Real life is chaotic and surprising and impossible to balance. Work-life Jenga is all about making the best out of each moment in our lives, one piece at a time, says political leader and author Stacey Abrams. I reject the idea of work-life balance. The phrase is a bald-faced lie, designed to hang over the human psyche like the Sword of Damocle...

Work comes in all shapes and sizes — there's no one-size-fits-all model for what humans do to make a living. We can see this in the countless TEDTalks from people telling stories about what they do, be it single-handedly creating a polyphonic orchestra, performing magical stunts on city streets, or even studying fungi. While we aren't all glam...

We all get stuck in a work rut sometimes, whether we’re having trouble focusing, struggling to maintain work-life boundaries, or trying to get through to our colleagues (especially in this Zoom-dominated world). But there’s good news: Reinvigorating our days doesn’t require a massive overhaul (and who has time anyway?!?). The following tips a...

During an interview at TEDWomen 2013, host Pat Mitchell asked Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to explain how her 2010 TED Talk evolved. “I asked myself the question that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and my boss, asks all of us, which is: What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?” Sandberg said. Her answer: “I would get on the TED stage...

There's a distinct sense of anticipation in the air here in Edinburgh, Scotland, as the lights are about to dim and we're about to embark on the rollercoaster ride that is a TEDGlobal conference. The first session of the week, "Moments of Truth" tackles several difficult issues, including economic austerity, environmentalism, feminism and terror...

X certainly marks the spot. The TEDx program was launched in 2009 to bring the mission of spreading ideas to the local level, with independent organizers curating their own events for their own communities. This week, the program is celebrating many milestones. Not only did yesterday mark the 5,000th TEDx event -- this week also brings th...

Never mind workers -- Yoshie Komuro suggests that if anyone stands to benefit from a sensible workday, it’s employers. “The number of Japanese people who work overtime, more than 60 hours, is higher than any other country,” says Yoshie Komuro, “but the contributing value of each individual is the lowest among the industrialized countries.” Komu...

Here’s how to assemble your personal dream team, with tips from business expert Anthony Tjan. Everyone can use a mentor. Scratch that -- as it turns out, we could all use five mentors. “The best mentors can help us define and express our inner calling,” says Anthony Tjan, CEO of Boston venture capital firm Cue Ball Group and author of Good Peop...

Three fascinating speakers have been added to the lineup for TEDGlobal 2013, which kicks off in Edinburgh, Scotland, June 10 to 14. First, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who exploded the conversation about women’s work-life balance with her July/August 2012 The Atlantic article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” will join the conference to lend her e...

Smart advice from TED speakers to help you rediscover your joy on the job Dear TED, I’ve been at my job for a few years and it’s … fine? Actually, not so fine. What was once interesting has become a slog, and my boss seems checked out. While I’m glad to be employed, I occasionally fantasize about quitting, moving to Maine, and doing somethin...

TEDxWomen is just days away—on November 30 and December 1, the conference will take place in Washington, D.C. While it’s sold out, there are still many opportunities to watch. Over the weekend, webcasts will be streamed during more than 140 TEDxWomen events across the globe -- from Abuja, Nigeria, to Warsaw, Poland. Head to the TEDxWomen web...

“The world has a new mania — a mania for learning English,” said Jay Walker on the TED stage in 2009. English is accepted as a shared language of science, a language of global business and the language of the Internet, with at least 1.5 billion students learning it worldwide. So the TED Distribution team wondered: What if students could l...

Business talks are boring. Among all the things I was certain of when I started writing for TED, that one was near the top of the list, just under 'ice is cold' and 'brains are gooey.' I worked as a physicist for a few years before switching over to writing (with a short jaunt in between in comedy), so just never cared much for business. My...

To crossover is to fully embrace what complements us, to find insight and illumination from a style or field adjacent to our own. When fully achieved, it allows us to become greater than the sum of our parts. In this evening of talks, five speakers and one musician shared their own experiences of crossing over to achieve heightened levels of...

Dear [Your Name Here], At the TED Fellows program, we look for extraordinary young innovators, inventors and leaders—like you—from many categories of human endeavor: scientists of all sorts, engineers, artists, filmmakers, photojournalists, entrepreneurs, NGO founders, technologists, inventors, human rights activists and more. Our goal is...

As the sharing economy gains market share, it needs more support and structure to grow in the right directions. For more than a decade, the sharing economy has functioned as a sort of benign, artsy cousin of the world's corporate capitalist machine. Lately, though, the advances of Uber, Airbnb et al have brought much attention (and money) to th...

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. For the first time in modern history, we have five generations interacting at work. The veterans, born between 1922 and 1943, are known as the Greatest Gene...

Time is a global preoccupation -- we never feel like we have enough of it to accomplish all we want to accomplish in the world. Do we control time, or does time control us? In the opening session of TEDWomen 2016 at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, seven speakers explored how time and attention shape our lives, in talks ra...

If yesterday evening’s talks were about asking what Africa’s future could look like, today’s talks and discussions zoom in on people who have already set out on their own journeys. A president. A chef. A film curator. A businesswoman. A money man. A scientist. A bird lover. They could be the members of a ship’s crew, or a band, depending on ...

Take a step back and consider the exquisite network of systems that sustain life on Planet Earth. The air we breathe, the food we eat and the ground we walk on are all carefully regulated by natural systems in an intertwined dance -- which means that any change we make in our environment can set off a chain of unexpected reactions. In this week’...

The final session of TEDWomen 2019 is here! We can't believe it; we won't believe. But, if we must close out these three incredible days, it's good we did it by hearing from a diverse range of "wayfinders" -- incredible women who are using their wisdom and insight to light the way forward, tackle global problems and find the right balance of...

Nilofer Merchant (TED Talk: Got a meeting? Take a walk) urges you to trade sit-down one-on-one meetings for walking meetings. But as the northern hemisphere enters the darker months, sedentary workers face a challenge: what to do when it’s cold out? Below, five ways to stay active during a winter workday. 1. Stand up. Simply standing instead o...

In 1998, aircraft designer Paul MacCready gave a live demo of his two-ounce unmanned surveillance drone on the TED stage in Monterey. "You see what it sees. Imagine you're a fly," he told the assembled audience, who watched the drone's footage projected onto the screen in front of them. (The moment is captured in the GIF below.) To the crowd...

For the past 12 years, global health advocate Alanna Shaikh has watched her father, whom she calls her “hero and mentor,” deteriorate from Alzheimer’s disease. In a poignant talk given during TEDGlobal 2012 last week, Shaikh -- a TED Fellow and the author of the TED Book What’s Killing Us -- told us that the experience has, of course, been v...

TED: What advice would you give to women thinking about entering the nonprofit sector? “My advice to women entering the nonprofit sector is to take every opportunity to get experience -- research and donate to effective nonprofits that you care about; be a curious student of the sector; and recognize that many, many types of skills are needed....

From geese flying through the sky in formation to schools of fish swimming in the ocean, the world's creatures show an efficiency that is the envy of physicists, architects and designers. Writer Gary Ferguson explains the inspiration that we humans can draw from how energy flows in the natural world. More energy falls from the sun in just an ho...

Welcome to "Dear Guy," TED's advice column from psychologist Guy Winch. Twice a month, he'll answer your questions about life -- about your relationships, your job (or jobs), your family (or families), your passions, fears and more. Please send your questions to dearguy@ted.com; to read his previous columns, go here. Dear Guy, I am an intern...

Graphic designer Milton Glaser thinks that being uncertain is a good way to be. “Certainty is preposterous,” says Milton Glaser (TED Talk: Using Design to Make Things New). “Fundamentally, one cannot be certain about anything.” Glaser, who doesn’t shy away from speaking plainly, prefers a mindset that embraces ambiguity. For the 86-year-old, th...

Yesterday at TEDMED, TEDTalks favorite Paul Stamets gave an emotional talk about new medical uses for mushrooms -- including a variety that, he says, helped treat his mother's cancer. Stamets spoke about powerful medical uses for mushrooms and their extracts, from anti-tuberculosis effects (Agarikon) to Cordyceps, a treasure trove of potenti...

The internet has inflated people's expectations about what success looks like -- any achievement that doesn't go viral can seem skimpy. By changing our perspective and appreciating human-size, human-scale achievements, we can move towards our goals, says educator Mehrnaz Bassiri. Every weekday for the month of January, TED Ideas is publishing a...