EDITION 869
17 MAY 2021

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday at 10am. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

1. How to wake up early. It’s one of the most agreed upon methods of productivity, and yet many of us simply can’t force ourselves to start our day sooner. Yet the benefits are undeniable. Numerous studies have concluded that participants who woke up earlier reported decreased feelings of stress and depression while felling increased levels of physical and cognitive energy. Try these tips for waking up earlier and tweak the process until it feels right for you. READ MORE

2. Hugs are back as restrictions relax. Hugging, dining indoors and catching a film at the cinema are part of a swag of freedoms people in England can enjoy from Monday as restrictions ease further. Children’s play areas, museums and conference centres will also open for the first time in 2021, and hotels, hostels and B&Bs can accept guests. Face coverings will no longer be required in schools, and universities can return to in-person learning. Pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants can serve customers indoors, fuelling a surge in hiring, and international travel to green-light countries can commence. BBC

3. V for Vroom. Bank of England forecasts of a “V” shaped recovery were met with predictable scepticism at the start of the year. But according to the latest projections, that’s precisely what is going to happen. The Bank now expects output to soar away by 7.25% in 2021, leaving jobs relatively unscathed. The fizz has been building so strongly that the debate has moved onto the timing of when Britain will need to move interest rates up to counter inflation. The Bank believes that the inflation scare is overdone. But the fierce global recovery in demand for steel, semi-conductors, and oil - together with Brexit friction at the borders - could well send prices higher. The Daily Mail

4. Let’s stop saying “low-skill” jobs. Business leaders and policymakers alike need to rethink the low-skill job title, particularly after the pandemic revealed just how essential those jobs are. The negative connotations of "low-skilled" are perpetuated by our own biases against what is considered a "good job." The phrase obscures the fact that many workers in jobs that don't pay well may indeed have skills, they could just be so young that they lack training and/or experience. In addition, "low-skilled" also devalues the work of many and justifies massive wage gaps between professions. The Atlantic

5. Big data is big business. Every day on Earth, we generate 500 million tweets, 294 billion emails, 65 billion WhatsApp messages, and 720,000 hours of new YouTube content. The total data we create, capture, copy and consume in a year is 59 zettabytes. That’s 59 trillion gigabytes, and by 2025 it could triple. One zettabyte is eight quintillion bits. If each bit were a £1 coin, a 1 zettabyte stack would stretch for 1,980 light years. The world’s largest data centre is in China and it’s twice the size of Vatican City at almost a million square metres. World Economic Forum

6. Royals encourage Brits to plant trees. People are being asked to plant trees across the country to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee, reports the BBC. To celebrate her seven-decade reign, a unique UK-wide tree planting initiative called The Queen's Green Canopy is being launched today. Prince Charles said: “There is a reason for this profoundly symbolic act. Planting a tree is a statement of hope and faith in the future. In other news, did you know that yesterday was International Love a Tree Day? READ MORE

7. It’s okay to be quiet in meetings. Sometimes meetings can feel like survival of the loudest - but staying quiet can pay off. But the people we should take note of during meetings are those who talk least. The quiet people are secretly the doers that make a company tick: they listen and pay close attention to what’s being said, making them the ones who are learning the most. People talking too much do so because of their ego; we should all try to get our ideas across in as few words as possible. Editor

8. Zoom CEO tired of video meetings. The billionaire founder of Zoom admitted that even he is suffering from Zoom fatigue. Eric Yuan said that one day last year, he had had 19 video meetings in a row, and that he was so tired of it all. The teleconferencing software became popular during the pandemic, when many people were working from home. Yuan is planning to call his employees back into the office for at least two days a week. The Daily Mail

9. Idea of the week. Our goal shouldn’t be to cling to youth as we get older, but to keep our joy alive by tending our inner child throughout our days while also nurturing our connection to the changing world. In doing so, we balance wisdom with wonder, confidence with curiosity and depth with delight. Editor

10. The bottom line. Stowe Family Law, the UK’s largest family law firm, received 8,801 enquiries from people seeking a divorce between January and March this year, up from 4,505 in the same three-month period last year. The Independent