Did you know that if you were a prisoner up for parole, you’re more likely to be set free if your hearing is in the morning versus the afternoon? Well, it’s the truth and it’s due to a phenomenon called decision fatigue. See, deciding to let a criminal go who may re-commit a crime is difficult. It requires a lot of analysis and thought—it’s mentally taxing. As a judge, you want to make a good and fair decision, keeping in mind the rights of the prisoner and the safety of the public. The safe and easy decision is to say…

A story recently circulated around the office here at Adventure Associates about the completion of the NASA backed Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS). Basically, a team of six aspiring space voyagers spent eight months together in a 1000 square foot geodesic dome to simulate living in a habitat on Mars — the third group to do so in this series of experiments meant to prepare us for our eventual journey to the red planet.

It’s one of the most common — and annoying — interview questions you’ll encounter, “What are your weaknesses?” Gurus tell us to offer up obvious non-weaknesses like perfectionism, or dogged determination. It’s funny that we all possess weaknesses, but rarely are we allowed to admit it openly. And sometimes we don’t even admit it to ourselves. We’re taught to shore up our weaknesses from an early age. If we struggle with something like math or English, we might find ourselves in remedial classes, getting tutoring and spending an inordinate time on those areas of difficulty.

It’s official: despite what your whip-cracking boss might think, breaks actually correlate with productivity. At least that’s what a recent survey by productivity software company DeskTime found among the top ten percent of performers. To be absolutely specific, the study found that the optimal work and break intervals were fifty-two and seventeen minutes, respectively.

Open-office floorplans, those gleaming, spacious workspaces emblematic of Silicon Valley productivity and flat organizational hierarchies are no longer a radical, avant garde approach to structuring office spaces, but rather the norm. According to the International Facilities Management Association, an overwhelming 70% of offices across America have adopted this office setup. The reasons behind this shift were, for the most part, well intentioned.

As an adult, your first day on the job is about as close as you can get to re-living the first day of school. There are a bunch of new people to meet and procedures to learn. Some are obvious, some less so. This all begs the question, what’s the best way to orient new employees to their new job. Here at Adventure Associates, we have a particular methodology that we think works pretty well. Recently, we hired a talented new team member named Lacey Cope and we figured we’d get her fresh perspective on our process. Below you’ll find…