Writer at Silicon Canals

Mal James

Writer

Mal James is a writer at Silicon Canals covering psychology, productivity, and the patterns that determine whether ambitious work compounds or burns out. His coverage draws from a teaching background, broad reading across behavioural science and business, and a working interest in what separates short-term effort from durable performance. He writes primarily for the Mind pillar with cross-coverage on the people inside the technology economy.

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News

We assume AI is coming for everyone’s job, but a 2025 Stanford study tracking payroll data found the damage is concentrated by age: employment for 22-to-25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed roles fell roughly 13%, while older workers in the very same jobs were barely touched

In November 2025, three Stanford economists pulled monthly payroll records from ADP and found something the broad "AI is coming for everyone" story doesn't quite capture.

Jun 30, 2026

Mind

Google studied 180 of its teams to find what made the best ones click, expecting talent or structure but found the factor that beat everything was psychological safety: safety to admit a mistake

Most people assume a good team is mostly a casting problem.

Jun 30, 2026

Mind

We tend to think our actions follow from our beliefs — but cognitive dissonance means we often rewrite our beliefs to justify what we’ve already done, not the reverse

In 1959, Stanford students sat through a deliberately tedious task, then were paid to tell the next participant it had been fun.

Jun 30, 2026

Mind

Rethinking remote work: surveys show people will give up 5 to 8% of their pay to work from home, but a 2026 study links remote work to more isolation, anxiety and depression — suggesting they may be underweighting the cost

Here is something I have been turning over for a while.

Jun 30, 2026

Mind

When DeskTime studied how its users actually worked, the most productive tenth were not the ones who never stopped — rest seemed to be key to output

I have a bad habit I am not proud of.

Jun 30, 2026

Mind

I asked ChatGPT why reaching every goal still leaves me flat. The answer wasn’t the one I was expecting.

I typed it out plainly: "Based on everything you know about me, why does reaching my goals still leave me feeling flat?

Jun 21, 2026

As AI eats into paid creative work, people are taking up the same skills — drawing, writing, crafts — on their own time, for no money, just to feel human

I'm not a psychologist, an economist, or a labor researcher.

Jun 20, 2026

Mind

Thought of the day from Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius: “For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.””

Somewhere on campaign, probably in a tent on the Danube frontier, Marcus Aurelius wrote a note to himself about wanting to be elsewhere.

Jun 20, 2026

Mind

5 concepts that completely changed how I think about focus and productivity

I had a morning recently that, on paper, should have been a good one.

Jun 20, 2026

Mind

We treat the eight-hour day as an acceptable day’s work, but many celebrated figures did their best thinking in just four or five hours a day — and that deliberate rest may have been key

Sit down to do real work, the kind that asks something of your brain, and notice how long you can actually hold it.

Jun 20, 2026

Mind

After combing nearly 12,000 daily diary entries from 238 workers, researchers found that the strongest force behind motivation and creativity wasn’t the lever managers reach for — pay or praise — but something quieter: progress on work that mattered

Ask most managers what makes for a good day at work and you'll probably get a predictable list.

Jun 20, 2026

Mind

Juggling several tasks at once feels efficient, but researchers have found that each switch quietly costs time and accuracy — via hidden mental stages of shifting goals and reloading rules that compound

Here's how many of my mornings go.

Jun 19, 2026