Interesting Links for 19-07-2016

[andrewducker]

How To Tackle An Overwhelming To-Do List (tags: advice organisation viaSwampers ) Multitasking is a bad idea. But if you have to, here's some tips on doing it well (tags: organisation work viaSwampers ) How the UK halved its teenage pregnancy rate (tags: uk society pregnancy Education ) The 2016 “Board Game of the Year” nominees, reviewed (tags

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

> If you come across tasks that aren’t a number 4 priority or below, assess whether you really need to do them.

This person's life is not like my life.

Plenty of things on my todo list are not going to get done in the next month, and have been kicking around for much longer than that.

[woodpijn]

Yes. Or things which are important but by nature can't be done yet. (Do tax return when tax year ends. Get child measured for new school shoes at the end of the summer holidays. Shop around for new phone contract / mortgage / car insurance / etc when existing contract runs out in a few months.)

[momentsmusicaux]

One of mine is 'consolidate my cash ISAs'. Which keeps getting postponed because interest rates are so crap at the moment that it's not really worth the paperwork and the loss of free time (at a premium due to small children).

[cartesiandaemon]

I was going to say something like that. I think there's good advice that most people have things that feel urgent but are honestly not getting done, and abandoning them helps get everything else done.

But that's specifically for sorting urgent time-pressure tasks. There's lots of things I want or need to do that have specific deadline (eg. fun stuff, career progress, level-up things), and if anything, I want my system to remove as much urgent stuff as possible so I can do important-not-urgent stuff.

[octopoid_horror]

Describing robots as "less rebellious" is a very dangerous assumption :-D

[octopoid_horror]

Also this is just hilarious "“If we redistribute work around in a more equitable manner everyone can be working less, plus we can generate other ways in which people can get an income beyond just the wage.”

There certainly isn't high unemployment in areas today where there used to be large industries employing people, then the industries left and governments promised that something would totally happen to fix things.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. People in some areas have picked up and carried on, but areas that were entirely dependent on one industry can suddenly have their heart pulled out.

[owlfish]

Sewbots: this is a major technological innovation which has been a long time in coming. Even just a couple of years ago, the complexities of dealing with textiles was beyond our ability to tackle robotically. Textile mills may have been a major element of the Industrial Revolution, but their robotic successors have new: as in, new with articles like this and all that they imply. So yes, there may be economically disastrous consequences to them for many places: but technologically, they're a huge and new accomplishment.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Last I checked before this the manipulators couldn't cope with fabric. If they now can then I am very impressed, and expecting yet another part of manufacturing to be entirely automated within five years.

Plus, of course, made-to-order to become a major part of the business.

[channelpenguin]

Robots: people are still cheaper. Robots won't come in in any industry unless that changes. I have worked in a number of factory jobs where it could be done mechanically - and in one case, with 2 production lines making the exact same thing, one production line WAS - but that cost more to run, due to needing time and maintenance from well-paid fitters/techs than the one staffed by low-paid part time women and students. Also scale. Small people-operated factories are possible, with high-tech, it is usually only economic when on a large scale. So, eventually, (just like with farming!) the smaller companies will be forced out, and it will become impossible to competitively bootstrap a business from relatively nothing. Thus more and more power and profit consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer. Just the sort of progress about which I am personally utterly enthused (NOT!). The only openings then are in commissioned custom high-value hand-crafted items (and even then, big cos with good 3-D printing and delivery can serve that need).