Better Life Lab

By New AmericaSociety & Culture

Better Life Lab episodes

March 22, 2019 Work-Work Conflict
You’ve heard of work-life conflict, but when one Stanford researcher looked into how doctors managed it, she discovered another complicating factor: work-work conflict. It's having so many different tasks and responsibilities at work that you can quite literally feel pulled in a hundred different directions at once. We hear the stories of a doctor, a nonprofit executive and a home health aide, and how real solutions will require systems change.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
29 min
March 15, 2019 The Calm Company
When Jason Fried founded Basecamp, he and his partner decided not to focus on growth, but on sustainability, and healthy work-life balance. While Fried’s stance is unorthodox in an economy where success is literally measured by growth, economist and bestselling author Juliet Schor says Fried is onto something.
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35 min
March 05, 2019 Introducing Season 2
Better Life Lab is back! In Season 2, join host Brigid Schulte as she explores the torture of "Inbox Zero", work schedule chaos, and the Japanese idea of "karoshi" — a sadly common phenomenon where people work so hard they die — and much more. The Better Life Lab podcast from Slate and New America will show you why work-life balance seems so unattainable for so many people—and what we as individuals, as organizations, and as policy makers can do about it. New episodes drop March 15, 2019.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
3 min
July 19, 2018 The Surprising Reason Why the Gender Pay Gap Hasn’t Shrunk
It gets more intense every year — the drive to work longer and longer hours. And there’s striking new research that shows that women, who already get paid less than men, are put at a distinct disadvantage by an American job market that rewards overwork rather than performance.
In the final episode of season one of Better Life Lab, we hear from Youngjoo Cha, a sociologist at Indiana University and an expert on overwork and gender. Her research shows that, while the education gap is closing between men and women, overwork has all but cancelled out efforts to equalize the job market. In fact, the gender pay gap would have actually shrunk by 10 percent in recent decades if it wasn’t for this phenomenon.
Ciannat Howett, an associate professor at Emory University, shares her own story of job growth and overwork.
Podcast production by David Schulman.
Better Life Lab is a partnership of Slate and New America.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
31 min
July 12, 2018 Inside A Workaholics Anonymous Meeting
What happens when you can’t stop working? In this episode, the Better Life Lab podcast goes to a workaholics anonymous meeting to find out.
We also here from Malissa Clark, a professor of psychology at the University of Indiana and an expert in workaholism. She discusses the science and research behind workaholism, and how we can change.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
22 min
July 05, 2018 Even Progressive Offices Fail at Work-Life Balance
No meeting Wednesdays and work from home Fridays are not enough.
In this episode, you'll find out how employers can really create a healthier and more productive workplace. Tara Oakman, a former Obama White House official who is currently working as a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and David Waldman, vice president human resources and administration at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, weigh in.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
25 min
June 28, 2018 Why You’re Addicted to Being Busy
Email inboxes and push notifications were designed to keep us busy. But when we break it all down and how we think about busyness, we should be paying attention to the way our environment is designed — both at work and at home. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains how we can change our surroundings and our actions to fight our addiction to being busy.
Ariely is an author of The New York Times best-selling book “Predictably Irrational,” a popular TED speaker, and professor and director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight at Duke University. We also hear from David Sbarra, a professor in the psychology department at the University of Arizona, where he directs the Laboratory for Social Connectedness and Health. And he confesses — he is obsessed with busyness.
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31 min
June 21, 2018 How to Take Summers Off and Still Get Promoted
Michelle Hickox took summers off and still got promoted. First, she had to believe that she could, then she had to prove to others it was possible. Now she wants everyone to know how she did it. She tells her story to Better Life Lab.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
29 min
June 15, 2018 Your Work May Be Killing You
Bragging about being overworked is not badge of honor. Economists say the way we work has become so stressful it’s now the fifth leading cause of death. That’s according to Jeff Pfeffer, a Stanford business professor and author of some of the first meta-analyses of the health costs of the modern workplace. What will it take for us to transform the way we work and live — as individuals, as organizations, and as a culture — in order to make time for both meaningful work and fuller, healthier lives? That conversation starts here in the inaugural episode of Better Life Lab, hosted by Brigid Schulte.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
27 min
May 18, 2018 Introducing Better Life Lab
On Better Life Lab, we explore the art and science of living a full and healthy life. The podcast combines the power of storytelling - people sharing their own very real struggles, failings and triumphs with work-life balance – or work-life harmony as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos now calls it - with the behavioral and social science research and data that can help us better understand what drives our human experiences, and how to change.
There are real costs with our current driven, harried, work-identified culture. We explore what it will take to transform the way we work and live, as individuals, as organizations, and as a culture, to make time for both meaningful work and fuller, healthier lives.
A co-production from New America and Slate.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
4 min

About Better Life Lab

From the publisher's feed

Economists say the way we work has become so stressful it’s now the fifth leading cause of death. Our mission is to find a better way. Explore the art and science of living a full and healthy life…