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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

@askpang.bsky.social
179 followers 133 following 53 posts

I run programs at 4 Day Week Global. Author of WORK LESS DO MORE (2023), SHORTER (2020), REST (2016) and THE DISTRACTION ADDICTION (2013).

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Reposted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Weird how worried Wall Street is about DeepSeek, weren’t they just saying AI innovation is good even if it harms some people in the short term
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Reposted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) @themerl.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
now that DeepSeek has completed AI, we hope that Silicon Valley will turn its attention to the next best thing: investing in rural history museums
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
On the Grand Theft Auto theory of careers, inspired by my own recent history: open.substack.com/pub/askpang/...
open.substack.com
The Grand Theft Auto theory of careers
Drive it like you stole it
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Posting this for absolutely no reason whatsoever harpers.org/archive/1941...
harpers.org
Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
Back to work
Dog sitting in a chair behind a human who is trying to type. It’s entirely the human’s fault.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 31/12/2024
“I hate writing; I love having written” is a real thing (even if Dorthy Parker never actually said it).
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Reposted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
The thing about Vivek's "white Americans are being pushed towards mediocrity by the culture" argument is its also the thesis of Hillbilly Elegy
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
End-of-year articles about work and rest have me thinking about how we now think about “productivity” all wrong, and what we can do about it: askpang.substack.com/p/my-hope-fo...
askpang.substack.com
My hope for productivity in 2025
tl:dr we're thinking about it all wrong.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
This has to be The Onion
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
I didn’t think I’d find an essay about telemarketing quite so entertaining, but life is full of surprises. “Everyone said that telemarketing was the worst job in town, and for once, everyone was right…” slate.com/life/2024/12...
slate.com
In My Life, I’ve Witnessed Three Elite Salespeople at Work. You Won’t Like Their Secret.
My wayward months as the best telemarketer in America.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Maybe the return to office folks have a point
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
“If someone makes $50 million on a speculative asset, then some other set of people must have lost that $50 million. They just don’t know it yet:” open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...
open.substack.com
Bitcoin is worth $100,000. It still doesn't have a single legitimate use case
It's speculation all the way down
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
This tracks with what I’ve seen when working with 4-day week companies: “improved performance on a 4-day working week arises through two psychological mechanisms of recovery and motivation: because better rested, better motivated brains, create better work:“ www.cell.com/trends/cogni...
cell.com
How can a 4-day working week increase wellbeing at no cost to performance?
The 4-day working week is gaining interest, with international trials reporting enhanced staff wellbeing and performance, despite spending less time on the job. Here, we argue that improved performance on a 4-day working week arises through two psychological mechanisms of recovery and motivation: because better rested, better motivated brains, create better work.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Apparently the lesson of “Don’t Build the Torment Nexus” continue to be misunderstood:
theatlantic.com
Republicans Are Confused About the Concept of Bad Guys
Some conservatives are embracing the villains in what are supposed to be cautionary tales.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Can confirm
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
The only appropriate response is Nicolas Murray Butler’s when asked if he’d read Thornstein Veblen’s last book: “By God, I hope so.”
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
My conversation with Ian Bogost about the value of popped up on @theatlantic.com today: www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...
theatlantic.com
Best of How To: Rest
Getting rest and going to the dentist aren’t as different as you might think.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Furry gargoyle
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
You think you’re working on your syllabus? You’re working for ME. Time for scritches, human!
An insistent cat demands attention
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
If you don’t think a black-and-white concert film consisting of one person and a piano could be completely absorbing, you haven’t seen Opus, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final performance: youtu.be/OyhTmH92Ljc?...
youtu.be
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO | OPUS - Official US Trailer
YouTube video by Janus Films
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 14/02/2024
The Golden Police Department just released a report on its 4-day week trial. It was a success: response time down, code enforcement up, resignations down by 50%: ehq-production-us-california.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/cfbe4617ccc6...
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/11/2023
It’s never too soon to start thinking about how to spend the weekend well! www.ted.com/talks/alex_s...
ted.com
How rest can make you better at your job
Yes, you need to take breaks at work. Not only is resting good for your brain — it might even make you more creative. Here are consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang's four tips to help you step away and ...
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 19/10/2023
A new video on work and rest (recorded last year, but TED created a lot of good stuff so it takes a while to get published)!
ted.com
How rest can make you better at your job
Yes, you need to take breaks at work. Not only is resting good for your brain — it might even make you more creative. Here are consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang's four tips to help you step away and ...
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 04/09/2023
Dude just biked by wearing noise canceling headphones, holding his iphone in one hand, dictating an email. The Apple goggles are going to be an asteroid-level threat for the distracted.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 27/08/2023
“you can’t be expected to contextualize your own life as a child.”
nytimes.com
A Writer Scrutinizes Privilege, Starting With His Own
In “Quiet Street,” Nick McDonell reflects on America’s most entrenched elite and his place within it.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 14/08/2023
This is the perfect local news story, we can all give up now.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 13/08/2023
The brilliant Yael Schonbrun advises on “How to make tough choices in relationships:”
washingtonpost.com
Advice | How to make tough choices in relationships
Take actions such as slowing down and clarifying values when you face difficult decisions.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 10/08/2023
Power is out here in my little corner of Silicon Valley, so working by LED camp light and getting by on two bars of cell service, like a 12th century Norman scribe.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 09/08/2023
This is an early signal that many creatives won’t necessarily be replaced by AI, but their industries well be drowned by AI sludge that looks just similar enough to familiar work, and costs 0.001% to produce and sell.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 03/08/2023
What I don’t get about worldcoin is the design decision to put their iris scanning tech in these orbs. Did they never read any science fiction or fantasy? It teaches us that whether it’s metal, or crystal, or has an eye made of fire starting back at you, NEVER STARE INTO THE MYSTERIOUS ORB.
bbc.com
Kenya halts Worldcoin amid clamour for free money - BBC News
The authorities say they have data privacy concerns over Sam Altman's new cryptocurrency project.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 03/08/2023
An interesting study on happiness and free time: the more meaningful or purposeful our free time is, the happier it makes us. (Findings I plan to share with the 4-day week companies I work with.)
anderson-review.ucla.edu
Too Much Free Time? Blame Solitude or Lack of Productive Activity - UCLA Anderson Review
Even abundant free time, used in meaningful pursuits, brings happiness
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 02/08/2023
This is why we can’t have nice things. “Thanks to wellness, QAnon is the conspiracy that can draw in the mum who shops at Holland & Barrett and her Andrew Tate-watching teenage son.”
theguardian.com
‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline
One minute you’re doing the downward dog, the next you’re listening to conspiracy theories about Covid or the new world order. How did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic?
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Reposted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Charles Johnson @charles.littlegreenfootballs.com · 01/08/2023
This has always been a key point about the online right. What they really get off on isn't "trolling" or "debating," it's cruelty.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 30/07/2023
“As I came to recognise the methods of omission, they fascinated me. When women can’t be left out, they are doubted, trivialised, or reduced to footnotes…. But the most insidious way the actions of women are omitted is by using the passive voice.” Read this essay. It’s 🔥🔥🔥.
theguardian.com
Looking for Eileen: how George Orwell wrote his wife out of his story
Anna Funder explains how the search for Eileen O’Shaughnessy, a compelling figure strangely absent from Orwell’s writing, illuminated her own life
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 30/07/2023
Bill McKibben on the 4-day week and degrowth in The New Yorker: "[I]t would be wise to use that enormous process… to nudge our societies toward greater equality and greater conviviality. An E.V. is a good way to cut carbon emissions, but so, it turns out, is a four-day workweek.”
newyorker.com
To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower?
The degrowth movement makes a comeback.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 28/07/2023
“Major 4-day workweek study suggests that when we work 5 days we spend one doing basically nothing: Essentially, those of us on a five-day week are filling up our days with time-wasting activities.”
fortune.com
Major 4-day workweek study: We spend one doing nothing | FortuneCloseFortuneFortuneFacebookTwitterLi...
The new research examined the long-term effects of the four-day week and found that workers can get as much done in a 33-hour week as in 38 hours.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 27/07/2023
As many writers on fascism have noted, open displays of hypocrisy and contradiction drive to undermine trust in everything, while showing that “we” can get away with anything.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 27/07/2023
I run programs for 4 Day Week Global. My goal is to help people and companies create a million news years of free time.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 21/07/2023
4 Day Week Global is holding another information session about the #4dayweek movement and our next English-language group trial (launching September 2023) on Monday July 24th at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern time. Register here for free:
4dayweek.com
4 Day Week United States Pilot Program Information Session - July 24th — 4 Day Week Global
Want to reduce work time in your business? Join us for this free event to find out about our pilot program options.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 19/07/2023
I talk about the 4-day week with Bloomberg reporter Irina Anghel:
bloomberg.com
Four-Day Week Expert Doesn’t Want Everyone Working Four Days — Yet
Five minutes with the program director at 4 Day Week Global on trials, opt-outs, shorter schedules and his own work philosophy.
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Alex Soojung-Kim Pang @askpang.bsky.social · 17/07/2023
Okay let’s see what this can do.
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