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With half the planet on summer vacation, now’s the perfect time to add a few new productivity tools to your arsenal. For this edition of Summer Fridays, we’re dishing up the best articles on crushing (or tossing) your to-do list, learning new skills, and—perhaps most importantly—knowing when to relax.

How to Actually Get Work Done During the Summer
Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company
Six productivity experts provide a plan to beat the summer slump.

11 Unproductive Habits You Want To Quit
Darius Foroux
The reason I study productivity is because I’m an unproductive person. I truly am. If it wasn’t for my productivity system, I wouldn’t get anything done. I wouldn’t even write this article. 

Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient?
Liqun Luo, Nautilus
How massive parallelism lifts the brain’s performance above that of AI.

Four Secrets of People Who Finish Their Workweeks on Thursday
Kat Boogaard, Fast Company
Polishing off the bulk of your work before Friday all comes down to your work habits from Monday to Thursday.

A Little-Known Hack to Learn a New Skill in a Fraction of the Time
David Finkel, Inc.
It’s called ‘deliberate practice’ and it’s a proven way for your staff to master a new skill in a fraction of the time. Here are the five core elements that make it work.

The Lost Art of Concentration: Being Distracted in a Digital World
Harriet Griffey, The Guardian
We check our phones every 12 minutes, often just after waking up. Always-on behavior is harmful to long-term mental health, and we need to learn to hit the pause button.

Taming the Epic To-Do List
Allison Rimm, Harvard Business Review
To-do lists are a must-have for many but can get in the way if used improperly.

You Are Doing Something Important When You Aren’t Doing Anything
Bonnie Tsui, The New York Times
We need to rest, to read, to reconnect. It is the invisible labor that makes creative life possible.

What’s the Point of Self-Improvement Anyway?
Mark Manson
Self-improvement efforts imply they are a means to an end, but what if that end undoes all the work it’s taken to get there?

What Happens to Your Body on No Sleep
Wes Judd, Outside
Don’t get too ambitious this weekend. Just one bad night can trigger a cascade of unpleasant side effects.

Find your focus
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Break out the sleeping bag and slather on the bug spray. We’re headed to the woods for this week’s Summer Fridays collection all about sleepaway camps, pitching a tent, and the surprising things that happen when we step away from our regular lives to commune with nature.

I Went To A Summer Camp For Adults And It Was Weird
Scaachi Koul, BuzzFeed
There were open bars, Slip’n Slide competitions, and hookups, but trying to recapture childhood can turn dark really fast.

The Gooey Story of S’mores
Rebecca Rupp, National Geographic
The classic dessert’s long yet vague history, dates back at least to 1927.

15 Classic Summer-Camp Movies, Ranked From Worst to Best
Brian Moylan, Vulture
Summer-camp movies have less to do with the experience of applying bug spray, and more to do with groups of like-minded people banding together to make something impossible and wonderful happen. 

My Daughter Went Away to Camp and Changed
John Dickerson, Slate
The best moments of childhood—the memories that stay with you into adulthood—are ones where your parents aren’t there.

How I Lost My Faith at a Boot Camp for Christian Kids
Leanna Moxley, Narratively
At twelve years old I was sent away for one long hot summer of obediently serving the Lord. But instead of finding God, I discovered my rebellious streak.

What Happens to Your Marriage When Your Kids Go to Camp
MZ Goodman, Cup of Jo
“I’m alone with my husband for the first time in 10 years.”

Camping with Kids: A Non-Primer        
Reid Doughten, Longreads                           
Revising the simple equation for combining camping with parenting toddlers.

I Slept Outside for a Week and It Changed My Life (Really)
Erin Berger, Outside
What a restless coffee drinker learned from going to circadian-rhythm rehab (a tent in the woods).

Dickens in Eden
Jill Lepore, The New Yorker
What would Charles Dickens say if he knew that two hundred and sixty people had given up a precious week of summer vacation just to talk about him?

The Long Summer
Elissa Strauss, Longreads
Every year America’s schools shut down for nearly three months—leaving families like single mother Olympia and her 6-year-old daughter Raina struggling to keep up.

Pocket Pro Tip
Sharing a tent (or hotel room) with family members this summer? Set your Pocket to dark mode so you can read in bed without disturbing anyone. It cuts back on blue light and keeps your screen nice and dim.

Crazy-smart bees. Rogue wolves. A world-famous pig. Animals are more complex than we give them credit for. This Friday, we’ve collected some of the best stories out there on the unique creatures, furry and otherwise, that enrich our lives.

The Crane Who Fell in Love With a Human 
Sadie Dingfelder, Washington Post
Cranes mate for life. But when one white-naped crane earned the reputation as a black widow, an intrepid zookeeper found an unlikely way to fight extinction. 

The Dog Who Took the Witness Stand
Christopher DeCou, Narratively
Tracing the origins of the animal rights movement to one truly bizarre 1922 court case. 

The Charmed Life of Esther the Wonder Pig 
Jason McBride, The Walrus
What one celebrity pet can tell us about our curious and complicated relationship with animals.

How The Octopus Got Its Smarts
Elizabeth Finkel, Cosmos
Did the octopus evolve its unique intelligence by playing fast and free with the genetic code?

A Very Old Man for a Wolf
Emma Marris, Outside
He was the alpha male of the first pack to live in Oregon since 1947. For years, a state biologist tracked him, collared him, counted his pups, weighed him, photographed him, and protected him. But then the animal known as OR4 broke one too many rules.

WATCH: What Are Animals Thinking and Feeling?
Carl Safina, TED
Using discoveries and anecdotes that span ecology, biology and behavioral science, a conservationist argues that just as we think, feel, use tools and express emotions, so too do the other creatures—and minds—that share the Earth with us.

Bees May Understand Zero, a Concept That Took Humans Millennia to Grasp
Kate Keller, Smithsonian.com
If the finding is true, they’d be the first invertebrates to join an elite club that includes primates, dolphins and parrots.

In Search of the Heart of the Online Cat-Industrial Complex 
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Wired
If you want to know why the Internet chose cats, you must go to Japan.

How Animal Psychics Helped Untangle a Mixed-up Horse 
Sterry Butcher, Texas Monthly
Healing a spooked horse takes time, patience, and skill. And maybe a little help from beyond.

Pocket Pro Tip
The next time you’re out walking your dog (or cat, or turtle … we’re not here to judge), grab some headphones and try listening to articles in Pocket. Just tap the 🎧 and it’ll play them one after the next until you hit pause.

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Over the course of our lives, we lose and rediscover many things: interests, friends, waistlines. It’s part of being human.

For this week’s edition of Summer Fridays—our new collection of must-read stories we send you each Friday—we’re exploring some of the most fascinating accounts of things lost and found, from a man who lost nearly 700 pounds to to discovery of an ancient city beneath St. Louis.

Doing any traveling this weekend? Save these links to your Pocket, and set aside some time to get a little lost yourself, whether you’re road-tripping to the lake or hopping on a plane.

The Case of the Stolen Ruby Slippers
Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, The Washington Post Magazine
How a big crime in a small town produced a whodunit as gripping and colorful as “The Wizard of Oz” itself.

How the World’s Heaviest Man Lost It All
Justin Heckert, GQ
Paul Mason used to weigh close to 1,000 pounds. Now that he’s shed almost all of it, freeing himself from his tomb of a body, he’s facing a heavy question.

How a Beloved Hollywood Home Ended Up in Canada
Steve Vaught, Los Angeles Magazine
Revered architects Greene & Greene built the house in a nascent Hollywood. For years its fate would be a mystery to all but a few.

Traces of Time Lost
Erika Hayasaki, The Atlantic
How childhood memories shape us, even after we’ve forgotten them.

The Lost Man
Graeme Wood, California Sunday Magazine
In 1948, a man was found on a beach in South Australia. The mysterious circumstances of his death have captivated generations of true-crime fanatics. Today, one amateur sleuth has come close to solving the case.

Can the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Be Found in Cuba?
Mac McClelland, Audubon Magazine
A birder, ornithologist, writer, and photographer set off on an extreme adventure through the muck and memories of eastern Cuba.

When Things Go Missing
Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker
Reflections on two seasons of loss. Over a lifetime, we will lose some 200,000 items apiece, plus money, relationships, elections, loved ones.

Finding America’s Lost Medieval City
Annalee Newitz, Ars Technica
A thousand years ago, huge pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East St. Louis sprawls today. Cahokia was bigger than Paris—then it was completely abandoned. Recent digs have revealed this was no ordinary place.

The File – Lost Then Found
A.M. Homes, Granta
Novelist A.M. Homes writes of the ambivalence she felt after being given her adoption file and learning more about her birth parents—and what it meant for the narrative of her life up until that day.

Never Lose a Story You’ve Saved

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There’s never been a better time to be a father. Men are more involved in their kids’ lives than ever, and judging by the number of essays and articles Pocket users are saving on the topic, we’re all pretty excited about it. Check out some of the most interesting takes we’ve found on fatherhood today.

My Son, The Prince of Fashion
Michael Chabon, GQ
What happens when you put a 13-year-old boy in the front row at Paris Fashion Week? A funny, poignant essay on fatherhood by author Michael Chabon. This story was so popular, it ended up becoming the cornerstone for Chabon’s latest book, “Pops.”

Why Every Father Should Bring His Toddler Out for a Mini Adventure
Stefen Chow, Medium
In many cultures, it’s presumed that mothers know best when it comes to their kids’ needs. Chinese photographer Stefen Chow turned this notion on its head when he took his two-year-old daughter on an eight-day trip around Taiwan and discovered the depth of a father/daughter bond.

The Myth That Babies Look More Like Their Dads
Ariel Ramchandani, The Atlantic
It’s a common theory: babies arrive in their world looking just like their fathers—nature’s way of ensuring that dads won’t reject their offspring. This article dives into the science behind the theory and how the perception of paternity can impact a father’s relationship with his progeny.

What ‘Good’ Dads Get Away With
Darcy Lockman, The New York Times
There’s no denying that fathers have gotten more and more involved with family life over the last 50 or so years, but just how close are they to an even split with moms? This essay explores the childcare imbalance between men and women and how it’s playing out in marriages today.

Pocket for Dads (and Moms, too!)
Sometimes after a long day chasing after your kids, all you want to do is lay down and zone out. We know the feeling. This is why we designed Pocket as a calm, distraction-free space where you can read the stories you’ve collected in peace and quiet. And with Pocket Premium, you’ll get a completely ad-free experience as well as the ability to choose the font and line spacing that’s easiest on your eyes. Think of it as digital self-care. You’ve earned it.