Month: March 2023

How Does Your Personal Life Influence Your Work Life?

Time you spend at work is naturally influenced by your time at home. Can you think of how your personal life influences your work life?

Sometimes it seems like our lives are split into two parts: a work life, and a personal life. You might have work friends that are different than your personal friends. How you dress in each is likely different, and even how you act may vary from one to the other.

So it might seem like two different worlds. Of course, that’s not true at all. There is one big thing in common: you. You can’t help but have your personal life affect work, and vice versa. Particularly with many people working from home during the pandemic.

Listen to a podcast where Michael and Lee discuss a related question: ‘Are we too busy?’ We also discuss a bonus question: ‘What are our responsibilities to others?’

Can you think of any specific ways that what you do in your personal life impacts the work that you do? It might be something simple, like pictures of your family on your desk. But it could also extend to skills you learned at home being used in the office. Maybe something you read on your own time became meaningful somehow in doing your job.

Despite your best efforts, it is impossible to keep home and work completely apart (and perhaps you shouldn’t even try). What are some of the ways, positive or negative, that your personal life influences your work life?

Related questions: How has remote work changed your workplace culture? Who would serve on your personal board of directors? What do you do with a day off work? What is your dream job?

Politics: Local Or National?

When it comes to politics, which do you pay more attention to: politics at the local level, or at the national level? Which one is more important?

Share why if you wish.

Politics: Local Or National?
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What Was Your Best Day?

If you were to rank every day of your life, one of them would come out on top as the very best. Do you know what your best day was?

Share why if you wish.

Why Do We Sleep?

Sleep is one activity that everyone engages in every night, and yet it remains something of a mystery. Do you have any theories on why it is we sleep?

It is obvious that our sleep schedule is tied to the day/night pattern. It certainly isn’t a coincidence that due to the earth’s rotation, it is dark every night, and we sleep every night.

Moreover, it seems pretty clear that sleep is the product of evolutionary pressures. Our very distant ancestors gained some advantage from being asleep every night that allowed them to survive, and possibly even to thrive.

However, we don’t know what that advantage is.

One possibility is that our senses leave us at a disadvantage to other predators in the dark. Our eyes do not allow us to see as well in the nighttime, nor do our ears hear so well as to make up the difference, compared to some of our animal competitors. Therefore, a survival mechanism is to keep humans inactive during the time when they are disadvantaged — at night — and concentrate their efforts in the daytime.

But why didn’t the eyes or ears evolve to be more sensitive? Other animals did, so why the difference in humans?

Another possibility is that our larger brains required more organization, and processing of information. For humans, this happens during the sleep cycle, in particular during REM sleep. This, in turn, requires long stretches of uninterrupted sleep, and that is easier at night with fewer distractions.

These are just two examples of possible explanations. Do you know of any others, or have a pet theory? In your opinion, why do we sleep?

Related questions: How many hours of sleep do you need? Do you have trouble sleeping? Early bird or night owl?

Potato: Baked Or Mashed?

How do you prefer your potato prepared, baked or mashed? Or some other way, perhaps?

Share why if you wish.

Potato: Baked Or Mashed?
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