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- #212: Soft Skills Matter Now More Than Ever, According to New Research
#212: Soft Skills Matter Now More Than Ever, According to New Research
Perplexity's Discover Pages Offer A Surprising SEO Insight
Jenae Spry
August 29, 2025
Productivity Stacks Newsletter
(Formerly Productivity Express)
Issue No. 212
The Best in Evidence-Based Productivity
for Small Business Owners, Freelancers & Founders
Helping You Work Smarter and Live More
The Rundown
Soft Skills Matter Now More Than Ever, According to New Research
Perplexity's Discover Pages Offer A Surprising SEO Insight
I automated my life with n8n, and this open-source Zapier alternative is scarily powerful
Microsoft Loop is an underrated productivity gem that you are not using
MIT report misunderstood: Shadow AI economy booms while headlines cry failure
👉Did you miss an issue? Check out previous Productivity Stacks issues anytime here
🔥Quote/Prompt
May you live all the days of our life.
Use the quote as a writing or thinking prompt to finish your week strong.
A bit from mine:
(posted in our Doer Entrepreneurs Free Community — off social media)
Let's get real about something: How many of your days are you actually LIVING versus just... existing?
Here's what I've learned: There's a massive difference between […]
Did someone forward this to you?
📈 Performance
Have “soft skills” just been transformed into the only skill worth actually paying for? Instead of being irrelevant (those who would convince you that being excellent at your output will tell you hard skills are all that matter), soft skills may be the foundation that determines how far your business can actually go. This new research from Harvard Business Review analyzed 70 million job transitions and found that foundational skills like collaboration and adaptability matter more than specialized expertise for long-term success.
We found that people with broad, strong foundational skills, including reading comprehension, basic math, and communications skills, tend to learn faster and master more complex abilities over time. Think of the NBA draft. Teams don't always pick the top college scorers. Instead, they look for players with high potential—those with the right foundations like speed, agility, ball control, positional sense, and shooting form. These players may not shine on day one, but they often develop into stars because their foundation gives them room to grow.
Key Insights:
Technical skills have a shrinking shelf life – the "half-life" has dropped from 10 years in the 1980s to just 4 years today, making adaptability through foundational skills critical for career longevity.
Social skills drive the highest wage premiums -- jobs requiring both cognitive ability and social skills have grown by 12 percentage points since 1980, while math-only roles have actually declined.
Companies like Google now use soft skills as core promotion criteria after finding their best managers excel at coaching and collaboration, not just technical expertise.
Read the full article for specific hiring strategies, development frameworks, and examples from companies like Amazon, Spotify, and Jane Street Capital that are prioritizing foundational skills.
⚙️ Optimization
Creating content that ranks in Google sounds like the holy grail for any business website, but what if the smartest strategy is to ignore SEO entirely? This analysis from Search Engine Journal reveals that Perplexity's viral Discover pages aren't using any SEO tactics at all – yet they're being hailed as brilliant programmatic SEO.
A peek at the source code of any of the Discover pages shows that the title elements and the meta descriptions are not optimized to rank in search engines. Every single page created by Perplexity appears to have the exact same title and meta description elements: <title>Perplexity</title>. Every page contains the same canonical tag. It's clear that Perplexity's Discover pages are not optimized for Google Search and that the pages are not created for search engines. The pages are created for humans.
Key Insights:
Zero SEO optimization is intentional – every Discover page uses identical title tags, meta descriptions, and canonicals, proving they're building for users, not search engines.
Traditional SEO thinking creates limitations, such as avoiding nofollow links or offline promotion, that actually prevent building the user behavior signals Google wants to see.
Building brand recognition with your audience through user-first content tends to create the authentic engagement patterns that search engines are actually looking for.
Read the full article for the technical breakdown of Perplexity's code, why SEOs initially misunderstood the strategy, and specific examples of SEO rules that might be holding your site back.
⏲️ Time Management
The most powerful time management technique isn't doing tasks faster - it's eliminating them entirely. If you can’t simply say ‘no’, the next best thing is automation. This breakdown from XDA shows how n8n, an open-source alternative to Zapier, lets you automate complex workflows that traditional tools can't handle, and you can self-host it for free.
My first project was an expense tracker. At first, I considered building a fully automated system that pulls data from bank messages and emails, but that approach has two big problems. It can't track cash spending, and it doesn't categorize expenses clearly. [...] Instead, I built something simpler and more flexible. My workflow is triggered by a text message. When I want to log a spend, I just send a quick note like 'create an expense: groceries, 15 USD, 28 Jan 25.' The workflow then parses the text with an AI model and adds the entry to a Google Sheet.
Key Insights:
Complex workflow logic sets n8n apart – unlike Zapier's linear approach, n8n supports advanced branching, multiple triggers, retries, and alternate paths when something fails.
Self-hosting eliminates ongoing costs – while Zapier charges per task making complex automations expensive, n8n is completely free when self-hosted using a simple Docker container.
Code integration is built-in rather than restricted – you can write JavaScript directly inside workflows or build custom nodes, whereas Zapier limits code snippets with strict execution limits.
Read the full article for specific automation examples including the Gmail cleaner workflow, Notion bookmarking automation, and detailed comparisons of n8n versus Zapier's capabilities.
💻 Tools & Technology
Whether you're juggling multiple client projects solo or trying to keep your team aligned across different tools, Microsoft Loop solves a problem we all face – information living in too many places. This review from XDA reveals how Loop's component system creates live, synced content blocks that work seamlessly across all Microsoft apps, perfect for solopreneurs managing complex workflows or teams tired of version control chaos.
Loop components are, without a doubt, the most transformative feature of Microsoft Loop. Here's how it works. I can turn any block, database, or page into a Loop component and share it with my team members. For example, if I create a voting tracker in Loop, I can turn it into a component and share it in a Teams channel. As soon as my team members start voting or making changes in a database, I can see changes in real-time right into my Loop page.
Key Insights:
Real-time collaboration actually works – unlike traditional Office apps where you wait to see changes, Loop shows teammate edits instantly as they type, while solopreneurs can use the same feature to sync client feedback across projects.
The block-based canvas beats rigid documents – start with a simple list, transform it into tasks, add progress tables, embed charts, and take meeting notes all on the same fluid page that grows with your business.
Cross-app sync eliminates duplicate work – create a task database once in Loop and share it as a component in Teams for your team, or use it solo to keep client deliverables synced across Outlook, Teams, and your project workspace.
Read the full article for specific use cases, template recommendations, and a comparison with Notion that shows where Loop actually outperforms established productivity tools.
🤖 AI
That scary (or hopeful, depending on your AI opinion) "95% of AI pilots are failing" statistic making the rounds is missing the real story. While companies struggle with expensive enterprise tools, 90% of workers are already using personal AI tools successfully every day. This analysis from VentureBeat reveals a "shadow AI economy" where your competitors (or their teams) are getting massive productivity gains from $20 ChatGPT subscriptions while others waste money on $50,000 enterprise solutions.
The MIT researchers discovered what they call a 'shadow AI economy' where workers use personal ChatGPT accounts, Claude subscriptions and other consumer tools to handle significant portions of their jobs. These employees aren't just experimenting — they're using AI 'multiples times a day every day of their weekly workload,' the study found.
Key Insights:
Consumer AI tools beat enterprise versions – workers prefer $20 ChatGPT subscriptions over $50,000 corporate tools because consumer versions are flexible and responsive, meaning freelancers can compete with bigger firms using the same powerful tools.
Back-office automation delivers the real ROI – companies saved $2-10million annually by eliminating outsourcing contracts and reduced external creative costs by 30%, showing how AI can replace expensive external vendors and services.
The learning curve isn't what you think – 70% of workers already prefer AI over human colleagues for quick tasks like emails and basic analysis, so if you're not using it, you're likely slower than your competition.
Read the full article for the breakdown of which industries are seeing actual structural change, why employees trust AI for emails but not complex projects, and how to learn from successful shadow AI usage patterns.
🎉 Celebration Corner
Every week Doers Inner Circle members do a weekly review & get help when they need it — check out the progress they made this week!
Had a productive week of brainstorming and idea generation.
Monthly and quarterly planning now complete.
Delivered client projects while managing personal commitments and self-care.
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Wishing you much productivity!
- Jenae :)
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