, sustained effort to address, consider children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, most of them people of color and rural American youth. So many of these children enter high school with severe learning deficits, with proficiency in reading and math skills as much as 26 percentage points below their more affluent counterparts. They lack the basic skills and the fundamental learning to put the magic in the sky into conceptual frameworks. No matter how motivated they are to learn, they will become increasingly frustrated and retreat more irrevocably into doom cycles of shattered self confidence. The National Science Board is blunt about the crisis, writing that America's inability to effectively educate wide swaths of our population in STEM will limit future employment options and weaken U.S. competitiveness. As today's STEM knowledge and skills matter not only for scientists and engineers, but for a range of jobs that historically did not require such skills. The eclipse is presenting us with one kind of totality. What I have just described is another. We know the problem and we have the pedagogical insights skills to overcome it. We also have the measurement capabilities to track progress. What we lack, tragically, is the national will to allocate the resources required to close the gap between those with low socioeconomic status and the more economically fortunate students among us. Shockingly, these gaps are not just among school districts or schools, but among classrooms, according to a study by the American Educational Research Association. The study authors write that public school curricular and tracking policies are contributing to the growing performance gap between poor and rich students. Differences in content exposure mean that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer as artificial intelligence changes our world. Unless we start something now, we will leave a generation further behind. And note that I said start something now rather than do something now. We must recognize and accept that solving our STEM problem is will require time and concerted effort, a commitment that our quick fix, take a pill culture is not particularly good at addressing. But there are examples that give me hope. The recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and CHIPS act demonstrate that we can take the long view. It is imperative that we embark on a parallel program to rebuild our educational infrastructure, but we cannot call it that. No one is going to get up in the morning and email their congressperson about investing in another kind of infrastructure. We need to shift the conversation about STEM to a new framework supporting families. Only by educating all our young people about the world they are inheriting will they be able to generate the income required to build and sustain healthy families and have a chance to create generational wealth. I am not a killjoy and I do not want to diminish the excitement we all feel around this historic event. Let us follow the course and rejoice at the eclipse and the hundreds of years of science that have pushed aside ignorance and enabled us to accept a heliocentric world. But let us dedicate ourselves to helping children see and understand the miracles that do not just occur decades apart, but those that exist every day right under our noses. Einstein had a great perspective on the there are only two ways to live your life, he said. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. You were listening to Fast Company, where Frederick Bertley writes, stem needs more than an eclipse moment. This article was published on 7th April 2024 and was read by Sam Scholl.

For Noah and Next Google's productivity expert offers five techniques to help you stop procrastinating and complete those tasks that always linger on your to do list.

For Noah, this is Adrienne Walker reading from Fast company. We're on the 6th of April 2024. Laura Mae Martin writes five tricks to beat Procrastination According to a Google productivity expert, even with the best laid plans, sometimes we add the same thing again and again to our lists, and it keeps being the thing that doesn't get done. We've all seen that one lingering item that keeps dragging its way over from day to day or week to week. Let's say, for example, you want to build a new training module to teach others something you've mastered. You've been carrying it over on your daily and weekly lists and you block time for it, but for whatever reason, it isn't getting done. Sound familiar? Don't be too hard on yourself. It happens to everyone. Here are some tactics and strategies for helping to keep procrastination at bay. 1. Swiss cheese the Task to get Started Sometimes just the size of a task is what feels overwhelming, and the hardest part is getting over the hurdle of starting. Try poking holes in the task or Swiss cheesing it until it gets smaller and smaller. You want to find a small enough point that feels like you need less energy points to start, and a point where your brain feels okay with it. In my example about building the training program, this may look like going from build a new training to just open a document and make the title slide. Making the title slide is fun. It's just one slide. Brainstorming the title is creative and interesting. Once I have it open, I might even start drafting some of the other slides on your daily list or weekly list. You want to write your action in a way that makes you feel excited or else you will just keep staring at it on the paper. Notice the difference of writing make snazzy New Training Title Slide vs New Training the first task is doable and is something I know future me will be excited to do. The second feels daunting. 2. Act like your own assistant as mentioned before, getting started is the hardest part of some bigger tasks. Another way to ease your brain into doing things is to separate the preparation of doing something from the act of doing it and to delegate the former to your assistant self, which helps break the procrastination barrier. In the training example, I could go ahead and open the slide deck. Leave some tabs open with fun, relevant clip art and find an example outline from a similar training. Then close the computer the next morning. I'd have the way paved for starting that training easily. Now I employ this strategy, channeling my assistant self for all kinds of tasks at work and at home. If I want to make muffins in the morning, I set out the muffin tin and some ingredients on the counter before I go to bed. Forget the idea of actually doing it, which keeps us stuck. Instead, employ your assistant self to set up the circumstances under which your boss self, aka future you can get it done. 3. Stop in the middle. When you are working on a larger ongoing task that cannot be completed in one sitting, it usually feels right to find a natural stopping point like the end of an email or the end of a project section. You step away at that point and and let it go until the next time you work on it when you will start at the beginning of a new section. Ironically, that makes yet another starting point that your brain has to get over. It's as if you're starting a large task all over again. Alternatively, stopping in the middle of something makes it easier to slide back into what you were doing and start again because you already know what you are about to do next. For example, during my writing blocks for this book, I tried never to stop at the end of a chapter because for the next writing block I'd have to start with a blank page and a brand new chapter instead. I would always stop in the middle of a chapter or at least start a new page with the title and outline notes for the next chapter so it was easy to pick up and get back in the flow. If you're working on large multi step projects, try to stop at a point when your brain already knows the next thing to do. Maybe start drafting that next email to someone even if you don't have time to finish and send it, because the next time you pick it up, you can start right where you left off and get back into the flow of email writing. Similar to the benefit of sending a meeting agenda or creating a daily list the night before, you can ruminate on whatever you're in the middle of while you're away and maybe even come up with a new idea or addition that you hadn't thought of before. 4. Put a time on It Part of convincing yourself to do a task you need to do is wrangling the illusion of how long it actually takes to do it. Have you ever added something to a to do list week after week only to realize that the task took so little time that you could have saved time just crossing it off versus the amount of time you spent writing it down again and again? That's one of the reasons I suggest snack size to do's in my daily list because it forces your brain to identify and complete tasks the ones that take five or 10 minutes. Instead of avoiding them on your daily list or any to do list. You can also write out the time you estimate something will take. For example draft post for roommate finder website 7 minutes complete sales training 22 minutes read industry article from yesterday 9 minutes assigning a specific duration makes you less likely to avoid it, especially if you find you do have that amount of time. If you have 30 minutes free but you don't really want to do the sales training, you have a harder time talking yourself out of doing a shorter item because you know it will in fact be able to get done. A huge part of productivity is being good at estimating how much time something will take because it helps you slot tasks more effectively. If you're not particularly skilled at that, start to consciously inventory how long things take to sharpen your ability to plan for them. 5. Set a meeting to Keep yourself accountable Usually we are more accountable to others than to ourselves. This is why many people look for a workout buddy or join a book club so they'll read more. If we set an arbitrary deadline that only we know about, we're more likely to blow right past it than if someone else is counting on us. If you set up a meeting related to your self imposed deadline, thereby involving someone else in the process, you can use peer pressure to get things done. For example, if I'm hoping to build that new training I mentioned before I even start building it, I'll set up a meeting invite with someone around the time that I want to be done. Hi Dominic, setting up this 30 minute slot in a month to get your feedback on my new training, I'll send it to you two days before for your review. Have I even started the training? Nope. But you better believe that now that this meeting is on my calendar and now that Dominic has accepted it and is looking forward to the meeting, I'm going to be way more likely to get it done in time to send it to him. It makes it more real, especially when a task is something you're working on by yourself. Find a reason to schedule a meeting or review or promise someone you'll send it to them. It's one of the best ways to ensure you'll get it done. Along with the techniques for self motivation outlined, we've learned that determining why you're putting off a task is absolutely key to overcoming procrastination. But as important as the why in this equation is when the work is or more to the point, isn't getting done. While it's helpful to push through some lingering tasks with these procrastination techniques, it's just as important to prioritize downtime and understand why doing nothing sometimes leads to doing more in the long run. You are listening to Fast Company, where Laura Mae Martin writes five tricks to beat procrastination, according to a Google productivity expert. This article was published on 6 April 2024 and was read by Adrian Walker for NOAA.

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