We have three new pieces of research this month, but first I want to let you know that I’ve started posting draft research thoughts on Twitter: What’s

Hi everyone, We have three new pieces of research this month, but first I wanted to let you know that I’ve started posting draft research thoughts on Twitter: What’s the probability of a global catastrophe much bigger than COVID-19? Why to ignore your personal carbon footprint How was Oxford’s Nuffield department able to develop the world’s first vaccine and proven treatment for COVID-19? I’ve also been posting summaries of our articles, and answering questions about them. You can follow me here — feel free to ask a question or say hello!   Turning to new research: How to identify your strengths: A collection of the best advice and research we could find 'Play to your strengths' is common career advice, but how do you actually figure out what your strengths are? I’ve recently been trying to reflect on my strengths, so I tried to sum up all the best advice I’ve seen, organised into a three-part process you can work through to clarify your own strengths. One of the pieces of advice I’ve found most useful is to try to get really concrete about your strengths by using the ‘energy audit’. It’s described at the end of this newsletter.   I’ve often heard people saying that performance in many jobs is 'power law distributed', and we’ve discussed the idea in our advice at 80,000 Hours. But how strong is the evidence that this is the case? I did an informal review of all the academic literature I could find, with Max Daniel of the Future of Humanity Institute: How much do people differ in productivity? What the evidence says Here’s some of the data we found on differences in output: But what does this data imply? These differences may be due to luck, and so not predictable going forward. The implications turn out to be messy, and are summarised in the full article.   People who don’t want to change jobs right now often ask us about the highest-impact way to volunteer. If you’re interested in effective altruism, I think one of the strongest contenders is to help run a local city or university group. My colleague Arden and I recently added a short writeup about the idea to our careers list: Why to help run a local effective altruism group There are also now more and more paid, full-time jobs in running these groups available – see more about that in the writeup. Have a great week, Ben  One exercise for identifying your strengths is the 'energy audit’: Look at your calendar over the past two weeks. For each activity, categorise it as energising or draining. What patterns are there in the tasks you found energising? This is nice because it’s granular and concrete. Unlike trying to follow your passion, it’s more about specific tasks that are definitely relevant to your work, rather than broad interests. Besides spotting your strengths, you can also use this exercise to improve your current role, by asking yourself: How might you be able to do more energising tasks, and fewer draining ones? Get more ideas: How to identify your strengths: A collection of the best advice and research we could find 80,000 Hours is a non-profit that provides research and support to help people switch into careers that effectively tackle the world's most pressing problems. Read about our key ideas, subscribe to our podcast, or find a job on our job board.