Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where your time is well spent even though you should probably be doing something else.

3 things worth procrastilearning over

1. The problem you have is called ‘popcorn brain’

There have been lots of studies about our rubbish attention spans. A recent analysis by the Financial Times says that all age groups are suffering from cognitive decline. That includes reading and reasoning skills, as well as our ability to focus and learn new things.

A delicious phrase coined by researcher David Levy captures what this experience is like: popcorn brain. I think it's very apt.

If you want to cure it, you have to spend less time online. But c'mon, you don't want to do that, do you? 😅

2. The schedule for the AI apocalypse has been released

Maybe we can spend less time online if the AI robots take over? Oh, it looks like that might be soon…

A team of science lords recently got together to create a plausible timeline for the next few years in AI. They've created two possible paths for reality to go. One of them is particularly scary stuff, unfortunately, but both are mind-boggling in how different things may be in just a few short years.

A pinch of salt is obviously in order, with lots of conflicting voices saying that these sorts of things won't be possible so soon, if at all. But when you glance at the way companies are working now, you can see that we are definitely heading to a very different world, and some of it is shaping up to be amusingly surreal.

For example, the online retail platform Shopify has made clear it has an AI-first hiring policy now. As in, only hire a human if you really can't get an AI to do the same thing. There is in fact an AI agent company whose entire slogan is 'Stop Hiring Humans' - but they've actually started hiring humans themselves, irony of ironies. Meanwhile Google has apparently been paying AI whizzes to sit and do nothing just so that they don't work at any of their competitors.

3. It’s important you throw your kids around

Touch is a key part of bonding with other people. Touch releases oxytocin, a so-called 'feel-good' chemical and we create attachments with those who make us feel good. Unsurprisingly, children have an instinct to touch everybody they need to bond with and cement those attachments.

But it turns out there are key differences between the way mothers and fathers bond through touch. Mothers do it through hugs, and fathers do it through throwing their kids in the air...

I'm not sure what age this stops being true though. Once a child reaches about 5 years old, it's over 20 kg and a nightmare to hold up for long.

Having recently learnt about this phenomenon, I've taken to regularly picking up my kids and lifting them over my head while I still can. It's a workout and a bonding session - I’m sure my constant, searing and debilitating back pain is totally temporary…

2 quotes to keep in mind

1 simple tip to organise your email inbox

Archive everything, and start with nothing again.

You get a lot of emails. We all do. You flag or star them to make sure you go back and check important ones later. But was it that important if you haven't gone back to it? So many of your flagged emails seem to be sitting and doing nothing for weeks. And all those old emails you’ve already dealt with are just sitting there too, reminding you of their presence for no particular reason. It’s pointless and stressful.

So just archive it all, and marvel at the peace of your empty inbox. And from now on, always archive emails after you reply to them. If you need something later, you can always find it in search.

Some of you reading this will think I'm crazy. But try it. This dude gets it:

That's all for today. Many thanks for reading. Here’s a photo of a maned wolf.

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff

Sent this by somebody else?