Today’s Big Story

Slow Productivity

Are we thinking about productivity at work all wrong?

This sounds like something that I can get behind. Have you heard of the term, “slow productivity”? The term has been floating around for the past few weeks, after professor and prolific author Cal Newport released his eighth book, which encourages readers to fight the scourge of “pseudo-productivity”.

You know the drill … You don’t have time because you’re “soooo busy!” You’re on Slack and email and back-to-back Zoom calls, sometimes all at once. But are you actually getting real work done? Newport doesn’t think so. Inspired by the “slow food” movement, the tenets of “slow productivity” are straightforward: Do fewer things; Work at a natural pace; Obsess over quality. Sounds good, right? He says it’s a way for high achievers to say yes to fewer things, do them better and even slack off in strategic doses.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, so many of us yearn for a burnout cure-all that will preserve our high-achiever status, and this isn’t the first you-can-have-it-all proposition we’ve heard. Champions of the four-day workweek promise we can ditch an entire workday just by working smarter. Remote-work die-hards swear it’s a win for employers and employees. Few dreams are more seductive than bidding goodbye to hustle culture, while still reaping the benefits of said hustle.

With demands and workloads spiraling upward, though, many of us are left feeling like we don’t have much of a choice but to take on more than what we feel we can handle. “Sounds nice,” you might think. “But there’s no way this would work for me.” But many people who reject the premise out of hand are misunderstanding the first principle, says the MIT-trained computer scientist and current associate professor at Georgetown University.

“The first principle is described as ‘do fewer things,’ which I think a lot of people very naturally interpret to mean ‘finish fewer things,’” he tells Bloomberg. “But actually, a better way of wording that first principle might be, ‘do fewer things at once.’”

Police Clear Columbia Building and Arrest Protesters

Scores of other arrests were made on campuses across the country

New York police in riot gear raided Columbia University on Tuesday evening and started making arrests after pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves in campus buildings. Columbia has been a flashpoint in campus battles over pro-Palestinian protests in recent weeks—suspending students who refused to leave an encampment and threatening some with expulsion.

According to the Associated Press, police have swept through other campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks, leading to confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment in October. The compromise appeared to mark the first time a U.S. college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the protests.

Other universities such as Wesleyan and the University of Chicago have sought to set ground rules allowing protesters to demonstrate without disrupting campus activities.

U.S. Moves to Reclassify Marijuana

The government will ease restrictions in a historic shift, but it’ll remain controlled substance

Weed is pretty commonplace these days, right? Popping a gummy or vaping isn’t all that scandalous and recreational use is legal in 24 states. But at the federal level, marijuana is classified as a “Schedule I” drug, a category it shares with heroin, ecstasy and LSD. But the Biden administration announced plans to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift in U.S. drug policy.

Attorney General Merrick Garland submitted the rescheduling proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday afternoon, reports NBC News. Any reclassification is still months from going into effect. After the proposal is published in the Federal Register, there will be a 60-day public comment period. The proposal will then be reviewed by an administrative law judge, who could decide to hold a hearing before the rule is approved.

The decision could also lead to the softening of other laws and regulations that account for the use or possession of cannabis, including sentencing guidelines, banking and access to public housing. Support for easing marijuana restrictions has grown over the years—a Gallup poll from November found that over 70% of Americans believed marijuana use should be legal, an increase from around 50 % in 2013.

Deepest Blue Hole in the World Discovered

Scientists still haven’t found the bottom of the recently discovered marine sinkhole

Scientists have identified what could potentially be the “deepest known blue hole” in the world, extending so far down that the bottom has not yet been reached. Researchers described how the underwater abyss’s extensive depths could harbor a “biodiversity to be explored” in a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Blue holes are huge underwater sinkholes that appear on the seafloor when the limestone bedrock collapses. Some of the most famous blue holes are off of Central America, especially Belize’s Great Blue Hole. Taam Ja’ is near the border of Mexico and Belize, off of Mexico’s Tamalcab Island and close to several other blue holes in Chetumal Bay.

Exploring these vertical caves remains a challenge. Due to the lack of oxygen and the presence of harmful hydrogen sulfide gas, venturing into these deep blue holes requires specialized equipment and expertise. Scientists theorize the bottom might be an intricate network of caves and tunnels, potentially interconnected. This limited access makes them a fascinating mystery waiting to be unravelled by future scientific exploration.

Ease Them Into the Real World

With some cool (and very useful) gear from Huckberry

He’s made it to the end of the road. Maybe it’s high school, or perhaps he’s earned a degree, an MBA or a police badge. In any case, you’re helping send him off into the next chapter of his life and you want him to be prepared, right? Give him something to celebrate this achievement while also giving him the tools for the next stages. Maybe it’s a proper watch or a versatile blazer, or perhaps it’s a pair of quality shoes or essentials for pouring a proper drink. In any case, Huckberry is the spot to help you find just what you’re looking for.

Don’t get stuck in one feeling.