Children in school today will not be prepared for the jobs of the future. Our education system wasn’t much of a problem until now. The system addressed the 19th century industrial revolution needs for labour that could perform simple and repetitive tasks. But that era is long over. Our children must gear up for the ‘gig economy’. By the time today’s graduates are 38, they would have gone through 10 to maybe 14 jobs. Moreover, 15 years from now, 65% of graduates will be going into jobs that don’t yet exist. Given these trends, lessons taught in classrooms no longer seem relevant for our increasingly tumultuous world. Teachers are wrestling with how to break away from archaic pedagogies and curricula. Students are jumping off the education conveyor belt unequipped for an unforeseen future. Governments are eager to develop knowledge societies but are grappling to find concrete strategies to get there. A "gig economy" is not guaranteed, that's just the current catchph...

Brian Niemeier  offers solid advice for authors, artists, or anyone setting out on a long term creative project. First, what I_don't_do is set word count goals. I think Scott Adams gets it right with his maxim "Goals are for losers. Systems are for winners." The reason is the demoralization you feel when you fall short of a goal. That creates disincentives that you must expend willpower to overcome. No one has unlimited willpower. Eventually, you will burn out. Second, the way to achieve high productivity is to set up a system that minimizes effort. Really examine your writing process. You already know that you top out at 500 words most days. Guess what? That's about equal to my most recent daily word count on a paying project under a deadline. But I'm not worried because I wrote well over 2000 words the day before and likely will tomorrow, too. If you're like me, some days you'll barely muster 500 words, and other days, you'll break 5000. Take note...