Dearborn Blog

Can Remote Work Be Fixed? My Latest Article For The New Yorker Earlier today, I published my latest article for the New Yorker. It’s titled: Can Remote Work Be Fixed? In this semi-epic long-form essay, I dive into the history of the remote work movement, documenting why, after decades of excitement, it ended up falling ...

🙏May Day--Celebrating International Workers since 1904. Our Heritage 💥 Family Stories from Ground Zero, by a New Generation of Filmmakers. By BNimri Aziz For two decades now, following U.S. invasions of Afghanistan, then Iraq, and as we approach ten years of upheaval in Syria and five in Yemen, interpretation of these wars has been the ...

Bring Back Blogs? April 25, 2020 My latest article for WIRED offers a suggestion about improving our information response to the current pandemic. In the piece I acknowledge that Twitter’s algorithms, in particular, have actually been pretty useful in helping to surface otherwise obscure experts who are suddenly intensely relevant to the moment (I document, ...

Building a Deep Work Cabin…in an Apartment April 24, 2020 I recently received an attention-catching email from a 29-year-old professional trumpet player. He told me that during his first year studying at a well-known music conservatory his girlfriend convinced him to join Facebook. “Somehow I had a feeling that the whole thing robs me from ...

Thoreau on Hard Work April 4, 2020 Writing in his journal in March of 1842, at the precocious age of 24, Thoreau noted the following about the difference between quality and quantity in work: “The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded ...

More on Cultivating a Deep Life: Mindset April 21, 2020 In yesterday’s post, I discussed an approach for systematically increasing the depth in your life. It involved creating a monthly plan that identifies specific behaviors designed to amplify things that matter and reduce the things that distract you from these values. Today, I want to ...

ضمن عمله الثقافي الوطني الذي يخترق العالم إلى ما وراء البحار، يشارك ديوان اهل القلم المركز العربي الاميركي للثقافة والفنون بالاحتفال بمئوية الرابطة القلمية في المتحف العربي الأميركي للثقافة والفنون- ديترويت / ميتشيغان، في 22 نيسان 2020. الرابطة القلمية تأسست الرابطة القلمية عام 1920 في نيويورك على يد نخبة من الأدباء. في كتابه “جبران ـ ...

April 14, by B Nimri Aziz “Madam, how can I have any plans? “I am searching for medicine for my mother; I’ve no money to repair my car; I have my sister asking me to help her son; I have come to the end of our food ration for this week.” A reply Americans, Italians, ...

Amplifying Meaning with Environment April 7, 2020 In my recent post about work and the deep life, I mentioned that some practitioners of this philosophy seek ways to amplify the meaning they derive from their craft. There are many strategies to accomplish this goal. One that’s always intrigued me is the use of radical environments ...

The Inconvenient Popularity of Podcasts and Group Texts March 31, 2020 Last April, Jia Tolentino wrote an article for The New Yorker that reviewed my book, Digital Minimalism, along with Jenny Odell’s book, How to Do Nothing, which came out around the same time. Tolentino’s piece thoughtfully weaved many different strands of observation, each of ...

March 28, 2020 In response to yesterday’s post about quiet creativity, a reader asked the following question in the comments: “Here’s my question: How can digital minimalism and deep work be adapted for extroverted people who want to do deep work and lead a digital minimalist life — but also satiate a voracious appetite for ...

Involuntarily, week by week Nepal’s population, joined by the global community, will find itself compelled to abandon hitherto starry-eyed views of ‘America’ as redeemer, source of truths, and all things good. (It’s already happening.) Working in your country for over four decades, I’ve never met people more enthralled with the U.S. as you are. Everyone ...

The Deep Benefits of Learning Hard Things March 30, 2020 A reader pointed me toward a useful piece of advice from a recent episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast. Talking with comedian Bryan Callen, Rogan noted the following: “When you put yourself in a situation where you really suck at something, it’s really good for you, ...